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China has changed its legal definition of semiconductors. The National Intellectual Property Administration yesterday issued an expert opinion on recent changes to the regulations governing intellectual property laws as applied to chips. That document, attributed to Guo He, from the School of Intellectual Property at the Renmin University of China, notes that laws in place around the world define integrated circuits as semiconductors. “Today, photonic integrated devices and quantum chip technology are developing rapidly, and optoelectronic chips are already widely used in some fields,” Guo observed, before noting that China’s new rules have replaced references to “semiconductor integrated circuit” with “integrated circuit.” Beijing made that change to include chips that include photonic and quantum elements. “On the surface, this seems insignificant, as various monolithic integrated circuits worldwide still require semiconductor materials as substrates,” Guo wrote, before arguing the significance of the change is that “it demonstrates China's attitude towards intellectual property legislation today: we are no longer conservatives in the intellectual property system.” That may be a little boastful, as the most current international agreement covering chip design is the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP), which describes an integrated circuit as “a product … in which the elements, at least one of which is an active element, and some or all of the interconnections are integrally formed in and/or on a piece of material and which is intended to perform an electronic function.” The Register can imagine that definition extending to optical and quantum elements. The TRIP agreement’s provisions on semiconductors also protect the layout of chips – the proprietary arrangement of elements on a silicon die. That’s an important protection because it takes plenty of time and money to create a layout, and copying a layout is a chip design shortcut. The main purpose of China’s revised Regulation is to strengthen its own layout protection laws, and thanks to its new definition extend them to chips that include optical or quantum elements. Guo says China’s chipmakers need extra intellectual property protection, and that the changed Regulation will help to determine patents and settle disputes about the origin of chip designs. The changed laws therefore have “important practical significance for accelerating the construction of a strong intellectual property nation and meeting the needs of high-quality development.” That last phrase refers to the Chinese government’s policy of developing capabilities in all fields that an advanced nation requires to be globally competitive – including development and manufacturing of semiconductors in all forms. Several Chinese companies – among them Alibaba, Huawei, Cambricon and Loongson – have developed chips that compete strongly with products from US-based rivals. China wants its chipmakers to be strong, so defending them from domestic or foreign copycats makes sense. ®

With the Daily Kos migration to WordPress complete, we’re finally in a position to build some of the things we’ve wanted for years. Here’s what’s coming. This is the one I’m most excited about. For years, people have asked, “When are you finally going to build an app?” The answer was always the same: Our old platform made it impractical. We weren’t going to slap together a…

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It’s officially three months from Election Day and top Republican operatives are already declaring that their party is “cooked” in a number of key contests that will decide which party controls Congress next January. Republican strategist Liz Mair, who has worked for multiple GOP presidential candidates, sent a newsletter on Monday in which she said that based on rising grocery and gasoline…

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A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. Trump rages over losing his Reflecting Pool scapegoat He’s determined to blame anyone other than himself. Platner on steroids’: GOP scrambles to contain domestic abuse scandal An Ohio congressman faces horrifying accusations—and his senator/former father-in-law is…

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A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Trump rages over losing his Reflecting Pool scapegoat…

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⚡ Quick Take

• After you see Spider-Man: Brand New Day, you might want to read some comics!
• We have gathered a ranked list of the 10 best Spider-Man comic runs of all time.
• The list runs the gamut from Stan Lee to Todd McFarlane.
• All of these comics have something to quench your Brand New Day thirst.

For over 60 years, the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man and its various other Marvel spinoffs have been home to some of the best superhero storytelling of all time. From the days of Stan Lee in the ’60s to today’s creators like Dan Slott, here are our picks for the 10 greatest creative team runs of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man of all time. And if you loved Spider-Man: Brand New Day, each of these stellar runs has something in it for you.

Marvel Comics 10. J.M. DeMatteis with Sal Buscema, Spectacular Spider-Man #178-203 (1991-1993) Marvel Comics

Writer J.M. DeMatteis is perhaps most famous for his comedic take on DC’s Justice League, but he also wrote a relatively brief but fantastic run on The Spectacular Spider-Man, from issues #178-200. This was after he wrote the epic Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline in 1987. During his 26-issue run, which lasted from 1991 to 1993, he and artist Sal Buscema told one of the best stories ever involving Harry Osborn and his descent into becoming the Green Goblin, which culminated in issue #200 of Spectacular Spider-Man. It was one of the very few gimmick covers of the ‘90s that actually had a good story behind it. Add in the introduction of the villain Vermin, some X-Men, and this run deserves its status as one of the best. For fans of BND looking for some more Peter/Jean Grey moments, you can find them in this run.

