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Vegetarians eat ’significantly higher’ amount of ultra-processed food, data on the eating habits of 200,000 people taken from the UK Biobank
Scientists Finally Identified Where Gluten Reactions Begin
All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell […] single-celled organism (or, possibly, population of single-celled organisms) […] it’s the moment when life as we know it took off, the furthest point in evolutionary history that we can glimpse by working backward from what’s alive today.
Here, we measured daily salivary testosterone concentrations from 41 adult men for one month, along with daily self-reports of sexual desire […] We found no evidence for significant, positive relationships between testosterone and desire, which argues against the notion that day-to-day changes in eugonadal men’s baseline testosterone regulates changes in their sexual desire. However, additional analyses provided preliminary evidence for a positive relationship between testosterone and self-reported courtship effort
Northwest Pacific orcas have started wearing salmon hats again, bringing back a bizarre trend first described in the 1980s, researchers say.
Researchers found the ideal pattern to fool the sharks was to place the LED lights in stripes across the bodies of the seal decoys, perpendicular to the direction they were being towed through the water. The sharks still saw the decoy, but its shape was broken up and the great whites stopped attacking. […] “it potentially gives us an insight into how we can develop a non-lethal shark deterrent especially for surfers.”
Seagrass meadows are natural carbon sinks, and their conservation and restoration play a crucial role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Here, we show how satellite tracking of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) provided a major advance in identifying novel seagrass blue carbon resources in the Red Sea.
scientists have discovered that dogs living in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant area [fed by Chernobyl cleanup workers and tourists] are genetically distinct from dogs living farther away. […] researchers do not know whether radiation caused the genetic differences or not. The dogs may be genetically distinct simply because they’re living in a relatively isolated area.
Recently, my story as a Norwegian entrepreneur facing an unrealized gains wealth tax bill many times higher than my net income went viral […] Norway spends 45% more than Sweden on health care per capita with approximately the same health outcomes. Norway has 2,5 times bigger share of the working population on sick leave than Denmark. Norway spends ~50% more than Finland on primary and secondary school with worse results. […] Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. The government does not need to send their entrepreneurs abroad with non-sensical taxes. […] The people of Norway currently enjoy and benefit from a host of generous welfare benefits. High income with short work days, free healthcare, free daycare, free education and beyond. For this to continue in the future Norway needs massive new post-oil industries.
My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch
man hired to steal 1,500 Pokémon cards arrested in Tokyo More: A big story going around mass media in Japan is the rise in yamibaito (literally “dark part-time jobs”)
Criminals turn college campuses into recruitment hubs, recruiting chemistry students in Mexico with big paydays. […] People who make fentanyl in cartel labs, who are called cooks, told The New York Times that they needed workers with advanced knowledge of chemistry to help make the drug stronger and “get more people hooked” [and] to synthesize the chemical compounds, known as precursors, that are essential to making fentanyl, freeing them from having to import those raw materials from China.
Louis Vuitton Crack House, 2013
How do financial constraints affect individual innovation and creativity? […] financial support is crucial for fostering creativity and innovation
“I seem to be absolutely born for the cycle,” wrote Gustav Mahler, “and I’ve already reached the stage where all the horses avoid me, but I’m still not good at ringing my bell.” He claimed that only cycling offered any relief from the chronic pain of his hemorrhoids.
every day the same again |
December 1st, 2024
halves-pairs, photogs, showbiz |
November 26th, 2024
Financial losses for today’s start-ups are much more common than they were decades ago, and the losses are much bigger. VCs are making back less from their initial investments than at any point since the global financial crisis of 2007–9. […]
About 85 percent of America’s unicorn start-ups (those valued at more than $1 billion before doing IPOs) that have gone public were unprofitable in 2023, despite most having been founded more than fifteen years earlier. […]
As of early 2024, twenty-three American unicorns had more than $3 billion in cumulative losses, the amount Amazon had the year it became profitable. Five of them (Uber, WeWork, Rivian, Teledoc Health, and Lyft) had more than $10 billion, with Uber well over $30 billion. Other members of this club offer crypto, AI, consumer products, business software, biotech, electric vehicles, and healthcare. Despite these companies having significantly higher losses than Amazon, Amazon’s eventual success continues to be used as an excuse, as if all start-ups can do what it has done. […]
Venture capital funds earn fixed fees from investors that enable them to profit even if start-ups do not. These fixed fees encourage VCs to hire people who are good at raising money and spinning narratives, but not at identifying good opportunities. VCs also convinced not only investors but also cities, states, and countries that start-ups are key to economic growth.
{ American Affairs Journal | Continue reading }
economics |
November 26th, 2024
Earlier this year, a boy in Sweden celebrated his 10th birthday. […] He was born in 2014 after his mother, a 35-year-old woman who had been born without a uterus, received a donated uterus from a 61-year-old close family friend. Around 135 uterus transplants have been performed, but it’s probably too soon to offer the procedure to trans women.
Indonesian man discovers woman he married after a year of in-person romance was a man trying to scam him for money
US epidemic of alcohol related mortality […] In 1999, there were 19,356 US alcohol-related deaths, a mortality rate of 10.7 per 100,000. By 2020, deaths increased to 48,870 or 21.6 per 100,000.
Fentanyl overdoses have dropped dramatically […] The Times article provides a bevy of possible reasons for the decline, but I have my own theory. One of the most consistent findings of drug research is that drug use is faddish.
Was MDMA really better back in the day? According to research, the average MDMA content of a pill in the 1990s and early 2000s was somewhere between 50 and 80mg […] one in three pills currently in circulation in the UK contain over 200mg of MDMA […] “People often attribute changes in their drug experiences to changes in the drugs themselves […] they tend to dramatically underestimate the influence of their own changing psychology.”
5 Drug Highs That Define the Grateful Dead’s Legacy
a new study has revealed an unexpected potential benefit of severe COVID infection: it may help shrink cancer.
The researchers analysed the videos to see how well the mother accurately referred to her infant’s internal experience (e.g., “Oh, you like this toy”) during the interaction. They also collected saliva samples from the infant and measured the level of the hormone oxytocin. “We have, for the first time, discovered that the amount that a mother talks to their infant about their infant’s thoughts and feelings is directly correlated with their infant’s oxytocin levels.”
Europeans who donate old clothes assume they’ll be go to the needy — but they could just as easily end up in an illegal dump in a foreign country.
Every material, surface, and furnishing of Villa Mahler is custom-made
Las Vegas Ranch, July 1873
A statue of Jesus in India mysteriously began dripping water from its toes. Worshippers started collecting it and drinking it believing it was holy. The source of the water was later found to be a clogged toilet near the statue.
every day the same again |
November 26th, 2024
When you deposit money at a bank, you expect the bank to give it back to you. There are two things you might worry about, two sets of risks that might prevent the bank from giving you back your money. One is that the bank might lose the money. Banks do not generally just keep your money in the vault. They use it to make loans, so there is risk: The loans might default, or depositors might all demand their money back at once when the bank does not have a lot of ready cash. […]
The other risk is that the bank might lose track of the money. You might go to the bank and deposit $100, and the bank might write down “$100” next to your name in its notebook, and then it might spill coffee on the notebook and be unable to read the entry and forget that it owes you the $100. And then you might come back to the bank in a week and ask for your $100 back and the bank might say “who are you? what $100?” […]
If a bank loses all your money, the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] can give you your money back, because the FDIC is the government and can print money. If the bank loses its list of who has the money, what can the FDIC do? […] The definitive list of who the bank owes money is kept by the bank. Unless it isn’t.
I have never really understood the Synapse situation, but in my defense Synapse doesn’t understand it either. […]
Synapse functioned as a middleware provider between banks and fintechs. Synapse was a pioneer in what came to be known as “banking-as-a-service” (BaaS). In this role, Synapse opened accounts on behalf of approximately 100 fintech companies (and millions of end users) at four different partner banks.
On April 22, 2024, Synapse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On May 11, the partner banks lost access to the records maintained by Synapse and were unable to determine which end-users rightfully should be able to withdraw their funds.
[…]
You could imagine a world in which technology companies were better and nimbler and more accurate at keeping lists on computers than banks were. But in our world, banks have hundreds of years of history and regulation that have taught them that keeping an accurate list of who has the money is really, really, really, really, really important, and they tend to do it.
{ Matt Levine / Bloomberg| Continue reading }
buffoons, economics |
November 26th, 2024
Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes (catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions). Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acid building blocks in a huge variety of arrangements to make millions of different proteins. Some amino acid molecules can be built in two ways, such that mirror-image versions exist, like your hands, and life uses the left-handed variety of these amino acids. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, the two mirror images are rarely mixed in biology, a characteristic of life called homochirality. It is a mystery to scientists why life chose the left-handed variety over the right-handed one.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that holds the instructions for building and running a living organism. However, DNA is complex and specialized; it “subcontracts” the work of reading the instructions to RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules and building proteins to ribosome molecules. DNA’s specialization and complexity lead scientists to think that something simpler should have preceded it billions of years ago during the early evolution of life. A leading candidate for this is RNA, which can both store genetic information and build proteins. The hypothesis that RNA may have preceded DNA is called the “RNA world” hypothesis.
If the RNA world proposition is correct, then perhaps something about RNA caused it to favor building left-handed proteins over right-handed ones. However, the new work did not support this idea, deepening the mystery of why life went with left-handed proteins. […]
“The experiment demonstrated that ribozymes can favor either left- or right-handed amino acids, indicating that RNA worlds, in general, would not necessarily have a strong bias for the form of amino acids we observe in biology now”
{ Nasa | Continue reading }
chem, genes |
November 25th, 2024
You know the “AI Overview” you get on Google Search? “Kyloren syndrome” is a fictional disease I invented as part of a sting operation to prove that you can publish any nonsense in predatory journals…
93% of Gen Z respondents, age 22 - 27, said they were using two or more AI tools a week, [compared to] 79% of millennials (28 - 39)
People are less generous with money compared to other resources. In multiple dictator game studies, people allocated less money to others (vs. themselves) compared to other resources (food, goods, space, time).
a small number of studies did suggest increasing your water intake has benefits for weight loss and kidney stones. There were also individual studies which they say raise the possibility of benefits for migraine prevention, UTIs, diabetes control, and low blood pressure.
In a healthy body, the brain detects when the body is becoming dehydrated and initiates thirst to stimulate drinking. It also releases a hormone which signals to the kidneys to conserve water by concentrating the urine.
About 1½ pints (a little less than a liter) of water are lost daily when water evaporates from the skin and is breathed out by the lungs. […] prolonged vomiting or severe diarrhea can result in the loss of a gallon or more a day.
Effective arousal-reducing activities included slow-flow yoga, mindfulness, progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing, and taking a timeout […] going for a run is not an effective strategy because it increases arousal levels and ends up being counterproductive.
how lesbian escort agencies became a form of self-care in Japan
Mong Shuan was just 16 when she turned to an unconventional source of income: selling betel nuts from a little stall in northern Taiwan. […] The women would usually arrive for work in their normal clothes and get changed into more revealing garments in the booths
Here Are the 30,000 Pages of Federal Reserve Board Meeting Minutes I Got Through FOIA. They Completely Rewrite Federal Reserve History.
A parachute found in an outbuilding in North Carolina could be the new evidence that may crack the 53-year-old D.B Cooper case. It could lead investigators to the identity the man who jumped out of a hijacked plane carrying $200,000.
Man who spent $6.2 million on Maurizio Cattelan’s banana says he’s going to eat it — His purchase awarded him a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to “install” the banana properly and, most importantly, a certificate of authenticity guaranteeing the artwork, when reproduced, as an original work of Cattelan’s.
South Korean man dodged draft by binge eating
The Holywood Reporter asked surgeons on both coasts to reveal what their clients are asking for these days. “Lifts and even breast reductions are on the rise, along with tummy tucks to make the midsection look more fit”
every day the same again |
November 25th, 2024
Talking out loud to yourself is perfectly normal—and even beneficial. It can facilitate problem-solving and improve how well you perform at a task
An AI startup CEO on a Forbes ‘30 Under 30′ list has been charged with defrauding investors out of $10 million
OpenAI accidentally deleted potential evidence in NY Times copyright lawsuit
Rapid advances in applying artificial intelligence to simulations in physics and chemistry have some people questioning whether we will even need quantum computers at all.
Cybercriminals exploit Spotify for malware distribution
Whitaker was involved with a sketchy company that marketed bizarre inventions — including a “masculine toilet” with extra space for well-endowed men. […] World Patent Marketing eventually settled with the FTC in 2018, agreeing to pay almost $26 million in fines and shutting down business for good.
Because microplastics are everywhere, we can’t exactly compare the health of people who are exposed to them to people who aren’t to determine their possible effects
We may be close to rediscovering thousands of texts that had been lost for millennia. Their contents may reshape how we understand the Ancient World. […] Consider that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are only two of the poems that make up the eight-part Epic Cycle. Or that Aristotle wrote a lost treatise on comedy, not to mention his own Socratic dialogues that Cicero described as a ‘river of gold’. Or that only eight of Aeschylus’s estimated 70 plays survive. Even the Hebrew Old Testament refers to 20 ancient texts that no longer exist. […] But first, a bit of background on the provenance of ancient texts. We don’t have original copies of anything, not of the Iliad, or the Aeneid, or Herodotus, or the Bible. Instead of originals, we find ourselves dealing with copies.
MoMA playing cards designed by Takenobu Igarashi
every day the same again |
November 21st, 2024
In January 2023, short seller Hindenburg Research put out a report claiming that executives at one of India’s largest conglomerates were manipulating the company’s stock price.
The Adani Group and its multibillionaire founder Gautam Adani strenuously deny the accusations, but the report instantly wiped off as much as $140bn from the conglomerate’s market value and sent ripples through the country’s establishment. It also catapulted the New York-based Hindenburg and its founder Nathan Anderson into Wall Street lore.
Few saw it coming. But one that did was a hedge fund in New York almost 13,000 kilometres away from the Indian conglomerate’s headquarters.
Kingdon Capital Management had received a draft of the short seller’s report in November 2022 as part of an agreement it had signed with Hindenburg a year earlier, India’s markets regulator revealed in June.
The hedge fund, which was founded by Mark Kingdon in the 1980s, had set up a special fund in Mauritius and had started building a short position on Adani two weeks before Hindenburg released its report.
Kingdon, which has less than $1bn in assets under management, turned a $22mn profit from the trade. As part of the agreement, Hindenburg received a 25 per cent cut of the spoils. […]
activist short sellers tend to explicitly look for evidence suggesting malfeasance. […] Hindenburg, for example, says that it seeks out situations where there might be some combination of accounting irregularities, undisclosed related-party transactions, and illegal or unethical business or financial reporting practices.
{ Financial Times | Continue reading }
oil on canvas { Francis Bacon, Man in blue IV, 1954 }
Francis Bacon, traders |
November 21st, 2024
Banning free plastic bags for groceries resulted in customer purchasing more plastic bags, study finds
US Secret Service robot dogs patroll Mar-A-Lago
NYU scientists create crystals to extract water from air without using energy
This study aimed to investigate whether trainee therapists could estimate client deterioration after each session […] psychotherapists were unable to identify clients getting worse during therapy and failed to predict clients who would end therapy with more severe psychological problems than before therapy
Scientists have identified a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain, revealing just how much we still have to learn about its mysterious inner workings.
The current scientific consensus is that the placebo effect is a real healing effect operating through belief and suggestion. The evidence does not support this. In clinical trials of treatments, outcomes in placebo and no-treatment arms are similar, distinguishable only in tiny differences on self-report measures. A Case Against the Placebo Effect
Fair coins tend to land on the same side they started: Evidence from 350,757 flips
‘Handedness’ in snakes? […] only three out of 30 snakes showed a significant coil preference […] all three of these individuals were adult females and had a clockwise coil preference [PDF]
Instagram is flooded with hundreds of AI-generated influencers who are stealing videos from real models and adult content creators, giving them AI-generated faces, and monetizing their bodies with links to dating sites, Patreon, OnlyFans competitors, and various AI apps. The practice, first reported by 404 Media in April, has since exploded in popularity, showing Instagram is unable or unwilling to stop the flood
Phillips’s evening sale of modern and contemporary art in New York on Tuesday evening (19 November) […] The next lot, a double self-portrait by Jean-Michel Basquiat from 1983 that had previously belonged to actor-turned-artist Johnny Depp, had one of the night’s highest estimates at $10m to $15m. After receiving just one bid, auctioneer Henry Highley appeared to sell it for a hammer price of $9.3m, however following the sale’s conclusion a spokesperson for Phillips revealed that the work had in fact failed to sell—knocking about 17% off the night’s total. (A Basquiat work on paper earlier in the evening sold for its low estimate of $1m, or $1.2m with fees.)
In 1997, Laura Ingraham wrote an essay in The Washington Post in which she stated that she had changed her views on homosexuality after witnessing “the dignity, fidelity, and courage” with which her gay brother, Curtis, and his partner coped with the latter being diagnosed with AIDS; Curtis’s partner ultimately died of the disease. Curtis, on the other hand, has called his sister “a monster” and said she was influenced by their father, whom he described as a Nazi sympathizer as well as an abusive alcoholic.
That kid’s gonna be chasing that high for the rest of his life
every day the same again |
November 20th, 2024
Shareholder democracy is weird because you can just buy votes. In fact, that’s kind of the point: Each share of a public company usually has one vote, so if you want to take control of the company, all you have to do is buy enough shares to win a shareholder vote. (Conservatively 50% plus one, but probably less, if you can get other shareholders to join you and/or they don’t vote.) The voting power is generally proportional to the economic ownership of the company; the more you own, the more say you have.
But it is reasonably easy to hedge stock. If you own a lot of stock of a company, and you want to (1) continue owning that stock but (2) not be fully economically exposed to the risk of the stock price, you can probably find a way to do that. Most simply, you could (1) buy 10 million shares of stock and (2) also borrow 10 million other shares of stock and sell them short. You’re long 10 million shares and short 10 million shares, so you have net zero exposure: If the stock goes up (or down), you will make (lose) money on the 10 million shares you own, and lose (make) an exactly offsetting amount of money on the 10 million shares that you are short. But you get to vote the 10 million shares that you’re long, while you don’t get negative votes for shares you are short. So you have zero economic ownership but 10 million votes. […]
The fun question, which people email me about from time to time, is: What if you go long 10 million shares and short 20 million shares? Then (1) you get to vote 10 million shares and, as a big economic owner, you have a say in the running of the company, but (2) you actually profit if the company does badly, so your voting incentives will be bad.
{ Matt Levine / Bloomberg | Continue reading }
economics, traders |
November 19th, 2024
What makes a person a badass? We investigated the concept in four experiments (total N = 2,020), investigating why radically different kinds of people, ranging from peaceful advocates to fierce warriors, can each be considered badasses.
This meteorite was far larger than the infamous Cretaceous era ending one. ‘We’re looking at a bolide that was 500 to 200 times bigger than the one that killed off the dinosaurs.’ The impact 3.26 billion years ago triggered a giant tsunami, as well as clouding the oceans and darkening the skies for years to decades. The impact also evaporated tens of metres of seawater. Yet there was a silver lining: the churning of the seas brought bioavailable iron up from the ocean depths to its depleted surface and allowed some microbes to flourish, while the meteorite also brought phosphorus vital for life.
Scientists recently discovered amber fragments that suggest the snow-covered continent of Antarctica could have once been a lush jungle.
More than 1,770 oil sector lobbyists have travelled to the COP29 summit in Baku, making them the fourth largest delegation at the summit.
Do Losses Promote More Reflection Than Gains?
the regular consumption of moderate doses of coffee attenuates all-cause mortality, attenuates age-associated diseases (cardiovascular, stroke, cancer) […] average increase healthspan of 1.8 years of lifetime […] discrete benefits afforded by the consumption of 1 cup of coffee a day, maximal benefits afforded by 3 cups a day, followed by a waning of the benefits with increasing doses of coffee consumed daily […] both caffeine and non-caffeine components contribute to the benefits on lifespan of coffee consumption […] Coffee is the most consumed beverage after water with 2.25 billion cups consumed every day by circa 70% of the world population
Red color signals dominance in both animals and humans. This study investigated whether a red background color influences the perception of dominance in human faces and geometric shapes. […] results showed that faces were more likely to be perceived as dominant when presented against a red background than against green or gray backgrounds, for both female and male faces
A Physicist Says ‘Paradox-Free’ Time Travel Is Theoretically Possible
It’s thought that 4 per cent of the global population is plagued by a persistent, rumbling sound in their ears – the source of which is a total enigma. […] a team of French scientists who proposed that the Hum was potentially made by ocean waves hitting continental shelves, shaking the Earth and causing vibrations. Other scientists have hypothesised that it could be linked to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. […] 5G […] military and government sonic weaponry and mind control […] “There is this idea that it could be the total summation of all the human activity that we make; the idea that it’s actually causing some kind of continuous, standing wave of vibration in the world. And not everybody can hear it.” He cites research by scientist David Baguley into hyperacusis, a condition that makes certain people extremely sensitive to sound and can be linked to trauma.
Geographic Distribution of UAP Reports from May 1, 2023 - June 1, 2024 FUll story: Military’s UFO-Hunting Aerial Surveillance System Detailed In Report
A tiny new open-source AI model performs as well as powerful big ones. The results suggest that training models on less, but higher-quality, data can lower computing costs.
CONFIRMED: LLMs have indeed reached a point of diminishing returns
Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 owner announced last week that it has plans to reopen the plant and signed a deal with Microsoft. The company will purchase the plant’s entire electric generating capacity over the next 20 years.
Amazon goes nuclear, to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors
Google to buy nuclear power for AI datacentres in ‘world first’ deal
The discovery of a rare species of bee by environmental regulators has blocked the plans of tech conglomerate Meta to build an artificial intelligence data center powered by nuclear energy
Why Are Cooling Towers Shaped Like [Truncated Cones]?
Haliey Welch, the 22-year-old who went viral for her “Hawk Tuah” video, […] amassed around 5 million followers across various social media platforms. After recently releasing her own podcast titled “Talk Tuah,” she’s now venturing into the tech world with a new AI-powered dating advice app called Pookie Tools. […] More established influencers, such as Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) and David Dobrik, have previously launched their own apps.
