Author: Vidya Saras

Michelle Buteau’s new special dropped on Netflix this Tuesday, and the comedienne had some good advice for her fellow comedian, Dave Chappelle.Chappelle received backlash from the trans community about jokes he made in his 2023 Netflix special, “Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer.”Michelle Buteau doubled down on the criticism in her own Netflix special, “Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall.”Article continues below advertisementMichelle Buteau Wants Dave Chappelle To ‘Make It Funny’MEGAAccording to Variety, Buteau wants the comedian to “make it funny” when it comes to joking about the trans community.In her Netflix special, “Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind…

More than 400 pubs in England and Wales have either shut down or been repurposed over the past year, taking the total number below 39,000 for the first time. Commercial real estate firm Altus Group says 412 public houses were demolished or converted for alternative use in 2024, leaving only 38,989 in operation. The UK’s brewing and hospitality sectors have long warned of mounting costs, including changes to the alcohol duty system and higher energy bills. Businesses also face further challenges in 2025, when employer national insurance contributions will rise, the National Living Wage is set to increase, and the…

Company Name: YopakiFounders: Francisco Chavarria (CEO) and Carlos Chida (CTO)Date Founded: March 2023Location of Headquarters: Austin, TXNumber of Employees: Four full time; one part timeWebsite: https://www.yopaki.com/Public or Private? PrivateIn 2021, Francisco Chavarria stood in the audience at Bitcoin 2021 and watched as Strike CEO Jack Mallers passionately delivered his now famous keynote speech during which he revealed that El Salvador planned to make bitcoin legal tender.That moment sparked something within Chavarria.“It was unlike anything I’d experienced in my professional career,” Chavarria told Bitcoin Magazine.“I knew I had to do something in the Bitcoin space after that. It was the seed,”…

In a move that could reshape the Bitcoin lending market, Stone Ridge subsidiary NYDIG is gearing up to channel one of the biggest capital reservoirs in traditional finance—insurance float—into BTC-backed loans. The news, detailed in the 2024 Investor Letter from Stone Ridge CEO Ross Stevens, immediately attracted attention across the industry after its publication on December 30. A Potential Game-Changer For Bitcoin Marathon Digital advisor Sam Callahan, commenting on X, framed the impact succinctly: “NYDIG is about to unlock one of the largest investable pools of capital in the entire financial system—insurance float—and channel it into Bitcoin-backed loans. This is…

Friends, As the year of the Merge ends, we wanted to share updates from many of the Ethereum gardeners and EF-supported teams that achieved long sought accomplishments, both big and small, alongside the rest of the ecosystem in 2022. We all have a lot to be thankful for, from the new communities we’ve come to know, to having each other through it all! As always, this roundup series focuses on EF-supported teams whose members are working to grow and improve Ethereum as a whole. Included in this edition are updates from many teams highlighted in the previous report, and other…

Nakamigos has officially stepped into the gaming world with the release of Rise of the Wolf, a prototype RPG now available for Windows PCs.Developed by HiFo Labs using the cutting-edge Unreal Engine 5, the game provides an early taste of the Nakamigos-CLOAKS universe. Whilst still in its prototype phase, the game offers immersive combat mechanics and visually striking environments tailored for high-end gaming systems.The game allows players to explore a condensed yet dynamic RPG experience and invites creators to integrate Nakamigos-CLOAKS characters into their own projects. Source: NakamigosWhat is Rise of the Wolf?Rise of the Wolf is an early prototype…

The controversial new rules could burden DeFi front-end operators but could also simplify individual tax returns. The U.S. Treasury and IRS finalized rules on Dec. 27 that will require decentralized finance (DeFi) services to report new data related to crypto activity. DeFi brokers, defined by the Treasury as front-end service providers that interact directly with customers on digital asset transactions, will need to report gross proceeds of the sale of their digital assets through Form 1099. The same requirements already apply to securities brokerages and custodial crypto trading platforms. Operators of digital protocols and protocol software developers aren’t considered brokers…

2024 was another year defined by generative AI, with software features put into the hands of millions of people worldwide and unavoidably built into popular services, like Google Search. While some AI tools, like ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode and Google’s NotebookLM, were delightful to interact with, the prevailing narrative remained on the technology’s inherent flaws, with rampant hallucinations and continued questions about proper data training.I mean, who could forget about Shrimp Jesus and other surreal, AI-generated images spreading across Facebook? Or when AI Overviews told Google users it was OK to eat rocks in moderation as well as put glue…

To film a woman’s barbarous death is a gross betrayal of our common humanity.

Creating intelligent agents has traditionally been a complex task, often requiring significant technical expertise and time. Developers encounter challenges like integrating APIs, configuring environments, and managing dependencies—all of which can make building these systems both daunting and resource-intensive. Simplifying these processes is critical for democratizing AI development and expanding its accessibility. Hugging Face Introduces SmolAgents: A Simple Way to Build Code Agents Hugging Face’s SmolAgents takes the complexity out of creating intelligent agents. With this new toolkit, developers can build agents with built-in search tools in just three lines of code. Yes, only three lines! SmolAgents uses Hugging Face’s powerful…