Collected in: Spectacular Spider-Man By Dematteis & Buscema Omnibus

9. Peter David with Rick Leonardi, Spider-Man 2099 #1-44 (1992-1997) Marvel Comics

Peter David has defining runs on several iconic comic book characters, including the Hulk, X-Factor, and for DC, Aquaman. But he also had a pretty defining run for Spider-Man. It’s just the Spider-Man that wasn’t Peter Parker. In 1992, Marvel tasked David with creating a new, futuristic Spider-Man with Spider-Man 2099. This wall-crawler was Miguel O’Hara, the half-Mexican/half-Irish hero who was the first not Peter Parker ongoing character to be called Spider-Man in 30 years.

Together with artist Rick Leonardi, David inverted almost everything about Peter Parker’s Spidey. Miguel was wisecracking out of costume, totally mute as Spider-Man, and so on. His web shooters were organic and not mechanical (something Sam Raimi would later use). Of course, organic web shooters would be key to Brand New Day. The run only lasted 46 issues and four years, but judging from the character’s renewed popularity thanks to Across the Spider-Verse, it’s fair to say David’s run had a long-lasting impact.

Collected in: Spider-Man 2099 Omnibus Vol. 1.

8. Todd McFarlane, Spider-Man #1-16, (1990-1991) Marvel Comics

Todd McFarlane became an instant superstar in the comics world when he illustrated David Michelinie’s Amazing Spider-Man run in the late ‘80s. His versions of Spidey and Venom became iconic, so much so that Marvel gave him his own Spider-Man title to both draw and write—despite his inexperience as a writer at the time. So in 1990, McFarlane launched Spider-Man #1, which sold an incredible 2.5 million copies. Marvel would break that record a year later with a certain team of mutants.

McFarlane’s writing was a bit over the top, especially by modern standards, but his overall storytelling was undeniably entertaining. It was exactly what the audience craved at the time. His darker take on villains like the Lizard, Kraven, and Hobgoblin redefined the look of those characters. The crossovers with Wolverine and Ghost Rider were very ‘90s, but also very fun. This is one of the shorter runs on this list, but also one of the most iconic. McFarlane’s run only lasted 16 issues as he left Marvel in 1992 to form Image Comics, yet its impact was huge. The way Destin Daniel Cretton visualizes Peter’s organic webbing in BND owes a lot to McFarlane’s take.

Collected in: Spider-Man By Todd McFarlane: The Complete Collection

7. Dan Slott, with Humberto Ramos and Ryan Stegman, The Superior Spider-Man #1–33 (2013-2014) Marvel Comics

Dan Slott has been one of the most prolific Spider-Man writers of the 21st century. But although he’s written plenty of iconic Peter Parker stories, his best Spider-Man run was actually about Otto Octavious, a.k.a Doctor Octopus. In Slott’s Superior Spider-Man series, Peter Parker’s body is taken over by the consciousness of Doc Ock, who takes over Peter’s life and decides he can be a better Spider-Man than his old enemy ever was. Although he does try to do the right thing as Spider-Man, more or less, he’s still arrogant and insufferable. Nevertheless, it was all fun as heck to read. The art by folks like Humberto Ramos, and Ryan Stegman was also always top-notch. Otto was Spidey for less than two years, but it was a memorable two years. If you’re a fan of the tech genius Spidey that we see in Brand New Day, this version of the character has that in spades.

Collected in: Superior Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1.

6. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, Spider-Man: Blue #1-6, (2002-2003) Marvel Comics

In the late ‘90s, the creative team of Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale produced one of the greatest Batman stories of all time, The Long Halloween. A few years later, from 2002 to 2003, they re-teamed to tell a story about Peter Parker and his great lost love, Gwen Stacy. In the mini-series Spider-Man: Blue, Peter Parker recounts the events of Amazing Spider-Man #40-48. This modern retelling includes Sale’s incredible renditions of characters like Kraven, the Lizard, the Rhino, and the Green Goblin. And, of course, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. Blue is only six issues long, but it still stands as one of the most heartfelt and beautifully written and illustrated Spider-Man stories of all time.

