Category Archives: New Utopia

I would say I think about the end of the world a lot and I actually blame the song, If the World Was Ending by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels, which blew up on TikTok sometime in 2020. Since then, I have struggled to get the idea out of my head. In the song, Saxe and Michaels are two lovers who have broken up and grown apart. When an earthquake hits the city they reside in, they both are left pondering the question, if the world was ending, youd come over right? Its every bit as cringey and disingenuous as it sounds. While its likely that it was meant more as a breakup or an in your feelings type song than any meaningful commentary on the end of the world, it spurred me to ponder how I think about an inevitable apocalypse.

Whether its zombies or armageddon, its kind of fun to imagine a massive, Earth-shattering ending of life as we know it. Where would I be? Who would I call? What would I want in my final moments as the world collapses into fiery rubble around me? Maybe fun isnt the right word, but its certainly easier to glamorize the apocalypse with sensationalized movies like 2012 than actually sit down and realize we are already living through the end of the world and its actually much worse than any Roland Emmerich movie could be. I wish the apocalypse that is to come could be a little bit more like the 2018 film Bird Box with its dramatic premise that causes the characters to make gripping life-or-death choices, or even like the world of The Maze Runner, which at least gave us characters to root for and cool robot bugs.

Our apocalypse might be similar to the makings of our best science fiction writers, but it certainly wont have the glamor. To be completely honest, the end of the world doesnt really strike the kind of fear in me I think it probably should. In place of this fear is more of a passive understanding that whats to come is out of my control. Maybe I should be angrier about the worlds looming climate change disasters or the ongoing threat of a major global conflict that has the capacity to wipe out life on Earth.

As it stands right now, most days I feel powerless to make any significant change that could possibly put to a halt the rapid downward spiral it feels like the world is heading towards. With the emphasis constantly placed on individual actions that are palatable enough to appeal to the masses like reusable bags and paper straws, often we lose sight of the true forces that have the power to send the world as we know it into a true apocalypse corporate greed and capitalism.

If that sounds at all too nihilistic, its probably because I just finished reading Tom Kaczynskis Beta Testing the Ongoing Apocalypse. Set to release in March of this year, Beta Testing the Ongoing Apocalypse is an expansion of Kaczynskis 2013 collection of comics, Beta Testing the Apocalypse. With comics pulled from The Drama, Punk Planet and Backwards City Review as well as two new stories, Kaczynski creates a work that forces the reader to stare directly into the face of the worst parts of our world. This kind of honest and unabashedly cynical writing style fits perfectly with Kaczynskis subject matter. While hes not afraid of having a bit of fun telling his stories, he is able to masterfully examine the world in which we live and the place of human beings in it.

One of my favorite stories in the collection is called Million Year Boom. Originally published in MOME 11 in 2008 and reprinted in the anthology Best American Nonrequired Reading in 2009, our protagonist has recently been hired at a start-up that was looking to make it big in the green economy. The protagonist notes that the conglomeration of hippy scientists, lawyers and managers, drowning in investor capital all lacked any semblance of corporate identity and rather extended their tentacles into a variety of industries. Sounds pretty familiar. As the protagonist spends more time at the start-up, he starts to experience allergy symptoms, which are quickly abated when his coworker suggests a medication that takes away his symptoms. As the story continues, the protagonist becomes more distinctly animal, with his heightened senses spurred by the medication as well as new primal urges.

Kaczynski does a better job writing and illustrating the story than I could ever achieve through explaining it. As Adalbert Arcane explains at the Notes and Theories section of the novel (absolutely required reading if youre picking up this book), Million Year Boom excavates the primitive drives concealed within us under a thin veneer of civilization. Arcane goes on to say that in order to save the planet, its necessary for humans to devolve. Even all the green activists view the planet as something to protect (we are more significant than nature) or insist that we must de-industrialize (i.e. to devolve, implicit in that demand is our already existing evolution beyond nature).

As an environmentalist, Im not sure what it looks like to think about preventing a climate change-induced apocalypse from happening that doesnt include a feeling of needing to protect. Maybe that need to protect really does come from a sense of significance over nature after all, I think theres an argument that could be made that we have mastered nature to the point in which we can use it to meet all of our needs.

I also feel confident that no matter what happens to our Earth whether life is business as usual for the next 1,000 years or the climate crisis kills us all in the next 100 nature will find a way to go on without us. Arcane also gets to this point in his Notes and Theories on Kaczynskis never-before-published Utopia Dividend. Arcane mentions the countless times nature has filled in the areas that humans have abandoned, filling in the voids and creating wild spaces once again. However, Arcane also says, When environmental activists talk about isolating and preserving natural habitats, deindustrializing and denuclearizing, they really speak about humans leaving the planet. This can be achieved through only two means: extinction or exodus.

Im not sure the solution to saving our planet and preventing an apocalypse is simply to leave. While that certainly would solve the problem on Earth, itd either extend the inevitable to when we all pack up and move to another planet or completely wipe humans out of existence. I may not be afraid of the coming apocalypse, but I still would rather it not happen! And Id prefer for humanity to survive for future generations. Unfortunately, I dont have any of the answers. Is it better to be more pessimistic or optimistic about the state of our climate crisis? Do my individual actions really matter in preventing the human-caused apocalypse from happening? Is hope for a better future all we have? I guess Im just crossing my fingers that I can figure it out before the apocalypse comes.

Daily Arts Writer Isabella Kassa can be reached at ikassa@umich.edu.

Continued here:

A collection of thoughts on the end of the world - The Michigan Daily

One year ago NASAs Perseverance rover plunged through the Martian atmosphere and safely landed in Jezero Crater, a 45-kilometre-wide gouge that scientists suspect once hosted a deep, long-lived lake. The rovers ultimate target is near Jezeros western edge: a large, fan-shaped pile of sediments that washed into the basin through a notch in the crater rim about 3.5 billion years ago. In other words, the target is a river deltathe exact type of environment that could preserve signs of ancient Martian life-forms.

Perseverance is the tip of the spear in humanitys grand quest to find traces of a relict Martian biosphere. The $2.7-billion missions overarching objective is to collect dozens of Martian rock samples, many of them from the delta. Then, sometime in the early 2030s, a sequence of spacecraft should return those samples to Earth for up-close scrutiny, possibly allowing scientists to at last answer the question of whether the solar system was ever home to more than one life-bearing world.

Also Read |NASA's Perseverance completes 1st year on Mars

Perhaps past microbial life could have existed on Mars when it was a little warmer and a little wetter, says Lori Glaze, director of NASAs planetary science division. The surface of Marsthe geology, the geologic historyis preserved. We can see back 4.3 billion years on the surface... You cant do that in other places.

Stitched together from 16 images captured by NASAs Perseverance rover, this video pans across a panoramic view of a portion of Jezero Crater, revealing brown hills in the middle distance that are part of the craters ancient river delta.

Perseverances early observations are already revealing that Jezeros geologic history is richer than previously imagined, with dramatic shifts in environmental conditions. Now, as the rover ramps up its sample-collection campaign, scientists back home are eager to send it west, toward the alluring river delta and its potential biological treasure. Mars, however, does not always play by the rules. Already the planet has thrown a few unanticipated challenges into the rovers first Earth year on the Martian surface.

Every time weve sent a mission to Mars, weve had to learn more about how Mars actually is going to treat our spacecraft, and we have to learn how to operate in that environment, Glaze says. But Perseverance is doing well, she adds. Things are moving along at a really good clip. [The team is] making pretty great progress.

Early Science outside the Landing Strip

Perseverance is not alone in celebrating its first Martian anniversary. It was one of three space missions to reach Mars last February. The United Arab Emirates Hope orbiter is still circling the planet. And Chinas multicomponent Tianwen-1 missioncomposed of an orbiter, a lander and a roveris there, too. That missions rover, Zhurong, is currently exploring a Martian plain called Utopia Planitia, some 1,800 kilometres northeast of Perseverances location.

Also Read |China denies making space junk set to crash into Moon

Back in Jezero Crater, however, Perseverances Martian adventures took an unexpected turn almost right away, starting with where the rover touched down on February 18, 2021.