Dog-sitter films explicit OnlyFans content in client homes
How dogs were implicated during the Salem witch trials
How Al Capone Made Greyhound Racing Great More: When Chicago Went to the Dogs: Al Capone and Greyhound Racing in the Windy City, 1927–1933
Video Shows 2 Bees Working Together to Open a Bottle of Soda
Extract vocals, acapella, guitar, piano, bass, drums and various instruments from song or video files + more AI tools>
Museum of Bad Art
Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in “Send to YouTube” button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives. Inspired by Ben Wallace, I made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos! Watch them [here], ordered randomly.
Shop Imp Kerr and get 20% off any order over $50 with promo code WILDBABYWILD
every day the same again |
November 19th, 2024
Swedish tabloid Expressen revealed Wednesday that government officials have been ensuring in advance that all places frequented by Gender Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg are free of bananas — due to the minister’s strong phobia of the yellow fruit.
René Descartes died on February 11, 1650, in Stockholm, Sweden, succumbing to pneumonia at the age of 53. He was in Stockholm at the time to help the queen of Sweden set up an academy of science. Queen Christina, only 22 years old, made Descartes rise before 5:00 AM for her daily lesson—something which proved detrimental to his health, as he was used to sleeping late since childhood to accommodate his sickly nature. One morning, likely as a result of this early rising, combined with the freezing Swedish winters, Descartes caught a chill that proved to be fatal.
For the pleasure: “Good sense or reason must be better distributed than anything else in the world, for no man desires more of it than he already has. This shows that reason is by nature equal in all men.” –Descartes
Rob Horning: Since the U.S. election, the Twitter-like platform Bluesky has been the beneficiary of millions of users deciding that they had finally had enough of serving time on and adding value to a platform owned by a egomaniacal charlatan increasingly devoted to promoting right-wing propaganda. (Why did those users wait so long? Haven’t they heard of the sunk-cost fallacy?) […] fewer and fewer people bother to read text and society is purportedly becoming increasingly “post-literate.” (This was a theme in some election postmortems: that a significant portion of the U.S. electorate lacks the critical thinking skills that come from better reading habits and are thus readily susceptible to demagoguery.) Passive consumption of video is the algorithmically enforced norm on most platforms, which have become more or less indistinguishable from conventional television, with a rationalized, rigidly formatted flow of content and ads. (Most of what Raymond Williams wrote about TV in 1974 applies equally well to social media today.) A recent post from Katherine Dee speculates that “social media basically brought us to something like an oral culture”
impkerr.bluesky.social
Texting abbreviations seem insincere and not worth answering
consumption on small screens is starting to dominate globally […] 67% of consumers watch video on their small screen daily, compared to 50% who watch on their big screen.
It looks like Standards, Annie, HEALTH, Swans, and a number of other notable one-word artists were targeted directly. Spotify confirmed that the onslaught of AI garbage was delivered from one source. How fake music targets real artists
A Serbian Film is a 2010 Serbian exploitation horror film produced and directed by Srđan Spasojević in his feature directorial debut. It tells the experience of a financially struggling pornstar who agrees to participate in an “art film”, only to discover that he has been drafted into a snuff film with pedophilic and necrophilic themes. […] a number of sources have described A Serbian Film as the single most disturbing movie of all time
Berlin’s techno clubs close their doors […] Watergate will shut for good at new year
Study confirms Egyptians drank hallucinogenic cocktails in ancient rituals
I’m a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive − their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life — As animals – human or otherwise – navigate the unpredictability of life, anticipating positive experiences helps drive a persistence to keep searching for life’s rewards. In a world of immediate gratification, these rats offer insights into the neural principles guiding everyday behavior. Rather than pushing buttons for instant rewards, they remind us that planning, anticipating and enjoying the ride may be key to a healthy brain.
Octopuses are the species that are most likely to take over the world after humans. In the event of a wipeout through either wars or climate change, the marine invertebrates are said to possess the ‘physical and mental attributes necessary’ to evolve into the next civilisation-building species. […] Primates - long thought to be the successor to humans - would face the same challenges and also become extinct
every day the same again |
November 16th, 2024
Glaciers Reveal When Volcanoes Are on Brink of Eruption
Regular activity not only strengthens muscles but can bolster our bones, blood vessels, and immune system. Now, MIT engineers have found that exercise can also have benefits at the level of individual neurons. They observed that when muscles contract during exercise, they release a soup of biochemical signals called myokines. In the presence of these muscle-generated signals, neurons grew four times farther compared to neurons that were not exposed to myokines.
The open oval-shaped toilet seat compresses the buttocks, keeping the rectum in a lower position than if you were sitting on the couch. With gravity pulling the lower half of the body down, the increased pressure affects your blood circulation. […] the veins and blood vessels surrounding the anus and lower rectum become enlarged and engorged with blood, increasing the risk of hemorrhoids. Don’t sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes, doctors warn
children who followed a consistent bedtime routine and fell asleep at the same time each night displayed better control of their emotions and behavior when they were under stress or working with others. Consistent bedtime may be more influential than sleep quality or duration
Teens who use social media see conspiracy theories come across their feed at least once per week, according to a new study
Last summer, UNESCO endorsed banning smartphones in schools, citing research that found students can take up to 20 minutes to refocus once distracted by a single notification. That’s a startling statistic, considering the volume of notifications teens receive. (One widely publicized study last year by a U.S. nonprofit pegged the number at 237 per day.) […] confiscating phones is challenging and controversial. Where it’s been successful, it’s not driven by lone teachers.
Dermatologists say hot water, especially when combined with soaps that contain fragrances and harsh ingredients, may damage the outermost layer, known as the skin barrier. The skin barrier is made of dead skin cells, said Dr. Paola Baker, a dermatologist in Boston who has researched its function. Surrounding those cells is a dense matrix of fatty substances such as ceramides, fatty acids and cholesterol, she said. These substances, called lipids, help retain moisture in the skin and protect it from environmental irritants and allergens. [NY Times]
Why Hunting Coyotes May Actually Increase Their Numbers
The holy grail of AI, Sejnowski explains, is artificial general intelligence: a machine that can think, learn and solve problems across a wide range of tasks, much like a human can. The current generation of LLMs is far from that. Referred to pejoratively by some researchers as ‘stochastic parrots’, they mostly mimic human language without true comprehension. […] The next generation of LLMs must undergo a developmental process akin to the childhood learning phase in humans, he surmises, learning from real-world interactions as well as data. […] The addition of robotics and sensorimotor systems would allow AI tools to perceive and interact with their environment, nudging current models towards artificial general autonomy.
Robot That Watched Surgery Videos Performs With Skill Of Human Doctor
Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers “stuffed with trackers” are among examples of smart devices engaged in “excessive” surveillance, according to the consumer group Which? The organisation tested three air fryers, increasingly a staple of British kitchens, each of which requested permission to record audio on the user’s phone through a connected app.
the story of a woman who managed to fool a male-only, world-famous magic society into admitting her, before being unceremoniously kicked out when she revealed her true identity […] “We really do hope that Sophie can be found so that we can welcome her back into our society” The society now has more than 80 female members
every day the same again |
November 14th, 2024
The US Has a Cloned Sheep Contraband Problem
This elephant learned to use a hose as a shower. Then her rival sought revenge — Behaviors reveal sophisticated tool use—and possible “pranking”—among pachyderms
Plastic-eating insect discovered in Kenya
One of the most confounding concepts to emerge from the cauldron of early 20th-century physics was the idea that quantum objects can exist in multiple states simultaneously. A particle could be in many places at once, for example. The math and experimental results were unequivocal about it. And it seemed that the only way for a particle to go from such a “superposition” of states to a single state was for someone or something to observe it, causing the superposition to “collapse.” Must the observer be human? Can AI Save Schrödinger’s Cat?
A bribery experiment involving people from 18 countries reveals that the phenomenon is largely subject to circumstance […] The bad news is that even those who consider themselves immune to corruption can easily become corrupt
This paper argues that unusual coincidences, particularly those involving historical events, can be viewed as design patterns, suggesting an intelligent influence over the course of events. A compelling case examined in detail using probability theory concerns the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) and John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). This and other coincidences involving historical figures disfavor the materialistic perspective and point to the presence of an intelligent agent acting on a global scale, beyond the arrow of time, influencing human lives and the course of history.
Happiness should be the outcome of doing things you love, not the primary goal.
As scientists of language, the Grimms compiled a massive survey of mythology, edited epic poems, launched a historical dictionary—and collected old stories. As cultural detectives, they cast a wide net, creating a history for a nation that did not yet exist. The idea of one Germany was itself a fairy tale, a political construct shopping for an origin myth, and neither brother lived to see Otto von Bismarck’s triumphant unification of Germany in 1871. […] No German authors have been more translated, not even Goethe.
every day the same again |
November 12th, 2024
U.S. |
November 6th, 2024
Swiss scientists have successfully grown lip cells in a dish, which will allow new treatments for lip injuries and infections to be trialed in the lab
Novel way to beat dengue: Deaf mosquitoes stop having sex — Mosquitoes have sex while flying in mid-air and the males rely on hearing to chase down a female, based on her attractive wingbeats. The researchers did an experiment, altering a genetic pathway that male mosquitoes use for this hearing. Female mosquitoes are the ones that spread diseases to people, and so trying to prevent them having babies would help reduce overall numbers.
Researchers are trying to “inoculate” people against misinformation by giving them small doses ahead of time — First, warn people they may be manipulated. Second, expose them to a weakened form of the misinformation, just enough to intrigue but not persuade anyone.
The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture A recent surge of human-curated guidance is both a reaction against and an extension of the tyranny of algorithmic recommendations.
We don’t understand color vision as well as you’d think from decades of academic study. We have classic theories of how red, green, blue, yellow, bright, and dark encode in the brain. […] “That’s still the theory you get in textbooks. But it’s a very naive theory,” he said. “There’s a whole mystery of how the brain really represents color.” […] In a pivotal study from 2009, their team at the University of Washington cured color blindness in monkeys […] Most color deficiencies come from anomalies in the cones, but one form called “dichromatism” is a genetic condition where one cone is entirely missing. The Neitzes treated dichromat monkeys with this categorically severe version of color blindness. And not only did they replace the missing type of cone with a first-of-its-kind gene therapy, they did this in adult monkeys, raising entirely new questions about sensory plasticity. I’m not getting this treatment anytime soon. The therapy is far from approval and, more importantly, I’m not so deficient that I want an eye injection that temporarily detaches the retina.
researchers report developing ultrasensitive, nanoscale sensors that in small-scale tests distinguished a key change in the chemistry of the breath of people with lung cancer. […] People breathe out many gases, such as water vapor and carbon dioxide, as well as other airborne compounds. Researchers have determined that declines in one exhaled chemical — isoprene — can indicate the presence of lung cancer.
22 pesticides consistently linked with the incidence of prostate cancer in the US
Plans by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to build an AI data centre in the US that runs on nuclear power were thwarted in part because a rare species of bee was discovered on land earmarked for the project [Financial Times]
We found that in most of the countries analyzed, right-wing (conservative) individuals have, on average, more children and grandchildren than left-wing (liberal) individuals. We also found that the proportion of right-wing individuals increases from generation to generation. to some extent, demography may explain longer-term political trends.
Trading for a Chinese software company, whose name, “Chuan Da Zhi Sheng,” can be literally translated as “Trump Big Wisdom Win,” was halted after its Shenzhen-listed shares rose 10%.
An Observer investigation has found that dating apps are increasingly pushing users to buy extras that have been likened to “gambling products” and can cost hundreds of pounds a year.
Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids — Registered as a child, we were also able to access games like “Escape to Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party”. We found over 600 “Diddy” games, including “Survive Diddy” and “Run From Diddy Simulator”.
every day the same again |
November 6th, 2024
Spending time alone is a virtually inevitable part of daily life that can promote or undermine well-being.
Here, we explore how the language used to describe time alone—such as “me-time” “solitude,” or “isolation”—influences how it is perceived and experienced […]
linguistic framing affected what people thought about, but not what they did, while alone […]
simple linguistic shifts may enhance subjective experiences of time alone
{ PsyArXiv | Continue reading }
ideas, psychology |
November 4th, 2024
Hydro panels technology ’sucks’ liquid out of the air, providing drinking water for remote NSW town
Experts say the time changes are detrimental to health and safety, but agree that the answer isn’t permanent daylight saving time
Facial recognition website PimEyes has become a hit among digital ‘creeps’ and others eager to investigate strangers. Researchers fear there’s no way to prevent it from being abused.
AI-driven 0-day detection is here
Agentic AI is the top strategic technology trend for 2025, #4 is Postquantum Cryptography (data protection that resists quantum computing decryption risks), #5 is Ambient Invisible Intelligence (enabled by ultra-low-cost smart tags and sensors that deliver large-scale affordable tracking and sensing)
Research has shown an association between agreeableness and sweet taste preferences
Scientists found a clear link between red meat and cancer
Nobody knows when kissing emerged among humans. But the practice of plopping one’s mouth on another human, whether in friendship or love, is not universal; which suggests culture, rather than instinct, may be at play. […] “Grooming consists of picking through the fur/hair of others to remove parasites, dead skin, and debris” […] as we lost our fur, and spent less time grooming each other, we may have retained some vestigial remnant of the ritual. One of these remnants is what Lameira terms the “groomer’s final kiss”. Although combing through a partner’s fur to remove detritus and parasites would have become less necessary, each grooming session would have included – or ended with – the latching of the lips onto the groomee’s body to extract stubborn detritus.
Jaywalking legalized in New York City
Viral ’subway surfing’ trend has led to deaths of six youths in New York
Las Vegas Ruined this man entire life
When Does Instagram Decide a Nipple Becomes Female? — For the past two years an algorithmic artist who goes by Ada Ada Ada has been testing the boundaries of human and automated moderation systems on various social media platforms by documenting her own transition.
A collection of one-off actions that improve your life continuously — however marginally
Canadian Journal of Zombie Science
every day the same again |
November 3rd, 2024
The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare. Two Australian mathematicians found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe. […] There would be a 5% chance that a single chimp would successfully type the word “bananas” in its own lifetime. Previously in unrealistic assertions: From the moment the impending storm is announced (Genesis 6:7, 13, 17) and Jehovah sets forth the design and dimensions of the ark (Genesis 6:14-16), problems start appearing.
What’s so special about the human brain?
A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones
AI scam bots are trying to “recover” your Gmail account
The discovery of the Parshall Oil Field in 2006 set off a multi-billion dollar energy boom in North Dakota’s Bakken Oil Patch.
Burning Man is urgently calling for millions more in donations amid faltering ticket sales and staff layoffs.
Elon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms
Fentanyl test kits sold by Overdrive Defense include tiny orange spoons for scooping samples of drugs to be checked […] Since introducing Starface in 2019, the two have moved into contraceptive pills (the brand Julie Care), moisturizer (Futurewise) and smoking-cessation products (Blip). Overdrive, founded by Mr. Bordainick with Ms. Schott as an adviser, is their latest venture. [NYT]
He has previously approached me a couple of times offering me a job opportunity — a project he claimed was a perfect fit for my background. I accepted his invitation. […] I went briefly to the bathroom that night during our meeting and when I came back I took a few sips of the drink before he stepped outside to make a call. The waitress then rushed over to alert me that my drink has been spiked.
every day the same again |
November 1st, 2024
Researchers say an AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said
Leaked Training Shows How Doctors in New York’s Biggest Hospital System Are Using AI
How AI could transform the patient journey in health care [audio]
This study systematically assesses expert beliefs about the probability of a nuclear catastrophe by 2045. We define a nuclear catastrophe as an event where nuclear weapons cause the death of at least 10 million people. Experts assigned a median 5% probability of a nuclear catastrophe by 2045, while expert forecasters put the probability at 1%. [PDF]
All animals do things that prevent them from surviving, reproducing, being safe, or being happy. All animals get things wrong. Life makes mistakes.
A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month. […] the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression
As a child, he was kicked out of one of Macao’s finest hotels. Today, he’s the owner.
What It’s Like Being a Billionaire’s Personal Assistant
3-in-1 Drink Spike Defense Test Kit, the first and only test that detects all three of the most common date-rape drugs: GHB, Rohypnol (aka roofies), and ketamine.
The gothic style was meant to be heavenly and transcendent — so how did it become the vision of a haunted house?
Google Street View Is Showing Strange “Businesses” in the Middle of the Ocean
every day the same again |
October 29th, 2024
These companies are creating food out of thin air — Some 25 companies worldwide have already taken up the challenge, hoping to turn abundant carbon dioxide into nutritious “air protein.”
we estimate that wildfire smoke accounts for 18% of ambient PM2.5 concentrations, 0.42% of deaths, and 0.69% of emergency room visits among adults aged 65 and over
study finds cancer-causing chemicals in black plastic food-contact items sold in the U.S. Highest levels of toxic flame retardants found in a spatula, sushi tray, and beaded necklace—likely the result of dirty plastic recycling
Conspicuous logos and clothing colors influence perceptions of men’s mating priorities and attractiveness — Men who owned shirts with large logos were perceived as more likely to pursue short-term sexual relationships and use dominance to gain social status, often through intimidation. In contrast, men who wore shirts with smaller or no logos were rated as more likely to invest in long-term relationships and parental effort, using prestige (cooperation and skill) to gain status.
around 25% of men and 14% of women admit to sexual unfaithfulness
Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it’s haunted
Apollo astronauts first started by putting on highly absorbent underwear. They wore these under their suits in case there was an unanticipated bathroom accident. In addition, they had a urine collection device. This was essentially a heavy, rubber condom attached to a long tube that emptied into a rubberized reservoir. […] The next layer was a liquid cooling garment (LCG). This is a water-cooled nylon undergarment that looked like long underwear with clear plastic tubes running through it. Attached to the LCG was a biobelt. Biobelts were constructed of a cotton duck base, a fabric similar to an artist’s canvas, with Teflon-coated, Beta-cloth pockets.
A memo circulating in Donald Trump’s orbit says that if elected he should use private firms to check appointees’ backgrounds and give them immediate access to classified secrets after taking office. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office. The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Mr. Trump. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office. But it would allow him to quickly install loyalists in major positions without subjecting them to the risk of long-running and intrusive F.B.I. background checks, potentially increasing the risks of people with problematic histories or ties to other nations being given influential White House roles. Such checks hung up clearances for a number of aides during Mr. Trump’s presidency, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Epshteyn himself. The proposal suggests using private-sector investigators and researchers to perform background checks on Mr. Trump’s intended appointees during the transition, cutting out the role traditionally played by F.B.I. agents, the three people said. Once Mr. Trump took the oath, he would then summarily approve a large group for access to classified secrets, they said. [NY Times]
The Journal International de Médecine carried a startling article in 1987: “Mise en Évidence Expérimentale d’une Organisation Tomatotopique chez la Soprano,” or “Experimental Demonstration of the Tomatotopic Organization in the Soprano (Cantatrix sopranica L.).” In it, author Georges Perec notes that throwing tomatoes at sopranos seems to induce a “yelling reaction” and sets out to understand why
The Beguiling, Bizarre World of Midcentury Self-Help Records
— An album from hypnotist and pioneer in “hypo-anesthesia” Emile Franchel, REDUCE TENSIONS AND SLEEP DEEPLY was listed for a pricey $9.50 on its release in 1958. Buyers received a “highest ‘Hi-Fi’ quality” record, “pressed from virgin, vinylite under several exclusive, superior patents.” What’s more, it was pressed on translucent red vinyl! The notes urge the listener to “use the recording often. Learn to relax, to sleep at will, to feel better in mind, spirit and body, and to release the hidden forces within you.”
every day the same again |
October 27th, 2024
Meet the Italian ‘Fruit Detective’ Who Investigates Centuries-Old Paintings for Clues About Produce That Has Disappeared From the Kitchen Table
What makes a person seem wise?
An effortless way to improve your memory Just dim the lights, sit back, and enjoy 10-15 minutes of quiet contemplation, and you’ll find that your memory of the facts you have just learnt is far better than if you had attempted to use that moment more productively.
findings suggest that women are, on average, happier in singlehood than men
How fast is quantum entanglement? Scientists investigate it at the attosecond scale
Suchir Balaji spent nearly four years as an artificial intelligence researcher at OpenAI. Among other projects, he helped gather and organize the enormous amounts of internet data the company used to build its online chatbot, ChatGPT. […] He came to the conclusion that OpenAI’s use of copyrighted data violated the law and that technologies like ChatGPT were damaging the internet. In August, he left OpenAI because he no longer wanted to contribute to technologies that he believed would bring society more harm than benefit. [NY Times]
Rockefeller didn’t make his money through innovation. He didn’t invent gasoline, cars, natural gas, processing methods, shipping, or anything else that would justify his wealth. Rockefeller basically stole his wealth through unfair business practices designed to gouge consumers, robbing them through economic force. He was a Robber Baron. A late 18th century businessman who used monopoly, dirty politics, bribes, and unscrupulous practices to rob the unfortunate of their money. […] I’m on a phone call with four employees from Apple. […] they wanted me to make “just one change” to my webserver Mongrel to support some crazy feature in OSX. […] these 4 lines would require hours and hours of work to implement. […] I was hoping that Apple would offer to hire me to make this change they needed. […] But, they did no such thing. […] There was a pleading, begging, hands clasped together, with all these reasons why I should do it for them. […] I believe we are in the era of the Beggar Barons. Just like the Robber Barons before, these are fabulously wealthy companies that built their empires by (directly or indirectly) begging for free labor from open source developers.
In addition to the soft-serve swirled poop replica, the desk in the middle of the National Mall near 3rd Street NW also held a rendering of an office phone and a nameplate with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s name on it. “This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election,” a plaque reads on a pedestal below the desk.
You may have heard the insane tale of a $660 million memecoin called Goatseus Maximus, which was shilled to the world by a shitposting AI called Terminal of Truths More: Truth Terminal is the most fascinating narrative I’ve seen emerge around Crypto and AI this year. It is a semi-autonomous AI agent that has created its own religion (The Goatse Gospel).
