Technology

A polished Linux terminal rarely arrives preconfigured. TheLinux terminal fits most people, but the setups people admire are assembled piece by piece around stuff like Zsh and Oh My Zsh. Here is what those tools are, why they make a strong foundation, and whether the effort pays off.

For most of my life, owning a PC meant having a tower case so big it made more sense to keep it on the floor. But with all the hardware stuffed in that box, it actually needed to be that size.

I'd never imagined that I would be using a task manager from the Linux terminal. Using commands to create to-do lists instead of using a cool-looking GUI with color customization options. That's until I came across Taskwarrior. It's a free, open-source task manager that's also simple to use. But that's the point. It can replace other bloated desktop apps.

Apple wanted its original iMac to look like the future, and even the mouse got the translucent-plastic treatment. The trouble was that the mouse was a circle, and hands aren't particularly circular. What followed was a small but fascinating collection of products designed to make Apple's distinctive little puck more comfortable, more familiar, or entirely unnecessary.

We're in the midst of the fall TV onslaught, when many big shows come firing back with hot new seasons. If you're a planner with severe FOMO like me, a good look ahead at what's coming is just the kind of obsessive thing you need to make sure you don't miss anything.

There's plenty of magic, mythology, and larger-than-life action in Children of Blood and Bone, but beneath all that fantasy is something a little more grounded: family drama.

The upcoming adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi's bestselling novel closed out Saturday night at New York Comic Con with a packed panel on the Empire Stage, where director Gina Prince-Bythewood and the star-studded cast debuted an extended trailer offering fans another look at the fantastical world of Orïsha. And while the footage delivered on the film's epic scale, some of its most compelling moments were decidedly more intimate.

SEE ALSO: How 'Children of Blood and Bone' is bringing one of BookTok's biggest fantasy worlds to the big screen

The trailer puts the royal family's fractured relationships into sharper focus. After witnessing a horrific act of violence at the hands of her father, King Saran (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Princess Amari (Amandla Stenberg) flees the palace, while her brother, Inan (Damson Idris), finds himself torn between loyalty to his father and his own conscience.

During a conversation moderated by Knives Out filmmaker Rian Johnson, the cast opened up about the emotional conflicts driving the film's two central families. Johnson described the relationship between Saran and his children as a "Shakespearean journey," one defined by love, betrayal, and the struggle to trust the people closest to you.

(L-R) Rian Johnson, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Thuso Mbedu, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, Tosin Cole, Cynthia Erivo, Lashana Lynch, and Chiwetel Ejiofor attend New York Comic Con 2026. Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures A royal family divided

Children of Blood and Bone follows Zélie Adebola (Thuso Mbedu), a young woman determined to restore magic to Orïsha after a brutal campaign against the maji, the people who once wielded it. Her quest puts her on a collision course with the ruling monarchy, where the king's cruelty has already begun to fracture his own family.

Ejiofor described King Saran as a man impelled by trauma and rage, whose convictions are challenged over the course of the story. "There's a sort of bottomless pit that he has," the actor said of his character's emotional intensity.

To explore the royal family's complicated history, Prince-Bythewood brought the three actors together to imagine the experiences that shaped their characters, including moments that might never appear onscreen. "Gina got us together and we kind of just talked about things that may have happened and may not have happened, and the dynamics of a family such as this," Idris said. "I think that all shows itself on screen."

For Idris, those conversations were essential to understanding Inan, a prince struggling to reconcile his father's expectations with his own beliefs. "Inan personally is such a complicated character who goes through so many different emotions," he said, adding that Prince-Bythewood gave him the patience and space to explore those contradictions.

The royal family on their thrones. Credit: Lephatse Motshana Courtesy of © 2026 Paramount Pictures

Stenberg, meanwhile, was drawn to the tension between love and mistrust within the family, particularly how difficult it can be to rebuild a relationship after someone has hurt you. "There's something so beautiful and painful about when people love each other, [as] family, and are also trying to find a window of trust with each other, even when they have been hurt badly," Stenberg said.