In all of the simulations that were done beforehand, the most likely place to land was a big, flat area that we started calling the landing strip right in front of the deltaI mean, literally within 100 meters of the front of the delta, says the California Institute of Technologys Ken Farley, the missions project scientist. So we were joking around that on February 19 we were going to wake up looking at a wall in front of us. And, um, we didnt.

Annotated satellite image of Jezero Crater dated December 15, 2021, shows the route Perseverance (light blue dot) had taken (white line) into the craters Stah region since touching down on February 18, 2021. The rover would retrace its path back to the landing site before following a new route (blue line) to Jezeros river delta. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

As the rover descended to the surface, an onboard navigation system autonomously guided Perseverance to an area the software had deemed safewhich it was. But instead of landing within an Earth days drive of the delta, the rover ended up about 2.5 kilometres away, on the other side of a treacherous, sandy, rock-strewn terrain called Stah, which is Navajo for amid the sand. Circumnavigating that patch would more than double the length of the rovers path to its primary exploration target. Yet as Perseverance scouted its immediate surroundings, mission controllers chose to let it linger on the crater floor and explore Stah before doubling back and heading to the delta.

I worked on Curiosity ever since it landed in Gale Crater, says Perseverances deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). And [with] that very first image that we got down from Perseverance, I looked at that landscape and thought, Wow, we are not in Gale Crater anymore. This is nothing like [what] I have ever seen in Gale.

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Instead of landing in lake sediments, the rover found itself on fractured bedrock littered with bizarre, sometimes dusty rocks. Many of those rocks are covered in an intriguing purplish coating that resembles desert varnishes on Earthpatinas associated with hardy, radiation-resistant types of terrestrial microbes. Initially, rock textures and geochemistry defied classification. But once the rover had ground through the weathered surface of a Jezero rock, scientists, saw exactly what they would have expected in a lava flownot a lake bottom.

All of the rocks that we have confidently identified are igneous, Farley says. They have nothing to do with the lake.

Produced volcanically, the igneous rocks on Jezeros floor contain large olivine crystals that typically form near the bottoms of thick lava lakes and flows. Scientists still do not know how or when the rocks ended up in Jezero, but it is now clear that the surface Perseverance is rolling across is not the original crater floor. Further investigations revealed that the rocks have been altered by water, which excavated small tunnels and pockets in their interiors that are now filled with salty minerals. At least on Earth, such minerals are perfect for preserving signs of life. Their presence, plus the mysterious purple varnishes, make these volcanic rocks unexpectedly tantalising targets.

Igneous rocks are typically not where you look to find signs of life because they come from really hot magmas that life doesnt necessarily favour, Stack Morgan says. But when you have these rocks sitting on the surface or in the subsurface interacting with water, then youre creating small niches within the rock itself that could be habitable. Youve got chemical ingredients in there; youve got water in there; youve got precipitation of salt minerals.

As Perseverance cast its gaze farther afield, it spied Jezeros mountainous crater rim and the wall of the delta. (We confirmed we do a have a delta, so check that box, Stack Morgan says.) It also spotted a curious rocky outcrop called Kodiak, which team members have used to gauge the depth of Jezeros ancient waters. Patterns on the rock suggest that on at least one occasion, water levels dipped surprisingly low, falling to more than 100 meters below an outflow channel to the east. Other observations provide hints of a deluge that gushed into the crater with enough power to carry along the large boulders now haphazardly strewn in some areas. In other words, Jezeros lake was occasionally stable and placid and at other times flushed by periods of intense runoff.

Rock layers of Kodiak, a flat-topped hill near the centre of this image, reveal ancient chapters of Jezero Craters history marked by gradual sediment deposition followed by massive flooding.

And oddly, Jezero appears to be much windier than anticipated. Fortunately, that has not bothered Perseverances robot friend, the helicopter named Ingenuity. Since April 2021 Ingenuity has been performing wellso well, in fact, that after its initial tests, the team began using it to help guide the rover through tricky terrains such as Stah. It aced those tests, Farley says. Now it is our companion, and it is continuing to fly and do recon for us.

Go West, Young Rover

Collecting and storing samples has also turned out to be trickier than anticipated. Last August, when Perseverance took its first shot at collecting a rock core, mission personnel were optimistic. They had tested the machinery on terrestrial rocks and performed extensive troubleshooting on the software guiding the process. The target rock showed no obvious challenging quirks. The task should have been easy.

But the first coring tube was devastatingly empty. To come up with a zero-volume empty tube was just mind-blowing, unfortunately, says JPLs Jessica Samuels, sample caching system lead for the mission. That was never something we were worried aboutnot acquiring the sample. We were worried about so many other things.

The rock, it turned out, had been so altered by water that it crumbled under the pressure of Perseverances drillnot an ideal result but one that left the team with a useful tube full of Martian atmosphere. That first sample failure was stressful, however, and if the problems continued, they could have scuttled the once-in-a-lifetime chance to gather and return pristine material from Mars.

View of NASAs Martian helicopter Ingenuity in flight, as seen by the Perseverance rover on April 25, 2021.

Since then the team has regrouped and successfully collected six rock cores, which Samuels says is validation that the system actually works as planned. Its not us. Its Mars, she says. Indeed, Mars served up another episode of sample-collecting shenanigans when pebbles recently wedged themselves into the rovers sample-caching hardware and Perseverance had to do a bit of a shimmy to shake them loose.

Theres never a dull moment in sampling, Samuels says. Its keeping us on our toes. And its keeping us continuing to think about the different environmental conditions.

Overall retrieving a small cache of samples from Mars is an audacious task that is just barely within our technological grasp, even if each of the missions moving parts performs perfectly. Were pushing the limits of the technology we have today to land and launch a rocket from Mars that is essentially just big enough to get a basketball into orbit, says Albert Haldemann, chief Mars engineer at the European Space Agency, a partner in the overall sample-return effort.

Perseverances already-collected igneous rock cores can be used to measure the strength of Marss ancient magnetic field and to precisely pin ages on the craters epochs. For now, scientists guess that water sloshed around in Jezero around 3.5 billion years ago, but Farley says there are half a billion years of uncertainty in that estimate. Soon, team members say, they will begin deciding when and where Perseverance should deposit a preliminary cache of materialsjust in case the rover is no longer functioning by the time the next spacecraft arrives to retrieve its bounty.

If everything is onboard Perseverance, and Perseverance dies unexpectedly, weve got nothing, Haldemann says. So a safety cache will be put down at a potential landing spotsooner rather than later.

Before it leaves the crater floor, Perseverance will fill two more of its 43 onboard, ultraclean sample tubes. Then it will turn west and make haste: Were gonna gun it for the delta, Stack Morgan says.

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What we learned from the Perseverance Rover's first year on Mars - Deccan Herald

Whether it's through fire-breathing dragons, time travel, psychic powers, or spaceships that sail effortlessly between distant stars, there's never been a shortage of tropes in fantasy or science fiction stories that challenge our belief of what's possible. Yet while fantasy and science fiction authors are great at imagining new forms of magic and technology, authors aren't so good at imagining different political systems. Indeed, for the most part, they fall back on the same old political or economic systems: for fantasy, we have our usual monarchies and empires, kings and queens, nobles and commoners. For sci-fi, the future is often bleak, dominated by hyper-capitalist corporate galactic warfare or techno-bureaucratic empires clinging to power on their newly-annexed planets.

As a fantasy author myself, I'm intrigued as to how writers' imagination hit a wall when imagining political alternatives. I am reminded of the oft-quoted remark from literary theorist Frederic Jameson, who quipped that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

In my first novel, an epic fantasy story entitled "The Spirit of a Rising Sun," I tried to challenge this myopia around political and economic systems in fantasy; in doing so, I spent a lot of time pondering the politics and economics that feature so heavily in some of our most cherished stories, and trying to understand why it's so hard for writers to think outside the political box.

Certainly, there are key works in science fiction that push us to consider non-capitalist futures. Ursula K. LeGuin's 1974 book, "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia," is exemplary in this regard. In the book, we travel alongside our hero and physicist Shevek, who hails from a planet governed by anarcho-syndicalist principles: political and economic equality, working-class self-management, equality between genders, and a voluntarist orientation toward social life. Although his is a planet of relative material poverty, we nonetheless see how these principles inform his own worldview, including his disdain for inequality in all its guises. Shevek travels to rival system Urras, where inhabitants practice a form of state capitalism that is rife with the usual inequities.