North West stunned fans after gifting her mother Kim Kardashian a luxury necklace with the words ‘Skibidi Toilet’ engraved in diamonds
every day the same again |
October 25th, 2024
Can you think without words? Neuroscientist explains why language isn’t required for deep thinking […] Language and thought are distinct entities, operating in separate parts of the brain
US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’ […] $50,000 to test 100 embryos
ChatGPT-like AI model can diagnose cancer, guide treatment choice, predict survival across multiple cancer types
Archetype AI’s Newton model learns physics from raw data—without any help from humans
ByteDance intern fired for planting malicious code in AI models. Sabotage supposedly cost tens of millions, but TikTok owner ByteDance denies it.
Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries, could provide communities with drinking water at low costs
an estimated 20,000 whales are killed every year, and many more injured, after being struck by ships
Blue whale skeleton at New Bedford museum still oozing oil, even though the whale has been dead for more than two decades
every day the same again |
October 21st, 2024
During wakefulness our thoughts transition between different contents. Alongside, there are moments devoid of specific reportable content, known as mind blanking (MB). Currently, it remains unclear what these blanks refer to […] we hold that ongoing thinking comes at degrees of richness and that allegedly contentless experiences are distinct mental states with their own diversity, therefore challenging the view of the mind as a content-oriented operator.
Afraid of spiders? Heights? Public speaking? They activate different parts of the brain
Some researchers argue that modern diets, especially those of the Western world, have skewed our immune responses in ways that have undermined immune resilience. More optimistically, others say that diet could also help to treat a range of health problems, such as cancers and chronic immune disorders such as lupus. Your diet can change your immune system — here’s how
38% of women have at least one tattoo, compared with 27% of men. This includes 56% of women ages 18 to 29 and 53% of women ages 30 to 49.
Anyone Can Turn You Into an AI Chatbot. There’s Little You Can Do to Stop Them
Startup focused on AI detection has developed a tool to verify human participants in video calls and catch fraudsters using AI deepfakes for scams
The only permanent bipeds of the animal kingdom alongside humans, birds have an extraordinary sense of balance. How do these direct descendants of the dinosaurs maintain this stability, especially when sleeping?
the company announced on social media that its merchandise had been hijacked, that they had no idea this kind of cargo theft was even a thing. […] Last year cargo thieves stole a $50,000 shipment of refrigerated yogurt headed for Florida and demanded a $40,000 ransom. How a small outdoor footwear company lost 5,000 pairs of shoes and found itself entangled in an international crime saga
We praise canonical authors for their boundless imagination. Then why do all their plots feel the same?
“Different matters are arranged in my head,” said Napoleon, “as in drawers. I open one drawer and close another as I wish. I have never been kept awake by an involuntary pre-occupation of the mind. If I desire repose I shut up all the drawers, and sleep. I have always slept when I wanted rest, and almost always at will.”
every day the same again |
October 17th, 2024
Officials at TikTok discovered that there was “a high” number of underage streamers receiving a “gift” or “coin” in exchange for stripping — real money converted into a digital currency […] TikTok quantified the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos […] TikTok videos can be just a few seconds long. Thus, in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform. […] TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes beautiful people […] 95% of smartphone users under 17 use TikTok
His daughter was murdered nearly two decades ago. Earlier this month, he discovered that her name and image had been used to create an AI chatbot.
Spotify criticized for letting fake albums appear on real artist pages
Reflections on Palantir […] I left last year, but never wrote publicly about what I learned there.
Triphallia, a rare congenital anomaly describing the presence of three distinct penile shafts, has been reported only once in the literature. This case report describes the serendipitous discovery during cadaveric dissection of the second reported human case of triphallia
every day the same again |
October 16th, 2024
It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from this frenzy – Earth’s largest migration of creatures – sinks to the ocean floor, removing millions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
This activity is one of thousands of natural processes that regulate the Earth’s climate. Together, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions. […]
Findings by an international team of researchers show the amount of carbon absorbed in 2023 by land has temporarily collapsed. The final result was that forest, plants and soil – as a net category – absorbed almost no carbon.
There are warning signs at sea, too. Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic ice sheets are melting faster than expected, which is disrupting the Gulf Stream ocean current and slows the rate at which oceans absorb carbon. For the algae-eating zooplankton, melting sea ice is exposing them to more sunlight – a shift scientists say could keep them in the depths for longer, disrupting the vertical migration that stores carbon on the ocean floor.
{ Guardian | Continue reading }
climate, elements, eschatology, incidents |
October 15th, 2024
Beer can artwork accidentally thrown in bin by staff member at Dutch museum
Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes
More than a dozen states sue TikTok, alleging it harms kids and is designed to addict them
Fear of positive evaluation (FPE) has recently emerged as an important aspect of social anxiety, alongside fear of negative evaluation
Neurotech startup claims to have achieved the first two-way communication between individuals during lucid dreaming … Using specially designed equipment, participants reportedly exchanged a message while asleep
“Hey, let’s call Trump,” Graham said to MBS while visiting with the Saudi leader in March. What happened next offers a fascinating window into how the Saudi leader operates and communicates with various world leaders and government officials. Woodward writes that bin Salman had an aide bring over a bag with about 50 burner phones, pulling out one labeled “TRUMP 45.”
Bitcoin creator is Peter Todd, HBO film says, Peter Todd denies being Satoshi
The Surprising Backstory Behind Gustav Klimt’s Obsession With Gold
Nearly every station in the London Underground contains an enamel plaque depicting a labyrinth. The collection were installed in 2013 by artist Mark Wallinger
Conceived by Richard Prince and limited to a thousand copies, this large-format artist’s book juxtaposes Irving Klaw’s photographs of 1950s pinup model Bettie Page with reproductions of artworks by Abstract Expressionist painter Franz Kline. According to Prince’s accompanying text, Klaw—the self-described “Pin-up King,” who with his sister Paula produced pinup and bondage photos of subjects including the iconic Page—maintained a studio at the New York address where Kline lived and worked. In Prince’s account, Kline would sometimes use Klaw’s models for figure studies, and Page became his secret subject and muse.
When they got together in 1994, Michael Jackson was 35 and told Lisa Marie that he was “still a virgin.”
every day the same again |
October 9th, 2024
Christopher DeVocht, a carpenter from Vancouver Island, Canada, says he started out like a lot of day traders. After work, he’d read about trading on forums. His favorite things to trade were options on Tesla Inc. stock. […]
At the end of 2019, his account, with the brokerage division of Royal Bank of Canada, was worth C$88,000. Within two years, he’d turned that into C$415 million ($306 million), he says.
Some people would have cashed out. DeVocht didn’t. And when Tesla stock fell in 2022, he lost it all. […]
DeVocht now claims that the advice he received, geared mainly toward minimizing taxes, was negligent […] [Royal Bank of Canada] advised him to incorporate a company, roll all of his securities into it and conduct trades within the company “with a strategy of accumulating as many Tesla shares as possible and holding them for as long as possible,” DeVocht claims in the lawsuit. The idea was to convince Canadian tax authorities to view it as an investment holding company, not an active trading business, because he’d pay lower taxes that way.
{ Bloomberg | Continue reading }
traders |
October 7th, 2024
Physicists showed that photons can seem to exit a material before entering it, revealing observational evidence of negative time [study]
birth control pills for men
In the current study, we investigate the familial genetic and environmental transmission of depression by incorporating data from both adolescent twins and their parents. Our results, based on both self- and parent-report, demonstrate significant additive and dominant genetic influences on depression. We also found mild yet significant sibling environmental influences, while familial environmental influences were absent.
Why is the Speed of Light So Fast?
Study of 500,000 Medical Records Links Viruses With Alzheimer’s Again And Again
newly released data finds that the US adult obesity rate fell by around two percentage points between 2020 and 2023. We have known for several years from clinical trials that Ozempic, Wegovy and the new generation of diabetes and weight loss drugs produce large and sustained reductions in body weight. Now with mass public usage taking off — one in eight US adults have used the drugs, with 6 per cent current users — the results may be showing up at the population level.
Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta’s Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers
Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap — and Companies Need to Prepare
every day the same again |
October 5th, 2024
Woman with rare double uterus gives birth to twins
Mystery creator of Bitcoin identified, new HBO documentary claims […] the exposure of Satoshi as its alleged creator threatens to raise some huge questions, not least his potential complicity in crimes that have featured Bitcoin use. It could also establish him as one of the world’s richest people: Satoshi himself is estimated to control about 1.1 million Bitcoin. […] The big reveal is set to air next Wednesday at 2 a.m. CET (Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST).
Andy Kill, a spokesperson for 23andMe, would not comment on what the company might do with its trove of genetic data beyond general pronouncements about its commitment to privacy. “For our customers, our focus continues to be on transparency and choice over how they want their data to be managed,” he said.
research shows that adult brains are also negatively impacted by excessive screen time, defined as more than two hours a day outside of work hours. The study shows that in adults aged 18 – 25, excessive screen time causes thinning of the cerebral cortex, the brain’s outermost layer responsible for processing memory and cognitive functions, such as decision-making and problem-solving. Another study found that adults who watched television for five hours or more per day had an increased risk of developing brain-related disease like dementia, stroke, or Parkinson’s. Additional studies found that adults who engage in excessive screen time or have a diagnosed smartphone addiction had lower gray matter volume. Gray matter is brain tissue essential for daily human functioning and is responsible for everything from movement to memory to emotions.
Shifting away from undesired habits involves weakening the neural pathways that fuel them. Instead of relying solely on penalties for engaging in a bad habit, introduce a positive action right after to replace it. This method gradually diminishes the unwanted habit’s hold over you.
Hundreds of millions of small packages pour into the U.S. each year from China – some with fentanyl ingredients stashed inside. […] a few paragraphs buried in a 2016 U.S. trade law supported by major parcel carriers and e-commerce platforms that made it easier for imported goods, including those fentanyl ingredients, to enter the United States. […] In short, a regulatory tweak fueling America’s online shopping habit is also enabling the country’s crippling addiction to synthetic opioids. […] U.S. lawmakers inadvertently turbocharged this problem as part of the 2016 legislation by loosening a regulation known as de minimis. Individual parcels of clothing, gadgets and other merchandise valued at up to $800 – one of the highest such limits in the world – now enter the country duty-free and with minimal paperwork and inspections. Fully 90% of all shipments now enter the country this way, and most arrive by air. […] a fight is shaping up over whether and how to undo the rule change that helped set off this deadly import boom.
Is the World Really Running Out of Sand?
Meta confirms it may train its AI on any image you ask Ray-Ban Meta AI to analyze
Cybercriminals using stolen cloud credentials to operate and resell sexualized AI-powered chat services [which] often veer into darker role-playing scenarios, including child sexual exploitation and rape
REVEALED: Women will be having more sex with ROBOTS than men by 2025. That’s according to a professional
every day the same again |
October 4th, 2024
This is just a cool insider trading case. There’s a guy, Robert Westbrook. He allegedly hacked into the email accounts of several executives at different US public companies. The SEC complaint lays out how he allegedly did that:
He would go to the executive’s Outlook email login page and click to reset the password. “Four of the five Hacked Companies used the same password reset portal software,” says the SEC, and he was apparently familiar with its workings.
He subscribed to “an online directory service provider and an online genealogy company,” which gave him “personal and family
information that could be used to guess the answers to the security questions that employees at the Hacked Companies may have used to reset their passwords.” You can do a lot of damage if you know a public-company executive’s mother’s maiden name and first pet’s name.
He’d reset their passwords and get access to their emails.
Then he’d read them and look for secret earnings information. […]
But even if you get earnings releases in advance, there’s no guarantee that you’ll make money. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague John Authers wrote last week about an Elm Partners study finding that most people can’t trade profitably even knowing tomorrow’s news. […]
Ten trades were winners, four were losers, the winners were bigger than the losers and his net profit was about $3.4 million. […]
This includes buying half a million dollars’ worth of one company’s[2] stock and call options before its March 2019 earnings report, and making a $236,492 profit when the earnings were good, and then buying $786,364 worth of that company’s put options before its March 2020 earnings report, and making a $1.04 million profit when those earnings were mixed.
{ Matt Levine / Bloomberg | Continue reading }
scams and heists, traders |
October 1st, 2024
Paraquat is among the most toxic agricultural chemicals ever produced. It’s banned in the European Union, where the consequences of its use are still being felt, but in parts of the world it’s still being sold. This is made possible, in part, by an influence machine that works to suppress opposition to an $78 billion global industry.
A year-long investigation managed to penetrate a PR operation that casts those who raise the alarm, from pesticide critics to environmental scientists or sustainability campaigners, as an anti-science “protest industry,” and used US government money to do so.
The US-based PR firm, v-Fluence, built profiles on hundreds of scientists, campaigners and writers, whilst coordinating with government officials, to counter global resistance to pesticides. These profiles are published on a private social network, which grants privileged entry to 1,000 people. The network’s membership roster is a who’s-who of the agrochemical industry and its friends, featuring executives from some of the world’s largest pesticide companies alongside government officials from multiple countries.
These members can access profiles on more than 3,000 organisations and 500 people who have been critical of pesticides or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). They come from all over the world and include scientists, UN human right experts, environmentalists, and journalists. Many of the profiles divulge personal details about the subjects, such as their home addresses and telephone numbers, and spotlight criticisms that disparage their work. Lawyers have told us this goes against data privacy laws in several countries. […]
Our investigation reveals that the US government funded v-Fluence as part of its program to promote GMOs in Africa and Asia.
{ Lighthouse Reports | Continue reading }
unrelated { Electric cars causing fires after Hurricane Helene flooding }
chem, economics, poison |
September 30th, 2024
Man amputates penis with an axe after consuming psilocybin mushrooms
At Exxon Mobil’s only “advanced recycling” facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned.
Will Plants Grow on the Moon?
anomalous decrease observed in lunar surface temperatures is attributed to the COVID-19 global lockdown effect
Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers
How did birds survive while dinosaurs went extinct?
women were more likely to engage in rival derogation towards women with larger breast sizes
Impulsivity, Disgust
The external anal sphincter is the only part of the digestive process we have conscious control over. So, if we decide the time is not right to pass gas, we constrict the sphincter and the fart is trapped. Without a backdoor to escape from, the gases recede back into the colon. […] farts that are ignored during the day are mostly released during bathroom breaks or as the body relaxes in sleep at night. […] always holding it in can be bad for the bowels over time.
Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said. At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine.
Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes — a world first
Do AI companies work? The billions that OpenAI spent on building prior versions of GPT is not, because better versions of it are already available for free on Github. […] An LLM vendor that doesn’t spend tens of millions of dollars a year—and maybe billions, for the leaders—improving their models is a year or two from being out of business. Though that math might work for huge companies like Google and Microsoft, and for OpenAI, which has become synonymous with artificial intelligence, it’s hard to see how that works for smaller companies that aren’t already bringing in sizable amounts of revenue. […] the winners won’t be who ran the fastest or reached some finish line, but whoever was leading when the market decided the race is over.
Microsoft claims its new tool can correct AI hallucinations, experts advise caution
SocialAI is an online universe where everyone you interact with is a bot. More: SocialAI takes the social media “filter bubble” to an extreme with 100% fake interactions
The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure […] Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new, unrepeated statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful
The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure […] Repetition makes statements easier to process relative to new, unrepeated statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful
NKRYPT is a cryptography related installation outside the Questacon science exploration centre in Canberra, Australia
every day the same again |
September 30th, 2024
Google is serving AI-generated images of mushrooms when users search for some species, a risky and potentially fatal error for foragers who are trying to figure out what mushrooms are safe to eat.
Boy abducted from California at age 6 found alive more than 70 years later […] [kidnapped in 1951 by a woman] he ended up with a couple who raised him as if he were their own son
Several people are detained in Switzerland in connection with suspected death in a ‘suicide capsule’ — The “Sarco” capsule, which has never been used before, is designed to allow a person sitting in a reclining seat inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes.
Study sheds new light on severe COVID’s long-term brain impacts — post-COVID deficits in hospitalized patients look similar to 20 years of normal aging. The team also found that people who had been hospitalized with COVID had reduced brain volume in key areas and abnormally high levels of brain injury proteins in their blood.
Why do obesity drugs seem to treat so many other ailments?
Why are the violins the biggest section in the orchestra?
Meet the Internet’s Scrappiest Home for Obscure Cinema
every day the same again |
September 25th, 2024
Man stabbed himself to death separating frozen burgers
Given a pair of candidate photos, monkeys spent more time looking at the loser than the winner, and this gaze bias predicted not only binary election outcomes but also the candidates’ vote share […] Our findings endorse the idea that voters spontaneously respond to evolutionarily conserved visual cues to physical prowess and that voting behavior is shaped, in part, by ancestral adaptations shared with nonhuman primates.
AI chatbots predict elections better than humans
We study alcohol’s impact on trust at the event “La Notte della Taranta” with objective intoxication measures. […] Alcohol consumption correlates positively with instantaneous trust, especially among like-minded attendees.
Scientists Calculated How Much Exercise We Need to ‘Offset’ a Day of Sitting — Up to 40 minutes of “moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity” every day is about the right amount to balance out 10 hours of sitting still, the research says – although any amount of exercise or even just standing up helps to some extent.
The human heart shows signs of ageing after just a month in space After 12 days on the ISS, the tissues’ contraction strength had almost halved, whereas that of their on-ground counterparts had remained relatively stable. This weakening was still apparent even after nine days of recovery back on Earth.
following the start of PhD studies, the use of psychiatric medication among PhD students increases substantially. This upward trend continues throughout the course of PhD studies, with estimates showing a 40 percent increase by the fifth year compared to pre-PhD levels. After the fifth year, which represents the average duration of PhD studies in our sample, we observe a notable decrease in the utilization of psychiatric medication.
Puberty Hasn’t Changed Since the Ice Age — The data collected also suggests the Paleolithic kids underwent growth spurts similar to those experienced by modern humans, but significantly shorter than those of medieval children—in other words, they matured faster
the emergence of new multicellular life-forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a “third state” that lies beyond the traditional boundaries of life and death. […] practices such as organ donation highlight how organs, tissues and cells can continue to function even after an organism’s demise. […] Researchers have also found that solitary human lung cells can self-assemble into miniature multicellular organisms that can move around.
The earliest method of contraception was probably coitus interruptus. Barrier methods of contraception were later developed. The use of a goat’s bladder as a female sheath was described in Roman literature and ancient Egyptian texts describe the use of vaginal pessaries. In the 17th century Casanova used condoms made of animal intestine. In the 1920s research confirmed the timing of ovulation and the role of the ovarian hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, in reproduction. This led to the development of the rhythm method of contraception, based on the woman’s monthly variation in body temperature, and the development of the contraceptive pill. The first large scale trial of the pill took place in 1956, and it has been refined since then.
Octopuses seen hunting together with fish in rare video — and punching fish that don’t cooperate
Fake AI “podcasters” are reviewing my book and it’s freaking me out
Using YouTube to steal your files
How hackers gain access to phones
Radioactive Consumer Products
Uncategorized, every day the same again |
September 24th, 2024
health, psychology, time |
September 24th, 2024
Turbulent skies of Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” align with a scientific theory, study finds
In 2017, Astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan talked about his admiration for Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” revealing how the painter had intuited the colors of the stars long before science. [France Culture | audio in French]
The vision took place at night, yet the painting was created in several sessions during the day [MoMA, NYC]
art, van gogh |
September 21st, 2024
Cops lure pedophiles with AI pics of teen girl
Brit, 15, forced to strip for airport security after they ‘didn’t believe she was a girl’
After 12 yrs of marriage… Wife discovers hubby is a woman via JSTOR
how Celsius became Red Bull for women
The price of oil can rise because of a disruption to supply or an increase in demand. The nature of the price change determines the dynamic effects. As Kilian (2009a) put it: “not all oil price shocks are alike.” [PDF]
In 1959, voracious invasive rats were blamed for killing hundreds of white-faced storm petrels, a small seabird, on New Zealand’s Maria Island. In part to protect the birds, conservationists spread rat poison on the 2-hectare island, also known as Ruapuke. They didn’t intend to eradicate the rats but 5 years later were pleasantly surprised to discover that the rodents had disappeared, and the seabirds were safe. Today, that pioneering effort and others have helped inspire a global push to eradicate rats from many other islands. Over the past half-century, people have made 820 attempts on 666 islands. Some 88% have succeeded. […] Although the world’s 465,000 islands comprise just 5.3% of Earth’s land, island-dwelling species account for an estimated 75% of all known bird, mammal, amphibian, and reptile extinctions.
Water was plentiful in the early universe — the universe’s first reservoirs of water may have formed much earlier than previously thought - less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Previously: Now, just where might this Great Filter be located?
For his 1959 work Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle, Yves Klein sold the ownership of empty space. In its 1967 Air-Conditioning Show, English conceptual collaborative Art & Language presented an empty room containing two air conditioning units; the artwork was “what is felt and said about it.” […] Tom Friedman’s 1992 work Untitled (A Curse) consisted of a region of empty space that had been cursed by a witch. […] Andy Warhol’s 1985 Invisible Sculpture was entirely intangible. […] Ruben Gutierrez’s 2022 work This Sculpture Makes Me Cry (A Spell) was said to represent what the artist could not see but which affected him emotionally. Warhol and Gutierrez both presented their sculptures on white pedestals. Is there any way to prove they’re not the same piece?
The most memorable image of ignorance occurs in what is probably the most famous passage of all philosophy: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in “The Republic.”
every day the same again |
September 20th, 2024
Police have arrested a teen girl they say took an empty New York City subway train on a brief joyride before they crashed it and fled.
For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.
researchers now run small AIs on their laptops Artificial-intelligence models are typically used online, but a host of openly available tools is changing that. Here’s how to get started with local AIs.
Sanewashing is the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal. Here’s how reporters can eschew it.
