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If you need a song to convince yourself that D.C. is home to some of the coolest people drawing breath on this sweaty planet, Wifigawd has hundreds. He keeps his voice low like a temperature, using it to rhyme about getting money, getting girls, getting fly, getting high and, cumulatively, about how good it feels to even imagine getting all of those things. As a rapper, hes scrupulous and relaxed, prolific and unhurried, which, according to him, results from growing up in a city where singularity is forged by necessity.

The culture here is all about being one of one, Wifigawd says. I always tell people that nobody in D.C. wants to seem like theyre trying to be somebody else. And being outside in D.C., you will find yourself. Go out on the block with stains on your shirt, your hairline messed up, whatever it may be, and [people will] let you have it.

This is a useful answer to why theres never been a centralized, signature sound style in D.C. rap music, as well as a tidy explanation for why Wifigawds music sounds entirely like his own. His quest for one-of-oneness has involved building an encyclopedic knowledge of classic hip-hop in his childhood, listening voraciously while coming of age in the bluster of the blog rap era, developing a deep fluency in the oozing sounds of Memphis and Houston rap and, ultimately, mastering the art of echolocation in SoundClouds darkest corners. After working with Wifigawd, little-known producers tend to blow up. OogieMane has since supplied tracks to Lil Uzi Vert and Drake. F1lthy has produced for Playboi Carti and Lil Yachty. I guess I knew what an algorithm was before anyone was talking about it, Wifigawd says.

And once he finds the right tracks, he knows exactly how to sink into them, dropping words into the beat the way people drop bowling balls onto Posturepedic mattresses. He switches up his flows incessantly, but with stealth smoothness, like a seven-figure sports car shifting gears on the Autobahn. When he tosses regional references into his rhymes the Solbiato Sport boutique in Georgetown; go-go heroes TOB he does so sparingly. Musically, he tends to gravitate toward melodies that feel as cool as an open refrigerator door in August, and bass timbres that feel like the refrigerator is falling on you a spectrum that ranges from rip your heart out to beautiful, euphoric worlds, as he puts it.

Theres always a consistent vibe from his music, a mood, says Tony Seltzer, the New York producer whos become one of Wifigawds tightest collaborators. The song can be really aggressive, or the song can be really chill, but its just Wifigawd either way. Hes not following trends. Hes literally only setting trends. Every artist I work with is a Wifigawd fan.

Hes been a rappers rapper practically since childhood. Wifigawd doesnt remember the address, but he was born on North Capitol Street in 1995, raised by Rastafarian parents who brought him along to reggae nights at Carter Barron Amphitheater and rap shows at 9:30 Club, where he remembers being crowd-surfed onto the stage during a De La Soul set when he was only in first or second grade. At home, he called himself DJ Melly Mel a nod to the hip-hop pioneer and a play on his given name, Melchizedek and would make mixtapes for fun, picking his favorite cuts from his parents massive vinyl collection (KRS-One, Public Enemy, Jeru the Damaja, just stacks of records) and dubbing them onto cassette. I was watching Beat Street all the time, and I wanted to be the older-brother DJ character, Wifigawd says. So I made a bunch of these little tapes, and Id give them to my teachers, because who else would know this music? If I gave it to another kid, theyd be like: What are you on? Youre weird, bro!

Remember that old hip-hop trope where the aggrieved teacher tells the tomorrow-rapper that theyll never amount to nothing? At the Tree of Life Community School in Northeast Washington, where Wifigawd spent his earliest school years, it was the opposite: If you told your teachers you wanted to be a rapper, theyd be like: Lit. Heres my mixtape. One of those teachers was Gregory Phillips, known outside the classroom by serious rap fans as Grap Luva. Wifigawd says he remembers Phillips occasionally taking leave from work to go on tour with his brother, the legendary DJ-producer Pete Rock. He was one of the first people I told I wanted to rap, Wifigawd says. He would rap when he was teaching us. And then hed tour Japan and come back with all these manga and kung fu toys.

Another teacher at Tree of Life played a fateful role in Wifigawds creative life by bringing him to the Value Village thrift store in Adelphi after he got caught shoplifting from the Macys at Metro Center. He showed me a polo in that thrift store, Wifigawd says, and I started getting fly in the fifth grade. Years later, he realized that the patience and tenacity required to find a pristine Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker on a Goodwill rack ran in tight parallel to his talent for finding the right beats on SoundCloud: Im looking for a hidden gem amongst a whole bunch of [trash].

