If you’re a GIMP user but came from Photoshop like me, then it probably felt a bit awkward and clunky to you — this is one of the downsides of open-source creative tools. This didn’t deter me, however, as I knew GIMP is highly customizable, so there had to be some tweaks I could make. I ended up finding the right settings and managed to mold GIMP into the perfect image editor for me, from layout to feature functions and settings. Here’s what I changed…

What's the point of having a powerful PC if it doesn't look good? I mean, sure, it can play all the latest and greatest games, but if it doesn't look cool, then you can't show it off. Fortunately, PC designers know this and make some seriously sweet-looking computers for me to ogle at and then never actually purchase.

Most people know OctoPrint as a must-have for 3D printer users. It provides remote access, easy file uploads, and powerful plugin support. But lately, I’ve been using it for something a little different: controlling my diode and IR laser engraver. OctoPrint isn’t officially designed for that task, but with the correct setup and expectations, it works surprisingly well.

It seems this year is the year a few operating systems move on from their old shells. For example, Microsoft is sunsetting Windows 10 this October, hoping that all its users will migrate to Windows 11 (and not Linux). Now, it seems that Linux is seeing its own shift as distros begin dropping support for X11 and embracing Wayland.

Network cards are among the most sought-after upgrades in the home lab department, and for good reason. Not only can they add more ports for your Ethernet/Fibre channels, but you can also go for ultra-fast models that can kick your transfer speeds up a notch.

I think it's the dream of every 3D printer enthusiast to gain the ability to 3D print anything they want. Want a new computer? Perhaps a new house? Maybe a steak dinner? Get it 3D printed. Of course, we are decades away from having everything at the end of a 3D printer's nozzle, but we're making some excellent progress.

So, Stellar Blade just released for PC on June 12th, and it blazed past the 1-million mark in sales in just three days. In terms of player count, the game has become the #1 PS-exclusive game ported over to Steam, hitting a peak concurrent-user count of 192,078 players. Those are insane numbers, and so is the game itself — none of the praise is undeserved.