Scientists Identify New Blood Group After a 50 Year Mystery
2024 was the year the music festival died
Does the status people possess shape their subjective well-being? […] people have a competitive orientation towards status; they not only want to have high status on an absolute level (e.g., to be highly respected and admired), but also to have higher status than others (e.g., to be more respected and admired than others)
Diddy’s Homes Reportedly Fitted With Hidden Cameras In Every Room — cameras supposedly captured alleged disturbing footage of his guests including “celebrities, athletes, politicians, international dignitaries, and music label executives.” Related: United States of America vs. SEAN COMBS a/k/a “Puff Daddy,” a/k/a “P. Diddy”, a/k/a “PD, a/k/a “Love”
The Ring of Gyges is a hypothetical magic ring mentioned by the philosopher Plato in Book 2 of his Republic. It grants its owner the power to become invisible at will. Using the ring as an example, this section of the Republic considers whether a rational, intelligent person who has no need to fear negative consequences for committing an injustice would nevertheless act justly. […] the man who abused the power of the Ring of Gyges has in fact enslaved himself to his appetites, while the man who chose not to use it remains rationally in control of himself and is therefore happy.
every day the same again |
September 19th, 2024
The basic rule is that the chief executive officer of a company works for the board of directors, and the directors work for the shareholders. Sometimes, though, the CEO is also the controlling shareholder, and this becomes circular: She works for the directors, who work for her. If they disagree, things get weird. If they’re unhappy with her, they can fire her, but then she can fire them.
This doesn’t come up all that often in basic job-performance situations […] It does happen, though: We talked last year about World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., whose board of directors pushed out founder-CEO Vince McMahon after sexual misconduct allegations, and then, as controlling shareholder, he pushed them out.
It comes up more often in mergers and acquisitions, and particularly in going-private transactions. […]
The directors work for all the shareholders, and they can’t just do what the controlling shareholder wants if it’s bad for the other shareholders. But the controlling shareholder gets to pick the board, and if they are too independent she can pick a new board. They can get fired for doing their job too well.
Anyway:
All seven independent directors of DNA-testing company 23andMe resigned Tuesday, following a protracted negotiation with founder and Chief Executive Anne Wojcicki over her plan to take the company private.
It is the latest challenge for 23andMe, which has struggled to find a profitable business model. The stock price rose a penny on Tuesday to $0.35 per share. At that price, 23andMe’s valuation is just $7 million more than the cash on its balance sheet. That represents a 99.9% decline from its $6 billion peak valuation just after going public in 2021. […]
Wojcicki controls 49% of 23andMe votes, giving her a level of control that blocked board members from shopping the company to other potential bidders. She is the only remaining board member after the resignations.
{ Matt Levine/Bloomberg | Continue reading }
The move is almost certainly the final nail in the coffin for the embattled company known for its mail-order DNA-testing kit. Since going public via merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in 2021, 23andMe has never turned a profit. […]
The board includes Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha as well as Neal Mohan, who took the helm as CEO of YouTube last year after Susan Wojcicki, Anne’s late sister, stepped down.
{ Fortune | Continue reading }
economics, genes |
September 19th, 2024
Britain’s crime minister has bag stolen at police conference
A detailed study of a woman’s brain before, during and after pregnancy revealed sweeping neural changes, some of which stuck around months after her baby was born.
In 2018, at the height of VC investment, 51,302 start-ups were founded in China, according to data provider IT Juzi. By 2023, that figure had collapsed to 1,202 and is on track to be even lower this year. […] The crisis in the sector partly reflects the slowdown in the Chinese economy, which has been buffeted by the protracted Covid-19 lockdowns, the bursting of its property bubble and the stagnation of its equity markets. As bilateral tensions have risen, US-based investors have also largely pulled out. [FT]
Shein is officially the biggest polluter in fast fashion. the company nearly doubled its carbon dioxide emissions between 2022 and 2023. […] the fast fashion industry has begun embracing emerging AI technologies. Shein uses proprietary machine-learning applications — essentially, pattern-identification algorithms — to measure customer preferences in real time and predict demand, which it then services with an ultra-fast supply chain.
The first image of the Titan submersible sitting at the bottom of the ocean following its catastrophic implosion last year [Flashback: Missing Titanic sub crew killed after ‘catastrophic implosion’]
A woman who was in a sexual relationship with a plane for nine years has said she’s finally broken up with it.
Cheryl Meglio, “The Church Lady”, Specializing in the Sale of Church Real Estate. More: Monastery for sale in France
every day the same again |
September 17th, 2024
Hi, I’m Jimmy (MrBeast) and as the team is growing larger, I no longer get to spend as much time with everyone as I used to. […] Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. That’s the number one goal of this production company. It’s not to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest quality videos.. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. […]
What makes a Youtube video viral?
I spent basically 5 years of my life locked in a room studying virality on Youtube. Some days me and some other nerds would spend 20 hours straight studying the most minor thing: like is there a correlation between better lighting at the start of the video and less viewer drop off (there is, have good lighting at the start of the video haha) or other tiny things like that. And the result of those probably 20,000 to 30,000 hours of studying is I’d say I have a good grasp on what makes Youtube videos do well.
The three metrics you guys need to care about is Click Thru Rate (CTR), Average View Duration (AVD), and Average View Percentage (AVP). Make sure you know those abbreviations because that’s how most people will refer to them. Up first we’ll talk about CTR. This is important no matter what department you work in. CTR is basically how many people see our thumbnail in their feeds divided by how many that click it. If 100,000,000 people see our thumbnail and 10,000,000 click on it then that means 10% clicked and we have a 10% ctr. This is what dictates what we do for videos. “I Spent 50 Hours In My Front Yard” is lame and you wouldn’t click it. But you would hypothetically click “I Spent 50 Hours In Ketchup”. Both are relatively similar in time/effort but the ketchup one is easily 100x more viral. An image of someone sitting in ketchup in a bathtub is exponentially more interesting than someone sitting in their front yard. Titles are equally as important for getting someone to click. A simple way to up that CTR even more would be to title it “I Survived” instead of “I Spent”. That would add more intrigue and make it feel more extreme. In general the more extreme the better. “I Don’t Like Bananas” won’t perform the same as “Bananas Are The Worst Food On Earth”. […]
AVD. This is how long on average people watch a given video. The cool thing about Youtube is they give us super detailed graphs for every video that show the exact second we lose a viewer on every single video. […] The first minute of each video is the most important minute of each video. After the first minute of content you will have what we call minutes 1 thru 3. This is where you have to transition from hype to execution (generally). Stop telling people what they will be watching and start showing them.
{ HOW TO SUCCEED IN MrBEAST PRODUCTION | Continue reading }
marketing |
September 17th, 2024
Aggressive interactions can strongly influence an animal’s performance in subsequent contests. Winners of aggressive contests are more likely to win successive contests and losers are more likely to lose successive contests
Close friends seem to communicate almost telepathically. A single word or phrase can be loaded with meaning that would take pages of text to explain to an outsider. This linguistic compression is undeniably efficient. But is efficiency the only reason friends tend to speak in code? In a series of studies, we show that when people use “insider language” with each other they feel closer. Friends, as expected, use insider language more frequently than strangers, but even strangers are able to incorporate it into their conversations. While the content of insider language varies between friends and strangers, both groups experience heightened connection when it is used. These results suggest that the human ability to say more with less confers a social advantage beyond mere efficiency—one that may be challenging for conversational AI to replicate.
The Disunity of Consciousness in Everyday Experience
Online Dating Caused a Rise in US Income Inequality, Research Paper Shows
if there are macroscopic structures awaiting discovery in humans, imagine how much more true that will be of every other species that we haven’t been studying with extreme diligence and self-interest for millennia. […] Chickens are one of the commonly used model organisms in laboratory studies, and the basis for a multi- billion-dollar food industry. Surely we must know everything there is to know about their anatomy? (Spoiler alert: we do not.) […] A chicken or a cat has about the same number of body parts as a human, they’re just smaller and harder to see. Frogs seem to be a little simpler than shrews or hummingbirds, but it may also be that we know them less well, and dissect them less patiently and completely. […] Where is all this new anatomy hiding?
Former model and Miss Switzerland finalist Kristina Joksimovic allegedly murdered and “pureed” in a blender by her husband
Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars
every day the same again |
September 16th, 2024
LLMs Will Always Hallucinate, and We Need to Live With This — This work introduces the concept of Structural Hallucination as an intrinsic nature of these systems. By establishing the mathematical certainty of hallucinations, we challenge the prevailing notion that they can be fully mitigated.
people primed with sexual desire for an alternative partner reported increased sexual desire for their romantic partner. People primed with sexual desire for their romantic partner, however, did not report increased sexual desire for alternatives
Analysis of the Psychological Factors of Love Murder Cases
Unlike Wi-Fi, which uses radio waves to create a wireless connection, Li-Fi relies on light to transmit data. Through this process, Li-Fi promises speeds that are 100 times faster than Wi-Fi. Oldecomm is predicting that Li-Fi will be available anytime between 2024 and 2029.
Experiments in which an AI chatbot engaged in conversations with people who believed at least one conspiracy theory showed that the interaction significantly reduced the strength of those beliefs […] the chatbot could precisely tailor its counterarguments to each individual
How come some experts can’t distinguish red and white wines, and others can tell that it’s a 1951 Riesling from the Seine River Valley?
Japan’s cat testicle calendar
every day the same again |
September 15th, 2024
The modern forecasting community largely emerged from the work of one man: Philip Tetlock. In 1984, Tetlock, then a professor of political science at UC Berkeley, held his first forecasting tournament. His goal was to investigate whether experts — government officials, journalists, and academics — were better at making predictions in their areas of interest than intelligent laypeople. The upshot: Experts make for terrible forecasters.
“It is the teenage women …who are advancing [language] change.” The discovery that young women drive linguistic change is not new. William Labov, the founder of modern sociolinguistics studies, observed that women lead 90 per cent of linguistic change. […] in 2003, linguists surveyed 6,000 letters, written between 1417 to 1681. The study found there was a quicker uptake of new language contained within the letters written by women compared to those written by men.
How farms are using ‘magic dust’ to capture carbon — The dust is crushed basalt – volcanic rock which can be found in abundance in quarries across the country.
Scientists plan to seed part of the Pacific Ocean with iron to trigger a surface bloom of phytoplankton that will hopefully suck carbon dioxide out of the air, reviving field trials of a geoengineering technique that has been taboo for more than a decade.
When Was the Last Time We Built a New City? — California Forever wants to build a new city in Solano county. On paper, it would be an affordable, high-density urbanist wonderland — but can they actually pull it off?
A major computer manufacturer discovered that playing the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” would crash certain models of laptops. […] One discovery during the investigation is that playing the music video also crashed some of their competitors’ laptops. And then they discovered something extremely weird: Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video. […] It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used.
every day the same again |
September 14th, 2024
Ford seeks patent for tech that listens to driver conversations to serve ads
Facebook is scraping the public photos, posts and other data of all Australian adults on the platform, it has acknowledged in an inquiry. The company does not offer Australians an opt out option like it does in the EU, because it has not been required to do so under privacy law.
Mark Zuckerberg says he’s done apologizing
Women who use lots of makeup are more narcissistic, but less psychopathic. Damn, they can’t win. [study]
Researchers in Gabon studied tropical plants eaten by wild gorillas - and used also by local human healers - identifying four with medicinal effects. Laboratory studies revealed the plants were high in antioxidants and antimicrobials. One showed promise in fighting superbugs.
Research has shown that consuming whole foods still “packaged” in their original fibers and polyphenols – the cellular wrappers and colorful compounds in plants that confer many of their health benefits – leads to more calories lost through stool, when compared with processed foods that have been “predigested” by factories into simple carbs, refined fats and additives. Weight Loss Involves More Than Calories In, Calories Out.
Can a life full of suffering be good? This study might make it possible to answer this question in the affirmative. […] people’s expectations of how an event is going to impact them differ from thoughts and feelings during the event itself which differs from retrospective evaluations of the event in terms of associations with various indicators of wellbeing
Bijan’s father was Bijan Pakzad, a larger-than-life Iranian immigrant who founded House of Bijan in 1976 as an appointment-only Rodeo Drive temple of $65,000 croc-skin luggage, $15,000 vicuña coats and $120,000 chinchilla bedspreads. Over nearly four decades, Pakzad built the store into a destination for the ultra-rich. He parked a canary-yellow Rolls-Royce outside and appeared in ads smoking cigars with Michael Jordan and palling around with Bo Derek. House of Bijan developed a reputation for being the “most expensive store in the world,” before Pakzad died in 2011 and left it all to his youngest child, a then 19-year-old Nicolas. Today, the younger Bijan is 33 and trying to slip free from his father’s long shadow with an even more exclusive proposition: a members-only apparel brand. NB44, which he launched in 2021, costs $12,000 a year to join—a fee that doesn’t cover a single item of clothing. […] members get an all-in-one packaging of styling, networking, shipping, bespoke designs and even dry-cleaning. […] The company designs the clothes, styles them as outfits and ships them four times a year directly to members’ homes in personalized, racing-green trunks. […] over 5,000 people have filled out the prospective member questionnaire on NB44’s site. Just under 100 have been admitted [WSJ]
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) uses freeze marking to identify captured wild horses and burros. The left side of the neck is shaved and washed with alcohol, and the mark is applied with an iron that is chilled in liquid nitrogen. The hair at the site of the mark will grow back white and show the identification number.
“So long Google, the verb […] Younger audiences are ’searching’, not ‘Googling’”
every day the same again |
September 12th, 2024
A diamond – from the Greek ἀδάμας (adámas), meaning unconquerable – is a three-dimensional cubic or hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. As its bonds are strong and its atoms packed closely together, diamond is the hardest natural material and the least compressible. Diamonds have high thermal conductivity and high electrical resistivity, but can be combined with small amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and boron and made into semiconductors. […]
In nature, it takes billions of years to form a diamond. Most of the diamonds nature produces are too impure for jewelry or high-tech industry, and extracting them is costly and dirty. […]
Diamonds grown in the lab are now cheaper than mined diamonds and have superior physical, optical, chemical, and electrical properties. Consequently, they dominate the industrial market. In the past decade, diamond manufacturing technology progressed so much that it is now possible to mass-produce jewelry-quality diamonds in the lab. These lab diamonds are cheaper and more beautiful than mined diamonds. A perfectly cut, flawless lab diamond costs a fraction of the price of a mined diamond of lesser quality.
{ Works in Progress | Continue reading }
chem, economics |
September 9th, 2024
Almost half of doctors sexually harassed by patients, research covering seven countries finds, 52% of female doctors affected, 34% of male doctors
Rosenthal is among more than a thousand people who have received a procedure to help them burp […] Since 2019, the condition has had an official name: retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction, also known as “abelchia” or “no-burp syndrome.”
Emerging studies suggest that sleep plays a crucial role in optimising cognitive function by contributing to bodily restoration, memory consolidation, learning and emotional regulation. Sleep impairment, particularly common among elderly people, has been consistently linked to an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia. […] Severe sleep deprivation has been shown to induce alterations in synaptic plasticity and impairments in learning and memory, thus affecting cognition […] normal sleep duration (7-9 hours) and intermediate and evening chronotypes were generally associated with better cognitive performance than short sleep duration and morningness type. […] Our study showed an inverse relationship between morningness and cognitive performance in adults, contrasting with adolescent studies where morningness correlated with better health and mental well-being […] our results indicate that long sleep (≥10hours) is a significant negative predictor for cognitive performance […] findings highlight the vital role of sleep quality on cognitive health
Silicon Valley brides are handing out party-size packages of ZBiotics, an enzyme said to reduce headaches caused by too much wedding.
AI may not steal many jobs after all. It may just make workers more efficient
Ocean plastic pollution is one of the most urgent problems our oceans face today […] the elimination of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be done at today’s level of performance in 10 years at a cost of $7.5bn
Tsundoku (積ん読) is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. The term is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.
every day the same again |
September 9th, 2024
Since 1953, the regional bank Credito Emiliano has accepted curious collateral for small-business loans: giant wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. […] The more it ages, the more delicious and valuable it becomes—like cash in an interest-bearing account.
Elon Musk now controls two thirds of all active satellites, SpaceX’s Starlink network is growing by an average of three satellites per day
The Hidden Engineering of Landfills — Digging a hole sounds like an obvious choice, but consider this: digging a hole is expensive, and not digging a hole is free. […] That’s why most landfills mostly build up into what sanitation professionals call the “air space.” […] eventually, it’s going to rain. […] We really don’t want garbage juice percolating into our soils. […] So, modern landfills use a bottom liner to keep waste separate from the underlying soils. Often this consists of a thick sheet of plastic […] Another option is thick clay soil compacted to create a watertight layer. In many cases, the two options are combined
For the third time this summer, birds on electrical lines have burst into flames, fallen to the ground and started a wildfire.
To understand how living cellular computers work, it’s helpful to think of them like a special kind of computer, where DNA is the “tape” that holds information. Instead of using silicon chips like regular computers, these systems use the natural processes in cells to perform tasks.
Laufer is the chief spokesperson of Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, an anarchist collective that has spent the last few years teaching people how to make DIY versions of expensive pharmaceuticals at a tiny fraction of the cost.
People with greater mental resilience may live longer, especially women
Mosquitoes Are Using Infrared to Track Humans Down
“If you’re really lucky, someone might piss in your mouth.”
every day the same again |
September 7th, 2024
study links the decline of bats to a rise in newborn deaths […] Most North American bats eat insects, including pests like moths that damage crops. Without bats flying about, farmers spray more insecticides on their fields, the study shows, and exposure to insecticides is known to harm the health of newborns.
research suggests many planets that could evolve life don’t have a day and night cycle
Engineers have created a new type of robot that places living fungi behind the controls. The biohybrid robot uses electrical signals from an edible type of mushroom called a king trumpet in order to move around and sense its environment.
A common food dye can turn the skin of living mice transparent, enabling researchers to peer inside the body without surgery […] we don’t yet know if it’ll work in humans
Ketamine interrupts machine gun-like neural activity to alleviate depression
The New Recruitment Challenge: Filtering AI-Crafted Résumés
“ChatGPT needs to ‘drink’ a 500 ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of roughly 20-50 questions and answers, depending on when and where ChatGPT is deployed” […] What’s actually gobbling up all that H2O is the bit barn’s air handlers, often called evaporative or swamp coolers, used to keep those systems from overheating.
OpenAI is begging the British Parliament to allow it to use copyrighted works because it’s supposedly “impossible” for the company to train its artificial intelligence models without them.[…] OpenAI went on to insist that it complies with copyright laws and that the company believes “legally copyright law does not forbid training.”
Unlike past tech booms, this one is getting funded by tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia, rather than traditional venture firms
When I set out to improve my tainted reputation with chatbots, I discovered a new world of A.I. manipulation.
Thieves typically “shoulder surf” victims to catch them entering their PIN before stealing the phone.
The Rothko Chapel in Houston, which houses 14 murals by American artist Mark Rothko, has been closed indefinitely due to damage from Hurricane Beryl
Charli XCX: I did a photo shoot yesterday and they dyed my eyebrows blonde, but then they dyed them back really dark. […] Were you hungover after Saturday? Rachel Sennott: 100 percent.
every day the same again |
September 6th, 2024
Barcelona Diarrhea Plane refers to a viral incident in early September 2023 in which a passenger on a transatlantic Delta Airlines flight to Spain reportedly had explosive diarrhea and, unable to contain it, defecated “all throughout the plane.” The incident forced the plane to turn around two hours into its flight and land from where it took off in Atlanta, Georgia so that the “biohazard” situation could be addressed.
comparison of near-death and psychedelic experiences — Results revealed areas of overlap between both experiences for phenomenology, attribution of reality, psychological insights, and enduring effects. A finer-grained analysis of the phenomenology revealed a significant overlap in mystical-like effects
Women are more likely to experience orgasm when masturbating or partnered with women than when partnered with men
A world-first study challenges our understanding of how humans cope with extreme heat
In this artwork, photos of people found on Google Street View were posted at the same physical locations from where they were taken. Life-size posters were printed in color, cut along the outlines, and then affixed to the walls of public buildings at the precise spot where they appear in Google Street View.
every day the same again |
September 3rd, 2024
Fingerprints are becoming a ubiquitous entry device—used for background checks, travel security, and to open car doors without keys. But this unique identifier made of ridges and furrows can fade or temporarily wear down—and an increasing number of people are finding out just how easy it is to lose their fingerprints […] it became an issue for her when she applied for citizenship, and the first stage involved getting fingerprinted. […] Typically fingerprints return in a matter of months
In Oakland and beyond, police called to crime scenes are increasingly looking for more than shell casings and fingerprints. They’re scanning for Teslas parked nearby, hoping their unique outward-facing cameras captured key evidence. They’re even resorting to obtaining warrants to tow the cars to ensure they don’t lose the video.
In what feels like a desperate attempt to stay afloat, 23andMe plans to… start prescribing weight loss drugs. How did we get here, with the once-mighty DNA testing company becoming just the latest to join the GLP-1 trend […] Even Scott Gottlieb’s Illumina, the flagship DNA sequencing company is struggling! […] Tome Biosciences, a high-profile gene editing startup spun out of MIT, is halting its lab work and looking to sell itself or find a partner to continue developing its technology. […] despite raising $213 million across two funding rounds, the three-year-old startup is running out of money. Since January, Tome has tried, and failed, to raise a third large round of funding needed to finish preclinical tests.
Can Plastic Waste Be Transformed Into Food for Humans? The bacteria that would otherwise eat plants can perhaps instead draw their energy from the plastic. After the bacteria consume the plastic, the microbes are then dried into a powder that smells a bit like nutritional yeast and has a balance of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins
You are what you eat — at least when it comes to the microbiome
The story of the “National Radio Quiet Zone” dates back to 1958, when the US federal government designated a region in West Virginia to help astronomers shield their sensitive equipment from interference. This means no radio signals, no cellphone coverage, and limited WiFi for the surrounding community. Even the vehicles transporting staff to and from the telescope must run on diesel, as gas cars’ spark plugs generate electrical interference. […] There’s also a long-standing theory that if other civilizations exist, they might emit radio waves, just as ours has since the dawn of radio communication in the 19th century. […] There have been a few moments of heightened excitement in the SETI community, including the 1977 detection of the so-called “Wow!” signal from the constellation Sagittarius, which remains unexplained.