Class conflict, income inequality, and the recurring question of how society ought to be organized are at the heart of not only "The Dispossessed," but much of LeGuin's corpus.

More recently, the popular sci-fi novel series turned Amazon show "The Expanse" pushes the politics of sci-fi in critical directions. In the not so distant future, the solar system is divided into three opposed camps: Earth, Mars, and the Belters. The Belters are those who are confined to mining asteroids in the Asteroid Belt for precious resources that support the populations of Earth and Mars. While the Belters in recent seasons pursue their own freedom through extraordinarily violent means aimed at destroying countless civilian lives on Earth, their inclusion in the story nevertheless points towards the willingness in science fiction to explicitly represent the working classes. It's an interesting contrast to, say, "Star Wars," where the question of what is produced, by whom, and how it is distributed is not discussed at all. Where did Luke and Leia get their food from? Whose labor-time was expended while mining the minerals for not one but two Death Stars? How did the Rebel Alliance obtain the energy to power their X-wings? Though such questions are often addressed in the deeper roots of lore, I typically find myself asking these sorts of questions at the outset.

RELATED:On its final run, "The Expanse" serves a last supper for we who continue fighting for our humanity

While the futuristic orientation of science fiction lends the genre an easy ability to reimagine the politics and economics of tomorrow, major works in fantasy rarely seem to challenge the social systems of the path. "Game of Thrones," for example, only ever flirts with alternative forms of political organization notably, with the Brotherhood without Banners, whom we see only in glimpses.

The Brotherhood was essentially a guerrilla group that opposed kings on all sides of the ongoing conflict, claiming to fight instead for the common people. Elsewhere, a poor religious leader called the High Sparrow challenges Olenna Tyrell, the matriarch of the rich and powerful House Tyrell that rules over Highgarden, by insisting the law applies equally to both low and high-born alike. He then pointedly asks her if she has ever performed manual labor before, before then posing to her the question of what should happen if the many cease to fear the few. This was a rare moment for "Game of Thrones," in that this bit of dialogue hinted at deeply-buried class divisions between manual laborers and aristocrats in the GoT universe.

Likewise, in one humorous scene of "Game of Thrones," the poor wildling woman Osha, whose home was with the Free Folk, or who recognize none of the kings or kingdoms of Westeros, challenges and annoys the noble-born Theon Greyjoy when he demands she address him with honorifics. Her brief moment of questioning threatens the ideological foundations of the entire feudal order, something the show did not take up in more depth.

Yet the heroes of this universe show time and time again that they are incapable of fully imagining an alternative world to their feudal order. In perhaps the story's gravest misfire, even our hero-turned-villain Daenerys Targaryen, for all her efforts in breaking the chains of the old world to usher in the new, can still only ever envision a world in she is installed atop the Iron Throne, rather than a world without monarchs at all. In the show's final episode, as those who survived Dany's burning of King's Landing aim to rebuild society, Sam's meek suggestion of extending democracy to everyone regardless of noble birth is laughed out of consideration.

Given that so much of our popular fantasy and science fiction stories (but certainly not allI can't read everything!) rarely seem to introduce new political or economic systems, I wanted in my own story to showcase a different sort of arrangement. The story's hero, a young woman named Oyza Serazar, is indeed drawn to the possibility of such a world. Captured when she was young after her city is attacked by gun-wielding overseas invaders from a place called Hafrir, she was forced into a life of servitude before being thrown indefinitely into prison. But there, she reads a forbidden book she managed to smuggle in, one that calls into the question the divine authority of monarchs and the power the nobility, claiming the commoners ought to instead collectively manage society's productive tools in their own interests. At the same time, she's heard rumors of a mysterious new collectivity calling themselves Ungoverned, deep in the swamps outside the ruins of her old city. Trapped in prison, Oyza can thus only ponder if the Ungoverned are real, if they practice the teachings of the book she loves, and if she might one day break free to find them.

Whether I succeeded or not remains an open question, but I do think there is much more room for writers of fantasy and science fiction to conjure up worlds that defy the politics and economics of our own world. Socialist writers, anarchist writers, and communist writers are well-positioned to think differently about some of the most basic and everyday practices of life under capitalism. Why, in the science fictional future, is there always banking, money, markets, finance, wage-labor, corporations, inequality? Why, in the fantastical past, can we not see beyond monarchs, emperors, and kingdoms? Is it possible, furthermore, to not just imagine fictional worlds differently, but the very world we ourselves live in?

If there is anything that fantasy and science fiction writers can contribute to popular discussions about how to remedy the ills of our present historical conjuncture, it ought to be through the constant reminder that the new problems we face may never find their solutions within the confines of the old. Does capitalism, for example, provide us with the tools to solve a complex problem like climate change? If the history of capitalism is any indication about its future, the answer is resoundingly no. I thus recently find myself thinking more and more about an old slogan on the left that nonetheless remains powerful to this day: "another world is possible."

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Why can't sci-fi and fantasy imagine alternatives to capitalism or feudalism? - Salon

If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. It's a lesson we all learn eventually, usually via some unfortunate and/or expensive series of events.

For the bike industry, the lesson came via the SpeedX Leopard - the crowdfunded bike that promised the world, yet delivered, as CyclingTips so aptly put it, "800,000 bikes abandoned in fields and construction sites around China."

Now, the Urtopia Carbon Electric Bike, which heralds the "new urban Utopia" might turn out to be genuinely all that it's cracked up to be: 30lbs/13-14kg, Gates Carbon Belt Drive, 250w/h/35~40Nm torque battery, thumb touch locking, GPS tracking, all for 2,505/$3,000.

However, in taking its name from a noun that means "an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect," and placing that imagining into the current supply and demand starved industry of 2022, the newcomer to the market seems to be begging us to look for the loopholes.

The closest competitor in weight/price ratio we've tested is the Ribble Endurance SL e, at 3,299 and 12kg. However, this was a paired down road bike from a direct-only brand. The likes of the commuter-ready Specialized Como SL comes in at 21.5kg at 4,250.

Having raised 2,562,469, via1,353backers (at time of writing), the brand contacted Cycling Weekly, suggesting "its reckoned as THE most popular campaign on Indiegogo now!"

The Urtopia is available in a US build, at $3,000, for a UK/Euro build for 2,505.

The bike features a carbon fiber frame, fork, seatpost and handlebar. It weighs 30 pounds, which translates to 13.6kg.

The brand does follow this up with "(14kg minimum)" in its FAQ, which is a little bit of a head scratcher. But, at that weight, they are right in saying "an average girl can carry it upstairs without much effort!", assuming that by 'girl', the writer means 'adult woman' - which seems a reasonable assumption since there are only two frame sizes, to suit riders from 5"5 to 6"5 (165 to 195cm - I'm on the cusp at 166cm).

The max rider weight is 110kg and Urtopia says the frame "has passed some of the requirements of BS EN 14766 standard designed for mountain bikes on rough terrains."

The Urtopia uses a 250w centrally positioned e-bike motor providing 35~40Nm torque. There's five modes: Pedal, Eco, Comfort, Sport and Turbo, and the Samsung battery will last a reported 80miles/130km in Eco mode.

Modes can be swapped via "AI voice control", and the brand says "Urtopias proprietary clutch technology enables a riding experience exactly like when you ride a regular bike without any drag. With integrated gyroscope and torque sensor, Urtopia knows when you're riding on inclined or rough roads and may adjust power output accordingly to ease your effort."

The singlespeed design uses a Gates Carbon Drive belt - a clean and fuss free transmission that we've tested before to great success.

Of the brakes, Urtopia says the bike "is equipped with a front and rear hydraulic disc brake system, which are more reliable than rim brakes, or v-brakes, providing a safer riding experience." Our tech heads are a bit beyond the #savetherimbrake movement, and don't really need convincing - but we'd like to know more about the stopping power, such as which brand they come from and at what spec level.

The tyres, reassuringly, are Kenda's Kwest rubber, in 35mm.

There are some other features that piqued our interest, including the "fingerprint unlock, eSIM card, dot-matrix display, built in Bluetooth, WiFi, and 4G modules... Anti-theft tracking system... [and] Millimeter wave radar," the latter providing warnings of approaching vehicles, similar to the Garmin Varia.

