Month: November 2024

Microsoft’s Notepad and Paint applications have been part of Windows for decades, and up until recently they were both pretty barebones applications – one for creating and editing text-based documents and the other for creating simple graphics. But that’s starting to change. Earlier this year Microsoft brought a spell checker to Notepad and started adding […]

The post Microsoft brings more AI features to Paint and Notepad for Windows appeared first on Liliputing.

If you've been wanting an electric car but everything seems too expensive, there's some good news on the horizon. A whole lot of EV leases are due to expire in 2026, which should lead to something of a glut, according to data analyzed by JD Power.

We have the revised IRS clean vehicle tax credit to thank. This was revamped under the Inflation Reduction Act, and while tough new battery sourcing rules and a requirement for final assembly in North America have meant many fewer EVs are eligible for the tax credit when bought new, a loophole that considers a leased vehicle to be a commercial sale means any leased EV is eligible for the $7,500 incentive, which can now be subtracted from the price of the EV at the time of sale or leasing.

Since there's also no price cap on the EV or income cap on the buyer, leasing is often a better idea than purchasing outright when it comes to new EVs, particularly for people who are worried about long-term battery degradation. (In fact, this is an overblown fear that is not backed up by data from older EVs, other than the early Nissan Leaf, which does not have active battery cooling.)

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Vodafone-Deutschland-Chef de Groot erklärt sein Kabelnetz zum Glasfaserkabelnetz. Eine Kupferabschaltung solle es da nicht geben. (Vodafone, Wirtschaft)

GIMP is a free and open source image editing application that’s been around for more than 26 years, and which is a powerful, versatile app that’s often compared to Photoshop. This week the team launched the first release candidate for GIMP 3.0, which will be the biggest update in years, bringing significant changes to the […]

The post GIMP 3.0 RC 1 is a preview of a massive update to this open source image editor appeared first on Liliputing.

Die Telekom soll die Kupferabschaltung nicht nur zu ihrem Vorteil steuern dürfen. Vodafone, Netcologne und andere wollen mitmischen. (Anga, Telekom)

Der staatliche Mautbetreiber Toll Collect steht im Zentrum einer Kontroverse um die wohl unrechtmäßige Überwachung von Mitarbeiter-E-Mails. (Datenschutz, E-Mail)

Mercedes-Benz will 2025 einen elektrischen CLA auf der neuen MMA-Plattform auf den Markt bringen. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

Audi plant nicht nur eine neue Markenstrategie in China, sondern steht auch vor erheblichen Umstrukturierungen in Deutschland. (Audi, Elektroauto)

Since the 1940s, baseball players have been spreading a special kind of "magic mud" on new baseballs to reduce the slick, glossy shine and give pitchers a firmer grip. Now, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified just what gives that magic mud its special properties, according to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Before magic mud came along, baseballs were treated with a mix of water and soil from the infield or, alternatively, tobacco juice or shoe polish. But these substances stained and scratched up the ball's leather surface. Lena Blackburne was a third-base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1930s when an umpire complained about that, so he hunted for a better mud. Blackburne found that mud in a still-secret location purportedly near Palmyra, New Jersey, and a baseball dynasty was born: Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud. Once harvested, the mud is strained, skimmed of excess water, rinsed with tap water, and then subjected to a secret "proprietary treatment" before being allowed to settle.

Yet there hasn't been much scientific research on the magic mud apart from one 2022 study. We do know quite a bit about the complex behavior of soil in general, including mud. Per the authors, mud is essentially "a dense suspension of predominantly clay and silt particles in water," sometimes with a bit of sand in the mix, although this has little effect on how mud behaves under shearing forces (rheology). Technically, it falls into the non-Newtonian fluid category, in which the viscosity changes (either thickening or thinning) in response to an applied strain or shearing force, thereby straddling the boundary between liquid and solid behavior.

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Bei Amazon gibt es einen schnellen SD-Kartenleser noch vor dem Black Friday zum Tiefstpreis. (Speichermedien, Solid State Drive)