The next time you refuel, you may notice several different grades of gasoline for sale. You are probably familiar with regular unleaded and premium unleaded. But there is another grade in between, which can be called “Plus” like above, or by another name.

A gasoline’s octane rating is typically shown by a large number on the pump. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 87 octane is regular, mid-grade gas is 89 or 90 octane, and premium is between 91 and 94. What the different octane numbers show is each fuel’s resistance to knocking, with higher octane numbers indicating a higher knock resistance.

Knocking coming from your engine, also called premature detonation, means your fuel is not burning evenly in one or more cylinders, which can have numerous causes and will result in serious damage if not fixed promptly. While engines with higher performance levels tend to require premium fuel that is less likely to knock, average, lower-stressed engines should be fine with regular gas. The 89 octane mid-grade falls in the middle.

The origin story of 89 octane unleaded starts in 1975, when the EPA banned leaded gasoline and the transition to unleaded began, long before top tier gas existed. Because unleaded gas requires more processing compared to leaded gas, unleaded premium cost more than its leaded equivalent. Gas station operators marketed this 89-octane gas for less than premium, with higher octane than regular. It never really caught on, currently amounting to eight percent of total gasoline sales. No vehicles made today require 89-octane fuel.

If your vehicle runs fine on regular, without any pinging or knocking sounds, and you are maintaining it according to the manufacturer’s recommended service intervals, there is nothing to do. Continue using regular in your car, because you don’t have a problem, even though gas prices just hit a four-year high. If you are in doubt, check your owner’s manual for the correct fuel recommended by the manufacturer.

But let’s say that your engine pings or knocks when using regular gas. While this can be caused by gas that is too low in octane, it can also be a result of a build-up of carbon deposits in your engine’s combustion chambers, worn spark plugs, an air/fuel mixture that’s too lean, bad spark timing, or an engine that is overheating. It’s probably a good idea to make a date with your mechanic, so that you can rule out all of the non-fuel-related issues first. Otherwise, you may be paying more for that higher octane fuel without seeing any benefits, which is a fuel myth you really should stop believing. 

In case you are wondering about how 89-octane, a type of gasoline that makes up a measly eight percent of the market and is not required in any production vehicles, can still be offered at the pumps, there’s a little trick to how it is made. The 89-octane gas is made by blending high-octane premium with low-octane regular, which can usually be done right at the pump. So, whoever wants it is free to buy it.

Nvidia is known for making some of the best graphics cards, and these days, a lot of them end up powering AI-related workloads instead of games. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are the very foundation of the data centers that make AI possible. The funny thing is that the circle of AI life goes on and on, as Nvidia now also uses AI to help create new chips, which later end up in GPUs. A recent interview revealed that this leads to benefits like faster chip design, fewer man-hours used on certain tasks, and even new, innovative, sometimes odd ways to approach existing problems.

In a discussion with Google’s Jeff Dean at the 2026 GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Bill Dally, Nvidia’s chief scientist and senior vice president of research, revealed that the chipmaker is trying to introduce AI at every step of GPU design. The headliner is, undoubtedly, the fact that Nvidia used AI to save so much time and money during one stage of the process.

Whenever a new semiconductor process is introduced (essentially the process node that Nvidia then builds its GPU around), the company needs to port its standard cell library to it, which adds up to around 2,500 to 3,000 cells. Completing this task used to take eight people around 10 months.

Nvidia then designed NVCell, a program that completes this time-consuming task in one night on just one GPU. There seems to be no catch here, as Dally clarified that the results were better than what human engineers produced.

It’s unclear how long it took for Nvidia to develop the reinforcement learning-based NVCell, but it does seem to be paying off. Not only is Nvidia saving precious time, but it’s also making it easier to move on to a new process when the next generation of GPUs comes around. While replacing eight engineers with one GPU seemed like the biggest win Nvidia had to share, Dally also listed a couple more ways in which the company is leaning into AI in its design process.

The next tool is Prefix RL, and to save you a highly technical explainer, its job is tackling various chip design options. The software tries to solve these concepts in a process of trial-and-error, and grades itself to learn from its attempts. Dally said that the tool comes up with all sorts of odd ideas, but at the end of the day, they’re 20-30% better than human designs.

Nvidia also uses AI to free up some time that its senior engineers had to spend helping more junior colleagues. Its internal large language models (LLMs), Chip Nemo and Bug Nemo, were trained on Nvidia’s proprietary database and codebase, so they know everything there is to know about the way Nvidia builds and designs GPUs. Armed with that knowledge, those LLMs can help junior engineers and explain complex concepts in an approachable manner. On the consumer side, Nvidia recently revealed Alpamayo, bringing AI models to self-driving cars.

If you happen to walk outside and unexpectedly find utility markings (paint or flags) on your driveway or in your yard, it’s good advice to heed the words splashed across the cover of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” — don’t panic, it’s not the end of the world. Next, if you didn’t call the utility company, check with your neighbors to see if one of them did, and if not, then call the nationwide 811 phone number used throughout the United States for underground utility location services, because someone is planning on doing work that might directly involve your little slice of heaven.

Most property owners probably know full well that beneath their perfectly manicured landscaping efforts lies a dizzying array of underground utility lines, irrigation systems (even those using smart controllers), and water and sewer pipes. It’s also probably safe to assume that most of us have no clue where those things are. It takes professionally trained people with the right tools to come out and locate them before anyone starts digging things up to avoid triggering a cataclysmic event. Even when professionals follow these exacting safety protocols, very bad things can still happen.

For instance, a house 15 miles south of Oakland, California, exploded in December 2025, after a construction crew hit a gas line. The house next door was also severely damaged, and six people were injured. More recently, 67 homes in Mountain View, California, were under a boil-water notice for weeks after a crew replacing the neighborhood’s water pipes allowed cement slurry to seep in, subsequently introducing bacteria into the drinking water.

For every project that involves digging into the ground – whether it’s a simple DIY effort to repair sprinkler lines, or a larger one carried out by city workers — the area needs to be inspected at least two days beforehand. Calling 811 sends utility companies out (at no charge) to locate and mark underground lines (gas, water, electric, internet, etc.) with flags and spray paint. This safety measure is a federal law meant to prevent damage to public infrastructure, personal injuries, or unwanted service outages.

The markings all have different meanings, but follow uniform color codes mandated by the American Public Works Association (APWA). Red indicates the presence of electric power lines (invented in 1882), lighting cables, and conduit. Orange means telecommunication, alarm/signal lines, cables, or conduit. Natural gas, oil, steam, petroleum, or other flammable substances will always be designated by the color yellow. Green notifies you of sewer and drain lines, while blue is for potable drinking water. Reclaimed water, irrigation, and slurry lines are represented by purple. Pink is used for temporary survey markings or things that are either unknown or unidentified. Lastly, white outlines proposed excavation limits or routes.

Utility markings should generally remain in place until the project is complete. And if you are the one doing the digging, check your state’s tolerance laws because you may need to use hand tools instead of mechanized equipment if you’re working within 24 inches of a marked line. Ultimately, it’s better to be safe than sorry, because nobody wants to be responsible for causing a problem that brands them as “that person” in their neighbor’s eyes forever.