These are the kind of features that experts at Car Design Research told us the cycling industry needed to incorporate, in order to encourage a new breed of bike rider onto two wheels. However, traditional bike riders are harder to convince - just look at the furore that met Cannondale's attempts to embed lights and a Varia radar into its latest Synapse.

Urtopia's Indiegogo page includes several third party reviews based on prototypes, but we're keen to assess the bike for ourselves, so have requested a press sample to bring you a full review.

(Image credit: Urtopia)

One area where the SpeedX Leopard came unstuck was in meeting the high demand created by its crowdfunding success.

Urtopia is operating during a time when even well-established brands are battling with supply chains and competition for containers.

Urtopia has updated its backers around its current projected delivery capacity, noting "given the unpredictability of the current global logistics as we enter the third year of the pandemic, there are things beyond our control despite our best efforts."

However, the brand does appear to be having much more luck than some of the more mainstream outfits in terms of its projected delivery dates.

Posting an update on February 16, it stated: "the first batch was produced by the end of January and 30 of them have been shipped to the US already," before adding: "The second batch production will be divided into two parts. Those to the US will be in containers by March 15 and arrive in the US around April 10. Delivery can be expected after mid of April. Those to Europe will be in containers by March 25 and arrive in Europe by April 25. Delivery can be expected by late April and early May."

Urtopia has been pretty up front with its backers about their role in the product development process.

"These first delivered Urtopia e-bikes willshoulder the responsibilityof first test-runs with real customers," the brand said, adding "we believe that our customers are better served when we try harder to ensure the quality of such a technologically advanced and complicated piece of equipment, instead of rushing to deliver a half-baked prototype." We'll be interested to hear their feedback, and can hopefully provide our own when a protoype arrives.

The bikes are being manufactured in China, and "batch-shipped to local warehouses across North America and Europe." Urtopia says it has warehouses in the USA, Germany, Netherland, France, UK and Canada, and that customer orders will be placed at the nearest warehouse to your location and delivered from there.

Experts operating in the more commercially successful automotive market tell us that e-bikes need to be smarter, and more convenient, in order to stand up to the demands of the masses and attract new riders. The traditional cycling industy isn't ticking those boxes yet, likely because its target audience is somewhat resistant to change - and it certainly isn't able to meet the price point offered by this new creation.

Is the Urtopia the beginning of a smart new world for commuting cyclists? Or is it the beginning of somebody's nightmare? The proof will be in the riding - and we're looking forward to it.

Excerpt from:

Is this crowdfund topping e-bike too good to be true? - Cycling Weekly

Francis Ford Coppola has always been a risk-taker. Even after making three of the finest films of the 1970s (and beyond) with The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and The Conversation, the studios werent willing to take a gamble on Apocalypse Now, the five-time Oscar winners surreal fever dream of a Vietnam film, loosely based on Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness. So he invested every cent he had to get the budget where it needed to be, and made one of the most celebrated war films of all time. I invested all my money and own the film, Coppola told The Washington Post in 1979. I think Ill get it back.

But for as long as Coppola has been making movies, he has really wanted to make one movie: Megalopolis. And now, at the age of 82, the filmmaker told GQ that hes ready to risk it all again and drop some seriously mad cashlikely more than $100 millionon finally seeing his pet project through to completion.

As GQs Zach Baron writes:

It is a film called Megalopolis, and Coppola has been trying to make it, intermittently, for more than 40 years. If I could summarize the plot for you in a concise way, I would, but I cant, because Coppola cant either. Ask him. Its very simple, hell say. The premise of Megalopolis? Well, its basically I would ask you a question, first of all: Do you know much about utopia?

The best I can do, after literally hours talking about it with him, is this: Its a love story that is also a philosophical investigation of the nature of man; its set in New York, but a New York steeped in echoes of ancient Rome; its scale and ambition are vast enough that Coppola has estimated that it will cost $120 million to make. What he dreams about, he said, is creating something like Its a Wonderful Lifea movie everyone goes to see, once a year, forever. On New Years, instead of talking about the fact that youre going to give up carbohydrates, Id like this one question to be discussed, which is: Is the society we live in the only one available to us? And discuss it.

Its certainly a tall order, but given that this year marks the 50th anniversary of The Godfather, maybe its not so far-fetched to believe that if anyone can make the next great classic film, it would be Coppola. Even so, no studio in Hollywood seems ready to make that gamble.

After more than four decades of talking about Megalopoliswhich he says is as ambitious as Apocalypse NowCoppola understands that, the more personal I make it, and the more like a dream in me that I do it, the harder it will be to finance. And the longer it will earn money because people will be spending the next 50 years trying to think: Whats really in Megalopolis? What is he saying? My God, what does that mean when that happens?

Still, the situation feels like dj vu to the director. Do you know why I own Apocalypse Now? Because no one else wanted it, he says. As for casting? Oscar Isaac and Zendaya are just two of the stars Coppola is eyeing.

You can read Coppolas full GQ interview here.

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Francis Ford Coppola Will Spend $120 Million To Make 'Megalopolis' - UPROXX

Greens Leader Adam Bandt is that whiny girl on the Brady Bunch who constantly complains, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! except that he cries, Billionaires, Billionaires, Billionaires!!!

Where jealousy drove Jan to be fixated on her older sister, the Green-eyed monster drives Mr Bandt to obsession with those wealthier than him.

Writing inTheAustralianthis week, Mr Bandt blamed every conceivable ill on Australias billionaires.

Billionaires dont pay their fair share of taxes. Billionaires receive unfair handouts. Billionaires increase their wealth during pandemics. Billionaires are favoured by the Liberal Party. Billionaires are the reason you were late to work this morning. Okay, I made that last one up, be Mr Bandt might as well have said it.

Billionaires, billionaires, billionaires!

Mr Bandt is so fixated on billionaires that he mentioned them 12 times in a 15-paragraph article. For context, he mentioned climate five times, coal just twice, and the environment once.

The real enemy, you see, is Scrooge McDuck.

The Greens would you have call to mind all your woes while harping with them, Billionaires, billionaires, billionaires!

The problem with Australia are those successful entrepreneurs who take enormous risks to create wealth and, in the process, employ tens of thousands of Australians while providing much-needed services bastards!

But fear not. If you elect the Greens at the next federal election, Mr Bandt will slug it to the wicked billionaires. (Right before he hammers the annoying middle class. Well get to that in a moment.)

The Greens will push a new billionaires tax, Mr Bandt wrote triumphantly. Thats the only wealth tax well be pushing. A big, new six per cent tax on billionaires wealth.

How wonderful life would be if billionaires did not exist. Instead of working for major corporations, we could work for the government on communal farms. Others could work in state-run factories. And still more could work as fact-checkers at the ABC.

The rest of us could work for the big new bureaucracy that would be required to annually assess who the billionaires are, value every item they own, and levy them with Mr Bandts big, new six per cent tax.

Stealing from, er, taxing the wealth of billionaire boogey men will pay for the Greens imagined Utopia in which everything is free and where school leavers can aspire to just smoke weed for a year or two.

According to the 2021Financial Reviews Rich Listthere are 111 billionaires in Australia. So the Greens entire policy platform is based on taxing 111 people.

Of course, the problem with getting your policy ideas from fairies at the bottom of the garden is that reality is rarely factored in. Mr Bandt is so busy making snow money angels with the$40 billionhe expects to pickpocket from billionaires each year that it never occurs to him they will simply take their wealth along with their businesses and many of our jobs elsewhere.

The sinister billionaires will be disappeared; banished by Bandt, the man who has zero business experience and who has never employed anyone.

With all that economic activity gone, the Greens will then be free to set about creating their Looney Land utopia in which solar panels we cannot afford power all the businesses we no longer have.

But rest assured, Mr Bandt promised, We wont be going after everyday people like the Liberals do, but instead make big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share and rein in their unfair handouts.

Ah yes, use the language of envy to demonise big business and billionaires, billionaires, billionaires.

And then, when Adam Hood and his band of Merry Watermelons fail to raise the revenue to pay for their socialist wet dreams, they will simply widen the shakedown to include the middle class.

