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We spent over $12,000 replacing our carpets with vinyl-plank flooring. It looks very nice, but I regret it every day.

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Our vinyl-plank floors look really nice, but they're not perfect — and installing them turned out to be more than we bargained for. .Lauren Salles Gumpert We had thought replacing our carpets with vinyl-plank flooring would cost $6,000 and be fairly easy. During the process, we uncovered more issues with our home and ended up spending about $12,000. I often wish we'd left the carpet alone. We mostly cover the floors with rugs for our kids anyway. When we bought our home , we thought it needed only cosmetic updates — maybe updated appliances and a fresh coat of paint. So, we felt pretty good about tackling our first project as homeowners: replacing the floors in our main downstairs living space. We consulted specialists at a home-improvement chain, got measurements and estimates, and chose our luxury vinyl-plank flooring. Between supplies and labor, we were quoted just under $6,000 to replace all the flooring on our first floor, which included our living room, kitchen, dining ...

OpenAI says it can't read all of Astra's reasoning and admits covert sandbagging would likely go uncaught, yet still calls it the world's most aligned model (Celia Ford/Transformer)

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Celia Ford / Transformer : OpenAI says it can't read all of Astra's reasoning and admits covert sandbagging would likely go uncaught, yet still calls it the world's most aligned model   —  OpenAI is hailing its new model as “the world's most intelligent and aligned”, but the details reveal an awareness of being evaluated … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/rxuetpV

OpenAI prices GPT-6 Astra at $10/1M input tokens and $50/1M output tokens, matching Anthropic's pricing for Claude Fable 5.1 (The Deep View)

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The Deep View : OpenAI prices GPT-6 Astra at $10/1M input tokens and $50/1M output tokens, matching Anthropic's pricing for Claude Fable 5.1   —  OpenAI's now infamous model that was part of the Hugging Face breach is about to be loose in the world, but with new safeguards. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/d932gOL

OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, initially available to organizations in its Daybreak Access program; Greg Brockman says "we are now in the AGI era" (Hayden Field/The Verge)

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Hayden Field / The Verge : OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, initially available to organizations in its Daybreak Access program; Greg Brockman says “we are now in the AGI era”   —  OpenAI's next big model is here: GPT-6 Astra.  The company calls it a “generational leap in capability” for areas like cybersecurity … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/PXimfju

Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is in talks to raise $1B+ at a $40B+ pre-money valuation, lower than the $50B+ valuation it sought last year (The Information)

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The Information : Sources: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is in talks to raise $1B+ at a $40B+ pre-money valuation, lower than the $50B+ valuation it sought last year   —  Thinking Machines Lab, the AI developer led by ex-OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is in talks to raise at least $1 billion … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/IcVGWqT

Humain launches humain-m3, an Arabic-language model developed with MiniMax, amid controversy among US allies over sovereign AI built with Chinese models (Bloomberg)

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Bloomberg : Humain launches humain-m3, an Arabic-language model developed with MiniMax, amid controversy among US allies over sovereign AI built with Chinese models   —  Saudi Arabia's artificial intelligence company Humain has built a national AI platform based on an open model from Chinese lab MiniMax Group Inc. … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/LGPghKH

Get This, Cut That September 2026: What streaming service do you need this month, and what can you ditch?

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When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more You don't need to be subscribed to every streaming service every month. Giuliano Benzin/Getty Images September is finally here, and it marks the start of the fall sports season and the return of several broadcast TV favorites. The past couple of weeks have also brought a slew of streaming service price hikes, pushing monthly entertainment budgets to the limit. We always say that one of the best ways to save on streaming services is to unsubscribe from the platforms you're not using. One of the joys of streaming is that most plans are month-to-month, and you're rarely locked into a long-term contract like cable. If you don't think you'll use a service much this month, it's worth unsubscribing, since you can always subscribe again next month. But what streaming service should you hang onto (or sign back up for) this month, and what can you probably ditch at least until O...