Bills

Home Bills Page 77

US SEC proposes long-awaited crypto rules

0


WASHINGTON – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday proposed a new ​regulatory framework for crypto assets, the first ‌major step under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to give the industry the tailored rules it has long pushed ​for.

The SEC’s proposal would exempt certain crypto ​companies and offerings from U.S. securities rules, ⁠which should make it easier for crypto companies ​to issue tokens and raise money.

The SEC’s plan “seeks to ​provide crypto asset entrepreneurs and market participants with clear pathways to raise capital under the federal securities laws,” Chairman ​Paul Atkins said in a statement.

It would allow ​a one-time exemption to issue up to $5 million in crypto ‌tokens ⁠during a four-year period. It would also allow offerings of up to $75 million during each 12-month period, though issuers would still have to provide financial ​statements and ​meet regular ⁠reporting requirements. Under both exemptions, token issuers would still need to disclose certain ​information to investors.

The SEC’s proposal also ​includes ⁠a safe harbor that would exclude a crypto asset from being deemed an investment contract, if certain ⁠conditions ​are met.

Reporting by Ryan Patrick ​Jones and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington, Chris Prentice in Houston and ​Hannah Lang in New York; Editing by Katharine Jackson.

Gulf Oil Giants Push to Expand Overseas Stockpiles as Iran War Drags On

0



Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seeking larger oil reserves in Japan and South Korea as regional conflict threatens supply routes.

Amy Schumer’s latest movie gives divorce a fresh twist

0


Trainwreck star Amy Schumer is producing and starring in Best Divorce Ever, a significant new comedy that tackles one of life’s most difficult themes.

The 45-year-old comedian and actress will portray Clarissa in the upcoming movie written and directed by Sean Mullin, who claims that his own peaceful divorce served as inspiration for the plot.

The movie centers on Franklin and Clarissa, a couple who want to dissolve their 20-year marriage without truly ending their romance.

Determined to keep things amicable, they even host an “Untying the Knot” celebration before attempting to navigate life as singles.

However, their intentions swiftly devolve into chaos as their picture-perfect split is threatened by bad dates, suspicious kids, and failed attempts at “conscious uncoupling.”

Concourse Media and Archetype Media Finance are funding the project, with global sales scheduled to begin in Toronto next month.

Additionally, Amy Schumer will produce alongside Natalie Metzger and Matthew Lee Miller of Vanishing Angle.

Matthew Shreder, CEO of Concourse Media, commended her ability to use humor to address difficult themes and described the movie as the ideal vehicle for her signature daring comedy.

Mullin joked that he wanted to refute the notion that divorce must always be acrimonious, saying, “Divorce has a branding problem.”

The announcement follows a significant shift in the Kinda Pregnant star’s personal life. After seven years of marriage, she filed for divorce from chef Chris Fischer in January.

The former couple stated that their seven-year-old son, Gene, remains their top priority.

From Inside Amy Schumer to Trainwreck and Netflix’s Kinda Pregnant, Schumer has frequently incorporated relationships and family life into her comedy.

Israel Strikes Air Base in Syria, Drawing Ire From the U.S.

0



American and Syrian officials said Israel carried out the attack, the latest in a series of military interventions in Syria over the past two years.

Here’s the latest.

0



Voters in Alaska, Wyoming and Florida are nominating candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, and a California district will move one step closer to finding a replacement for its disgraced former Congressman.

At Ex-Premier Zhu Rongji’s Funeral, China’s Past Shadows Its Present

0



Beijing wants to portray today’s China as carrying forward Zhu Rongji’s era of growth, but for many Chinese, the optimism of that time has since faded.

Chocó, Colombia, Faces Deeper Hardship After an Earthquake

0



In Chocó, a remote region, “pain, hunger and homelessness await” survivors of last week’s earthquake, the governor said. Shakira visited to help draw awareness.

Trump Honors a Teenage Lifeguard and Takes Aim at a CNN Reporter

0



President Trump told a journalist to “be quiet” at a White House event for a California lifeguard and a boy he saved.