Only a fool believes that they can vote for others to be slugged with a wealth tax while expecting it will never be imposed upon them.

Mr Bandt concluded his piece in The Australian by claiming that Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, whose seat of Kooyong will be hotly contested at the next election, is terrified of a Greens victory.

Mr Bandt, 92 per cent of Australia is terrified!

You can follow James on Twitter. You can order his new book Notes from Woketopiahere.

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

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Adam Bandt has billionaires on the brain - The Spectator Australia

Im hovering on a red carpet outside Londons Royal Albert Hall. Cameras explode with flashes. Haute hubbub envelops me. Im posing hard, sporting the sharp white tuxedo I picked out for the British Fashion Councils annual Fashion Awards ceremony, my fluffy pink tail peeking out from the Bianca Jagger-inspired look.

Yes, you read that correctly: my tail. In a surreal touch, I am attending a simulacrum of the ceremony in the metaverse, the social-meets-gam-ing virtual landscape where so much in fashion seems to be happening nowadays: from Balenciagas excursion into Fortnite to a virtual Gucci Garden experience. And the guise Ive chosen is that of a pink squirrel-like creature with, I discover, a squirrels propensity for clambering onto every object it comes into contact with. As I rove around inside the hall, listening to the evenings host, Billy Porter, intone Fashion is culture! from the stage and impulse-buying a Gucci baseball cap (which sets me back 100 Robux, aka the currency of Roblox, the gaming app Im using), I have a strange flashback to the in-person fashion events I used to attend in the halcyon days of early 2020.

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Admittedly, they dont hold a candle to the real thing, but for millions of users, these virtual platforms are a way to feel part of the exclusive fashion worldand to use style to experiment in a way that real-world confines may not allow. Says Robloxs vice president of global brand partnerships, Christina Wootton, A lot of times, when you hear from people whove experienced it virtually, they talk about it as if they were really there. (Increasingly, the virtual and the real are colliding: The night also included a new award for metaverse design, presented by a digital Alessandro Michele. This years recipient: a Roblox user and digital fashion creator known as cSapphire.)

While many associate the metaverse with Mark Zuckerbergs tete-a-tete with his virtual avatar, the term is actually 30 years old. It was coined by the sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson to describe a virtual reality space that mimics a physical one. For some participants, those interactions serve as a way to experiment not just with style, but identity. Users can select from multiple male and female avatars as a way to explore their gender identity and can customize their body size and proportions, says Maura Welch, vice president of marketing at Together Labs, a technology company that operates the metaverse platform IMVU.

There, this past spring, seven brands, including Collina Strada and Mowalola, showed their collections as part of what media outlets like Paper billed as the metaverses first runway show. The platform boasts 200,000 active creators; for the show, each designer was paired with a creator. (The Collina Strada design even found its way into the real world, via a dress that designer Hillary Taymour debuted on the platform and then designed IRL for Kim Petras to wear to the Met Gala.) It broadens the audience and allows people who cant drop that money on fashion to be able to experience it, Welch says. Its super empowering.

COURTESY OF THE DESIGNER, ELIZAVETA RADIONOVA, AND NATALIA GUSELMANN

Empowering, perhaps. But it also feels a tad strange, as someone whos been immersed in tactile fashion for a decade and a half, to be zipping around in this imaginary space like Ive been uploaded into a Philip K. Dick characters consciousness. It seems unnatural to be interacting with people as an imaginary character on a screen. Welch challenges me to consider how much Im already doing that. If you think about the amount of time that you spend in your digital space versus your real space, she points out, the former is starting to outweigh the latter for many of us.

We may not be disguising ourselves as fashion-forward pink squirrels, but were fudging details or creating new identities online, whether its alter-ing our Zoom backgrounds, Facetuning our Tinder photos, or touching up our appearances on video calls. If you ask somebody in Gen Z if a friend was made online or in real life, they actually dont see a difference, she adds. And during the pandemic, IMVUs active user ranks grew by almost half, suggesting that people are flocking to the metaverse as a social space.

For some, its a kind of no-rules style utopia. Maybe you arent comfortable dressing in the clothes you want to wear, or youre worried about what people will say; the metaverse removes a lot of that friction. The more time is spent in this virtual space, the more important your online identity becomes, Wootton says. You may go in and say, I want it to look just like my real-world self, or maybe you want it to be completely different. It feels great to be able to do that without the anxiety of how people will react, because a lot of people on the platform are so much more accepting. Its where you experiment, and express yourself in different ways.

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Those who are championing the metaverse also see it as a way to finally do that much-discussed thingfix fashion. Though there are concerns about its energy consumption, the realm is otherwise sustainable, waste-free, and infinitely renewable without the environmental and labor costs that come with fast fashion. For designers, especially young, aspiring ones, its a win, too. There are, after all, no supply chain issues in the metaverse. You dont need an expensive degree or bolts of pricey fabric to start creating. And you can get instant feedback, says Welch: If you put something out in the catalog, youre going to know right away: What do people like, what do they not like? Theyre going to tell you. Users are particularly interested in customization, which is shaping up to be the new couture, with e-ateliers full of aspirants.

After making my Fashion Awards debut, I spend day two in the metaverse as two very different entities. First, Im a blank-faced mannequin, visiting the Gucci Garden on Roblox in a developers intricately pixelated re-creation of Florence. I wander through the space, collecting flowers for my head, then a Matrix-like neon maze, where I collect stripes for my outfit. Digital versions of the Italian houses wares are also on offer.

When the experience debuted, Wootton tells me, People were setting their alarms because they were just like, I cant miss out on this drop. In some cases, theyd then resell their finds on Robloxs booming secondhand market, where prices were sometimes higher than in the real world. Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian tweeted about the fact that a virtual version of the houses Dionysus bag, whose physical version is priced at $3,400, resold for the equivalent of $4,115, adding, Watch this space.

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Next, I indulge my sporty side at the Ralph Lauren Winter Escape pop-up. This time Im a generic jock, clad in a Polo-branded parka, doing a series of wholesome activities meant to generate cheer, which serves as a kind of currency in this space. I vault over rocks, ice-skate, toast marshmallows, and sip on Ralphs Coffee. Alice Delahunt, the brands chief digital and content officer, notes that while the technology feels cutting-edge, the designer has always been all about world-building. When youve walked into a flagship store like 888 Madison Avenue, youve been transported to the Double RL Ranchthe designers Colorado getawayor an Aspen chalet or Round Hill in Jamaica, she says. We feel that his is the perfect brand to exist in the metaverse.

Even though this all feels impossibly removed from realityand is missing some of the texture of real-life interactions, not to mention the sensual pleasure of wearing clothes and sizing up others looksit could soon be our reality. What the metaverse lacks in quotidian friction, it makes up for in other ways. And as we continue to replace physical interactions with digital ones, it could start to feel more normal than doing things in person.

In the same way that we looked at websites maybe 15 to 20 years ago, we now need to be looking at the metaverse and understanding what our strategy is there, Delahunt says. And that strategy translates into real-world dollars: The brand has already sold 164,000 digital goods on the Zepeto platform. She gestures to the blue ski sweater shes wearing: What I get really excited about in the digital world is, Does this evolve over time? Does this change and adapt to my context, my environment, my mood? Have I earned something for wearing it a certain amount of times, and therefore, have I unlocked the next level of some community-driven activity? (I could definitely monetize that last one, based on how often I repeat outfits in the actual-verse.)

The possibilities are endless, and not just online. As established designers journey into the metaverse and virtual creators dip their toes into the real world, the whole thing becomes a feedback loop. Which means you could see cSapphires wares strutting down a runway near you someday.

This article appears in the March 2022 issue of ELLE.

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The Metaverse and Fashion: What You Need to Know - ELLE.com

Former Australia women's cricket captain Alex Blackwell represented her country in 251 international matches, with the team winning the World Cup and the Ashes under her captaincy. Since her retirement in late 2019, Blackwell has continued to be involved in the game as a board member, commentator and media spokesperson. She also works as a genetic counsellor in addition to her cricket-related roles.

In this lightly edited extract from her new book, Fair Game, she looks ahead to where she hopes cricket in Australia and the world at large will be in 20 years.

So I want to finish by imagining an ideal future for cricket. If I was suddenly transported 20 years into the future and was checking in on the state of the game, what would I hope to see? What does a cricket utopia look like?