Physicists recently created a time zone for the Moon
Crows and ravens, which belong to the corvid family, are known for their high intelligence, playful natures, and strong personalities. They hold grudges against each other, do basic statistics, perform acrobatics, and even host funerals for deceased family members. […] a species of crow called the hooded crow is able to manage a mental feat we once thought was unique to humans: to memorize the shape and size of an object after it is taken away, and to reproduce one like it.
One thing I mastered in failing to get a Ph.D. was an ability to research things for their own sake. That is, I never learned how to properly research anything at all; I just mutated procrastination into a taste for curiosity in itself and would search not for answers to any specific problems but for further questions. One book would lead to fifteen others, and so on, and I never got anywhere close to organizing any of my “findings” or even developing a dissertation topic. […] Generative AI is the quintessence of incuriosity, perfect for those who hate the idea of having to be interested in anything.
A brilliant optical trick makes this sign read correctly from any possible angle
AIs are now paying other AIs with crypto — This week at @CoinbaseDev we witnessed our first AI to AI crypto transaction. What did one AI buy from another? Tokens! Not crypto tokens, but AI tokens (words basically from one LLM to another). They used tokens to buy tokens. This is an important step to AIs getting useful work done. Today if you give an AI agent a task and come back in a few days or hours, it can’t get useful work done. In part this is [because] AIs can’t transact to acquire the resources they need. They don’t have a credit card to use AWS, Github, or Vercel. They don’t have a payment method to book you the plane ticket or hotel for your upcoming trip. They can’t get through paywalls (for instance to read a scientific article), promote their post on X with a paid ad, or use the growing network of paid APIs to integrate data they need.
every day the same again |
September 2nd, 2024
Boston Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen will become 1st in baseball history to play for both teams in same game
46% of Nvidia’s revenue comes from just four customers, whose identities were kept anonymous for competitive reasons
The rise in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has been one of the darkest Internet trends, but after years of covering CSAM cases […] I’ve never seen anyone who, when arrested, had three Samsung Galaxy phones filled with “tens of thousands of videos and images” depicting CSAM, all of it hidden behind a secrecy-focused, password-protected app called “Calculator Photo Vault.” Nor have I seen anyone arrested for CSAM having used Potato Chat, Enigma, nandbox, Telegram, TOR, and Web-based generative AI tools/chatbots. […] not only he used all of these tools to store and download CSAM, but he also created his own—and in two disturbing varieties. First, he allegedly recorded nude minor children himself and later “zoomed in on and enhanced those images using AI-powered technology.” Secondly, he took this imagery he had created and then “turned to AI chatbots to ensure these minor victims would be depicted as if they had engaged in the type of sexual contact he wanted to see.” In other words, he created fake AI CSAM—but using imagery of real kids. The material was allegedly stored behind password protection on his phone(s) but also on Mega and on Telegram, where Herrera is said to have “created his own public Telegram group to store his CSAM.” He also joined “multiple CSAM-related Enigma groups” and frequented dark websites with taglines like “The Only Child Porn Site you need!” Despite all the precautions, his home was searched and his phones were seized […] he was eventually arrested on August 23.
As multinationals and researchers harvest rare organisms around the world, anger is rising in the global south over the unpaid use of lucrative genetic codes found on their land
On June 26th 2024, I launched a website called One Million Checkboxes
every day the same again |
August 30th, 2024
Residents of Manchester, New Hampshire, say the opera music coming from the speakers outside a 7-Eleven is meant to deter loitering, but it’s keeping them awake at night.
Although the murder rate is insulated from reporting and definition shifts, it is very strongly affected by medical care – both improved techniques and better access. A fatal injury in 1960 might be easily treatable today. To put it in concrete numbers: if aggravated assaults in the United States had been as lethal in 1999 as they were in 1960, the murder rate would have been 3.4 times higher
South Korea’s president has urged authorities to do more to “eradicate” the country’s digital sex crime epidemic, amid a flood of deepfake pornography targeting young women.
your biological age could be affected by whether or not your grandparents attained a college degree, study
Brain Scientists Finally Discover the Glue that Makes Memories Stick for a Lifetime — The persistence of memory is crucial to our sense of identity, and without it, there would be no learning, for us or any other animal. […] PKMzeta (protein kinase Mzeta) is short-lived. “Those proteins only last in synapses for a couple of hours, and in neurons, probably a couple of days […] Yet our memories can last 90 years, so how do you explain this difference?” […] Each neuron has around 10,000 synapses, only a few percent of which are strengthened. The strengthening of some synapses and not others is how this mechanism stores information. “It’s not PKMzeta that’s required for maintaining a memory, it’s the continual interaction between PKMzeta and this targeting molecule, called KIBRA. If you block KIBRA from PKMzeta, you’ll erase a memory that’s a month old.”
This paper focuses on a historically documented tactic that professional deceivers rely on: presenting inaccurate claims together with accurate claims.
Car and Driver magazine said the Tesla Cybertruck didn’t even rank its “EV of the Year” list because the one they reviewed bricked on its second day of testing.
I spent an evening on a fictitious web
every day the same again |
August 29th, 2024
Artificial Intelligence Predicts Earthquakes With Unprecedented Accuracy
1 in 10 Minors Say Their Friends Use AI to Generate Nudes of Other Kids, Survey Finds
As twenty-something-year-old investors enter the venture landscape, they bring fresh vibes and spot new trends […] She likes technologies like the a16z-backed party-planning app Partiful, which helps merge the online world with the in-person — an effort she calls “IRL to URL.” She’s also into “AI social rehab,” or looking for tools that can make people better people and citizens of the world. She says right now that many of the AI companion apps, those that purport to be one’s friend or partner, are reinforcing self-isolation.
Shortages of rice have recently been seen across Japan, and the price of the staple food is soaring. But close to 100% of Japan’s rice is domestically produced and the yield of crops appears normal, so why is this happening? […] The reason there is a shortage of rice is because of the acreage reduction policy which decreases the amount of land devoted to cultivation. […] Even if around 3 million visitors were to stay in Japan each month for a week and eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner like many Japanese people, it would still only account for around 0.5% of total consumption.
Researchers in California are working to genetically engineer the cow microbiome — and in the process, eliminate methane emissions — There are approximately 1.5 billion cattle on the planet. […] Cattle, one of the most-consumed creatures on the planet, produce enormous amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is responsible for 30 percent of global warming. Using tools that snip and transfer DNA, researchers plan to genetically engineer microbes in the cow stomach to eliminate those emissions. If they succeed, they could wipe out the world’s largest human-made source of methane and help change the trajectory of planetary warming. […] Unable to process the gas, cows burp it up. The average cow produces around 220 pounds of methane per year, or around half the emissions of an average car; cows are currently responsible for around 4 percent of global warming.
Microwaves: A Haven for Bacterial Diversity
Fare Evasion Surges on N.Y.C. Buses, Where 48% of Riders Fail to Pay
The Aryan Book Store opened in March of 1933 i Los Angeles […] On a typical Friday evening, twenty-five people visited, mostly men in their twenties who drove Pontiacs, Buicks, and Studebakers. We know these details, as well as their plate numbers and the exact times at which they arrived and departed, because just around the corner was a spy.
every day the same again |
August 27th, 2024
Around eight years ago, scientists found that mice cleared of senescent cells lived 25% longer than untreated ones. They also had healthier hearts and took much longer to develop age-related diseases like cancer and cataracts. They even looked younger. Unfortunately, human trials of senolytics—drugs that target senescent cells—haven’t been quite as successful. […] it does illustrate how complicated the biology of aging is. Researchers can’t even agree on what the exact mechanisms of aging are and which they should be targeting. […] people who have opted for cryopreservation. There are hundreds of bodies in storage—bodies of people who believed they might one day be reanimated. For them, the hopes are slim. I asked Justice whether she thought they stood a chance at a second life. “Honest answer?” she said. “No.” […] In a 2017 paper making the case for a limit to the human life span, scientists Jan Vijg and Eric Le Bourg wrote […] “A species does not need to live for eternity to thrive.”
World’s oldest man says ‘it’s just luck’
Five ways the brain can age: 50,000 scans reveal possible patterns of damage
Children can’t seem to stop themselves from gathering more information than they need to complete a task, even when they know exactly what they need. […] even when children successfully learn how to focus their attention on a task to earn small rewards such as stickers, they still “over explore” and don’t concentrate just on what is needed to complete their assignment. […] the more likely explanation is that working memory is not fully developed in children. That means they don’t hold information they need to complete a task in their memory for very long, at least not as long as adults.
5-Year-Old Kid Hits 194 MPH in Lamborghini Revuelto
Alongside a description of each bird’s appearance, diet, behavior, and breeding habits, Audubon frequently included a reflection on the taste of the bird’s flesh.
Don’t trust Google for customer service numbers. It might be a scam.
Telegram does not end-to-end encrypt conversations by default […] activating end-to-end encryption in Telegram is oddly difficult for non-expert users
Reddit Battles Meta and Google Using Ads Based on Topics — Not Your Data Unlike many of its much larger advertising competitors, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., Reddit has mostly anonymous users. […] users who don’t identify themselves tend to be more open and honest with their posts and their interests
A woman got tired of her mail getting stolen. She sent herself an Apple AirTag to help catch the thieves
A weird, whimsical game is hiding in the bookshelves at Los Angeles Public Library
Search anything written in Brooklyn streets
every day the same again |
August 26th, 2024
‘Optimistic’ rats consumed significantly less alcohol compared to ‘pessimistic’ rats
study finds placebos reduce stress, anxiety, depression — even when people know they are placebos
Just 10 minutes of mindfulness daily boosts wellbeing and fights depression — The research, which enrolled 1247 adults from 91 countries, demonstrates that brief daily mindfulness sessions, delivered through a free mobile app Medito, can have profound benefits.
Romantic Love and Sexual Frequency: Challenging Beliefs
the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene
Clinicians should inform parents that bed-sharing during the second half of the first year is unlikely to have an impact on the later emotional and behavioral development of the children.
examining the pattern of errors made by GPT-4 and proposing their origin in the absence of an analogue of the human subjective awareness of time. This deficit suggests that GPT-4 ultimately lacks a capacity to construct a stable perceptual world; the temporal vacuum undermines any capacity for GPT-4 to construct a consistent, continuously updated, model of its environment
The $13 billion that Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial crisis. The seven banks involved in the deal, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, lent the money to the billionaire’s holding company to take the social-media platform, now named X, private in October 2022. Banks that provide loans for takeovers generally sell the debt quickly to other investors to get it off their balance sheets, making money on fees. […] The banks—which also include Barclays, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, BNP Paribas, Mizuho and Société Générale—have been able to collect hefty interest payments from the X loans. […] [The banks] are eager to be well-positioned to work with Musk and his six companies that range from electric-vehicle maker Tesla to Neuralink and xAI. Many view a possible initial public offering of Musk’s rocket company SpaceX or his Starlink satellite business as a fee-generating event that they don’t want to miss out on.
Unlike product brands, human brands are particularly vulnerable to reputation risks, yet how misconduct affects their consumption remains poorly understood. Using R. Kelly’s case, we examine the demand for his music following interrelated publicity and platform sanction shocks-specifically, the removal of his songs from major playlists on the largest global streaming platform.
Have you ever wondered why oranges are often sold in those strange red net bags? Well, it’s a sneaky trick used by food producers and supermarkets to fool your senses and (hopefully) make you buy more fruit. A red or orange plastic net around the fruit helps to give the impression that the orange peel is a richer orange color, thereby making it look juicy and appealing to consumers. If the fruit is unripe, the colored net will also downplay its greenness and boost its orangeness, making it look ripe and more appetizing. Similarly, lemons are often put in yellow net bags to enhance their natural color.
GRENADE-DRONE
every day the same again |
August 24th, 2024
Telegram messaging app CEO Durov arrested in France Durov was naturalized as French in August 2021. […] He lives in Dubai. In April 2021, he received United Arab Emirates citizenship. Since 2010 he has fathered over 100 children via sperm donation in 12 nations
social networks |
August 24th, 2024
110K domains targeted in ’sophisticated’ AWS cloud extortion campaign
Belisa Pang has an important new paper out about repeat filers, “The Bankruptcy Revolving Door.” Using new techniques and as well as a database of credit reports, she estimates the percentage of bankruptcy filers who are repeat filers is 36%. In 2023, she estimates the figure was 46%.
Sending low voltage electricity through sand can induce the formation of minerals that help curb coastal erosion
Regulations implemented in 2020 by the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) significantly reduced sulfur pollution from ships by over 80%, improving air quality globally. However, this reduction has also diminished the formation of low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in ships’ wakes and play a crucial role in cooling the planet. Studies have shown that by drastically reducing the number of ship tracks, the planet has warmed at a faster rate, particularly in the Atlantic, where maritime traffic is dense.
Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show — Twenty-four brain samples collected in early 2024 measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight
How Ireland became the world’s literary powerhouse
Owning a crocodile as a pet becomes election issue in Northern Territory (Australia)
Time is another paradoxical component of the monotype process. While painting and drawing are mediums that depend on an accumulation of marks made over time, a monotype is printed at a particular moment in the development of the image on the plate, therefore endowing the work with a distinctive sense of immediacy. The artist must work relatively quickly, before the medium dries, and, as the plate can be wiped clean at any time in the drawing process, the artist may make wholesale changes right up until the paper goes through the press.
M&Ms on checkerboard trick your brain
Starting in 2008, Norman Bates has been hanging around the motel and can sometimes be seen by tourists on the Studio Tour tram passing by. More: The Psycho House
every day the same again |
August 23rd, 2024
The US government just hired a researcher who thinks we can beat aging with fresh cloned bodies and brain updates.
Our case report provides the first clinical evaluation of autopsy practices for a patient death that occurs on the cloud — The patient was a British man in his 50s, who came to the attention of the medical team via an alert on the cloud-based platform that monitored his implanted cardioverter defibrillator
In seven studies, including an in-person real gifting study, we find that receiving a small material gift, such as a candy bar or flowers, improves receivers’ affect more than a supportive conversation with a close other does.
AI poses no existential threat to humanity – new study finds — Large language models like ChatGPT cannot learn independently or acquire new skills
Security researcher Bill Demirkapi found more than 15,000 hardcoded secrets and 66,000 vulnerable websites—all by searching overlooked data sources.
The Transportation Department is releasing the deployment plan for vehicle-to-everything, or V2X, technology across U.S. roads and highways. V2X allows cars and trucks to exchange location information with each other, and potentially cyclists and pedestrians, as well as with the roadway infrastructure itself. “The roadway system is safer when all the vehicles are connected, and all the road users are connected”
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world’s largest emergency supply of crude oil. In huge underground salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico, the American federal government can store up to 714 million barrels, more than what the country uses in one month. Historically, the SPR has been tapped at the discretion of the president when natural disasters or crises cause the price of oil for consumers to spike. […] what if the SPR wasn’t just used as a stockpile of a commodity? If it used its ability to acquire oil strategically, could it support American industry and calm oil markets? […] A fixed-price futures contract for the SPR is the vanilla idea. I will also add that we had more creative ideas. That level of complexity may have spooked some folks at the DOE.
Prediction markets are legal, contrary to popular belief. But they remain unpopular, because they lack key features that make markets attractive.
A phenomenon referred to as “population stereotypes” helps explain how predictable human responses create the illusion of telepathy. […] In a test of telepathy, a “sender” would take each card from a shuffled deck in turn and attempt to telepathically transmit the image on the card to a “receiver.” The receiver would record their guess of which card the sender was looking at. By chance alone, we would expect around five of the receiver’s guesses to be correct. If the receiver scores significantly more than five, this might be taken as evidence of ESP. However, it has been known for over eight decades that people are more likely to guess certain symbols compared to others.
Essays on UFOs and Related Conjectures
“Rules for the direction of the mind,” from an unfinished treatise by René Descartes
Waymo self-driving cars honking at each other at 4 a.m. in parking lot
every day the same again |
August 18th, 2024
Kangaroo escapes from prison in Czech Republic. The prison is home to other animals including rabbits, llamas and roosters. They are part of a prison program that allows prisoners nearing the ends of their terms to learn skills including farming and animal husbandry as a form of therapy.
Attorneys for Disney World are seeking to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit brought by a husband over the death of his wife last year because of the terms and conditions he agreed to when signing up for Disney+ streaming service several years earlier.
Harvard researchers canceled plans to test a controversial theory for cooling the planet by sending sunlight-reflecting particles up into the atmosphere.
GLP-1 receptor agonist medications like Ozempic are already FDA-approved to treat diabetes and obesity. But an increasing body of research finds they’re also effective against stroke, heart disease, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, alcoholism, and drug addiction. GLP-1 drugs are starting to feel more like the magic herb. Why?
Scientists Have Finally Identified Where Gluten Intolerance Begins
Research suggests that rather than being a slow and steady process, aging occurs in at least two accelerated bursts. The study, which tracked thousands of different molecules in people aged 25 to 75, detected two major waves of age-related changes at around ages 44 and again at 60.
Science denial “memes” are a viral form of communication that attempt to undermine complex scientific ideas using memorable soundbites. These memes misrepresent the scientific content they are “debunking”, making responding to them challenging: how do you argue with a meme? […] Meme-ing a rebuttal can be a counter-productive strategy for science communication.
The girls are using ChatGPT to see if men are lying about their height on dating apps. Upload 4 pictures, it uses proportions and surroundings to estimate height.
Chart made in Germany in the 18th century describing the characters of European nations
every day the same again |
August 14th, 2024
Low resale values for electric cars have pushed the leasing firms that drive Europe’s auto market to double prices over the last three years, some are threatening to quit the business altogether if regulators force them to go electric too fast.
Inside Silicon Valley’s Grand Ambitions To Control Our Planet’s Thermostat Firms are flocking to invest in geoengineering projects. Could they turn a profit by preventing peril?
Brands should avoid the “AI” label on products. It’s turning off customers.
The head of chatbot maker Replika discusses the role AI will play in the future of human relationships.
The nation’s best hackers found vulnerabilities in voting machines — but no time to fix them
Hacking the Largest Airline and Hotel Rewards Platform — Between March 2023 and May 2023, we identified multiple security vulnerabilities within points.com, the backend provider for a significant portion of airline and hotel rewards programs. These vulnerabilities would have enabled an attacker to access sensitive customer account information, including names, billing addresses, redacted credit card details, emails, phone numbers, and transaction records. Moreover, the attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to perform actions such as transferring points from customer accounts and gaining unauthorized access to a global administrator website. This unauthorized access would grant the attacker full permissions to issue reward points, manage rewards programs, oversee customer accounts, and execute various administrative functions.
Scientists find oceans of water on Mars: It’s just too deep to tap
This narrative review examines John’s experience with contact lenses from 1963 to 1966 when he wore corneal rigid lenses made from polymethylmethacrylate, which regularly fell out.
Just how kinky are you? Take the quiz
Map of Horror Movie Locations
every day the same again |
August 13th, 2024
YouTube ban streamer for attempting to break world record for number of days without sleep […] Norme was over 250 hours into his “no sleep” attempt when the platform removed his stream.
Randy Gardner (born c. 1946) is an American man from San Diego, California, who once held the record for the longest amount of time a human has gone without sleep. In December 1963/January 1964, 17-year-old Gardner stayed awake for 11 days and 24 minutes (264.4 hours). Gardner’s record was then broken multiple times until 1997, when Guinness World Records ceased accepting new attempts for safety reasons. At that point, the record was held by Robert McDonald at 18 days and 21 hours (453 hours and 40 minutes).
sleep |
August 12th, 2024
More and more German trains are not allowed to enter Switzerland — More than every tenth train from Germany was stopped at the Swiss border in the first quarter of this year. If Deutsche Bahn trains are late, they have to stop at the Swiss border. [Switzerland] wants to ensure punctuality in its own network with this measure.
World’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood nears completion in Texas
Meta Allows Drug Ads Selling Everything from Opioids to Cocaine
FDA rejects MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD
How Long Does Music Stardom Last? A Statistical Analysis
In the early days of TV and movies, people reported dreaming in black and white more than they do now, he said. In a 1942 study, around 70 percent of people said that they dreamed this way. When that same study was replicated nearly 60 years later, the number had dropped to under 18 percent.
We have known for some time that touch sensations from the genital region pass through four different nerves on their way to the spinal cord and, ultimately, the brain. Of these, the pudendal nerve is the most important for sexual sensation, carrying signals from the clitoris in cisgendered women and the penis in cisgendered men. In women, the pelvic nerve conveys touch signals from the labia minora, the vaginal walls, the anus and the rectum. In men, the pudendal nerve carries information from the anus and the scrotum as well as the penis. In women, sensations from the cervix and the uterus can also be conveyed by the hypogastric nerve as well as the vagus nerve, which travels directly to the brain stem, thereby bypassing the spinal cord entirely. Touch signals from the pelvis ultimately arrive at the outer rind of the brain, a region called the neocortex, where they are represented in a distorted and fragmented body map in the primary somatosensory region.
Seismic advances in generative AI algorithms for imagery, text, and other data types have led to the temptation to use AI-synthesized data to train next-generation models. Repeating this process creates an autophagous (“self-consuming”) loop whose properties are poorly understood. […] Our primary conclusion across all scenarios is that without enough fresh real data in each generation of an autophagous loop, future generative models are doomed to have their quality (precision) or diversity (recall) progressively decrease. We term this condition Model Autophagy Disorder (MAD), by analogy to mad cow disease, and show that appreciable MADness arises in just a few generations.
Time is an illusion
every day the same again |
August 10th, 2024
Airlines Are Running Out Of Flight Numbers
Engineering the world’s highest cited cat — A couple of weeks ago, Nick Wise showed me an advertisement from a paper mill offering to boost the buyer’s citation count and h-index on their Google Scholar profile. […] First, we generated 12 papers (using Mathgen) with Larry Richardson as the sole author. We then generated an additional 12 papers not authored by Larry, editing the LaTeX document of each paper so that each cited every one of Larry’s 12 papers (12 papers with 12 citations each = 144 citations with an h-index of 12).