Collected in: Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale: Spider-Man.

5. Gerry Conway with Gil Kane and John Romita, The Amazing Spider-Man #111-149 (1972-1975) Marvel Comics

Following up the legendary run of Stan Lee, which lasted a decade, would have been an unenviable task for any writer. But the late Gerry Conway took big swings in his Amazing Spider-Man run, which lasted from 1972 to 1975. Conway’s stories were enhanced by some gorgeous art by Gil Kane and Spidey veteran John Romita. It was during Conway’s run that fans met the villainous Jackal and his cloning operation (this would matter a lot some 20 years later).

Conway’s MJ became a more fully fleshed-out character. She wasn’t just the “out of his league” supermodel anymore. Oh, and Conway’s run also introduced the world to the Punisher. You may have heard of him. Most importantly, however, Gerry Conway bucked all known comic book conventions at the time with one shocking act. He did this by killing off Peter Parker’s longtime girlfriend Gwen Stacy. The repercussions of this are still being felt in the Spider-Man titles today. If you love the Spidey/Frank Castle dynamic in BND, it all started right here.

Collected in: The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection Vol. 7, Vol. 8, Vol. 9.

4. David Michelinie with Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, and Mark Bagley, Amazing Spider-Man 296-352, #359-388 (1987-1994) Marvel Comics

In the late ‘80s, Spider-Man was still Marvel’s best-selling solo character, but some excitement had fallen away from Peter Parker. Then, writer David Michelinie took over writing duties in 1987. This was shortly after Peter Parker married MJ, and he focused on the high-stakes soap opera of their lives. During his seven-year run on Amazing Spider-Man (second longest-run after Stan Lee) he worked with some of Spidey’s best-ever artists. Names that became iconic, like Erik Larsen, Mark Bagley, and Todd MacFarlane. And together, they made comics magic. Highlights of his run include the introduction of villains Venom and Carnage. Luckily, he bailed from writing duties right before the infamous Clone Saga, so his run remains untainted. For those who love the soap opera aspect of BND, then this may be the run for you.

Collected in: Michelinie & McFarlane Omnibus, Michelinie & Larsen Omnibus, Michelinie & Bagley Omnibus Vol 1 and Vol 2.

3. J. Michael Straczynski with John Romita Jr., Mike Deodato, and Ron Garney, Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #500-545, Vol. 2 #30-58 (2001-2006) Marvel Comics

At the same time Marvel was injecting new life into teenage Peter Parker in the Ultimate Spider-Man titles, the comics publisher had to figure out what to do with the adult Peter in the 616 universe. They brought in Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, who made Peter a school teacher. He teaches at the very same place others bullied him as a kid, Midtown High School. Straczynski wrote adult Peter and MJ better than anyone in years and did so by adding a level of sophistication largely absent in the late ‘90s stories.

He also introduced lasting elements to the mythology like Morlun, a villain who hunts spider-totems across dimensions. That’s a huge influence on the Spider-Verse mythology in the animated films. Sadly, his run also revealed a sordid retcon of Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn, but nobody’s perfect. The main artists for this run were Mike Deodato and John Romita Jr. The latter’s work on this run made him stand with his father as one of the definitive Spidey artists of all time. Straczynski’s run ended with the much-hated undoing of the Peter Parker and MJ marriage. However, that was an event Marvel editorial forced on him. We don’t hold it against him. Fans of BND will enjoy how New York City is very much a character in this run, just as in the film.

Collected in: Amazing Spider-Man by J. Michael Straczynski Omnibus Vol. 1, Omnibus Vol. 2

2. Brian Michael Bendis, with Mark Bagley, Stuart Immonen, Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez, and Pepe Larraz, Ultimate Spider-Man #1-160, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1-27 (2000-2011) Marvel Comics

During the late ‘90s, Marvel was in trouble creatively and financially. The company emerged out of bankruptcy in the early 2000s, knowing it had to take drastic measures to gain new readers. Marvel conceived the Ultimate line, which involved fresh modern takes on classic characters. Writer Brian Michael Bendis reintroduced Peter Parker and his supporting cast as 21st century teens in Ultimate Spider-Man. And from issue one, the dialogue and characterization were absolutely top-notch. The kids felt real in a way mainstream comics characters hadn’t in a long time.