Since his breakout mixtape, 2016s Fubu 05, his gem collection has been growing at an astonishing rate, with more than 30 mixtapes under his belt. In rap-critic circles, the go-to praise phrase for Wifigawds music remains ahead of his time. So where does that put him now? Ive been rapping for 10 years, but Ive been in the G-league, the underground purgatory, Wifigawd says. But every artist whos established did it for a minute before they got any kind of stride. Its about timing, and Im not worried about nothing. I know my network is impeccable.

He spends most of his days trying to expand that network, trawling for beats for hours on end, seeking out new producers to partner with. I only work with somebody who I really admire. If I [like your music], you could be one of the greatest ever, he says. You know how people say, Treat others how you want to be treated? Thats how I think, creatively. I want to be purely honest with [my producers] and myself. Im not making this for me; Im making it for everybody. And I do care what people think about it.

That level of care reveals itself in even his most nonchalant songs for instance, 7-11, from 36 Chambers of Pressure, Vol. 2, Wifigawds recent mixtape with the French producer Soudiere. Listen to how he squeezes a propulsive internal rhyme into the songs hook with a single world, boatload. Check out the wink to his craft when he brags about having infinite flows. Pay attention to that hiss at the end of the word dollars, and how it makes the word feel super-plural, as if youre suddenly swimming on millions of them.

How many different influences is he siphoning through is brain in moments like these? Ill talk influences all day, because my influences only affect my music in the subtlest ways, Wifigawd says. I grew up off original hip-hop, right? Then I found Memphis. Then the DatPiff wave. Kid Cudis early hooks? Very influential. That laid-back style, very effortless. Currensy in style, beat selection. Dom Kennedy bars. Kanye. Bob Marley. Stevie Wonder. Pharoah Sanders sonically, emotionally which might not make sense for rap, but its all about the feelings for me. When I say Im influenced by certain people, its by the way they make me feel.

So even if Wifigawds sound is built on an incredibly ornate, half-hidden framework of techniques, traditions, styles and flows, its all in service of the feeling a feeling hes trying to vocalize every time he approaches the microphone. The first thing you hear in your head when you hear a beat is probably the right thing, he says of his first-thought-best-thought approach to rapping, casually summarizing a conversation he once had with notable fan-peer Earl Sweatshirt. If I put that bar down, thats what Im going for.

And now, as cool and thorough as his music, hes suddenly defining the entire essence of rap music itself that is, the art-slash-craft of summoning the entirety of your experience into the present, and ultimately trusting yourself in that decisive moment. The one rule of hip-hop is to be original, to be yourself, he says. Thats what it means to be a rapper. You have to have the swag to put it down. What you say is gold. You have to know that. It took me a minute to get to that point, but once youre there, you know what to say. Just go.

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Wifigawd is still rapping two steps ahead of the algorithm - The Washington Post

If you're wondering how to startThe Burning Shores DLC for Horizon Forbidden West, the process is relatively straightforward, but it can be confusing because of one important factor (well, two: but one should be taken care of for you automatically). Before running off to meet Sylens, here's how to trigger the DLC.

Note that The Burning Shores expansion doesn't unlock until 12 a.m. EST on April 19 or 9 p.m. PST on April 18. Though you can pre-load the expansion beforehand, you won't be able to access it in Horizon Forbidden West until those dates and times.

To start The Burning Shores DLC, these are the essential steps.

Here are the steps in more detail.

With the DLC installed,make sureHorizon Forbidden Westupdates to version 1.021. If you already have HFW installed and you're connected to the Internet, thisshould happen automatically. Pull up the Command Center and check your download history for Horizon Forbidden West, not HFW: The Burning Shores. The former is for the update, the latter is for the expansion.

Now start Horizon Forbidden West. If The Burning Shores DLC is installed, you'll seethe expansion's symbolin the top right corner. Text in the symbol will tell you to complete the main questline whether you've got a completed save file or not, so don't worry about that.

However, you'll have to load a completed save file, one after you've completed Singularity, the last primary mission in HFW. You can't trigger the DLC unless you do this. Because of where the expansion's storyline falls in Horizon Forbidden West, New Game+ saves won't work unless you beat Singularity once again in NG+.

Once you load into your completed game, you'll see an overlay with some information. Confirm you've read it. And shortly after, you'll hear Sylens speaking,telling you to meet him at Tilda's, starting the quest, "To the Burning Shores."

And that's how to start The Burning Shores DLC in Horizon Forbidden West. Once you trigger it, many new adventures await. For more, head over to our HFW guides hub.

Featured image by GameSkinny.

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How to Start the Horizon Forbidden West DLC: The Burning Shores ... - Gameskinny

Over the short span of just 300 years, since the invention of modern physics, we have gained a deeper understanding of how our universe works on both small and large scales. Yet, physics is still very young and when it comes to using it to explain life, physicists struggle.