AI-controlled autonomous robot dentist has performed an entire procedure on a human patient for the first time
You can find gibberish AI recipes on YouTube as well. One channel, SuperRecipess, has 1.19 million subscribers despite being driven by AI and despite its videos being called things like “I never bought ice-cream again, I only make it like this now” […] the recipes are often extraordinarily disgusting. […] publishers might want 10 books on air fryer recipes generated quickly. Rather than paying an author between £30,000 and £100,000 to do so, they might simply use AI and pay a popular food writer a £10,000 endorsement fee.
Five years ago, Brian Frye set an elaborate trap. Now the law professor is teaming up with a singer-songwriter to finally spring it on the SEC in a novel lawsuit —- and in the process, prevent the regulator from ever coming after NFT art projects again. Earlier this week, Frye and musician Jonathan Mann filed a federal lawsuit against the SEC […] The offbeat saga of this week’s lawsuit begins in 2019, when Frye, an expert in securities law and a fan of novel technologies, minted an NFT of a letter he sent to the SEC in which he declared his art project to constitute an illegal, unregistered security. If the conceptual art project wasn’t a security, Frye challenged the agency, then it needed to say so. The SEC never responded to Frye.
Moscow’s Spies Were Stealing US Tech — Until the FBI Started a Sabotage Campaign
Cellular senescence was discovered four decades ago, but scientists still don’t fully understand why it happens. One of the most widely accepted explanations is that the ends of each cell’s chromosomes—called telomeres—shorten a little during each replication and at some point signal the cell to stop dividing in order to protect itself from potential damage. The cells don’t necessarily die as a result, but they can no longer divide and function like younger, healthy cells.
Zugzwang (from German ‘compulsion to move’) is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move; a player is said to be “in zugzwang” when any legal move will worsen their position.
every day the same again |
August 5th, 2024
Using the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in product descriptions reduces purchase intentions
The AI boyfriend business is booming A growing number of women are seeking connection and comfort in relationships with chatbots
Friend.com, video, it doesn’t help you be more productive, it just keeps you company
Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an “Enlightened and miraculous being” with a Google Scholar page, an h-index of 62, and 12,031 citations of his work. Most of these are self-citations from a tangled collection of predatory journals that publish questionable papers without proper peer review. Guruji Trivedi claims to have the ability to harness his own “biofield energy to change the behaviour and characteristics of living organisms including soil, seeds, plants, trees, animals, microbes, and humans, along with non-living materials including metals, ceramics, polymers, chemicals, pharmaceutical compounds and nutraceuticals, etc.”
The h-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. […] Hirsch estimated that after 20 years a “successful scientist” would have an h-index of 20, an “outstanding scientist” would have an h-index of 40, and a “truly unique” individual would have an h-index of 60
How pregnancy transforms the brain to prepare it for parenthood […] The rule seems to be that any brain region that changes size during pregnancy shrinks. Numerous brain structures are affected, including the ventral striatum, which is involved in reward processing, and the hypothalamus, which is instrumental in controlling instinctive behaviours. The hippocampus, a structure essential for memory, also transiently shrinks during gestation. […] After birth, most changes quickly and fully reverse — except in the default mode network. […] the default mode network is involved in social processes such as theory of mind and empathy; in thinking about and understanding others and yourself.
This is the story of the various histories of the Internet, where they came from and which ones are real. Was the Internet designed to withstand a nuclear attack?
every day the same again |
August 1st, 2024
New study finds people alter their appearance to suit their names
Boxers who failed gender tests at world championships cleared to compete at Olympics
Sexual synesthesia is a neurological condition in which sexual intercourse or orgasm intermittently triggers atypical supplementary perceptions (e.g. colors, shapes).
OnlyFans is a porn-saturated website that offers its subscribers a chance to forge “authentic relationships” with content creators. But many OnlyFans porn stars rely on “chatters” to impersonate them in messages designed to pry dollars from randy subscribers. And, increasingly, some of those chatters aren’t even human – they’re AI bots.
AI is complicating plagiarism.
A veteran investigator of video-game leaks reveals the tricks of the trade
Cancer Risk From Pesticides Comparable To Smoking For Some Cancers
Butterflies accumulate enough static electricity to attract pollen without contact
Do Penguins Have Knees?
I kind of date like a man. I know what I want. Recently, I met somebody I really liked, and my head whipped around and I was like, “Oh my God. Now that’s the guy I’d like to… you know.” It turns out he’s married, but it doesn’t matter. The point is that I think you know when somebody walks in the room. I know from my first marriage to the Count. We met, got married two weeks later. Five days [into the marriage] he goes, “You’re going to be the mother of my children.” I said, “I already know that.”
every day the same again |
July 30th, 2024
Brain-Invading Parasite Could Be Hacked to Deliver Meds in Your Head
Ford is trying to patent a way for its cars to report speeding drivers to the police. The patent said vehicles would monitor other vehicles using onboard cameras. Related: Ford has lost $2.5 billion on electric vehicles so far in 2024
Tesla’s Cybertrucks are being mistaken for garbage cans by dumpster-diving raccoons
Burglars are jamming Wi-Fi security cameras […] homeowners should use old-fashioned, wired sets of security cameras that require more elaborate installations and extra hardware
In 2023, Tinder’s base of 10 million subscription-paying users decreased by 8 percent following three consecutive quarters of declines. By the end of 2023, the stock price of Match Group, which operates the largest portfolio of online dating services, including Tinder, OkCupid, and Hinge, had tumbled to about a fifth of its peak in 2021. Bumble’s stock, too, has fallen as much as 85 percent since its February 2021 IPO. To say that mainstream dating apps are in their flop era is not a controversial statement in 2024. Online and off, daters bemoan the user experience
We analyze the economic consequences of rising health care prices in the US. […] A 1% increase in health care prices lowers both payroll and employment at firms outside the health sector by approximately 0.4%. […] we estimate that a 1% increase in health care prices leads to a 1 per 100,000 population (2.7%) increase in deaths from suicides and overdoses.
You can slow a rapid heart rate, caused by anxiety and even cardiac arrhythmias, using a classic technique called vagal maneuvers. These are simple actions that engage the vagus nerve — the major nerve connecting the brain to your internal organs. The straw trick: Place a straw in your mouth and pinch the other end closed. Blow for about 15-20 seconds. If you don’t have a straw, place your finger in your mouth and blow against it as if it were a straw. The technique is one example of a “Valsalva maneuver” — named after the Italian physician who discovered it. […] The easiest places to find a pulse are either the brachial artery (in your wrist) or the carotid artery (in your neck). Personally, I tend to find the carotid more readily palpable — that’s the one TV detectives check when they walk in on a murder scene, right before sadly shaking their heads. Use the pads of your index and middle finger — not your thumb, which has its own pulse and can confuse you. Slide two fingers to either side of your windpipe around the level of your Adam’s apple. Count your heartbeats for 15 seconds and then multiply by four to get a rough estimate. […] It’s normal for your heart to race when you’re frightened or stressed […] Panic attacks are common: At least 11 percent of American adults experience one each year. […] But sometimes people’s hearts start to race for no apparent reason. This is never normal.
In 1876 the Belgian Society for the Elevation of the Domestic Cat transported 37 cats from Liège to the surrounding countryside. Released at 2 p.m., the first had found its way home by 6:48, and the rest followed within a day. ”It is proposed to establish a regular system of cat communication between Liège and the neighboring villages. […] Messages are to be fastened in water-proof bags around the necks of the animals.”
every day the same again |
July 29th, 2024
An Australian field hockey player has opted to amputate part of his finger to compete at the Paris Olympics. Matt Dawson badly broke a digit on his right hand during team training in Perth two weeks ago, and recovery from surgery to repair it would have taken months.
Valeria was studying engineering in Venezuela before she arrived in Cúcuta at the start of 2023 to be what she called a camgirl. With her family struggling to eat, she said she made the decision to leave for Colombia […] A 2022 study estimated that in the border cities of Cúcuta and Villa Rosario alone, there were between 800 and 1,000 webcam houses hosting an estimated 11,700 migrants across them, the majority of whom are Venezuelan. The number of these houses could now be as high as 3,000.
In the film’s final scene, after deciding to leave Barbieland for the real world, Barbie enthusiastically tells a receptionist, “I’m here to see my gynecologist”[…] We hypothesized that this final line may have spurred public interest in gynecologic care. […] In the week following Barbie’s release, there were large increases in the national online search volume for terms referring to gynecologists and gynecologist definition. Meanwhile, there were no changes in searches for gynecologist appointments.
A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects […] According to a review of over 40 years of research that was published in 2020, the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression.
More than one-third of the planet’s land is used to produce food, and 70 percent of all fresh water is used to irrigate farmland. […] the equivalent of South America is now used to grow crops, and the equivalent of Africa is used to graze animals. […] And according to the World Resources Institute, we may need to add almost two Indias to the world’s existing farmland to meet food needs in the second half of this century. — but adding that farmland means cutting down forests, which store carbon, in order to graze more animals, which produce carbon. […] agriculture is responsible for one-third of the global total of emissions [NY Times]
the meta experience
every day the same again |
July 28th, 2024
Death Valley heat melts skin off a man’s feet after he lost his flip-flops in the dunes. To make matters worse, the temperatures made the air too thin for a helicopter to fly in and help him.
A Swiss Town Banned Billboards. Zurich, Bern May Soon Follow The trend toward ad-free cities poses a risk to the outdoor advertising industry, worth an estimated 400 million Swiss francs ($450 million) and contributing almost twice as much per year to the country’s $885 billion GDP. Markus Ehrle, the industry association’s president, said that money would instead “flow to big internet companies like Google or Meta,” adding that “ads online are much more energy-intensive than billboards.”
We bought everything needed to make fentanyl - for $3,600. At the tap of a buyer’s smartphone, Chinese chemical sellers will air-ship fentanyl ingredients door-to-door to North America. Reuters purchased enough to make 3 million pills.
water triggers our parasympathetic nervous system, helping our body rest and digest […] explains why so many people find joy and solace in water-related activities. […] Whether you’re planning a refreshing dip, a leisurely stroll along the coastline or a run along a canal, it’s crucial to know how to stay safe. following these five simple steps are highly effective
Could humans run on water?
Across languages, the species–typical vocalization by domestic cats (Felis catus silvestris) is transcribed similarly, typically corresponding to [miau:] or [wau:]. Such consistent and ubiquitous cross-linguistic transcription is apparently onomatopoetic. However, in humans, these qualities make unique use of the tongue; in comparison, most nonhuman mammals do not appear to employ their tongues while vocalizing.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat” (Jill Cook, Director of retail business development at Sanrio) Previously: alternative facts are not facts
every day the same again |
July 26th, 2024
When you ask ChatGPT to summarise this text, it instead shortens the text.
Our brain doesn’t perceive time as a clock. Instead, time flows with experiences, study
A newly discovered hormone that keeps the bones of breastfeeding women strong could also help bone fractures heal and treat osteoporosis in the broader population.
After spending more than $20 billion to produce original TV shows and movies that not a lot of people watch, Apple is starting to refine its strategy in Hollywood. […] Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day.
US Gen Z shopping habits & retail trends for 2024 — 56% of US Gen Z prefer to shop online than in-store […] Year-on-year, purchases of pet accessories (+20%) and grooming supplies (+19%) are also up. […] The number of US Gen Z who are willing to sacrifice other spending to buy a product sooner has dropped 13% YoY.
Change in global value variation, study
Do you want to hear how a Flemish illuminator, Lieven van Lathem dazzled readers in 1464 with the manuscript, Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies?
every day the same again |
July 22nd, 2024
A significant correlation was identified between increased sleep duration and cognitive decline
Human parasites in the Roman World — Despite their large multi-seat public latrines with washing facilities, sewer systems, sanitation legislation, fountains and piped drinking water from aqueducts, we see the widespread presence of whipworm, roundworm and Entamoeba histolytica that causes dysentery. This would suggest that the public sanitation measures were insufficient to protect the population from parasites spread by fecal contamination. Ectoparasites such as fleas, head lice, body lice, pubic lice and bed bugs were also present, and delousing combs have been found. The evidence fails to demonstrate that the Roman culture of regular bathing in the public baths reduced the prevalence of these parasites. Fish tapeworm was noted to be widely present, and was more common than in Bronze and Iron Age Europe. It is possible that the Roman enthusiasm for fermented, uncooked fish sauce (garum) may have facilitated the spread of this helminth.
In this paper, I try to add details and credence to a previously suggested, evolution-based model of consciousness. According to this model, the feature started to evolve in early amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) some 320 million years ago. The reason was the introduction of feelings as a strategy for making behavioral decisions.
Designing a fake delivery company seemed to be the most logical, straightforward way of contacting a person. Hence, ”Future Delivers” was born. The company’s concept is that it delivers parcels from the future. This allows your future self in the year 2064 to send a parcel to your past self in the year 2024, filled with good advice, artefacts from the future, and warnings to hopefully improve your life ahead. […] we’re doing serious business here: delivery release documents, uniforms, wax seal, stickers, branded boxes, custom email address with delivery update notifications, blog, brand ambassador and of course, a delivery robot dog off AliExpress.
Every startup in JD Vance’s VC fund, Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview
Robot Dog Cleans Up Beaches With Foot-Mounted Vacuums — Cigarette butts are the second most common undisposed-of litter on Earth—of the six trillion-ish cigarettes inhaled every year, it’s estimated that over 4 trillion of the butts are just tossed onto the ground, each one leeching over 700 different toxic chemicals into the environment.
Each winter, a team of Tasmania Parks and Wildlife staff take on the task of cleaning the state’s show caves. The crew removes clothing fibres, microplastics, and dirt and spores brought in on visitors’ shoes.
Rare photos of uncontacted Amazon tribes, video
“I got a salmon sperm facial with salmon sperm injected into my face.” […] salmon sperm facials have enchanted Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Aniston
every day the same again |
July 20th, 2024
Flight attendant held up broken bathroom door for entire 16-hour trip from Hong Kong to New York
A drug has increased the lifespans of laboratory animals by nearly 25%, in a discovery scientists hope can slow human ageing too. The treated mice were known as “supermodel grannies” in the lab. They were healthier, stronger and developed fewer cancers than their unmedicated peers. The drug is already being tested in people.
“What we found is that even in healthy people who are constipated, there is a rise in these toxins in the bloodstream” […] during diarrhea, the body excretes excessive bile acid, which the liver would otherwise recycle to dissolve and absorb dietary fats. Fiber-fermenting gut bacteria known as “strict anaerobes,” associated with good health thrived in the “Goldilocks zone” of one or two poops a day.
Study reveals how anesthesia drug propofol induces unconsciousness
A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space–time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials. […] a single dose (25 mg) demonstrated rapid and sustained symptom relief in depression, addiction, and end-of-life anxiety. The image comes from dozens of brain scans produced by researchers who gave psilocybin to participants […] the red, orange and yellow hues reflecting a significant departure from normal activity patterns. The blues and greens reflect normal brain activity. “Psilocybin, in contrast to any other drug we’ve tested, has this massive effect on the whole brain that was pretty unexpected” […] these findings cannot show exactly what causes the therapeutic benefit of psilocybin, but “it’s possible psilocybin is directly causing” the brain-network changes. That, or it is creating a psychedelic experience that in turn causes parts of the brain to behave differently. [Nature | NY Times | ScienceDaily]
The cocaine kingpin who hid as a professional soccer player. He used his wealth to buy professional soccer teams and then inserted himself into the starting lineups.
Does Generative AI Facilitate Investor Trading? […] We first document a significant decline in stock trading volume during ChatGPT outages and find that the effect is stronger for firms with corporate news released immediately before or during the outages. We further document similar declines in the short-run price impact, return variance, and bid-ask spreads, consistent with a reduction in informed trading during the outage periods.
Everyone Is Judging AI by These Tests. But Experts Say They’re Close to Meaningless Benchmarks used to rank AI models are several years old, often sourced from amateur websites, and, experts worry, lending automated systems a dubious sense of authority
Want to spot a deepfake? Look for the stars in their eyes. AI-generated fakes can be spotted by analyzing human eyes in the same way that astronomers study pictures of galaxies.
The golden age of scammers: AI-powered phishing — The 5/5 rule says that it takes 5 prompts and just 5 minutes to create a phishing campaign nearly as successful as a phishing campaign generated by IBM engineers. What took technically advanced humans 16 hours, generative AI did in 5 minutes
We’re over halfway through 2024, and already this year we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history.
Catalog of Dark Patterns
We examined 200 videos from popular TikTok fitspiration hashtags (fitness, fitspo, gymtok, fittok). […] Videos of men included muscular idealised bodies and objectification through face obscurity (excluding the face from view) more frequently than videos of women. […] 60 % of videos presented incorrect or harmful information
we find that the involvement of social media influencers in propagating false claims is minimal, with only 0.003% of the more than 1.3 million posts analyzed actually supporting statements flagged as disputed by Politifact.
A drug commonly prescribed to thin blood can be repurposed as a cheap antidote to cobra venom […] Snakebites kill about 138,000 people a year. Cobras account for most bites in parts of Africa and India.
To avoid sea level rise, some researchers want to build barriers around the world’s most vulnerable glaciers
How Do You Price Your Wine List?
every day the same again |
July 19th, 2024
Maybe the easiest lucrative job in finance is:
Take a job at a hedge fund.
Get handed an employment agreement on the first day that says “you agree not to disclose any of our secrets unless required by law.”
Sign.
Take the agreement home with you.
Circle that sentence in red marker, write “$$$$$!!!!!” next to it and send it to the SEC.
The SEC extracts a $10 million fine.
They give you $3 million.
You can keep your job! Why not; it’s illegal to retaliate against whistleblowers.
Or, you know, get a new one and do it again.
[…]
The theory here is that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has a whistleblower protection rule that says that “no person may take any action to impede an individual from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation, including enforcing, or threatening to enforce, a confidentiality agreement.”
[…]
Anyway:
OpenAI whistleblowers have filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the artificial intelligence company illegally prohibited its employees from warning regulators about the grave risks its technology may pose to humanity, calling for an investigation.
[…]
OpenAI made staff sign employee agreements that required them to waive their federal rights to whistleblower compensation, the letter said. These agreements also required OpenAI staff to get prior consent from the company if they wished to disclose information to federal authorities. OpenAI did not create exemptions in its employee nondisparagement clauses for disclosing securities violations to the SEC.
{ Matt Levine | Bloomberg | Continue reading }
economics, law, robots & ai |
July 15th, 2024
Elon Musk is offering to donate his sperm to help colonize Mars […] he recently told employees he anticipates one million people living on Mars within two decades, affirming his personal commitment by stating his intention to die there.
By 2022, 2.78% of 18- to 24-year-old adults self-identified as transgender, up from 0.59% in 2014.
Lesbian women reported the highest orgasm frequency, followed by bisexual women, with heterosexual women having the lowest orgasm frequency. Lesbian women also outperformed heterosexual women on sexual duration, while heterosexual women outperformed lesbian and bisexual women on sexual frequency.
This paper shows that shootings are predictable enough to be preventable. Using arrest and victimization records for almost 644,000 people from the Chicago Police Department, we train a machine learning model to predict the risk of being shot in the next 18 months. Out-of-sample accuracy is strikingly high: of the 500 people with the highest predicted risk, almost 13 percent are shot within 18 months
AT&T says hackers stole 2022 call and text data from ‘nearly all’ cell customers update: AT&T Paid a Hacker $370,000 to Delete Stolen Phone Records
Goldman Sachs: AI Is Overhyped, Wildly Expensive, and Unreliable
A fleet of drones patrolling New York City’s beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of birds
every day the same again |
July 14th, 2024
Why don’t we know how antidepressants work yet?
the man who used dreams and premonitions to predict the future — In 1966, a British psychiatrist had an idea: to change the course of history by asking the public to share their eerie intuitions
The reality is that the ability to read the brain and influence activity is already here. It’s no longer only in the realm of science fiction. Now, the question is, what exactly can we access and manipulate in the brain?
Taking principles from fractal geometry and the strategic game of chess, physicists have created what they say is the most fiendishly difficult maze ever devised. In a Knight’s tour, the chess piece (which jumps two squares forwards and one to the right) visits every square of the chessboard just once before returning to its starting square. This is an example of a ‘Hamiltonian cycle’ – a loop through a map visiting all stopping points only once.
Artists say all colors are a mixture of red, yellow, and blue. But physics and TV screens and printers disagree. How does color really work?
The inaugural Miss AI contest opened in spring, drawing entries from some 1,500 AI programmers around the world. […] After judges of the world’s first AI beauty pageant unveiled 10 finalists last month, the inaugural Miss AI has now been crowned.
O.J. Gude, The Man Who Invented Times Square
every day the same again |
July 12th, 2024
Creator Startups Have Already Raised as Much Money This Year as in All of 2023
majority of websites and mobile apps use dark patterns in the marketing of subscription services — Dark patterns are defined as practices commonly found in online user interfaces and that steer, deceive, coerce, or manipulate consumers into making choices that often are not in their best interests.
If you live in Phoenix or Houston and your air conditioner fails, staying in your house may be impossible and you may need to evacuate. Air-conditioning now plays a central role in protecting public health in homes, workplaces, and public spaces. […] Given the enormous importance of air conditioning, I thought it would be useful to put together a few posts about it. This is part one: some background on the physics of air conditioning.
A mother said her 8-year-old daughter was losing her hearing and fluids were leaking from her ears. Several women said they experienced fainting spells, including while driving on the highway. Others said they were wracked by debilitating vertigo and nausea, waking up in the middle of the night mid-vomit. None of them knew what, exactly, was causing these symptoms. But they all shared a singular grievance: a dull aural hum had crept into their lives, which growled or roared depending on the time of day, rattling their windows and rendering them unable to sleep. The hum, local law enforcement had learned, was emanating from a Bitcoin mining facility that had recently moved into the area
Drug Trends […] Ketamine is approaching world domination […] According to wastewater analysis, the popularity of the drug rose in 12 of 15 cities in Eastern and Western Europe from 2022 to 2023 […] global seizures of ketamine hit a record high in East and South-East Asia where they saw an increase of 70 percent in just one year.