The reinvented versions of Spidey’s villains often surpassed the originals as well, particularly Norman Osborn. Bendis and artist Mark Bagley did over 100 issues together. Actually surpassing Stan Lee’s run, Bendis continued the title with artists Stuart Immonen, David Lafuente, and Sara Pichelli, with whom he co-created Miles Morales, one of the biggest contributions to come from the Ultimate Spider-Man line. Between Peter Parker and then Miles, this run heavily influenced Spider-Man’s portrayal in other media. This run was an absolute game-changer, surpassed by only one other. Peter’s friendships with Ned and MJ in BND draws heavy inspiration from young Peter Parker and his friend group in Ultimate Spider-Man.

Collected in: Ultimate Spider-Man Omnibus Vols 1-5.

#1. Stan Lee with Steve Ditko, John Romita, John Buscema, and Gil Kane, Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man #1-100 (1962-1971) Marvel Comics

“With great power, comes great responsibility.” This was the only run that could have ever taken the top spot. While Stan Lee co-created almost all the most iconic Marvel Comics heroes, without a doubt his 100-issue run of The Amazing Spider-Man was his best work. With artists like Steve Ditko (Spidey’s co-creator) and later, John Romita, Lee introduced everything that forms the core of what Peter Parker is to this very day. Name a classic Peter Parker personality trait or trope, and chances are it came from Lee.

Lee’s stories introduced 90% of the most iconic Spider-Man villains, like Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Sandman, Mysterio, Kraven, and so many more, not to mention most of the most well-known members of Spidey’s supporting cast. Stan Lee’s run on Amazing Spider-Man lasted a full decade, and it remains the bible from which all following Spider-Man runs on this list pulled from. Simply put, no other Spider-Man run could likely ever take the top spot. Stan Lee and his collaborators broke the mold. And if you love the put-upon, sad boy Peter Parker from Brand New Day, the original Lee/Ditko version of Spidey is the best place for that, even decades later.

Collected in: Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1, Omnibus Vol. 2, and Omnibus Vol. 3

Originally published on November 1, 2023

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The post 10 Great Spider-Man Comic Book Runs for After BRAND NEW DAY appeared first on Nerdist.

Laser-focused on what matters, President Donald Trump spent the weekend golfing, which means he also spent the weekend bragging about how he’s the best golfer ever. As the country crumbles in a nightmare of his own making, Trump self-soothed by hosting a tournament at his own club where he conveniently won, a foregone conclusion that he then went on his own social media network to boast about.

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After a quarter that delivered $1 billion in profit, Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Monday once again warned that AI frontier labs are too untrustworthy for enterprises.

⚡ Quick Take

• Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman says there are no plans for future Sony-Marvel Universe movies, so what does that mean for Spider-Man?

By the beginning of 2025, Sony had released six movies in its (at one point called) Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters, or SPUMC. With the exception of Venom and to a much lesser degree its sequels, the films were an unmitigated disaster, critically and financially. After Kraven from December 2024, Sony said it would be slowing down those films. Now, Sony and Marvel Studios have the exact opposite of a Madame Web with the genuinely very good Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which set a new opening weekend record.

In the wake of this huge win for both studios, Sony chief Tom Rothman answered questions from Variety about the failure of the previous films and future films in the Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movie series. His answers were very telling.

Sony Pictures/Marvel Studios

I was curious about the status of Sony’s Marvel characters because —

You and everybody else.

The “Venom” trilogy was huge, but other spinoffs like “Kraven the Hunter” and “Madame Web” were misfires. Why didn’t those work?

Ultimately, the audience wasn’t satisfied enough with them. Whether that’s a fair assessment of those movies, who knows. That’s howling into the wind. The audience is the boss, and they didn’t respond. It’s as simple as that.

Are there plans to keep developing Sony’s universe of Marvel characters?

Right now, we don’t know. We never looked at it as the “Sony-Marvel Universe.” We looked at if there were worthwhile movies to make with other characters. At the moment, there are none in active development.

Naturally, Rothman isn’t going to say “yeah we made a mistake with those movies,” but I think the admission that “the audience is the boss and they didn’t respond” lets us know that, clearly, Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man don’t work. And even Venom only really worked once.

The second quote I think is even more intriguing. “We never looked at it as the ‘Sony-Marvel Universe.'” This, coupled with Marvel’s Kevin Feige saying post-Avengers: Secret Wars will “establish a streamlined, simplified, single universe that’s easier for audiences to follow” really makes it seem like Sony’s Spider-Man will be Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man after Secret Wars.

