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Hidden away in the Colorado Rockies, a Sicilian resort, or a Utah ski lodge are some of the most exclusive events a billionaire can hope to attend. Attendee lists are so all-star that even the Goldman Sacks chief executive is a 'third-tier guest' and if you have to ask, you're not invited. Between discussions topics like 'can you marry a robot?' quizzes on tech trends and performances by celebrities, deals are made and executives are hired. More and more of these elite getaways are popping up as guests crave time away from the spotlight with few cameras and everything is...

Once one of the heaviest steam locomotives in the world, the Big Boy 4014 recently stumbled into a mission. The famous Union Pacific Big Boy was the heaviest steam locomotive ever built when it became operational in the 1940s. An icon of the American railroads, it was retired from service in 1959 as the diesel age took hold. Recently, however, the last running Big Boy was tasked with the important mission of rescuing a freight train stalled in Nebraska. The video shows the 4014 gently pulling up and coupling with the freight train ahead. After a spell, it roars into...

Valve’s Steam Deck is capable of being much more than a handheld game console. It doubles as a powerful Linux PC that could realistically be your daily driver. Because of that, some experienced PC gamers may feel completely out of their depth when booting into the Steam Deck’s desktop mode. ... And remember that Generation Z grew up without a basic understanding of filesystems and operating system folder structures. It’s not their fault. Everything is an app or Google search away now. They main their smartphones, not laptops. These users are asking very honest, very innocent questions. Don’t laugh. Don’t...

BattlEye was another blocker for Proton, not working, despite so many popular online Windows games using it. Games that currently use BattlEye include (but not limited to):

If you want to take your mind off of the current events, tired of the toxic official servers and wanna play with like minded people and have fun, let me know. I host a family friendly Ark: Survival Evolved server (a second one coming soon). Message me if you are interested, as of now I have 6 slots available, can expand it to 20 players depending on interest. Server is set to max difficulty Boosted settings to make it less grindy. Mods: structures+, super spyglass, dino Tracker, classic flyers, castles/keeps/forts, upgrade station, super stacks. Server is set to PvE, but...

I am wondering if there are some Freepers out there that might be interested in joing a private PvE Ark server on preferably Steam, or Epic? I am thinking about renting a Nitrado server, around 20 people, or more if there is an interest. Mostly it would be PvE, but now and then switch it up to PvP just for some competition and entertainment (allow people to opt out of PvP if they want), stats would be slightly boosted just for game progression. Map selection would be Crystal Isles (can switch it up if people would like to try a...

Over two decades, they managed to dig more than 7.5 miles down into the Earth. However, in 1992 they had to stop drilling because the temperature was around 180 degrees Celsius, which was far hotter than the scientists predicted it would be. If you fell down the hole, it would take around 3.5 to 4 minutes to reach the bottom.

A Bay Area man who allegedly talked online about wanting to emulate the Poway synagogue shooter “except with a Nazi uniform on” is in county jail and facing three felony charges, after an investigation by the FBI and Concord police. Concord resident Ross Anthony Farca, 23, was charged this week with making criminal threats, as well as manufacturing and possessing an assault weapon. The charges stem from comments Farca allegedly posted to his account on Steam, a popular video game platform. Farca’s screen name was “Adolf Hitler (((6 Million))),” a reference to the number of Jewish people killed during the...

The Glory of Steam Trains

The Steam video game store has changed its content policy to "allow everything", unless it is illegal or "straight up trolling". The shift comes after controversy surrounding games which many people considered were offensive. A school shooting simulation game was removed from the store last month. But now games publisher Valve, which owns Steam, said it was not up to the company to decide what should or should not be on sale. The new policy paves the way for pornographic games to be made available on the platform, including in virtual reality. It would make the Steam store the first...

Fight of Gods pits deities from various pantheons, including Buddha, Odin, Zeus, and Anubis, against one another in one-on-one brawls for the right to lead the world to enlightenment (or something like that, anyway). It's not the first such game to take that angle—Faith Fighter, which enables you to "choose your belief and kick the shit out of your enemies," caused a stir nearly a decade ago—but it may be the first to so obviously capitalize on the easy and inevitable controversy caused by such an up-front inclusion of Christianity. And it worked, although perhaps not in quite the way...

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

The outage appears to be worldwide. It's not just you: Steam is down. As far as we can tell, it's down worldwide (a contact in Germany confirmed that it's down there), both the store and services, meaning that some of your single-player games won't work unless you go into offline mode. (I just tried to fire up Fallout 4 and it's a no-go; Escape Goat 2, on other hand, works fine, albeit without access to cloud saves.) We don't know what's going on at this point, but I've emailed Valve for more information and will update when the situation changes....

Today marks a huge milestone for Steam on Linux: 1,500 games are natively available! This is quite significant while Windows is at 6,464 and OS X is at 2,323.New games continue to be ported to Linux and offered via Steam almost daily. This is all while the Steam Linux market-share is below 1%. Heck, even stats well outside the gaming space show Linux desktop use at less than 2%.While the Linux gaming marketshare right now is very tiny, game developers continue porting to Linux in anticipation of a return on investment down the road as more gamers try out SteamOS...

One of the first paid mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim released on Thursday as part of Steam's new program has been removed from sale amid claims that it contained the work of another modder. The mod in question was for a fishing animation for the open-world fantasy RPG; Valve even promoted this mod on the new Steam Workshop page (though it's since been replaced). The mod was developed by Chesko and aqqh, but as detailed in this Destructoid report, it actually contained assets from another modder Fore's New Idles in Skyrim creation without his permission. Fore wrote in...

1906 Advance Steam Traction Engine. Lovingly restored by Jay's friend Orman Rawlings, this 104-year-old steam-powered vehicle weighs 13 tons and clocks about 4 mph. If you need traction for your more rugged outdoor projects, this engine recently hauled a 55,000-pound sled!

New York Central's 20th Century Limited  (photo: Wikipedia) More at Reaganite Republican...

A modern John Deere tractor with 850 horsepower plays tug of war with an 1800s era steam tractor that has about 18 horsepower. While both are capable of getting an honest day's work done, there is only one that proves its dominance through sheer power.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — In its prime, a massive steam locomotive known as Big Boy No. 4014 was a moving eruption of smoke and vapor, a 6,300-horsepower brute dragging heavy freight trains over the mountains of Wyoming and Utah. It's been silent for half a century, pushed aside by more efficient diesels, but now it's coming back to life. The Union Pacific Railroad is embarking on a yearslong restoration project that will put No. 4014 back to work pulling special excursion trains. "It's sort of like going and finding the Titanic or something that's just very elusive, nothing that we...

Train 42, 'The Pelican', headed by N&W 4-8-4 Class J 603 arrives at Rural Retreat, VA eastbound from New Orleans to Washington shortly before 10pm Dec. 27th, 1957, and thunders off into the night. The Norfolk & Western Railway's own Class J was perhaps the finest of all express steam engines, and 603 is heard here in its last days of main line service with a consist of 17 cars. The photograph is of Train 17 'The Birmingham Special' westbound arriving later that same night at 11:37pm, being waved through by Agent J.L. Akers. The photograph and sound recording were...