The actors began developing that dynamic through video calls while living in different countries, before continuing the character work together on set in South Africa. For Stenberg, exploring those relationships was both emotionally demanding and rewarding. "We had such a good time," she recalled. "It was so sad, and it was so awesome."

And despite the family's fractured relationships, Ejiofor emphasized that their connection isn't entirely defined by conflict. "It is a deeply dysfunctional family," he said. "But there is love at the root of it."

Two siblings, one shared loss

That tension between love and conflict isn't limited to the royal family. On the other side of Orïsha's political divide are Zélie and her older brother, Tzain (Tosin Cole), whose relationship is similarly shaped by loss.

The siblings have experienced the same family tragedy, but they don't necessarily agree on how to move forward. As Cole explained, grief can manifest differently even among people who have suffered the same loss.

"Some people become defensive, some people rebel," Cole said. "Everyone's going through the same thing, just navigating it in a different way."

Tosin Cole, Amandla Stenberg, Thuso Mbedu, and Damson Idris pose for photos at New York Comic Con. Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

But despite their differences, Zélie and Tzain are ultimately driven by the same motivation to protect what's left of their family. "That's the most important thing between the two," Cole added. "Trying to keep whatever they have in the sense of love, and not trying to lose another family member."

Offscreen, however, Mbedu and Cole's sibling dynamic appeared considerably less fraught. The two spent weeks training together for the film's demanding action sequences, developing a natural familiarity that occasionally made Mbedu forget they weren't actually related.

"Sometimes I would forget that this is not my actual sibling," Mbedu recalled, joking that she'd have to remind herself to be professional on set. Then, gesturing toward Cole, she called him a "clown."

"I won't apologize for who I am," Cole shot back.

It was a playful exchange that offered a glimpse of their easy chemistry, and a welcome contrast to the royal family's considerably more complicated relationships.

Finding the humanity in fantasy

For Prince-Bythewood, those complicated relationships are what give the film's enormous scale its emotional weight. During the panel, she described her vision for Children of Blood and Bone as an "intimately grounded fantasy," one where the gods, magic, and battles never overshadow the people at the center of the story.

The filmmaker, whose previous credits include Love & Basketball and The Woman King, recalled asking Johnson for advice about approaching a production of this size. His response was simple: No matter how much money or how many resources a filmmaker has, the responsibility is still to tell a good story.

That attention to character extends to the world of Orïsha itself. Prince-Bythewood wanted the fantasy kingdom to feel tangible, building elaborate sets and filming in remote locations across South Africa.

A scene screened exclusively at NYCC offered a glimpse of that vision in action. Zélie trains with a bo staff under Mama Agba's (Viola Davis) watchful eye before she and the others hurriedly hide their weapons and pretend to weave clothing when royal officials arrive to collect taxes. It's a sequence that showcases the film's intricate fight choreography while underscoring the constant threat of living under King Saran's rule.

That attention to worldbuilding extends to the music. Prince-Bythewood wanted Orïsha to sound rooted in the past while still feeling contemporary. While writing the screenplay, she listened almost exclusively to Afrobeats, particularly Tems and Burna Boy, who later joined the production as soundtrack curator and music consultant, respectively. Composer Terence Blanchard then incorporated traditional African instrumentation and Tems' vocals into his orchestral score, blending contemporary sounds with musical traditions that could make Orïsha feel both ancient and alive.

It's all part of Prince-Bythewood's approach to creating a fantasy world that feels lived-in, even when its characters are wielding magic and fighting gods. And as the cast made clear at NYCC, the film's most consequential battles aren't necessarily fought with weapons or magic. Sometimes they're fought within families, between people who love each other but can't agree on what that love demands.

Children of Blood and Bone hits theaters on Jan. 15, 2027.