It will clearly be the best thing for both studios involved. Marvel Studios’ only real successes since Avengers: Endgame have been the Black Panther sequel, Deadpool & Wolverine, and three Spider-Man movies. (And, for some reason, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.) The X-Men are a priority for Marvel going forward, but so too must be Spider-Man. I think Sony thought they could have their own version of the MCU, but without Spider-Man, they don’t have much.

Will we get more Spider-Man movies? Without a doubt. Will those movies have ties to the MCU? Who can say? But, I think both studios would be foolish not to see the audience is responding.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Sony Chief on the Future of Their Marvel Movies appeared first on Nerdist.

In a special meeting Tuesday, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will consider declaring a state of fiscal distress and asking voters to approve a temporary half-cent sales tax measure that county officials say is needed to offset steep federal funding cuts and protect essential public services. If approved by a four-fifths vote, the […]

The AI arms race reached a fever pitch on Monday after Chinese e-commerce and cloud provider Alibaba called into question America’s technological lead with the launch of Qwen 3.8-Max, a 2.4 trillion-parameter model that goes toe-to-toe with the best models from Anthropic and OpenAI. The new model comes just days after the launch of DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731, which, according to independent benchmarks by Artificial Analysis, performs within a single point of OpenAI’s budget-friendly GPT-5.6 Luna while costing 40 percent less per task. What’s more, at just 284 billion parameters, it’s small enough to run on relatively modest enterprise servers and workstations. Chinese model devs like Moonshot, Alibaba, and DeepSeek are now attacking their American counterparts on both price and performance. The pincer movement comes as US model devs like Anthropic and OpenAI stoke fears over the origins and safety of China-made AI models. In a recent blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei insisted he’s not opposed to open models, just ones made in China, ones distilled from proprietary models, and ones that do not meet rigorous safety metrics. In other words, anything that actually competes with Anthropic's own models. The safety bit is particularly disingenuous, as the company’s fearmonger-in-chief has gone out of his way to stoke fears among US government officials. Proprietary models can be controlled, but open weights, once released in the wild, are impossible to claw back. But neither Amodei’s comments nor commitments from major American and European tech giants change the fact that China is providing the only meaningful competition in the open weights arena. China dominates here. Speaking on CNBC Monday, Clément Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, the biggest and most influential model repo in the world, said as much. “They’re clearly dominating on open models right now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they start dominating at the frontier either by the end of this year or next year at the rate of progress,” he told the financial TV news network. America’s most capable open weights model, Inkling, is just shy of a billion parameters, and still can’t keep up with DeepSeek’s finest. Models like Moonshot's Kimi K3 and Z.ai's GLM 5.2 are in an entirely different orbit. In fact, an enterprise's only credible alternatives to proprietary models and their dubious security policies are Chinese models. DeepSeek, Alibaba, Moonshot, MiniMax, and Z.ai aren’t going to pass that opportunity up. Alibaba lets its most powerful model loose on the world Of the Chinese model devs, Alibaba is arguably the most like its American competition. Its open-weight models are well regarded, and their range of sizes and permissive licensing have made them attractive for fine-tuning application-specific systems. However, like Google and OpenAI, its top models have been locked behind an API – until now. Seizing the moment, Alibaba is making its most capable model weights available for download for the first time with the launch of Qwen 3.8-Max. The blog post contains the usual array of vaguely intelligible bar charts showcasing how the model compares to OpenAI and Anthropic’s own models, as well as a slew of demos that would have made Billy Mays proud. If you want specifics, we recommend checking out the launch blog here. You don’t have to look that closely to get what Alibaba is selling: anything OpenAI and Anthropic can do, we can do as well, if not better, cheaper, and on the hardware you own. With that said, 2.4 trillion parameters is a rather big lift for most enterprises, likely requiring 48-64 Nvidia B200-class GPUs if deploying in a customer-facing capacity. For internal workloads, 8-16 B300 or AMD MI355X GPUs would be adequate. If that’s a little rich for your blood, Alibaba hasn’t forgotten its roots and will be releasing a 27-billion parameter version of the model alongside the Max variant. With benchmarks, model devs can usually find a collection of tests that paint their model in a positive light. And unsurprisingly, Artificial Analysis’ own Intelligence leaderboard tells a slightly different story than Alibaba’s, with Qwen 3.8-Max matching Anthropic’s less-capable, but still formidable, Claude Sonnet 5. Beyond the marketing and pitch demos, Qwen’s blog post is surprisingly short on detail. What we do know is it’s a multi-modal mixture of experts (MoE) model. That means of the 2.4 trillion