It looks like a completely level playing field between men and women. There's no longer any sense that the men's game is of any higher priority or importance than the women's game. Men's cricket is no longer the default. The media coverage and public interest is split equally - and sometimes the women are ahead in this regard. Thanks to incredible marketing efforts and increased media coverage, sponsors have flocked to women's cricket, realising what a hot commodity it is and wanting their businesses to be associated with something so special.

All players in the Australian women's team are household names. The team is made up of women from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds and they are equally adored and celebrated. The players feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to cricket - their differences and quirks are embraced and incorporated into the team culture. The Australian public loves them, not just for their amazing feats on the field but because they are interesting people with lives and passions away from sport who set a great example in so many different ways. Past women's players are held in equally high regard as their male counterparts and the history of the team is regularly celebrated by administrators and current players. Past female legends of our game are lead commentators in men's and women's cricket, not just for radio but also front and centre on our screens, with their naturally grey hair and sun-aged skin.

In boardrooms across the country I see equal numbers of men and women discussing the game and working to keep making improvements. Women can afford to commit to these roles because their time is valued as much as men's and they have been paid equally for many years now. I can see many past players among these board members, leading discussions through their knowledge, experience and passion. When they speak, everyone stops to listen and their opinions are respected and acted upon.

I can see women in leadership positions in the Cricket Australia headquarters too. Past players haven't been lost to the sport due to burnout, domestic players have degrees in a whole range of specialties after being supported to study during their careers. They're energised and excited to bring their unique skill sets to the organisation that supported them and continue to drive things forward for the next generation. The halls of our great stadiums are adorned with portraits of past players - male and female legends of the game appear side by side. Those past female players, the invisible giants of our game, are now recognised and celebrated regularly for the contributions they made to our sport against the tide. The rich history of gay women in cricket and their positive impact in the evolution of the women's game is spoken about openly and celebrated.

As I walk past the nets at the SCG prior to the New Year's Test I can see the Australian men's Test team being put through their paces by head coach Ellyse Perry. This group of young men are awed to be in her presence and have so much respect for this incredible cricketer they grew up watching dominate the domestic and international arenas. No one asks the players any questions about what it's like to have a female coach; it's no longer an anomaly or a novelty.

Looking around at the elite men's and women's teams across the country, I can see a diversity that truly reflects the Australian population. Players whose heritage lies in the cricket-loving South Asian nations are flourishing and the sport has also attracted many people with backgrounds that haven't been traditionally associated with cricket, such as Thailand and Sudan. In the media I see beautiful photos of the most recent Allan Border Medal winner celebrating with his husband and their daughter. They walked into the event with pride and were captioned correctly as husbands in every photo.

All over the world I can see our players proudly representing themselves and their country. Global tournaments for women have exploded and alongside the WBBL and the Hundred, the women's Indian Premier League has expanded rapidly and attracts talent from all over the world. The Caribbean Premier League also has a thriving women's competition, and the FairBreak Global tournament has become the key event in the calendar - this two-week invitational tournament has become the highest-paying T20 tournament for women in the world, and women from Associate cricket nations such as Botswana, Oman and China are stars of the show.

Recently retired women's international cricketers continue to make a great living from playing in short T20 tournaments all over the world. The television and live-stream coverage is excellent - of better standard than the men's because the women have been quicker to embrace the use of cutting-edge technology which has enhanced the viewer experience. This was a big step to achieving equality with the men's game, because more and more viewers tuned into women's cricket to witness the interaction with artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies. The success in the women's game convinced the men to be open to the opportunities as well and interest has risen across the board. There is all kinds of data available that helps fans understand the sport better - from the heart rate of a bowler in the death overs in a tight T20 match to the fatigue levels of a player batting out two full days of a Test. All games are accessible on demand for viewers everywhere.

Stepping back to the grassroots level, I can see that cricket has embraced all different forms of the game. Modified formats like indoor cricket and Last Man Stands (which was renamed to Last Player Stands, and not one single person kicked up a fuss, because gender-neutral language is just expected now) all fall under the Cricket Australia banner and it has helped the sport to thrive. Cricket is no longer just for those who have an entire weekend day available to play each week. Instead there are people taking part on weeknights, parents playing alongside their kids in social competitions, and competitive grassroots leagues that can be played with rubber cricket balls, encouraging more people to play, with fewer concerns about concussion and injuries.

I see mums coaching their sons' teams, boys and girls sharing training facilities equally and cheering each other on during matches. The diversity that is now present at the top levels of the game is visible here too. Cricket teams are made up of people from all different cultures and all walks of life, brought together by a love for the game.

The final of a Sydney women's social competition is held during a lunch break at the New Year's Test match at the SCG. The leaders of our game recognise that it's not just kids who will relish that opportunity and understand the importance of engaging adult women and the benefits that will come from these opportunities. Most importantly, community cricket is a space where people of all genders feel safe and welcome and everyone is able to play in a team that matches their gender identity without fear or anxiety.

There is a strong link between elite and grassroots cricket. Reduced training loads for professional players to foster better work-life balance have not only allowed players to gain qualifications and experience that prepare them for life after cricket, they have also given them more time to reconnect with their clubs. Community cricketers know the players who have come through the pathways they are a part of now and regularly go to games to support them. When professional players are introduced to the field - at the ground and on TV - they are identified by their club as a way to acknowledge that lifelong connection. Elite players take the time to attend club training sessions, where they can enjoy quality facilities and coaching in addition to giving back to the community that set them on the path to where they are today.

Premier cricket competitions across Australia are stronger than ever before. The number of teams in each grade has been reduced and club cricketers are playing alongside elite players during the regular mid-week matches held under lights. These matches are the highlight of training each week for elite players who are spending less time in the nets and more time playing matches. The club players are genuine team-mates with some of the best elite players in the country and they see a definite pathway to the next level.

Access to the best grounds is shared equally between the men's and women's teams and fixturing takes into consideration the opportunity for players to support other teams from their club and the WBBL and MBBL teams from their state. There are strong and definite pathways from junior cricket through to premier cricket for women and men, with shared high-performance hubs and facilities to build the connection. The ease of live streaming and the plethora of streaming services available means that grade competitions are now broadcast and the increased visibility leads to better sponsorship deals at this level. This allows for better facilities and more ability for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to participate without having to navigate a large financial barrier. The aspiration to reach the premier level has increased - particularly for women - and these reinvigorated competitions keep people engaged in the sport longer and make the elite levels stronger.

Even though things have changed significantly for the better, no one is letting their guard down. They recognise how easily things can slip back into the status quo and they keep on working to make sure the doors open even wider and let more people in.

This all feels like a distant dream, but 20 years is a long time. Who would have imagined 20 years ago, when my elite cricket career was just getting started, that we would have reached the great heights we have now? I experienced so much positive change throughout my two decades in the sport and I know what is possible.

In the future, I hope I'm sitting down to read a book by my former Sydney Thunder teammate Phoebe Litchfield - who was 20 years my junior when we first formed a match-winning partnership together - charting the amazing changes she has experienced since her debut. I hope her story describes something like I have imagined in this chapter, but who knows? It could be even better.

Reproduced with permission from Fair Game by Alex Blackwell (with Megan Maurice), Hachette Australia, 2022

Link:

Cricket in 2042: here's hoping it's in a more equitable place, with greater opportunities for all - ESPNcricinfo

There is a deluge of well-known persons seeking to sell out to the burgeoning crypto business. Randi Zuckerberg can now be added to that list. She isnt a celebrity per se, but she is the sister of Mark Zuckerberg and has reportedly decided to put her name down in history with a ridiculous, Adele-inspired, De-Fi-themed video.

Hello its me Music video! b/c community should be FUN, crypto should be welcoming not intimidating & why not?!?! @thehugxyz we believe in working hard AND enjoying this crazy amazing moment were in. Best way to support creators is to be creators! Apologies Adele pic.twitter.com/GHKRCK8J7z

randizuckerberg.eth (@randizuckerberg) February 17, 2022

According to a recent press release, Zuckerberg, who previously worked in Facebooks marketing department, is currently serving as the exchange Okcoins inaugural brand advisory council member, where she is tasked with encouraging more women into the crypto sector. She is also the CEO of Zuckerberg Media, a marketing firm, and the founder of Hug, a decentralised community network.