According to data from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, the origins of the free-flying photons in the early cosmic dawn were small dwarf galaxies that flared to life, clearing the fog of murky hydrogen that filled intergalactic space.
Do we have the right to believe whatever we want to believe? This supposed right is often claimed as the last resort of the wilfully ignorant, the person who is cornered by evidence and mounting opinion: ‘I believe climate change is a hoax whatever anyone else says, and I have a right to believe it!’ But is there such a right? […] belief is not knowledge.
Häxan is a Swedish-Danish film, a curious and groundbreaking mix of documentary and silent horror cinema, written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Whereas most films of the period were literary adaptations, Christensen’s take was unique, basing his film upon non-fiction works. […] Reportedly the most expensive film of the Swedish silent film era, Häxan was actually banned in the United States, and heavily censored in other countries. In 1968, an abbreviated version of the film was released. Titled Witchcraft Through the Ages, it featured an eclectic jazz score by Daniel Humair and dramatic narration by the wonderfully gravel-toned William S. Burroughs. [video]
English lewd vocabulary for romance and erotica writers
every day the same again |
July 11th, 2024
Whataburger app becomes power outage map after Houston hurricane […] Whataburger is a San Antonio-based fast-food chain with 127 stores in the Houston area. On the Whataburger app, users can see a map of Whataburger locations, with an orange logo indicating a store is open, and a grey logo meaning it’s closed.
Eighteen hundred feet of rail expands by more than an inch for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit of temperature increase. So rails used to be laid down in sections — each between 30 and 60 feet long — with small gaps. Still, in a severe heat wave, the rail can swell until the underlying ties can no longer contain it. Then the rail gets visibly wavy, morphing into what’s known as a sun kink.
Heat waves reduce the number of motile sperm (the only ones capable of fertilizing an egg) by up to 10%
A basic four-stop elevator costs about $158,000 in New York City, compared with about $36,000 in Switzerland. [NY Times]
Airbnb’s hidden camera problem […] The Airbnb employee revealed that when a guest complains of a hidden camera, the company doesn’t – as a matter of practice – notify law enforcement, not even when a child is involved. […] Hidden cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms show guests during their most private moments – changing clothes, being with their children, even having sex […] while hotels can be held legally responsible for guests harmed on their property, Airbnb frequently is not. […] Madden initially denied ownership of the camera, which was concealed in a clock radio and pointed at his guests’ bed. Then, he said he put it there for security reasons. Ultimately, Madden admitted he’d been recording guests engaged in sexual activity. “I’m an artist,” he said. “I look at everything, I study everything.” Madden served 14 days behind bars.
how online shopping, persistent data collection, and machine-learning algorithms could combine to generate the stuff of economists’ dreams: individual prices for each customer.
the 19-year-old getting paid to rate Instagram profiles
Positive feedback is often given in an attempt to boost people’s performance. In many cases, however, positive feedback undermines performance […] when positive feedback was delivered before participants started preparing for their next task, it impaired subsequent performance.
The Barnum effect is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. […] general characterizations attributed to an individual are perceived to be true for them, even though the statements are such generalizations that they could apply to almost anyone. Such techniques are used by fortune tellers, astrologers, and other practitioners to convince customers that they, the practitioners, are in fact endowed with a paranormal gift.
every day the same again |
July 10th, 2024
Butterflies can cross the Atlantic in as few as five to eight days.
10 billion passwords leaked in the largest compilation of all time
the decision to be unfaithful is primarily driven by individual tendencies, with minimal influence from the partner. The study found that a strong commitment to one’s partner is linked to a lower likelihood of infidelity, whereas shared passion and intimacy do not serve as effective deterrents.
Destiny beliefs describe the belief that a relationship is meant to be while growth beliefs describe the tendency that relationships can be cultivated and maintained through effort. […] those with higher growth beliefs experienced a slower decline in relationship satisfaction over time.
The big problem for materialists is what contemporary philosopher David Chalmers dubbed the “hard problem” of consciousness. In a nutshell, the problem is this: You’re conscious. But if you’re just made of non-conscious matter, why and how exactly could consciousness arise from that? […] Panpsychism lets you bypass the hard problem of consciousness altogether. That’s because the panpsychist starts out with the right ingredients. If you believe that consciousness resides, however minimally, in matter’s tiniest building blocks — atoms, electrons, quarks — then it’s much easier to explain how sophisticated forms of consciousness can eventually arise in, say, humans. This fits very well with the theory of evolution, which says that creatures gradually became more complex as they evolved. […] In a landmark 2006 paper, Strawson took this idea and ran with it, making a radical argument: Materialism, he said, actually entails panpsychism. Consciousness is real. (We know that from our own experience.) Everything is physical. (There’s no evidence that immaterial stuff exists.) Therefore, consciousness is physical. There’s no “radical emergence” in nature. (We don’t get something from nothing.) Consciousness emerging from totally non-conscious stuff would be radical emergence. Therefore, all stuff must have some consciousness baked into it.
the biology of fatigue
Treating several individuals suffering from post-COVID-19 syndrome with a nicotine patch application, we witnessed improvements ranging from immediate and substantial to complete remission in a matter of days.
In the 13th century, a boie was a servant, but already in that time the provenance of the word was obscure. A century later, the term started being used to indicate a male child. […] Since the 14th century, gyrle was a word used to indicate a child, with no gender distinction. Despite the apparent simplicity of the term, so far nobody has been able to reconstruct its origins.
Sometimes the Jersey Devil features a dog’s head and pig’s feet; sometimes he’s an eighth child instead of a thirteenth. The story’s emotional crux, however, is consistent: an unwanted pregnancy, a mother’s anger, a curse. It reads as what folklore scholars Joan Radner and Susan Lanser might call a “coded” tale—a story that invites multiple, even contradictory, interpretations to “protect the creator from the dangerous consequences of directly stating particular messages.” A hallmark of feminist folklore, coding allows a tale-teller to convey ideas that are controversial or forbidden by camouflaging morals in ambiguity, ensuring the story reads differently to different audiences. […] it’s easy to see the Jersey Devil as a critique of callous mothering […] Though gynaehorror often represents female reproductivity negatively, it can function as a “way of exposing misogyny.”
Looking up flights on multiple browser tabs can be cumbersome, but Google’s Gemini has a solution. The model integrates with Google Flights and Google Hotels, pulling in real-time information from Google’s partner companies in a way that makes it easy to compare times and, crucially, prices. How to use AI to plan your next vacation
Russian Space Chiefs Finally Admit US Landed on Moon
Shark Fishing in Miami with the South Beach Shark Club + Rene De Dios and the South Beach Shark Club [video]
How many times do you have to riffle a deck of cards before it is completely shuffled? It’s a tricky question, but math has us covered: hyou need seven riffles.
every day the same again |
July 8th, 2024
Thai teacher banned from school after she livestreamed under her skirt while teaching
High-speed hippos can get airborne, says new study
Explanations of consciousness abound and the radical diversity of theories is telling. My purpose here must be humble: collect and categorize, not assess and adjudicate. Seek insights, not answers. Unrealistically, I’d like to get them all, at least all contemporary theories that are sufficiently distinct […] It’s the classic “mind-body problem:” How do the felt experiences in our minds relate to the neural processes in our brains?
Watching a movie, sisters’ brain activity is more similar than that of friends
how brain activity triggers these severest of headaches — migraines — has long puzzled scientists. A study in mice suggests that a brief brain ‘blackout’ — when neuronal activity shuts down — temporarily changes the content of the cerebrospinal fluid, the clear liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. This altered fluid, researchers suggest, travels through a previously unknown gap in anatomy to nerves in the skull where it activates pain and inflammatory receptors, causing headaches.
In 19th century New York City, Theodore Gaillard Thomas enjoyed an unusual level of fame for a gynecologist. The reason, oddly enough, was milk. Between 1873 and 1880, the daring idea of transfusing milk into the body as a substitute for blood was being tested across the United States. […] In 1875, he injected 175 milliliters of cow’s milk into a woman suffering from severe uterine bleeding after an operation to remove her cancerous ovaries. At first, he wrote, the patient “complained that her head felt like bursting.” She soon developed a high fever and an abnormally high heart rate, but recovered a week later. […] Saline solutions, still used today, were introduced the next decade as a much less dangerous, if imperfect, stopgap measure for emergency bleeding. […] ErythroMer is made from “recycled” human hemoglobin—the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body—wrapped in a membrane to mimic a tiny cell. In the rabbit, the transfusion appeared to be working.
Not only had Microsoft hired most of Inflection’s employees — it also licensed the startup’s technology […] Amazon hired “close to” to 66 percent of Adept’s employees […] Amazon will also be licensing Adept’s technology […] The problem for Big Tech is that they are no longer allowed to buy companies like they once did. The current antitrust enforcement regime would most certainly try to block an Amazon acquisition of Adept […] Even still, capitalism finds a way. What Microsoft did to Inflection, and what Amazon just did to Adept, is the new Big Tech playbook for swallowing the AI industry and getting away with it.
Over the past two decades, Chinese leaders have built a high-tech surveillance system of seemingly extraordinary sophistication. […] Although the protesters were careful to conceal their faces with masks and hats, the police used mobile-phone location data to track them down. […] Over the past eight decades, the Chinese Communist Party has constructed a vast network of millions of informers and spies whose often unpaid work has been critical to the regime’s survival. It is these men and women, more than cameras or artificial intelligence, that have allowed Beijing to suppress dissent. […] Generations of Chinese leaders have struck a delicate balance between making the secret police powerful enough to do its job, but not so powerful that it threatens the regime itself.
The r/SecurityClearance subreddit […] where government workers and public servants share their secrets before they share them with the U.S. government.
“It seems like every block in New York now has a tailored-for-millennial-women piercer, both in terms of VC-backed brands like Studs and boutique-y local spots”
Revenge saving has become a trend on Chinese social media websites, with Chinese youth setting extreme monthly savings targets
In Australia, strangulation has been explicitly criminalized in all states and territories. However, it continues to be a “normalized” sexual practice despite its potentially fatal consequences and associated short and long-term sequelae. […] Confidential, cross-sectional online surveys were conducted with 4702 Australians aged 18–35 years […] 57% reported ever being sexually strangled and 51% reported ever strangling a partner.
The dangers of sneezing—from ejected bowels to torn windpipes
Despite the great amount of time spent on ships and ferries, swimming was a rare skill among men. Among women, it was unheard of—even suspect. Benjamin Franklin, however, was in his element.
Why Music Is Getting Worse
The Mauritanian iron ore train spans up to 3km (1.8 miles) in length, travels on a single track of 704 kilometres (437 miles), with 200 – 300 freight carriages, weighing up to a total of 84 tons and making it the longest and heaviest train in the world. […] This train has no ticket, no conductor, no dining cart, or any sort of announcements.
every day the same again |
July 5th, 2024
The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery
The article is specifically focused on the risk of LLMs causing an extreme catastrophe in which they do something akin to taking over the world and killing everyone.
IBM, which has a $20 billion consulting business, ran into some of those issues on its work with McDonald’s. The companies developed an A.I.- powered voice system to take drive-through orders. But after customers reported that the system made mistakes, like adding nine iced teas to an order instead of the one Diet Coke requested, McDonald’s ended the project. […] McKinsey’s A.I. group, QuantumBlack, built a customer service chatbot for ING Bank […] The chatbot now handles 200 of 5,000 customer inquiries daily. ING has people review every conversation to make sure that the system doesn’t use discriminatory or harmful language or hallucinate. […] Over a four-month period this year, Reckitt worked with Boston Consulting Group to develop an A.I. platform that could create local advertisements in different languages and formats. With the push of a button, the system can turn a commercial about Finish dishwashing detergent from English into Spanish. Reckitt’s A.I. marketing system, which is being tested, can make developing local ads 30 percent faster. [NY Times]
The Joy of Reading Books You Don’t Entirely Understand
The triplets (whose abilities at walking, cycling, and donkey riding are identical) always leave home together at the last possible minute and arrive at school together on the last stroke of the bell.
a photo by Stephen Shore titled “Kingston, New York, November 8, 2020, 41°56.9443167N, 74°1.7406167W.” The image is from Shore’s fabulous new show of photographs shot from drones, at 303 gallery in New York.
every day the same again |
July 4th, 2024
S. Korea administrative robot defunct after apparent suicide, found unresponsive after having apparently fallen down a two-meter (six-and-a-half foot) staircase
The authors of the study reasoned that if black-and-white stripes ward off flies for zebras, they should also do the same for people painted with zebra stripes.
What makes a good tree? We used AI to ask birds
What drives mosquitoes’ bloodlust? Their hormones. One hormone seems to boosts the insects’ thirst for a blood meal, while another shuts it off.
Study suggests connection between anxiety and Parkinson’s disease Researchers compared a group of 109,435 people 50 and older who were diagnosed with a first episode of anxiety between 2008 and 2018 with a control group of 987,691 people without anxiety.
Teenagers with lower levels of mental ability may be three times more likely to experience a stroke before the age of 50, research suggests
Goldman signals end of an era in private equity […] No longer can you “be the highest bidder, buy the company, sit there, wait for multiple expansion and sell again”[…] investors shouldn’t expect the type of buyout returns that until 2022 were often buoyed by market exuberance, climbing valuations and financial engineering.
One study says a third of American workers have signed one; another puts the number at more than half. NDAs are being given out to roommates, to parents, to boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, and to bachelor-party attendees and wedding guests.
Lawsuit Claims Microsoft Tracked Sex Toy Shoppers With ‘Recording in Real Time’ Software
Scholars have known about the hidden Cupid since 1979 when x-rays and other tests first indicated a painting-within-a-painting underneath the blank background wall. At the time, it seemed that Vermeer had simply decided against including this element and painted it out. […] The museum ran additional tests, which provided significant clues such as dirt between the Cupid and the paint covering it. Further conservation revealed craquelure (cracks that form on paintings’ surfaces) on the Cupid itself. Both discoveries suggested that the Cupid had been exposed for a significant period of time. In other words, the overpaint must be by a later artist, not Vermeer. More: The Mysterious Cupid in Johannes Vermeer’s Paintings
every day the same again |
July 2nd, 2024
The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes
new technology using engineered living skin tissue and human-like ligaments gives robots a more natural smile
researchers develop visual tracking technology to detect drink drivers
Analysis of 400,000 healthy adults finds no health benefits from taking daily multivitamins […] Rather than living longer, people who consumed daily multivitamins were marginally more likely than non-users to die in the study period
Swallowable tiny robot with thrusters performs endoscopy at home Using a smartphone app, the distant doctor controls the robot within the patient’s stomach. PillBot shuts down and exits the body naturally within six to twenty-four hours. In addition, the team is working on using AI to make the preliminary diagnosis, after which a physician will create a course of therapy. [..] The team envisions expanding the technology to examine the bowels, vascular system, heart, liver, brain, and other parts of the body. […] With clinical trials underway, the company aims to secure FDA approval and launch commercially in the US by early 2026. [more]
Is Delaying Menopause the Key to Longevity? The ovaries, in particular, appear to be connected to virtually every aspect of a woman’s health. They also abruptly stop performing their primary role in midlife. Once that happens, a woman enters menopause, which accelerates her aging and the decline of other organ systems, like the heart and the brain. While women, on average, live longer than men, they spend more time living with diseases or disabilities. [NY Times]
Tumor-seeking radiopharmaceuticals promise targeted treatments with fewer side effects
Isoniazid can be detected in finger sweat for 1–6 h following controlled administration of the drug. This technique is adaptable for other drugs
Acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol and sold widely under the brand names Tylenol and Panadol, may also increase risk-taking
cravings for drugs in addiction are supposed to be impossible to resist […] this image of craving is fundamentally flawed. My aim is to develop a more nuanced understanding of craving and rectify the damage done by this false image.
A military lab found distinctive damage from repeated blast exposure in every brain it tested, but Navy SEAL leaders were kept in the dark about the pattern. The vast majority of blast exposure for Navy SEALs comes from firing their own weapons, not from enemy action. The damage pattern suggested that years of training intended to make SEALs exceptional was leaving some barely able to function. [NY Times]
study demonstrates how our initial impressions can have a lasting impact on our decisions, often leading us to persistently choose inferior options even when better ones are available.
Youtube has recently offered lump sums of cash to the major labels — Sony, Warner, and Universal — to try to convince more artists to allow their music to be used in training AI software
Man makes money buying his own pizza on DoorDash app — A pizza for which he charged $24 (£20) was being advertised for $16 on DoorDash - and when he secretly ordered it himself, the app paid his restaurant the full $24 while charging him $16.
Pooping on the Moon The Apollo crews left a total of 96 bags of waste, including urine and feces, across their six landing sites […] Human feces is packed with microbial life […] Learning how long those microbes survived in the extraterrestrial excrement would reveal tantalizing insights into the mystery of life’s origins on Earth and its potential existence elsewhere. […] “Basically, in space a human no longer has gravity to assist pulling the feces away from the anus. It becomes really a sticky liquid problem of surface tension. As it is organically active, extreme care has to be taken to make sure one cleans up.”
Microbial dark matter comprises the vast majority of microbial organisms (usually bacteria and archaea) that microbiologists are unable to culture in the laboratory
the L.A. Influencer Who Is Trying to Get Famous By Never Tipping at Restaurants and Bars
The New Eagle Creek Saloon (2019 — ongoing) is an installation, and a vibe, that reimagines my father’s bar—the first black-owned gay bar in San Francisco.
Shop Imp Kerr: Vive la France!
every day the same again |
June 30th, 2024
2 years of mild caloric restriction significantly reduces biological age
5 things you’re doing that can land you in a dentist’s chair: eating popcorn, chewing on ice, energy drinks, sodas, coffee, vaping, using fluoride-free toothpaste. Also: using your teeth to open packages, tear off tags, or even bite their nails, teeth grinding (bruxism), brushing too hard
The U.S. Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with law enforcement every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order. […] more than 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015 […] more than 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023
Almost half of U.S. teachers and K-12 students say they are using ChatGPT weekly.
Researchers describe how to tell if ChatGPT is confabulating
I am using AI to automatically drop hats outside my window onto New Yorkers
Calculator words
every day the same again |
June 24th, 2024
This month, Walmart became the latest retailer to announce it’s replacing the price stickers in its aisles with electronic shelf labels. The new labels allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds. “If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream.”
Sensory secrets of penis and clitoris unlocked after more than 150 years Krause corpuscles — nerve endings in tightly wrapped balls located just under the skin — were first discovered in human genitals more than 150 years ago. The structures are similar to touch-activated corpuscles found on people’s fingers and hands, which respond to vibrations as the skin moves across a textured surface. […] Ginty and his collaborators activated the Krause corpuscles in both male and female mice using various mechanical and electrical stimuli. The neurons fired in response to low-frequency vibrations in the range of 40–80 hertz. Ginty notes that these frequencies are generally used in many sex toys; humans, it seems, realized that this was the best way to stimulate Krause corpuscles before any official experiments were published.
I started by dating somebody on an ENM app who was in a different polycule who was connected to someone in this polycule. And then I started dating someone else in this polycule. He’s married, and his wife and I are metamours, which is simply a word for my partner’s partner. — Lessons From a 20-Person Polycule
Here we bring recent evidence from neuroscience and allied disciplines to argue that in modern humans, language is a tool for communication, contrary to a prominent view that we use language for thinking. [PDF]
the group has collected venom from more than 500 species, building an unrivalled collection of animal toxins. Studying the molecules that make up venom, scientists have been able to develop compounds that can relieve chronic pain, treat diabetes and create eco-friendly insecticides.
“blue carbon” refers to the carbon dioxide sequestered and stored by coastal habitats such as mangroves and seagrass beds. These highly efficient ecosystems occupy just 0.5% of the seafloor but contribute over 50% of oceans’ carbon burial, sequestering even more carbon by area than rainforests.
This is the first animal ever found that doesn’t need oxygen to survive […] a jellyfish-like parasite that doesn’t have a mitochondrial genome […] it could also have implications for the search for extraterrestrial life
One of Vico’s chief claims is that, though civilizations rise and fall, the periods of decline do not return them to their original state. Some foundation remains from which rebuilding can commence. A central challenge for a science of politics, then, is to reduce the severity of the inevitable downturns, shorten the reign of “barbarism,” and through these means, hope for gradual improvement.
In California, the “Daughter from California” is known as the “Daughter from New York”
I jumped from a plane – and my parachute failed
every day the same again |
June 23rd, 2024
American Airlines passenger gagged and bound with duct tape to her seat after being accused of attempting to open an aircraft door mid-flight […] after drinking a neat Jack Daniels
One of the most coveted beauty products among teenagers is a creamy, fragrant lotion that comes in a tangerine-colored plastic tub. Called Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, it is sold for $48 by the beauty brand Sol de Janeiro. According to Sol de Janeiro, a jar of Brazilian Bum Bum Cream is sold every six seconds.
Stock-obsessed Gen Z are using astrology and tarot to invest
Researchers turn wool and hair offcuts into graphite for lithium batteries […] About 70 per cent of the world’s graphite, a key component in lithium batteries, comes from China.
U.S. government Sues Adobe and Executives for Hiding Fees, Preventing Consumers from Easily Cancelling Software Subscriptions
The Excel World Championship
How I Made Trading Cards with E- Ink Displays
The first rule of avoiding scam calls is to never answer unknown numbers, and even some known ones.
Through a combination of behavioural and neuroimaging methods, experiments have identified sensory, perceptual, emotional and cognitive processes that make important contributions to our psychological experiences of art, in particular the emergence of aesthetic preferences. Here we conduct a selective review of this literature that will provide readers without a background in the neurosciences a first introduction into what we have learned so far
Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?
Pelvic floor muscle training, more
every day the same again |
June 17th, 2024
Wells Fargo Fires Over a Dozen for ‘Simulation of Keyboard Activity’
One of the bigger discussions happening right now on the internet is whether a “Remote Amazon Tribe” has become “addicted to porn” as a result of getting SpaceX’s Starlink internet. […] The Marubo people have been using the internet long before Starlink came to their village
Subvocalization: Why Do We Have A Voice In Our Heads When We Read?