Ditching Google on an Android phone isn't as hard as you might think — until you need directions. Gmail, Search, and even YouTube all have decent replacements, but Google Maps is harder to part ways with. Not many alternatives offer live traffic, accurate business info, and reliable navigation in one app. Vela Maps is trying to change that.

If you use either Plex or Jellyfin, you'll know that managing your library can take up more time than you originally expected. It's an important part of the process, though. Both apps pull in the standard metadata for your content, but it's mostly factual information and doesn't necessarily reflect how you're going to use your library.

Linux ships with hundreds of small utilities, and most people stick to a handful. Turns out, there are tons of forgotten commands that can be either slightly fun or extremely useful. Three of them, tac, shuf, and timeout, solve common problems in a single line and take seconds to learn. And they might just earn a spot in your repertoire of commands.

Last Thursday, Anthropic updated its usage policy, which has been evolving almost as quickly as artificial intelligence, but what stood out in this most recent revision was an emphasis on protecting the AI agent from humans. 

In a subsection titled "Addressing abusive behavior toward our models," Anthropic announced it would prohibit "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models." This will primarily be enforced by Claude preemptively ending the conversation.

SEE ALSO: Claude sent phony tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police

Anthropic was quick to point out that these measures won't be triggered by "common versions of user frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or model testing and research." However, it seems pretty clear that a new status quo now exists, and whether or not AI agents have feelings that can be hurt, their creators want us to treat them as if they do. 

Up until now, restrictions on Claude's use have revolved around either protecting the user or serving some version of the common good. Anthropic quickly imposed strict limits on the kind of sexual fantasies its agents could engage in, for example, or attempts to gather how-to information about perpetrating acts of violence, thereby (hopefully) preventing its complicity in a future terror attack or mass casualty event. But this recent revision marks a shift in protective emphasis, from users and a tangible, real-world community to the AI agents themselves.

All of this, of course, has only added fuel to the debate over whether or not AI is conscious, which is much more widespread than you might realize. Per the New York Times, Anthropic cofounder and AI consciousness truther Chris Olah recently made his case before the Vatican and a small army of religious scholars, who ultimately rejected his claims and declined to take his side.

Don't expect their disagreement to end the debate, though. The new usage policy takes effect on Nov. 12, 2026, at which point we'll all be treating AI as if it has the capacity to feel or take offense, regardless.

While the term "agentic AI" has circulated in tech and business for some time, frontier AI companies like OpenAI and Meta are now reimagining it for the masses. Imagine an AI pet with a cute name and a distinctive personality that can perform tasks on your behalf. That's essentially the idea behind OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse — personal AI agents designed to handle tasks for you.

Let's face it, we've all seen guides on router settings and things of that nature. Many are actually useful; sure, there are always things to optimize in nearly every network, and if something gets past you, you might be actively bottlenecking your own connection.

Fall is one of those seasons that makes staying in with a good movie feel like the better plan. And while cozy watches usually bring warm small towns, books, and sweeping romances to mind, sometimes all you really need is a simple story that helps you relax after a long day.

Google is upgrading SynthID with the SynthID Detector tool. In addition, they're expanding the media that can be detected. Now, it goes beyond Google's models to include images, videos, and audio files from OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Kakao. Google says it will soon include AI-generated media from Apple, too.

SynthID is a tool from Google that was created to help identify AI images, videos, and audio. Google's AI models embed a watermark that's invisible to the human eye within AI-generated images. SynthID can detect these watermarks and inform users that they're viewing an AI-generated or manipulated media.

SEE ALSO: Google Gemini access is changing. Free users, take note.

According to Google, the company has watermarked more than 180 billion images and videos, as well as 240,000 years' worth of audio content, since the tool launched in 2023.

To use the SynthID Detector, simply go to synthid.com and log in using your Google, Apple, or ChatGPT account. Next, upload a media file and let the tool get to work. The SynthID Detector will let you know whether it detects a SynthID watermark and whether it designates the content as AI-generated.