total parameters, only 95 billion are actually used to generate tokens for any one request. We can also assume that the model uses the same hybrid Transformer+Mamba architecture as previous Qwen models in order to maintain performance across large contexts. Speaking of which, the model will support context windows up to 1 million tokens, though it’s still not clear whether that relies on techniques like rope scaling to extend it or not. The model is currently available via Alibaba’s API service QwenCloud for $2 per million input tokens, and $6 per million output tokens. Cached tokens are charged on a sliding scale with $0.25 charged per million implicit cached tokens, $0.17 per million explicit cache token reads, and $2.5 per million explicit cache tokens created. For comparison, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 5 will set you back $2/M input tokens, $0.20/M cache hits, and $10/M output tokens. And Sonnet 5 pricing is set to increase 50 percent starting September 1. Meanwhile OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 Luna, which falls just behind Qwen 3.8-Max and Sonnet 5 on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard, will run you $0.20/M input, $0.02/M cached input, $0.25/M cached write, and $1.20/M output tokens for short context lengths under 272,000 tokens and double that for jobs exceeding that context. The model weights are slated for release on popular model repos, including Hugging Face, starting next week. DeepSeek undercuts OpenAI with flashy new V4 refresh While Alibaba joins Kimi K3-maker Moonshot.AI’s assault on frontier models, DeepSeek has taken a very different tack with its latest open weights model: squeeze every ounce of performance from as few weights as possible. The result is DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731, a 284-billion parameter model that can fit into around 142 GB of GPU memory (at FP4). That means enterprises can easily run this model at scale on a single system. And despite its smaller stature, the Flash model actually outperforms the 1.6 trillion-parameter DeepSeek V4 Pro by nearly 14 percent on Artificial Analysis’ Intelligence leaderboard. With that said, the refinements made to DeepSeek V4 Flash will no doubt find their way into the Pro model before long. Like Qwen 3.8-Max, DeepSeek V4 Flash undercuts OpenAI and Anthropic on pricing – this time by a considerable margin. For API access, DeepSeek is currently asking $0.14/M input tokens, $0.0028/M cached tokens, and $0.28/M output tokens. However, in an agentic world filled with reasoning models, API pricing doesn’t paint a complete picture. A model may appear cheaper, but if it consumes twice as many tokens as another higher priced model, it may not actually be less expensive. Because of this, it's important to look at how efficiently the model solves real world problems. Alarmingly for the US LLM makers, according to Artificial Analysis, DeepSeek V4-Flash isn’t just cheaper per token; it is also incredibly efficient at its job. Compared to OpenAI’s GPT 5.6 Luna, which is among the most efficient and least expensive models in Sam Altman’s current lineup, DeepSeek’s latest model is a full 40 percent less expensive, with a cost to solve of just three cents versus five cents. That difference may feel small, but it’s worth remembering that for vibe coders consuming tens or hundreds of millions of tokens a day, that difference adds up quite quickly. One of the secrets to DeepSeek's efficiency is the integration of DSpark speculative decoding directly into the model weights. We’ve explored speculative decoding in the past, but in a nutshell, it involves using a smaller draft model to predict the outputs of a larger, more capable one. When it works, inference performance increases. When it guesses wrong, it falls back to the base model. More importantly, because the smaller model is only predicting the output of the larger one, it’s entirely lossless and therefore requires no compromise in terms of performance. Alibaba and others have implemented similar speculative decoding mechanisms, like multi-token-prediction (MTP), for this reason. With DSpark, DeepSeek claims it can extract 57–85% more per-user speed on the exact same hardware, which is an impressive claim, and one that at least in our testing rings true. Your own personal frontier model? DeepSeek V4 Flash is just small enough that running it at home is entirely possible if you’ve got some deep pockets, or a heck of a lot of memory lying around. Testing on a 128 GB DGX Spark, we were able to get the model running at a respectable 128,000 token context window using Unsloth’s IQ3-XXS quant in Llama.cpp. Three bits per weight gives us just enough room to pack the DSPARK draft model into memory, but it’s also a bit more compression than we typically recommend for homelab use. Because of this, Unsloth warns that the model’s outputs could show some signs of quality loss, but it does run. Unsloth has a full guide on how to get the model up and running, assuming you’ve got beefy enough hardware. We admit, the DGX Spark is not a cheap box. At $4,699, it’s squarely in workstation territory, as is the $3,999 Ryzen AI Halo we looked at early last month. But the fact that you can even contemplate running a model like DeepSeek V4-Flash at home is impressive in its own right. The original IBM PC kitted out with a monitor and diskette drive cost about $3,735 in 1981. Adjusting for inflation, that works out to about $13,700 in today’s money. If history repeats itself, the hardware necessary to run models like DeepSeek V4-Flash should become much more accessible within the next decade.®