Her crypto persuasion effort reportedly includes the release of a parody video in which she sings out the Hello tune while deconstructing DeFi concepts. Actually, Zuckerberg is a decent vocalist. Meanwhile, the lyrics are basically what youd anticipate:

Hello, its meWould you like to learn exchanging cryptocurrency?Well go over everythingCause youve got coins from different blockchains and want to do some tradingHello, can you hear me?A decentralized exchange lets you convert from A to BOnce you pay theGas feeAnd no single point of failure means youve got security

Web3 is rumoured to be poised to completely change the internet and usher in a new blockchain-centered period of utopia and ultimate freedom. At least, thats what youd think based on the fuckton of advertising cash that crypto companies are constantly hurling at the wall in the hopes of luring the rest of us in. Resistance is pointless, people. Invest in Okcoin right now.

Randi Jayne Zuckerberg is a businesswoman from the United States. She was Facebooks former director of market development and spokesperson. She previously worked as a panellist on Forbes on Fox. She is the founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, the editor-in-chief (EIC) of Dot Complicated, a digital lifestyle website, and the creator of Dot., an animated television show about a young girl (the titular Dot) who uses technology to improve both her scholastic and recreational experiences.

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Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi debuts with crypto themed version of Adele's Hello - Techstory

With two fantastic console generations behind it, Sony was looking to up the ante with the PlayStation 3. Out of the box, the console looked like another leap massive leap forward. It had a Blu-ray player for high-definition entertainment, the latest DualShock controller was a wireless peripheral that narrowly avoided looking like a silver banana, and the internal engineering could throw an impressive number of polygons at your eyeballs. All of that effort would have been wasted if the game library wasn't up to scratch, but fortunately, the PS3 had a terrific selection of games available as the years went on. We've rounded up our picks for the 25 best PS3 games of all time (in alphabetical order).

More PlayStation best lists

From first-party titles that paved the way for an era of prestige single-player experiences to third-party blockbusters that made full use of the console's powerful engine to wow players, the PS3 had an eclectic library of memorable games. Some of these games have even been remastered for PS4 and are backward compatible with the PS5. We only included one game from each franchise, so you won't find multiple Uncharted, Mass Effect, or Batman games on this list.

Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum raised the bar for superhero games when it first arrived, but its first sequel Arkham City easily leaped past that benchmark when it landed on the PS3. On the surface, this was your typical follow-up: bigger environments to explore, more villains to punch justice into, and enhanced visuals that hit a fantastic middle ground of new but familiar gameplay. Where Arkham City elevated itself, though, was with its more confident action, finely-tuned gameplay, and an ending that left everyone shocked. The best Batman games are both brave and bold, and Arkham City was the digital definition of that idea with its rhythmic action, predatorial stealth, and intuitive detective work.

Read our Batman: Arkham City review.

Platinum Games redefined witchcraft in Bayonetta, as the titular magic-wielder traded a broomstick for ankle-mounted pistols and an arsenal of sadistic magic. Bayonetta looked great, it played even better, and its devil-may-care approach made it an instant cult-classic with fans. A thrill ride from start to finish, Bayonetta's brand of action established Platinum Games as a powerhouse in the action genre.

Read our Bayonetta review.

Would you kindly remember just how groundbreaking Bioshock was when it was first released? A deep dive into a utopia gone horribly wrong, Bioshock was oozing with atmosphere from your very first step inside of Rapture, and the action wasnt too shabby either. Fighting back against gene therapy-addicted geniuses gone rogue, unleashing the power of the mind, and trying to avoid getting on the wrong side of a lumbering Big Daddy was fun, while the game's regular plot twists made this subterranean masterpiece an adventure to remember.

Read our Bioshock review.

After several games on the PS2, Criterion's Burnout Paradise established itself as the magnum opus of the franchise with its gorgeous rides, high-speed danger, and a crash camera that made every wreck a grotesque masterpiece of twisted metal. Taking place in a gigantic sandbox of roads that were just begging to be explored, Burnout Paradise had an absurd amount of activities to take part in while you listened to a certified banger of a soundtrack in the background. Additional DLC made the entire package even better, and the joy of cruising around a playground at top speed made this the definitive Burnout experience.

Read our Burnout Paradise review.

Call of Duty was a solid--but predictable--journey into well-worn World War 2 energy before it became one of the biggest franchises across multiple gaming generations. Modern Warfare rewrote the book on blockbuster gaming entertainment, delivering a campaign that pinched inspiration from Hollywood war movies to create a thrilling theater of operations. Modern Warfare's gunplay felt superb, its visuals hammered home the brutality of war, and its campaign was a scenic tour of duty across both single and multiplayer battlefields.

Read our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare review.

From Software's initial journey into the world of punishing fantasy action showed promise when Demon's Souls was released so many years ago, but Dark Souls was undoubtedly where the studio hits its stride. It may have earned a reputation for merciless difficulty and challenging foes, but Dark Souls is so much more than digital masochism. Beneath its surface was a game filled with dense amounts of lore, wonderful locations to explore, and a gameplay system that would reward you for all of your work. Every victory was earned in Dark Souls, but it set the bar for the franchise and paved the way for a new genre to flourish on gaming systems.

Read our Dark Souls review.

Diablo's brand of isometric dungeon-crawling and demon-slaying had long been considered too complex to port to consoles without losing a lot of its luster (the original Diablo was merely fine on PlayStation), but Blizzard managed to find a way to not only make the franchise playable on PS3 but feel superb as well. Diablo 3 was devilishly charming thanks to an incredibly-intuitive control scheme that made every action flow smoothly from your inputs. Exploring Sanctuary, delivering killer-blows that reduced demons to giblets, and building up your character along the way into a force of nature that not even the Prime Evils could overcome made Diablo 3 feel arguably even more at home on console than PC.

Read our Diablo 3 review.

Horror games may not have been entirely deceased by the time that Dead Space arrived on the scene, but the genre certainly felt like it was on life support back in the late 2000s. Dead Space was a shot of adrenaline to that category of gaming, a gruesome and captivating descent into darkness that had the potential to ruin your most comfortable pair of pants with its frequent scares. Constantly unnerving, Dead Space's atmosphere is still a gold standard for terror and its unique combat against terrifying necromorphs made every encounter feel like a last-ditch effort to survive unrelenting horror. Sequels and spin-offs would follow in its wake, and for fans of the original, an upcoming remake is also on the horizon.

Read our Dead Space review.

Ninja Theory might be known as the studio behind Hellblade these days, but for a brief time, it made a splash in the industry with a stylish new spin on one of Capcom's greatest franchises. Wildly different from the source material and not giving a damn, DmC is arguably the best Devil May Cry of the PS3 generation. Dante's new awakening led to a fascinating system that balanced both his angelic and demonic heritage, the visual style was pure S-Rank in the imagination department, and the story packed an emotional haymaker in each chapter. A one-off with no sequel in site, DmC still stands as an example of ingenuity and fun from a studio that gave the devil his due.

Read our DmC: Devil May Cry review.

Fus-Roh-Dah! Rewind the clock back to the magical date of November 11, 2011, and Bethesda was on top of the world with an action-packed new chapter in its Elder Scrolls series. Oblivion may have set the bar high for a follow-up in that fantasy universe, but Skyrim easily vaulted over it and delivered a Nordic adventure for the ages. Mastering the power of being really loud, wondering what to do with the funky-smelling toe of a giant you just killed, and really hoping that you wouldn't get an arrow in your knee were just some of the highlights of Skyrim. With unparalleled freedom to be the adventurer--or really horrible person who sacrificed Lydia to dark Daedric gods--Skyrim was unmatched in its ability to grab your attention for hours on end. Thankfully, Bethesda has re-released Skyrim over and over again, so you almost certainly have a device (or five) that can play it.

Read our Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim review.

Love or hate it, but there's no denying the impact that Grand Theft Auto V has had on the gaming landscape. A game of unprecedented scope and ambition, GTA V was a phenomenal single-player game and a groundbreaking multiplayer sandbox. It's the multiplayer portion of GTA V that has gone on to define the series, as GTA Online has extended the game well past its sell-by date with its interconnected world of characters, gangs, and a constant influx of new content. In the years since it debuted, GTA V hasn't just been one of the best games on PS3, it has gone on to find new audiences on PS4 and its primed for a PS5 debut next month.