One important thing to note: The SynthID Detector is not an AI detection tool. It detects the watermark that certain AI models embed in AI-generated media. If you upload AI-generated content that does not have the SynthID watermark, the SynthID Detector cannot help you detect whether the media is AI or not.

Attendees of the recently concluded New York Comic Con were treated to a new trailer for the upcoming Blade Runner 2099 series airing on Prime Video.

Plot details thus far are sparse, but based on the series' logline, sometime after the events of the Blade Runner films, the city of Los Angeles now sits at the center of a post-revolutionary world in which Replicants have taken control and humans have been relegated to second-class status.

SEE ALSO: 'Blade Runner 2099' teaser: Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer team up and hunt rogue replicants

Michelle Yeoh plays Olwen, an aging Replicant Blade Runner teaming up with Hunter Schafer's Cora, a human pretending to be a replicant, to track down some rogue Replicants. The trailer promises a gritty detective thriller made in the spirit of the prior entries, asking important questions about what it is to be human.

Initial fan reaction to the trailer has been overwhelmingly positive, with an emphasis on the stunning visuals, futuristic color palette, and gritty feel of the world, evoked by the industrial cityscapes and cramped public transportation. Though previous Blade Runner films have always invoked otherworldly colonies, none have spent much time exploring them, but some of the space shots here, plus a quick teaser of one of the protagonists in a space suit, offer the tantalizing possibility that we'll finally experience the full scope of the Blade Runner universe.

The series is set to premiere on Prime Video on Nov. 25, 2026.

Saturday Night Live is, as the name suggests, live television, so the occasional flubbed line comes with the territory. When a slip gets a little more colorful than network censors would like, it’s usually a guest host behind it, though the cast isn’t immune. Just ask Ego Nwodim, who once got the studio audience to say "s*it" during Weekend Update.

This week, it was host Shane Gillis. The comedian dropped an accidental f-bomb during a sketch riffing on Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. In it, Gillis plays a son trying to protect his elderly father (Mikey Day) from Sam-I-Am (Andrew Dismukes), who won’t stop pushing food the old man doesn’t want.

"Is this some kind of money thing?" Gillis asks Sam-I-Am. "My dad’s older, he gets confused sometimes, so I don’t appreciate you being in his house asking him a million questions."

Credit where it’s due to Mikey Day for rolling the mistake into the skit. As father and son start arguing, Day calls Gillis a loser son who works at "James Johnathan's" (aka Jimmy John's) and points out that “he said a bad word.”

Programming languages like BASIC, C, Java, Pascal, and so many more exist because it's hard for humans to code in assembly language, and basically impossible to do in pure machine code. High-level programming languages are meant to be the middle road, where humans can still interpret the code, but a compiler can still make half-decent binaries that aren't too inefficient.

Password managers are essential for most of us. We can’t remember dozens of unique passwords, yet we need them almost every day. For years, we’ve paid for password manager subscriptions because they’re convenient and let us access our passwords across all our devices.

Saturday Night Live opened this week by handing Colin Jost a promotion. Jost suited up as Pete Hegseth, the head of the newly rebranded Department of Defense War, for the cold open.

Hegseth welcomes the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln home after 10 months at sea, one of the longest naval deployments since the Vietnam War. His victory lap doesn’t go as planned. The sailors make it clear that, one, they’re not thrilled with him, and two, they have some serious questions about the Pentagon’s new “Nazi eagle” logo.

“It’s an American eagle, with a Nazi vibe,” Hegseth clarifies quickly.

James Austin Johnson, usually busy playing Trump, popped up as Health Secretary RFK Jr. for a nice change of pace. He assured the crew that the country they’d come home to is healthier than ever, give or take the handful of new viruses that have cropped up from recent food-borne illness outbreaks.

So, you have a 3D printer, but you’re not super happy with the results of your prints. Well, have no fear! Tuning your printer used to require searching for and downloading tons of models, but OrcaSlicer is here to save the day. Follow me as I walk you through all the steps you’ll need to completely dial in your printer for near-perfect prints every time.