GTA 4 was going to be a much more realistic game, but?

0


Upon its release in 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA 4) redefined open-world gaming. From its dark portrayal of Liberty City to the physics-driven Euphoria engine, Rockstar Games had pushed the hardware of 7th generation consoles to its extreme limits.

However, one of the studio’s most ambitious ideas for the game never saw its way into the final version: Fully-simulated, real-life daily routines for every NPC on the map.

In an interview with Edge Magazine, former Rockstar North Technical Director, Obbe Vermeij, explained how the former president of Rockstar Games, Leslie Benzies, once had the vision of a live, breathing city in which civilians had unique, realistic schedules.

The Cut Vision: Work commutes and homes for Liberty City’s citizens
During the initial development phase of GTA IV, Leslie Benzies proposed the implementation of an intricate schedule system to determine the daily routine of the average Liberty City citizen. If this vision was to be carried out:

Every civilian NPC would have an assigned home in Liberty City.
NPCs would have to leave their homes every morning to physically commute to their workplaces in order to fulfill their designated schedules before heading back home at the end of the day.

If fully implemented, this would give Liberty City a depth unseen before in action-adventure games of its time, but this idea soon encountered major technical problems.

Technical Limitations: bugs, technical friction, and failure
According to Vermeij, having every pedestrian on the street behave as a scheduled entity created a huge amount of bugs. Supporting hundreds and thousands of NPC entities with individual locations, pathfinding, and driving behaviors put a very heavy strain on CPU processing power and memory.

Mission volatility: If the mission’s target was stuck in traffic, taking the subway, or even at home when they weren’t supposed to be there, the entire mission was ruined.

Interference from the player: Grand Theft Auto’s addictive gameplay comes from the chaos it thrives in, allowing you to drive crazily at speeds, but a rigid schedule framework wouldn’t recover if the player interfered with its schedule, at least not successfully.

“Leslie Benzies had the desire for all [NPCs in GTA 4] to have their own life, homes, their own schedule, they get up and commute to work in the morning,” explained Vermeij in the interview with Edge Magazine. “We did start toward this, but it was so problematical… There was a huge number of bugs that we had. ”

The “Fake” Realism of open-world games
Vermeij actually personally argued against the mechanic at the time, saying hyper-realism isn’t necessarily better gameplay. A perfect example of a game that had too many complex mechanics, where the “Radiant AI” caused many bugs (shopkeepers can wander off and get themselves killed off screen, leaving their shop permanently closed), is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Instead, Vermeij believes that players want an illusion of reality, not quite reality itself. “I actually think that players (psychologically) are perfectly fine with the NPCs being a little bit fake and shallow,” stated Vermeij. “I don’t think games really need to go for realism.”

The complex schedule system was ultimately cut in favor of the dynamic citizen interactions we all know of today from Grand Theft Auto IV, where pedestrians may simply react to the weather, read a newspaper, smoke a cigarette, or carry some groceries.

This “fake” realism provides the level of depth required by the game’s world while not being so complex that it hinders performance, stability, and gameplay.

Quality over quantity of mechanics
Rockstar Games is no stranger to abandoning ambitious mechanics when they are too difficult to perfect. While GTA IV took some of its mechanics away in comparison to San Andreas (customization being one of them), the company’s decision to remove flawed background systems is ultimately what made the game one of the highest-rated titles ever released.

Future titles, such as Grand Theft Auto VI, will benefit greatly from the lessons learned by Rockstar Games and Vermeij’s insight into the art of building a good open-world.

 

Childhood Friends, Adopted From India, Discover They’re Sisters

0



Meena Geltink and Minal Tijssen were adopted from India by families in the Netherlands and grew up less than 100 miles apart.

Popular Posts

My Favorites

Immigration Hard-Liners Repeatedly Lost in Court Before Justices Ruled in Their...

0
“This is a victory 10 years in the making,” a White House official said after the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could...