Recent news about Michigan’s open Senate race has focused on the Democratic primary between Rep. Haley Stevens and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, the outcome of which will be decided on Tuesday. And while the media coverage has focused on the electability of either Stevens or El-Sayed, the fact of the matter is that Republicans will have a hard time in this race no matter who…

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When asked about product-market fit, Spiegel said he believes mass-market consumer adoption won't occur until the end of the decade.

ph @bastet

Never underestimate the power of a good cup of coffee.
– Ursula Vernon

#pigneto

Troy Jackson, Maine’s Democratic nominee for Senate, released a video on Sunday criticizing billionaire conservative Elon Musk for his plans to spend lavishly in support of Jackson’s Republican rival, Sen. Susan Collins. “Maine—and really, the whole United States—doesn’t want your dirty money in our politics,” Jackson said, addressing Musk. Jackson also noted that Musk’s support of…

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Lettuce take a moment to recognize the absolute disaster that is the 2026 cyclosporiasis outbreak across the U.S. As of this week, there have been two confirmed deaths from the foodborne illness, both of which stemmed from Michigan, according to multiple outlets. Michigan’s health department said in a press release that the two people that died had “significant underlying health conditions…

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The Trump administration’s attempt to prevent new American citizens from receiving help on voter registration was blocked in federal court Monday.

U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson paused a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy from last August preventing nonpartisan groups from helping new citizens register to vote.

Under the policy, only state and local election officials were allowed to offer help with voter registration at citizenship ceremonies, prompting the League of Women Voters and National Council of Jewish Women (NJCW) to sue the government over it.

“NCJW has amply shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that the Ban was motivated by discriminatory intent,” Abelson wrote in his ruling. “The various statements by government officials leading up to the Ban that NCJW cites further support this conclusion, including USCIS Director Joseph Edlow’s statement that immigrants threaten to reshape the nation electorally by becoming citizens.”

Abelson also cited Edlow’s comments to right-wing website Breitbart last year, in which he claimed that Democrats’ “long-term plan, I think we have to assume, was to grant some sort of mass amnesty, make them all citizens, and then spread them out to try to change demographics elsewhere throughout the country.”

The ruling restores the agency’s previous policy, where nonpartisan organizations are allowed to help with voter registration when state and local election officials aren’t able to attend naturalization ceremonies. It’s a policy that was in place for decades until 2025, including during Trump’s first term, and thousands of new voters have benefited. In 2024, the League of Women Voters helped to register over 122,000 new voters at naturalization ceremonies.

Abelson’s ruling is not final, but only pauses USCIS’s policy while it gets a full review in federal court. The government’s own words won’t help its case, considering that many administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have echoed statements alluding to the white nationalist “great replacement” theory that liberals and the left seek to replace a white electorate with nonwhite immigrants. For now, though, new citizens should have an easier time registering to vote.

A cartoon by Jack Ohman. Related | Why the GOP loves to use ‘communism’ as an attack…

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⚡ Quick Take

• Prime Video’s God of War series will have to recast Kratos after Ryan Hurst suffered a major injury on set.
• Hurst tore his bicep, which required surgery and months of healing time.
• The plan is to start production again in October, so the recasting will have to happen swiftly.

Prime Video’s God of War TV series just experienced a major setback. Fans have had mixed opinions but overall cautious optimism after learning that the infamous game series would get a live-action turn on the streamer. Filming started a while back in Vancouver and things were going well until late June. As Deadline reports, lead actor Ryan Hurst, who portrays God of War main character Kratos, unfortunately suffered a massive injury that will take months for him to heal, so the series will have to recast his role. 