Even today, we cant really explain what the difference is between a living lump of matter and a dead one. But my colleagues and I are creating a new physics of life that might soon provide answers.

More than 150 years ago, Darwin poignantly noted the dichotomy between what we understand in physics and what we observe in lifenoting at the end of The Origin of Species whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.

Isaac Newton described a universe where the laws never change, and time is an immutable and absolute backdrop against which everything moves. Darwin, however, observed a universe where endless forms are generated, each changing features of what came before, suggesting that time should not only have a direction, but that it in some ways folds back on itself. New evolutionary forms can only arise via selection on the past.

Presumably these two areas of science are describing the same universe, but how can two such diametrically opposite views be unified? The key to understanding why life is not explainable in current physics may be to reconsider our notions of time as the key difference between the universe as described by Newton and that of Darwin. Time has, in fact, been reinvented many times through the history of physics.

Although Newtons time was fixed and absolute, Einsteins time became a dimensionjust like space. And just as all points in space exist all at once, so do all points in time. This philosophy of time is sometimes referred to as the block universe where the past, present, and future are equally real and exist in a static structurewith no special now. In quantum mechanics, the passage of time emerges from how quantum states change from one to the next.

The invention of thermodynamics gave time its arrow, explaining why its moving forward rather than backwards. Thats because there are clear examples of systems in our universe, such as a working engine, that are irreversibleonly working in one direction. Each new area of fundamental physics, whether describing space and time (Newton/Einstein), matter and light (quantum mechanics), or heat and work (thermodynamics) has introduced a new concept of time.

But what about evolution and life? To build novel things, evolution requires time. Endless novelty can only come to be in a universe where time exists and has a clear direction. Evolution is the only physical process in our universe that can generate the succession of novel objects we associate to lifethings like microbes, mammals, trees, and even cellphones.

Such objects cannot fluctuate into existence spontaneously. They require a memory, based on what existed in the past, to construct things in the present. It is such selection that determines the dividing line between the universe described by current physics and what Darwin saw: it is the mechanism that turns a universe where memory does not matter in determining what exists, to one where it does.

Think about it, everything in the living world requires some kind of memory and information flow. The DNA in our cells is our blueprint. And to invent new things, such as rockets or medication, living beings also need informationknowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry.

To explain life, we therefore need to understand how the complex objects life creates exist in time. With my collaborators, we have been doing just that in a newly proposed theory of physics called assembly theory.

A key conjecture of assembly theory is that, as objects become more complex, the number of unique parts that make it up increases, and so does the need for local memory to store how to assemble the object from its unique parts. We quantify this in assembly theory as the shortest number of physical steps to build an object from its elementary building blocks, called the assembly index.

Importantly, assembly theory treats this shortest path as an intrinsic property of the object, and indeed we have shown how an assembly index can be measured for molecules using several different measuring techniques including mass spectrometry (an analytical method to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of molecules).

With this approach, we have shown in the lab, with measurements on both biological and non-biological samples, how molecules with an assembly index above 15 steps are only found in living samples.

This suggests that assembly theory is indeed capable of testing our hypothesis that life is the only physics that generates complex objects. And we can do so by identifying those objects that are so complex the only physical mechanism to form them is evolution.

We are aiming to use our theory to estimate when the origin if life happens by measuring the point at which molecules in a chemical soup become so complex that they start using information to make copies of themselvesthe threshold at which life arises from non-life. We may then apply the theory to experiments aiming to generate a new origin of life event in the lab.

And when we know this, we can use the theory to look for life on worlds that are radically different to Earth, and may therefore look so alien that we wouldnt recognize life there.

If the theory holds, it will force a radical rethink on time in physics. According to our theory, assembly can be measured as an intrinsic property for molecules, which corresponds to their size in timemeaning time is a physical attribute.

Ultimately, time is intrinsic to our experiences of the world, and it is necessary for evolution to happen. If we want physics to be capable of explaining lifeand usit may be that we need to treat time as a material property for the first time in physics.

This is perhaps the most radical departure for physics of life from standard physics, but it may be the critical insight needed to explain what life is.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: Zdenk Machek / Unsplash

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Modern Physics Can't Explain LifeBut a New Theory, Which Says ... - Singularity Hub

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Superman: Lost #2Everything fans thought they knew about the source of Superman's powers has just changed. When explaining how he survived an impossible feat, the Man of Steel reveals a hidden aspect that plays a significant role in how his abilities work.