A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. Tesla finally did the damn thing. The company launched its hotly anticipated robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22nd — and we’re now starting to see some of the first reactions roll in.But first, we have to get a few important caveats out of the way. Tellingly, the service is not open to the general public, nor is it completely “unsupervised,” as Elon Musk once promised. The vehicles will include Tesla-employed “safety monitors” in the front passenger seat who can react to a dangerous situation by hitting a kill switch. Other autonomous vehicle operators would place safety monitors in the driver or passenger seats, but typically only during the testing phase. Tesla is unique in its use of safety monitors during commercial service.The rides are limited to a geofenced area of the city that has been thoroughly mapped by the company. And in some cases, Tesla is using chase cars and remote drivers as additional backup. (Some vehicles have been spotted without chase vehicles.)The service is invite only at launch, according to Tesla’s website. A number of pro-Tesla influencers have received invites, which should raise questions about how unbiased these first critical reactions will be. Tesla hasn’t said when the service will be available to the general public.View LinkThe limited trial includes 10-20 Model Y vehicles with “Robotaxi” branding on the side. The fully autonomous Cybercab that was first revealed last year won’t be available until 2026 at the earliest. The service operates in a small, relatively safe area of Austin from 6AM to 12AM, avoiding bad weather, highways, airports, and complex intersections.Despite those hours, the robotaxi service seems to have gotten off to a slow start. Several invitees had yet to receive the robotaxi app by 1PM ET on Sunday. Sawyer Merritt, who posts pro-Tesla content on X, said he saw 30 Waymo vehicles go by while waiting for Tesla’s robotaxi service to start. Musk posted at 1:12PM that the service would be available later that afternoon, adding that initial customers would pay a “flat fee” of $4.20 for rides — a weed joke with which Musk has a troubled history. While riders waited, the company published a new robotaxi page to its website detailing a lot of the rules and guidelines of the service. Visitors are invited to sign up for updates about when Tesla’s robotaxi service may come to their area. (Musk has said there could be up to a thousand robotaxis on the road “in a few months.”)After finally being granted access to the app, Merritt posted an image of the service area map, which appeared to cover a small area bordered by the Colorado River to the north, Highway 183 to the east, Highways 290 and 71 to the south, and Zilker Part to the west. View LinkAnd then the rides began — and they appeared to be mostly uneventful. Several invitees livestreamed themselves summoning their first cars, interacting with the UI, and then arriving at their destination. Several videos lasted hours, as the invitees would conclude a trip and then hail another car immediately after. One tester, Bearded Tesla Guy, described the app’s interface as “basically Uber.” Many had some difficulty finding the pickup location of their waiting Tesla robotaxi. “This is like Pokemon hunting,” one person on Herbert Ong’s livestream said, “but its robotaxi hunting.”View LinkOnce inside, the Tesla-employed safety monitor would ask the riders to show their robotaxi apps to prove their identities. Otherwise the safety monitors kept silent throughout the ride, despite riders trying to get them to talk. I’m assuming that Tesla will need to come up with some other way to identify their riders if they plan on removing the safety monitors from the passenger seat. Waymo, for example, asks customers to unlock their vehicle through the ridehail app. The rear screen instructs the riders to fasten their seatbelts, and after pressing an animated “start ride” button, the vehicle gets underway. Riders can also start the ride from a similar button in the app. Since riders are registering for the robotaxi app using their preexisting Tesla profiles, they’re greeted with their preferred music apps on the rear screen with all their playlists and saved tracks. View LinkThe front display shows a visualization similar to consumer vehicles using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature — even though Musk had said the robotaxis are running on a special version of FSD that’s not available to the average Tesla owner. There are “pull over,” “stop in lane,” or “support” buttons on the center display. Another tester, Chuck Cook, said the visualization lacked some of the controls that a normal Tesla might have. Pressing the support button places the rider in a queue as they wait for the remote operator to connect. On Cook’s livestream, it took approximately two minutes before an operator finally connected. “We appreciate you calling in,” the operator said (though the cellular connection was poor). “We’re here for any issues to support your ride.”Throughout the various trips, the robotaxis encountered a bevy of normal situations, like U-turns, speed bumps, pedestrians, construction, and more. The vehicles maintained speeds of about 40 mph or slower. Common words to describe the ride was “smooth,” “great,” and “normal.” One tester said on X that they got the robotaxi to “mess up” in a way that required the remote operator to help out — though they declined to describe it as a disengagement. Ashok Elluswamy, the head of the company’s self-driving team, posted a photo of several dozen people in a room with 10 large monitors on the wall showing live camera feeds from several vehicles. “Robotaxi launch party,” Elluswamy wrote. View LinkWhere Tesla goes from here is the real challenge. Musk has said he also wants to launch a robotaxi service in California, where the regulatory process is a lot more complex than Texas. And even though he has said he wants to take things slow, he also claims that Tesla will have over a thousand driverless vehicles on the road “within a few months.” Meanwhile, Waymo is operating more than 1,500 driverless vehicles in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin — with plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, DC in the near future. The Alphabet-owned company has said it will grow its fleet to 2,000 vehicles by next year.

Every seven to eight years, we see a change in gaming generations, with the next new hardware arriving on the scene. However, there are generational leaps, and then there are seismic, era-defining shifts that completely flip the status quo on its head. Ones that make us go "Whoa, is this what games can be now?"

I've been resisting wiring up my home network because, well, I hate wires. But I can't deny the benefits that 10 GbE has brought to my network, so it was definitely time to start wiring things up. This was made easier with a prosumer stack due to one key feature: Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). Or more specifically, for the managed switch I picked up, PoE++.

3D printing projects come in all shapes and sizes, but I have a personal soft spot when they bring something from the world of video games into the real world. For example, there was that one time that someone 3D printed the Doomguy's entire armor set using models supplied by Bethesda itself, so it was as close as we'd get to seeing what the main character would look like if they ever arrived in our world.

One of the biggest perks of home labs is that you can put together a couple of experimentation and self-hosting servers using all sorts of hardware, including SBCs, NAS, old PCs, or enterprise-grade rigs. This flexibility also extends to the software side of the equation.