Justin Lubin/Prime Video

This is incredibly unfortunate for a couple of reasons. First, he’s already dedicated a lot of months towards conditioning his body to play the role as well as extensive filming. He tore his bicep to the point that he required surgery, and his type of injury takes 4-6 months to heal. While production will obviously stop for a while, it is not feasible for it to stop for an extended amount of time.

Even after initial healing, he would still have to take time to get back into literal fighting shape for filming. And, as we all know, healing doesn’t always have a clean timeline. Right now, the plan is to get into production in October. So, Prime Video will have to recast Kratos in its God of War series pretty quickly now that Ryan Hurst is injured. 

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Who will they choose? Well, maybe they can call up Jason Momoa. That guy is tall, always in top-tier shape, and people love him in fantasy roles like this. The question is does he have time and do they have Momoa money for a TV show versus a film like The Wrecking Crew.

That was a joke… But reports indicate Prime Video IS eyeing a big name for Kratos’ recast—Dave Bautista. Bautista is a big name, and he fits the bill for Kratos. We’ve seen Bautista successfully take on adapted roles such as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy, so we’re not against it. Although there is a certain distraction that comes from an actor being so recognizable. Will he be more accepted by the internet as Kratos? We guess it depends on how his first-look image lands. That’s if Hurst’s Kratos is indeed recast with Bautista. Nothing official has been confirmed beyond a report from Deadline.

Regardless, it is a big deal to make the choice to recast the lead role in a film or series in the midst of filming, and they will presumably have to reshoot some things, if not just about everything. Hopefully, there are even bigger and better opportunities for Ryan Hurst, a fantastic actor, following his recovery.

Originally published on July 17, 2026.

The post GOD OF WAR Series to Recast Kratos, Eyes Dave Bautista appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• The X-Files brings its beloved paranormal energy to brick form, thanks to this upcoming LEGO set.

I want to believe that Mulder and Scully will someday ask me to investigate otherworldly phenomena. That’s probably not going to happen, so I will just have to watch The X-Files on streaming and pretend I am on their team, just like millions of other fans of this iconic 1990s sci-fi series. And pretty soon, we will all get the chance to bring the show’s mysterious aura into our homes, thanks to a new LEGO Ideas The X-Files set. 

The LEGO Group and Disney Entertainment unveiled this upcoming set in the most clever way possible: a cinematic mini movie starring the legendary Gillian Anderson. We see her grab and box and glove up as she opens up the box. There’s lots of packaging and bricks (which she calls “multiple components”), which she swiftly pieces together before a strange beam of light carries her LEGO The X-Files build away. 

The LEGO Group/Disney Entertainment

As you can see in the above image, this set  recreates iconic moments from the series with Fox Mulder’s office, a forest clearing scene, and a hovering UFO. Of course, there are minifigures of Mulder and Scully, but this set also includes Walter Skinner, Mr. X, Alex Krycek, Carl Busch, The Flukeman, and a grey alien, too. 

The LEGO Ideas The X-Files set, which has 1,478 pieces, is the brainchild of Brisbane-based 3D Artist and Fan Designer Brent Waller (LEGO Ideas name: wetwired). Brent submitted his idea during the LEGO Ideas ‘90s Nostalgia Challenge and it resonated deeply with fans of the series. Waller is overjoyed to see his brilliant idea come to life in this complex set. 

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“I was obsessed with The X-Files from the moment I first saw it in the 90s,” Waller commented. “I originally built Mulder’s office back in 2014 while rewatching the series, and it grew from there as a personal project. I wanted to combine nostalgia, detail and storytelling to capture the atmosphere of the show – from Mulder’s office to the forest and UFO encounter. I’m thrilled to see it become an official LEGO set and hope it resonates with both long-time fans and new audiences.”

Of course, he’s not the only one excited. Gillian Anderson gives us some quality ASMR as she builts this X-Files LEGO Set and we are obsessed.

The LEGO Ideas The X-Files set will be available for LEGO Insiders Early Access starting August 1, and available for the general public on August 4 for $199.99. Head over to the website for more information. 

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Originally published on June 21, 2026.

The post We Believe This THE X-FILES LEGO Set Is Phenomenal appeared first on Nerdist.