In Superman: Lost #2 by Christopher Priest and Carlo Pagulayan, Clark Kent is still adjusting to normal life on Earth after he'd been lost in space for twenty years. Superman finally opens up to Lois about what happened after he traveled through a quantum singularity. The hero was thrown into another part of the universe where he's saved from the vacuum of space by a group of travelers.

The travelers are skeptical that Clark could seriously survive something as punishing as a singularity, but Superman informs them that Kryptonians have various biochemical reactions to gravity that are enhanced when exposed to solar radiation. After telling his story, Clark is ditched on an alien planet for not being able to pay his rescuers for a ride home. The planet is covered with smog and has a much different level of gravity, forcing Superman to relearn his most basic powers.

Any Superman fan worth their salt knows that the yellow rays of Earth's sun allow him to fly, use heat vision, and pull off the hundreds of amazing feats he's capable of. For most of his superhero career, Clark's powers have depended on what kind of solar radiation he's exposed to. Powerful yellow rays bring out his unique abilities, while weaker red radiation brings him down to a more human level. Superman's powers have even exponentially increased when exposed to a younger blue or white sun.

And while Superman says that solar radiation plays a considerable part his how his powers act, Clark implies that the real root of his abilities is the gravity he experiences. In the past, Clark has described himself as a living battery that constantly absorbs sunlight which fuels his powers. But now Clark says planet's gravity determines what he can do. While it's a minor change, it does raise the question of how Clark's powers could change on a plant with different gravity compared to Earth's.

If Clark's powers are rooted in how his body reacts to gravity, then it stands to reason that a world with a stronger or weaker force could affect his powers. Of course, even Clark says that "a thousand variables" are at play regarding his abilities, including sunlight. So what happens when he's on a planet like Earth with similar amounts of a yellow sun but a weaker gravity? Does Superman become faster? And does he get stronger or more durable with harsher gravity? There are a lot of questions that come up with this new insight into Superman's powers and what it could mean for the hero going forward. Fans can see Clark explain how his abilities really work in Superman: Lost #2, on sale now.

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Superman Explains the Real Source of His Powers (Not Sunlight) - Screen Rant

Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk warned Monday of the potential pitfalls of groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) technology, telling "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that while he has butted heads with regulators in the past, this new frontier can be potentially dangerous if there aren't boundaries or guidelines.

Musk recounted working with Google co-founder Larry Page years back on artificial intelligence, saying he would warn Page about the importance of AI "safety."

He also stated how humans' edge on their primate cousins are that while chimpanzees are more agile and stronger, homosapiens are smarter. In that regard, AI would top humanity in its most prolific category, he warned.

"Now what happens when something vastly smarter than the smartest person comes along in silicon form? It's very difficult to predict what will happen in that circumstance," he said.

IT PRESUMES TO REPLACE US: CONCERNS ABOUT AI BIAS GROW AS MUSK ISSUES NEW WARNING

"It's called the singularity. It's a singularity like a black hole, because you don't know what happens after that. It's hard to predict. So I think we should be cautious with A.I., and I think there should be some government oversight because it is a danger to the public."

In the same way the government is tasked, via the FDA and USDA, to safeguard food and drug consumption or the FAA for airborne entities so should there be parameters for artificial intelligence.

Musk said he has been a longtime advocate of strong but sensible regulation, so that companies don't cut corners on safety and get people hurt.

"It's not fun to be regulated. It's sort of arduous to be regulated. I have a lot of experience with very good regulated industries because obviously automotive is highly regulated. You can fill this room with all the regulations that are required for a production car just in the United States."

ELON MUSK TO DEVELOP TRUTHGPT; WARNS OF CIVILIZATIONAL DESTRUCTION FROM AI

"And same thing is true with rockets. You can't just willy-nilly shoot rockets off. Not big ones anyway because the FAA oversees that. And then even to get a launch license, there are probably half a dozen or more federal agencies that need to approve it, plus state agencies," Musk went on.

He said that despite claims of being a "regulatory maverick" that can "defy" regulators with every new industry he builds or joins, it is realistically not the case.

ELON MUSK SITS WITH TUCKER FOR TWO PART EVENT

Musk proposed the formation of an agency that would begin by crowdsourcing regulatory proposals from the AI industry and draft rules that would be accepted by the leading figures and companies.

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"I think we have a better chance of advanced A.I. being beneficial to humanity in that circumstance," he said.

Musk envisioned how a "superintelligent" AI entity could begin influencing public opinion on a certain topic in a negative or flawed way, with the populace unable to discern its destructive conclusion.

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Musk on AI regulation: 'It's not fun to be regulated' but artificial intelligence may need it - Fox News