Missouri is also known as "The Show-Me State," and today, we're excited to show you some of the custom-made depots which have been created for this upcoming Map DLC for American Truck Simulator!

On your future travels in Missouri, you’ll be able to deliver to and from some of our custom-made depots, such as  a livestock farm, a crop farm, grain elevators, and river ports! Many of these industries are inspired by real-life locations in Missouri, and feature dedicated loading and unloading spots for each type of cargo found there. To share more insight into their creation, we spoke with some of the team involved on how these custom depots are brought to life.

"It all begins in the pre-production phase of the DLC," says Lukas, one of our Map Designers. "The DLC lead collaborates with the research department and the custom depot team to select potential candidates for custom depots. After that, the responsible team members create guidelines for the map designers, which include details such as what the depot is, how it operates in real life, what cargo goes in and out, and what facilities, buildings, or machinery can be found there. The process culminates in a detailed prototype created on paper. With this document, the map location, and the map editor tool, the map designers are ready to bring these depots to life!"

"Many of the locations are based on real-life counterparts," Lukas continues. "We always try to strike a balance between realism and creativity. Our main goal is to make the experience engaging for players while maintaining a sense of authenticity. One of the biggest challenges is adhering to the scale of our game map. While we love the idea of vast industrial areas, endless fields of corn, and expansive forestry sites, we must respect the map’s limitations. Balancing these elements while brainstorming interesting parking spots and fitting them seamlessly into the custom depot is always a challenge."

Despite the challenges, Lukas finds the process rewarding. "It’s fun," he says. "In the end, it feels like a ‘small’ development process within the ‘big’ game development. We collaborate with other departments, such as asset creators, programmers, testers, researchers, and many others, to bring everything together. Personally, I always try to design depots the way I’d want to experience them as a player. I enjoy the uniqueness of custom depots and the realistic approach in both visuals and gameplay. Lastly, we always do our best to listen to the community."

We hope you enjoyed this insight into the custom-made depots coming to the Missouri DLC for American Truck Simulator, be sure to keep an eye on the blog, as this won't be the only post on this topic! If you’re excited about it, consider adding the Missouri DLC to your Steam Wishlist, as it really helps support our upcoming releases. Thank you for reading, and until next time, keep on truckin'!

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Among the first AI companies that the Federal Trade Commission has exposed as deceiving consumers is DoNotPay -- which initially was advertised as "the world's first robot lawyer" with the ability to "sue anyone with the click of a button." On Wednesday, the FTC announced that it took action to stop DoNotPay from making bogus claims after learning that the AI startup conducted no testing "to determine whether its AI chatbot's output was equal to the level of a human lawyer." DoNotPay also did not "hire or retain any attorneys" to help verify AI outputs or validate DoNotPay's legal claims. DoNotPay accepted no liability. But to settle the charges that DoNotPay violated the FTC Act, the AI startup agreed to pay $193,000, if the FTC's consent agreement is confirmed following a 30-day public comment period. Additionally, DoNotPay agreed to warn "consumers who subscribed to the service between 2021 and 2023" about the "limitations of law-related features on the service," the FTC said. Moving forward, DoNotPay would also be prohibited under the settlement from making baseless claims that any of its features can be substituted for any professional service. "The complaint relates to the usage of a few hundred customers some years ago (out of millions of people), with services that have long been discontinued," DoNotPay's spokesperson said. The company "is pleased to have worked constructively with the FTC to settle this case and fully resolve these issues, without admitting liability."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While that "extra" hour of sunlight in the evenings can be exhilarating, it comes with significant health trade-offs.

#Cyclists and #Urbanists in #Oklahoma needed to comment on the OKDOT’s 2023 Strategic Highway 🚙 Safety Plan, a statewide initiative to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on public roads.

Submit comments online before Nov. 6: https://www.news9.com/story/6537fc6f6cfd100665ee5e4e/oklahoma-department-of-transportation-asking-for-public-input

#OK #AutofreiOK #Tulsa #NormanOK #OklahomaCity #OKC #Muskogee #Muskogeeok #TulsaOK #FuckCars #WarOnCars #TheWarOnCars #autofrei #Urbanism #CarBrain #BikeTooter #cycling #WalkableCities #StrongTowns #TaylorSwift #ClimateCrisis #PublicTransit

Warning: do not use Hive Social:

We found a number of critical vulnerabilities, which we confidentially reported to the company. After multiple attempts to contact the company we finally reached them by phone and they acknowledged the report. After multiple days and multiple reminders by us, they claimed to have fixed all issues. However multiple vulnerabilities we reported still exist at the time of writing.

The issues we reported allow any attacker to access all data, including private posts, private messages, shared media and even deleted direct messages. This also includes private email addresses and phone numbers entered during login.

Attackers can also overwrite data such as posts owned by other users.

TheHIVE_Social:

The Hive team has become aware of security issues that affect the stability of our application and the safety of our users. Fixing these issues will require temporarily turning off our servers for a couple of days while we fix this for a better and safer experience

To their credit, it sounds like pulling the plug entirely was the right move, and most companies would not have done that. Even if they only did it not when they found out, but only after someone created a PR disaster to force their hand. One takes what one can get.

However, that does not change the fact that (as I said earlier this week) they are yet another data silo whose lock-in design is antithetical to the principles of openness and interoperability that are the good things that the Internet and the World Wide Web brought to the world.

Previously, previously, previously.