Technologies

Steam Summer Sale: Snag 4 Major Borderlands Games for Under $25 Before Borderlands 4

This is an amazingly cheap way to get caught up before the new game launches in September.

If you want to catch up on the Borderlands series before Borderlands 4 comes out on Sept. 12, you won’t find a better opportunity than this. Every mainline Borderlands game is steeply discounted for Steam’s Summer sale, with many of them in the single digits.

You can currently get Borderlands Game of the Year Enhanced, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 3 for a grand total of $22. The first game represents about half that cost, so if you’ve already played that one or want to skip it, you can get the other three for just $12. Various downloadable content is also on sale, if you want to add to the base games.

This is an absolute steal. Borderlands 2 is one of my all-time favorite first-person-shooter games, and despite being more than a decade old, it’s worth about $20 just on its own. For me, it’s the pinnacle (so far) of the series’ hero designs and enemy encounters — for my money, Zer0, Gunzerker and Gaige are three of the most fun vault hunters the series has ever made. And the True Vault Hunter Mode and Ultimate Vault Hunter Modes (the new game plus modes) really add a lot of replay value by ratcheting up the strategy through the increased importance of matching your elemental weapons to the right enemy health type — think type matchups in Pokemon, except with guns.

What I particularly love about the Borderlands series is the customization it offers. The games give you at least four vault hunter classes to choose from, and those classes offer additional options via skill trees that let you adjust the way your vault hunter plays. For instance, Zer0 has options for sniping, stealth or melee. Add in different gun manufacturers whose weapons all have a different feel, plus different categories of guns — pistols, submachine guns, sniper rifles, etc. — and elemental weapon types on top of that, and you end up with a veritable treasure trove of ways to tune your vault hunter’s gameplay.

Also, you can throw grenades that explode money. I almost crashed Borderlands 3 because I was exploding so much money.

The original Borderlands established the formula and some of the regular elements, like soldier and siren classes as well as vending machines for gear and health. It also established some of the recurring characters, like de facto mascot Moxxi. Borderlands 2 refined that formula and introduced an amazing villain who added more narrative depth. The Pre-Sequel shook things up by taking us to space and giving us laser weapons. Borderlands 3 took a step back in terms of narrative and characters, but it added some nice mechanical polish, like being able to mantle up ledges or slide into barrels to send them flying into enemies.

All four of those games will take you about 100 hours total to beat if you stick to the main quests, or closer to 200 hours if you’re the type to get sidetracked occasionally. Pro tip: Talk, finagle or blackmail some friends into playing with you. The games are significantly more fun with other players.

For the complete Borderlands experience, you can also tack on the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired spinoff game Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands for $12 and Tales from the Borderlands, an acclaimed narrative choices game, for $15.

With Borderlands 4 coming out in just a few months, you’re not going to get a better chance to start or add to your collection. Catch a riiide, vault hunters.

Technologies

Harvard Business Review Study Finds ‘AI Brain Fry’ Is Leaving Workers Mentally Fatigued

Study participants reported increased mental fatigue while using AI tools, but less burnout overall.

Workers who excessively use AI agents and tools at work are at increased risk of mental fatigue, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study. In certain industries, more than 25% of hired professionals report increased mental strain due to their role in AI oversight — though these professionals also generally experienced less burnout than peers who aren’t using AI.

This phenomenon — which the researchers refer to as «AI brain fry» — is described as a «‘buzzing’ feeling or a mental fog» that caused study participants to develop headaches and difficulty focusing and making decisions. Individuals pointed to being overwhelmed by large amounts of information and to frequent task switching as the reasons for these feelings.

Studied individuals experienced more brain fry when they utilized AI agents to manage a workload beyond their own cognitive capacity. When participants used AI to replace mundane, repetitive tasks, managing the growing number of tools led to increased mental fatigue.

Crucially, the study found that fewer individuals who used these AI agents reported workplace burnout.

The researchers predict that this is because burnout testing assesses emotional and physical distress. In contrast, they report, acute mental fatigue «is caused by marshalling attention, working memory and executive control beyond the limited capacity of these systems.»

These are the processes that are taxed when study participants use multiple AI tools in their workflow, according to the researchers.

The Harvard study identifies several business costs incurred by workers suffering from AI brain fry. The foremost consequence is that these individuals may end up making lower-quality decisions. «Workers in [the] study who endorsed AI brain fry experience 33% more decision fatigue than those who did not,» the study reports. Workers who report AI brain fry were also more likely to self-report making both minor and major errors at their jobs.

Another recent Harvard Business Review study similarly found that employees who use AI tools «worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks and extended work into more hours of the day,» but warned that «workload creep can in turn lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout and weakened decision-making.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 11, #1004

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 11, No. 1,004.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Once I spotted «ice cream» and «traffic» in today’s NYT Connections puzzle, I had the blue category all but filled in. But that purple category was even more bizarre than usual. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Bring that back!

Green group hint: Fancy ____.

Blue group hint: Think of a certain shape.

Purple group hint: Sounds like…

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Steal.

Green group: Make nicer, with «up.»

Blue group: Kinds of cones.

Purple group: Pronoun homophones.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is steal. The four answers are lift, palm, pinch and pocket.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is make nicer, with «up.» The four answers are dress, jazz, spiff and spruce.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is kinds of cones. The four answers are ice cream, pine, snow and traffic.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is pronoun homophones. The four answers are hee, mi, oui and yew.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for March 11, #534

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 534 for Wednesday, March 11.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features a real mix of categories, but the yellow one came easily to this Seahawks fan. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Super Bowl champs’ division.

Green group hint: Baseball stats.

Blue group hint: Stars on ice.

Purple group hint: You wear it around your waist.