Read our Grand Theft Auto 5 review.

Media Molecules' LittleBigPlanet sequel hit the nail on the head for wholesome content that also inspired its players to unleash the power of their imagination. Games that gave players all the tools that they'd need to generate their own content were starting to take off, and LittleBigPlanet 2 helped pave the way for player freedom. Fronted by the adorable mascot of Sackboy, the digital sky was the limit for creating adventures, stories, and memories within its platforming structure. The PS3 was home to a library of great games, but LittleBigPlanet 2 stands tall as one of its most charming and important titles. PS4 and PS5 owners should definitely check out spin-off title Sackboy: A Big Adventure, which gives the adorable star an adventure similar to Super Mario 3D World.

Read our Littlebigplanet 2 review.

On the topic of definitive PS3 games, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us was the best send-off that the PS3 could ask for as it reached the twilight of its life. A must-play game on PS3 and a step in the prestige direction that Sony was working to establish with its first-party studios, The Last of Us was enchanting, terrifying, and pushed the PS3 to the bleeding edge of what the hardware was capable of. Pushing the envelope on interactive storytelling, The Last of Us is a mature tale set in a believable post-apocalypse that perfectly drew the curtain closed on the PS3 generation.

Read our The Last of Us review.

The original Mass Effect was a fantastic first step into sci-fi territory for developer BioWare, but admittedly, it was a little rough around the edges when it came to combat. Mass Effect 2 on the other hand, is where all the parts of this cosmic engine felt like they were working in harmony. Commander Shepard's return began with an unforgettable first chapter, the story provided plenty of opportunities to create a more personalized adventure, and some of the choices you'd be forced to make would leave you feeling haunted by the tangible repercussions. All that, and gameplay which perfectly mixed traditional cover-based shooting with a selection of fantastic RPG mechanics that made you feel fully empowered for the threats that awaited the misfit crew of the Normandy.

Read our Mass Effect 2 review.

A short and sharp experiment into spin-off territory, Platinum Games Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is still a cut above the rest when it comes to action. Originally developed by Kojima Studios, the project met some difficulty along the way and was handed over to Platinum Games to bring the concept of over-the-top sword-fighting to life. Not only was the studios talent for satisfying mayhem on full display in this cheesy adventure, but it was also amplified by a series of incredible boss fights, memorable memes, and a soundtrack so metal that you'll get lead poisoning if you listen to it on repeat.

Read our Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance review.

The PS2 era was home to a double-whammy of excellent Metal Gear Solid adventures, but for the PS3, it was time to close the book on Solid Snake's storied career as an expert in tactical espionage action. Older and grumpier than ever, Snake's latest adventure may not have been as much of a game-changer as his previous missions were, but Metal Gear Solid 4 still managed to intelligently use the PS3's power to refine and enhance its formula. It might be a little too dependent on cutscenes and it has no time for newcomers thanks to its dense lore, but for Metal Gear Solid fans who had stuck around since the beginning, the fourth game's lengthy running time more than paid off with a conclusion that brought the series full circle.

Read our Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots review.

A role-playing game with vibrant cel-shaded visuals straight out of the Studio Ghibli playbook? That was a recipe for success when Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch first came out, and the charming art design was bolstered by the sheer amount of content that you could engage with. Having an exciting world to explore, a phenomenal soundtrack, and an emotionally told story was enough to win over even the most jaded of RPG fans, but Ni No No Kuni's inventive locations, tense battles, Pokemon-esque creature system, and witty banter solidified it as one of the best RPGs on the PS3.

Read our Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch review.

Persona 5 had a strange journey over the years, starting out life as a PS3 exclusive back when the PS4 was still a tightly-guarded secret over at Sony headquarters. Fast forward to 2017, and the Atlus-developed game launched on both consoles with surprisingly few compromises between the two editions. As for the game, there's a reason why it's still so beloved by fans of the franchise. The PS4 version might be superior in the technical department, but the PS3 incarnation of the game has all the charm, swagger, and staggering amount of content that made it the new gold standard for the JRPG genre.

Read our Persona 5 review.

Everything that you loved about the original Portal game was amplified and enhanced in its sequel, as Portal 2 took the foundation built by its predecessor and built a turbo-mansion on top of it. A lengthier collection of mind-bending puzzles that forced you to use your surroundings to find a solution, Portal 2 feels like a more complete game. It had a meaty story infused with dark humor, the new colors of space-time tears added more layers to the gameplay, and the two-player co-op made this one of the best games that you could play with a friend. All that, and Steven Merchant's portrayal of the clumsy guide Wheatley is still one of the best characters to ever pop up in a video game.

Read our Portal 2 review.

There's a beauty to Red Dead Redemption in its quiet moments and desolate landscapes that its more contemporary sibling Grand Theft Auto V cannot replicate, which is probably just one of many factors that makes this cowboy sandbox so popular more than a decade after it was first released. It's a rugged journey across hostile terrain, filled with danger, and untamed in its wild beauty. John Marston is still a fascinating protagonist torn between loyalty and duty, unleashing hell with a fistful of iron in deadeye mode always felt exhilarating, and that third act plot twist still feels heartbreaking to this day. Red Dead Redemption is still one of the best wild west simulators out there, standing the test of time and unleashing six rounds of hell with its haunting story.

Read our Red Dead Redemption review.

The first two Resistance games were solid but not exactly unmissable entertainment. The third time was the charm for Resistance 3, however, as everything about this threequel felt just right. The gunplay felt ever-so-satisfying as you took care of alien hordes with a mixture of traditional and exotic weaponry. The art direction of a 1950s world fighting off an intergalactic invasion looked marvelous, and the story was surprisingly heartwarming. Resistance 3 might always be the final chapter in the series (sadly), but it ends the trilogy in a grand and intimate fashion.

Read our Resistance 3 review.

A rogue-like platformer with randomized levels, Spelunky wasn't exactly an easy game to hop into but it was infinitely replayable thanks to some incredible design and precision engineering. Dangerously alluring and packed with multiple moments to risk everything for a rewarding payday, Spelunky's flexible design shows off incredibly engineered danger as you delve deeper into chasms of opportunity.

Read our Spelunky review.

Uncharted 2 improved on the original game's formula by leaps and bounds, hitting an almost-perfect balance of epic set-pieces, fun adventure action, and thrilling storytelling. No matter where you were in the game, Nathan Drake's epic journey was consistently entertaining. Trading a well-timed quip with a perfectly-executed knockout blow at any given time, Uncharted 2 was all held together by a fluid control scheme and gameplay that never skipped a beat. Years--and sequels!--later, and Uncharted 2 is still arguably the series at its best.

Read our Uncharted 2 review.

A good Wolfenstein game follows a simple formula: it gives you a chunky arsenal of weapons to run around with and plenty of Nazis to try your new firepower out on it. After the previous Wolfenstein game failed to capture that Reich-smashing magic, developer Machine Games took on the task of making nigh-unstoppable Nazi-smasher BJ Blazkowicz relevant again, a task that the team succeeded at handsomely. The core gameplay--which allowed you to mix stealth with gung-ho action--was exhilarating to say the least, but balancing it with an intriguing story, a protagonist who thoughtfully reflected on his actions and was complemented by a terrific cast of allies and Axis enemies? That was just icing on a decadently delicious cake of ultra-violence and a sublime narrative.

Read our Wolfenstein: The New Order review.

While The Bureau: XCOM Declassified may not have been the fresh start that fans of the tactical series had hoped for, Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown proved to be the shot in the arm that the franchise needed. A back-to-basics approach that retained the DNA of the original games and augmented them with smart strategy, Enemy Unknown delivered a knockout blow of turn-based tactics and action. Each successful incursion into enemy territory made you feel like a wartime genius, the layers of depth in the game had a surprisingly gentle learning curve, and each encounter unfolded in cinematic fashion. An absolute masterpiece of a game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown could easily devour dozens of hours of your life with its gripping board game appeal and sound strategies.

Read our XCOM: Enemy Unknown review.

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The 25 Best PS3 Games Of All Time - GameSpot