How Data-Fueled Neurotargeting Could Kill Democracy the technique, which weaponizes emotional data for political gain, could erode the foundations of a fair and informed society
Where are the Female Composers? Evidence on the Extent and Causes of Gender Inequality in Music History
A new study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter. First, people are exposed to more chemicals that might be weight-gain inducing. Pesticides, flame retardants, and the substances in food packaging might all be altering our hormonal processes and tweaking the way our bodies put on and maintain weight. Second, the use of prescription drugs has risen dramatically since the 1970s and ’80s. Prozac, the first blockbuster SSRI, came out in 1988. Antidepressants are now one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S., and many of them have been linked to weight gain. Finally, Kuk and the other study authors think that the microbiomes of Americans might have somehow changed between the 1980s and now. It’s well known that some types of gut bacteria make a person more prone to weight gain and obesity. Americans are eating more meat than they were a few decades ago, and many animal products are treated with hormones and antibiotics in order to promote growth. All that meat might be changing gut bacteria in ways that are subtle, at first, but add up over time. Kuk believes that the proliferation of artificial sweeteners could also be playing a role.
On average, for every 555 million molecules of water, one is split into a negatively charged OH⁻ and a positively charged H⁺. And this actually matters a lot, in chemistry. It’s the reason we say water has pH 7.
The Missing Post Office is an artwork by Japanese artist Saya Kubota. It is a “post office” where undeliverable letters are collected The Missing Post Office receives mail from all over the world. Addressees include deceased individuals, future descendants, first loves to whom the writers were never able to express their feelings, themselves, and long-time favorite items.
every day the same again |
June 16th, 2024
Missouri Restaurant bans women under 30, men under 35, wants a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe
Entertainment Media as a Source of Relationship Misinformation We discuss two ways that relationship misinformation can appear in entertainment media – in the form of blatant claims and subtle content – and we provide an example of each from reality television.
study uncovers brain differences in sexual desire disorders in men and women […] HSDD (hypoactive sexual desire disorder), characterized by a persistent lack of sexual interest causing significant distress, affects about 10% of women and 8% of men. […] Women with HSDD exhibited greater activation in limbic regions such as the amygdala, striatum, and thalamus, which are associated with emotional processing and sexual motivation. In contrast, men showed greater activation in the visual cortex, indicating a heightened sensitivity to visual sexual cues.
In the morning, you report that you barely slept at all. Yet according to the test—polysomnography, the gold standard for sleep measurement—you slept all night. […] these people showed pockets of arousal in the form of fast brain waves during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM is the stage in normal sleep when your brain should completely disconnect from the systems that keep you aware and vigilant People with subjective insomnia with this interrupted REM do not experience their sleep as restful. When wakened, they reported having had thoughts similar to those when awake […] They were less likely to have immersive dreams […] interrupted REM is strongly linked to disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety.
No evidence sperm counts are dropping, researchers find
Depression and memory decline are intimately linked […] those with higher depressive symptoms were more likely to experience faster memory decline, while those who started off with a poorer memory were more likely to develop depressive symptoms during the study period.
Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines ingest the most microplastics among 109 countries, according to a study by Cornell University researchers. Indonesians, the top consumers of microplastics, were found to ingest about 15g of microplastics per month – equivalent to three credit cards – with the majority of plastic particles coming from aquatic sources such as fish and seafood. Indonesians’ daily consumption of microplastics increased by 59 times from 1990 to 2018.
More than a century ago, flamingos disappeared from Florida, when hunters nearly drove them to extinction in the quest for their fashionable — and highly profitable — plumage. Now they’re back, likely transported by Hurricane Idalia last August.
dolphins and parrots address conspecifics by imitating the calls of the addressee […] African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls Audio: >Wild elephants may have names that other elephants use to call them
The US dollar continues to cede ground to nontraditional currencies in global foreign exchange reserves, but it remains the preeminent reserve currency. Recent data from the IMF […] point to an ongoing gradual decline in the dollar’s share of allocated foreign reserves of central banks and governments. Strikingly, the reduced role of the US dollar over the last two decades has not been matched by increases in the shares of the other “big four” currencies—the euro, yen, and pound. Rather, it has been accompanied by a rise in the share of what we have called non-traditional reserve currencies, including the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Chinese renminbi, South Korean won, Singaporean dollar, and the Nordic currencies. […] One non-traditional reserve currency gaining market share is the Chinese renminbi, whose gains match a quarter of the decline in the dollar’s share.
Ask most venture-backed founders why they get 10x more equity than employee #1, 100x more equity than employee #5, and 1000x more equity than employee #15, and you’ll get the same answer: “I’M TAKING SO MUCH RISK, IT’S SO HARD TO START A COMPANY, I MADE A BIG MOVE!!!” And then you’ll ask, “but why are you yelling?” […] Founder liquidity refers to the practice where founders sell a portion of their shares during a new funding round. This allows them to “take chips off the table,” securing personal financial stability while continuing to build the company with a fresh influx of venture capital. Why is it a secret that founders get liquidity in many venture rounds? Because it undermines the narrative of the founder who is “all-in.”
Waistlines are expanding in most countries, except for a skinny list of nations bucking the trend. How is France dodging the global obesity trend?
how we produce fresh water and how we dispose of wastewater at the South Pole
George Spelvin, Georgette Spelvin, and Georgina Spelvin are traditional stagename used to hide a performer’s identity. “Georgina Spelvin” has fallen out of general use since it was adopted as a screen name by pornographic actress Shelley Graham, who was credited by that name in The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and her subsequent films.
Level Devil
Smoking Devil in Stereohell
every day the same again |
June 12th, 2024
United Airlines starts serving passengers personalized ads on seat-back screens
Google’s and Microsoft’s AI Chatbots Refuse to Say Who Won the 2020 US Election
First, we show that older people tend to underestimate their cognitive decline. We then show that those experiencing a severe decline but unaware of it are more likely to suffer wealth losses.
Sexuality plays a significant role in most romantic relationships and is a factor that differentiates romantic relationships from other types of close relationships. Research shows that different aspects of sexuality, such as sexual desire and satisfaction, have been consistently linked with relationship satisfaction, quality, and stability. Moreover, sexually active couples report higher individual and relational well-being. […] However, several factors may hinder couples from engaging in sexual activity, including stress.
Free Will Beliefs are Positively Associated With Health Behavior
Deciding Who Is Worthy of Help: Effect of the Probability of Reciprocity on Individuals’ Willingness to Help Others
Living in the afterlife: clues from direct experiencers Although most of the information obtained by our different sources converge on the general description of the afterlife, and how life proceeds in these realms, they cannot be considered definite proof of the afterlife and its characteristics.
Gene therapy restores hearing to children with inherited deafness
artificial intelligence system that can identify people who are likely to suffer heart attacks up to 10 years in the future, could soon be in operation across Britain
excessive vigorous exercise could muffle your immune system
Dreaming Under Anesthesia
How Do We Know When to Pee?
Winston Churchill Received the First Ever Letter Containing “O.M.G.”
According to an editor at a venerable publishing imprint, debut novelists need three key publicity achievements to “break out”: one, a major book club; two, a boost from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Indie Next, and/or Book of the Month; and three, a major profile. Why Are Debut Novels Failing to Launch?
Advance market commitments allow us to buy products that don’t yet exist, giving innovators an incentive to invent and scale new products. This is a practical guide on how to start an AMC.
In 1910, Mare Samuella Cromer, a rural schoolteacher in South Carolina, organized a girl’s tomato club so females aged 9 to 20 could “not learn simply how to grow better and more perfect tomatoes, but how to grow better and more perfect women.
The Secret History of Holywell Street, Home to Victorian London’s Dirty Book Trade
The music of “Detachable Penis” consists largely of a distorted electric guitar riff fed through a noise gate and a delay, backed by organ and drum grooves with brief lead guitar improvisation.
ASCII Silhouettify is an app that converts images into ASCII silhouettes
every day the same again |
June 9th, 2024
One of the best known non-bank banks is Starbucks – “a bank dressed up as a coffee shop”. […] “McDonald’s is a real estate company dressed up as a hamburger chain” and “Harvard is a hedge fund dressed up as an institution of higher learning”. […] The company had offered a gift card since 2001 but Schultz [Starbuck’s CEO] revitalized it, pairing it with a new loyalty program […] In 2010, Schultz put the card on an app […] more than 60% of the company’s peak morning business in the US comes from Starbucks Rewards members who overwhelmingly order via the app. The program has 33 million users, equivalent to around one in ten American adults. these users load or reload around $10 billion of value onto their cards each year […] not all of it gets spent at once. As at the end of March, $1.9 billion of stored card value sat on the company’s balance sheet waiting to be spent – kind of like customer deposits. To give that some context, 85% of US banks have less than $1 billion in assets. Unmasking the Banks Inside Starbucks, Carnival, Naked Wines, Delta, Travel + Leisure
US has the highest rate of maternal deaths among high-income nations. Norway has zero
Costco is building out an ad network built on its trove of loyalty membership data, using its 74.5 million household members’ shopping habits and past purchases
In the last few months, Meta started to sneakily train its generative AI tool on Instagram posts. Now, some artists are jumping ship to a lesser-known portfolio app, Cara, to protect their work from AI data scrapers.
If you are a professional, if you are under NDA with your clients, if you are a creative, a lawyer, a doctor or anyone who works with proprietary files - it is time to cancel Adobe
Microsoft is about to launch a new AI-powered Recall feature that screenshots everything you do on your PC. Recall doesn’t perform content moderation, so it won’t hide information like passwords or financial account numbers in its screenshots.
Due to national security concerns, the U.S. government prohibits Nvidia from selling AI chips like the A100 and H100 directly to Chinese companies. The restrictions don’t prevent Chinese firms from renting chips for use within the U.S. — ByteDance is allegedly leasing servers with chips from Oracle. ByteDance reportedly had access to over 1,500 H100 chips and several thousand A100s last month through the Oracle deal. China Telecom, a large state-owned wireless carrier, has sought a similar deal with other cloud providers. How ByteDance Got the Best AI Chips Despite U.S. Restrictions
Known as “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube and “DeepF***ingValue” on Reddit’s popular WallStreetBets, Gill was a key figure in the so-called “Reddit rally” in which shares of GameStop surged 1600% at one point in Jan. 2021, crushing hedge funds that had bet against the videogame retailer. But after drawing congressional and regulatory scrutiny for his role in the extraordinary saga, Gill quickly disappeared, albeit much richer thanks to his GameStop investment which at one point reached $48 million in value. […] Then out of the blue Gill appeared in recent weeks to resurface online, sending GameStop’s shares soaring once again. On Monday, they rose 21% after Gill’s Reddit account posted a screenshot showing a $116 million bet on the stock. On Thursday, they surged almost 50% after Gill’s YouTube account scheduled a livestream for 12 p.m. ET (1600 GMT) on Friday.
World’s first wooden satellite wooden Moon shelters are also planned
chocolate manufacturers combine a paste made from cacao seeds with sugar. Lots and lots of sugar […] the few health benefits provided by the chocolate bean are swamped by ingredients that increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. […] To address this stark imbalance, a team of researchers reinvented the chocolate recipe from the ground up
During the Renaissance period, hands were as important a focus of attention as the face was, because they were the only other visible area of the body. […] Given its high visibility, hand gestures in portraits and paintings have been one of the most effective ways of conveying secrets, codes and messages. […] There is a peculiar hand gesture that is widely used by painters of several nationalities belonging to the Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque and later artistic movements: It is an unnatural position of one or both hands in which the third and fourth digits are held tight together, as if almost fused, resembling syndactyly, and the second and fifth fingers are separated from the central ones. This paper will examine the eventual hidden meanings behind this peculiar hand gesture.
The Talk: Bernie Sanders & Slavoj Žižek and The Talk: Kanye West & Elon Musk
every day the same again |
June 7th, 2024
Italian village with 46 residents has 30 local election candidates
The FDA is poised to approve the notorious party drug as a therapy. Here’s what it means, and where similar drugs stand in the US.
Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?
Giving the drug before surgery instead of chemotherapy led to a huge increase in patients being declared cancer-free […] Drug that ‘melts away’ tumours hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for some bowel cancer patients
“I’ve made bunya nut ice cream, a bunya nut miso caramel, and a dish that we made from grated down bunya nuts.” Indigenous chef Jack Brown, trained in traditional French cuisine, is on a mission to change Australian cuisine
If English was written like Chinese
Catastrophic weather events influence the movement of wild animals. In particular, airborne animals such as birds and insects are expected to occasionally face challenging flights because of unfavorable atmospheric currents such as hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. […] Here, I report on a rare case of […] a GPS-equipped streaked shearwater (Calonectris leucomelas) was apparently caught in a huge typhoon, showing swirling flight high over the mainland of Japan.
James Joyce would pick drunken fights, then duck behind his burly friend Ernest Hemingway and say, “Deal with him, Hemingway. Deal with him.”
every day the same again |
June 4th, 2024
Penis Dissatisfaction and Gun Ownership in America — We find that men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises are less likely to personally own guns
we find that both men and women tend to work more hours when partnered with a female partner compared to a male partner
Late bedtimes are linked to higher rates of mental health disorders. The study recommends sleeping before 1 a.m. for optimal mental health.
Google has accidentally collected childrens’ voice data, leaked the trips and home addresses of car pool users
Federal regulators have given Amazon key permission that will allow it to expand its drone delivery program […] and to operate drones “beyond visual line of sight,” removing a barrier that has prevented its drones from traveling longer distances. […] the approval applies to College Station, Texas, where the company launched drone deliveries in late 2022.
Every day, the first thing that I encounter when the hospital doors open is the omnipresent smell of antiseptic. To most people, this scent likely triggers involuntary memories of negative events — the illness of a loved one, for example. For me, the first wave of antiseptic reminds me of my previous hospital rotations and prompts me to be ready to work for my patients and for my team.
The design of Chinese computers also changed dramatically. None of the competing designs that emerged in this era employed a QWERTY-style keyboard. Instead, one of the most successful and celebrated systems—the IPX, designed by Yeh—featured an interface with 120 levels of “shift,” packing nearly 20,000 Chinese characters and other symbols into a space only slightly larger than a QWERTY interface. Other systems featured keyboards with anywhere from 256 to 2,000 keys.
Repairing my mug with kintsugi
After artist Frida Kahlo’s death in 1954, her husband, painter Diego Rivera, blocked off two bathrooms in their home, La Casa Azul, on the condition that they not be opened until at least 15 years after his death. What Frida Kahlo Kept in Her Bathroom
Brainrot Romcom
every day the same again |
June 3rd, 2024
“This is the loudest restaurant I’ve ever reviewed in D.C.,” he tells us as we look over the menu. “Here, it was 100 decibels at the bar during happy hour, and not much better in the center of the dining room.” […] The sound levels blow away a normal, 60-decibel conversation. […] The decibel scale (dB) is a scientific measure of sound intensity. To human ears a 10dB difference is about twice as loud, but the sound intensity is 10 times greater. […]
Our brains have a tough time sorting through the cacophony in crowded dining rooms, which can influence our behavior. Multiple studies show that prolonged exposure to noise has physical effects such as increased anxiety and fatigue. Taken together, these effects can make the restaurant experience more taxing than relaxing for patrons, and they can leave staff drained from a long day straining to offer service while risking permanent hearing damage. […]
Alcohol blunts our hearing — especially at lower frequencies. This means when I reach the legal limit to drive, my brain will turn down the volume of most sounds I’m hearing in a restaurant. This effect may give me some relief from the music, but it will also drown out voices. It explains why intoxicated individuals talk louder: They don’t hear themselves as well as they normally do and speak up to compensate. […]
Strangely, noise also seems to drive more alcohol consumption. French researchers discovered this effect by raising music levels in bars by about 15 decibels and recording the number of drinks served. […]
Sorting through noise in restaurant dining rooms is particularly taxing to our brains, studies have shown. Working memory is under high demand when we need to switch our attention from one voice to another in a sea of voices. […]
At 95 decibels, scientists observe people and rodents eat less and consume food faster. Wang suggests that this fact may be understood by restaurant managers trying to turn their tables.
{ Washington Post | Continue reading }
food, drinks, restaurants, health, noise and signals |
June 3rd, 2024
Man who transformed into a dog says he wants to become another animal The man known only as Toco spent around $14,000 on his hyperrealistic dog costume, which was completed last spring.
Visitors and protesters expected to gather this summer in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention will be allowed to carry assault rifles -— but not metal water bottles -— inside the RNC’s “security footprint.” […] proposed ordinance aims to prohibit air rifles, umbrellas, tennis balls, nonplastic containers, light bulbs and locks. […] “Fake guns are prohibited, but real guns are allowed”
Washington has a law against felons running for office […] It seems possible that under Washington state law, there would be no name listed on ballots as a Republican candidate for president in November.
“He is the worst actor I’ve ever worked with,” a former colleague told me. Sharing a scene with Zach [Horwitz], he said, was like interacting with a banana. […] it was like “dealing with a dead horse.” […] As the end of 2019 approached, Horwitz had raised three hundred and fifty-eight million dollars in the past year. He was running what scholars of confidence games call an “affinity fraud,” built around trust and personal connections. He found wealthy investors —- in Napa Valley, Orange County, Las Vegas, and Chicago —- who then spread the word on the tennis court and the charity circuit. But every network has limits, and the arithmetic of a Ponzi scheme is unforgiving. When you run out of new investors, the mechanism begins to collapse. After Thanksgiving, Horwitz fell behind on his payments for the first time. The Biggest Ponzi Scheme in Hollywood History
A renewable energy company will soon begin clearing thousands of protected Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert, including many thought to be a century old. […] Joshua trees grow just 1 to 3 inches a year, which means a 16-foot tree could be more than 100 years old. More than 500 of trees found on the site are at least 16 feet tall.
How far away can you see light from a candle? 1.6 miles (~2.6 km)
An emerging area of future technology is motor augmentation – using motorised wearable devices such as exoskeletons or extra robotic body parts to advance our motor capabilities beyond current biological limitations. […] The Third Thumb is worn on the opposite side of the palm to the biological thumb and controlled by a pressure sensor placed under each big toe or foot.
Supernumerary body part — one or more additional breasts, having two penises, an extra head, additional fingers or toes
robot sets new Rubik’s cube Guinness World Record (0.305 seconds)
every day the same again |
June 2nd, 2024
a massive leak of 14,000 ranking features exposes the blueprint for how Google secretly curates the Internet. More: Perhaps the most notable revelation from the 2,500 documents is that they suggest Google representatives have misled the public in the past
A myopia epidemic is sweeping the globe Time spent outdoors is the best defence against rising rates of short-sightedness, but scientists are searching for other ways to reverse the troubling trend.
Drawing on the work of earlier scholars, Muraresku suggests there was some sort of psychedelic beer used in sacred ceremonies at the Temple of Eleusis that unleashed heavenly visions. What’s more, he believes this experience not only shaped generations of Greeks, it also laid the foundation for the Eucharist in early Christianity.
the logic of animal patterns
ultrasonic coffee — Australian scientists have developed a method of brewing coffee by blasting ground beans with sound waves – and it produces a powerful cup
no matter what tune you’re humming – a timeless melody from back in the day, a chart-topper from last week, or even one of your own songs – they all share the same 24 melodic figures. It’s like uncovering the secret code of melody that’s been right under our noses!
$6 on pump two, please
every day the same again |
June 1st, 2024
“If you need somebody to get vicious,” Mr. Trump once said, “hire Roy Cohn.” His legal strategy boiled down to: Delay and deny. Don’t hesitate to attack the judge and prosecutor (“I don’t care what the law is; tell me who the judge is” was his most famous line). Address the press every chance you get. And intimidate and ridicule witnesses.
{ NY Times | Continue reading }
U.S., buffoons |
May 31st, 2024
North Korea flies 260 feces-filled balloons across border to the South […] Authorities said timers and explosives were attached to a string connecting balloons and the trashed-filled packages in order to make the balloon burst after a certain amount of time passed
Romantic love is a psychobehavioral motivational state that facilitates pair-bonding in humans. Evolutionarily, it is thought to help establish and maintain long-term pair-bonds that enhance a heterosexual couple’s reproductive fitness. Romantic love can also occur in same-sex partnerships, yet not much is known, either psychologically or behaviorally, about the similarities or differences in how romantic love manifests in homosexual or bisexual couples compared with heterosexual couples. This study investigated romantic love in a cross-cultural sample of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual young adults (N = 783) experiencing romantic love. […] Homosexual females reported a significantly lower frequency of sex per week than heterosexual and bisexual females. Bisexual males reported a greater number of times ever in love than heterosexual males.
A new study of over 70,000 American women born between 1950 and 2005 has shown that girls are getting their periods earlier and they’re taking longer to become regular.
Actors face the demanding task of learning their lines with great precision, but they rarely do so by rote repetition. They did not, they said, sit down with a script and recite their lines until they knew them by heart. Repeating items over and over, called maintenance rehearsal, is not the most effective strategy for remembering. Instead, actors engage in elaborative rehearsal, focusing their attention on the meaning of the material and associating it with information they already know. […] actors are telling us an important truth about memory — deep understanding promotes long-lasting memories.
How Researchers Cracked an 11-Year-Old Password to a $3 Million Crypto Wallet
Continuing a string of successful botnet takedowns, on Thursday, May 30th 2024, a coalition of international law enforcement agencies announced “Operation Endgame”. This effort targeted multiple botnets such as IcedID, Smokeloader, SystemBC, Pikabot and Bumblebee, as well as some of the operators of these botnets. These botnets played a key part in enabling ransomware More: operation-endgame.com
Meet Ethiopia’s stilt walking tribe
The middle finger from the right hand of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) is a secular relic in the collection of the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy. The finger was removed from his body posthumously and is encased in a gilded glass egg.
every day the same again |
May 30th, 2024
When faced with the need to transform an object, idea, or situation, people have a tendency to favor adding new components rather than removing existing ones. This is called the additive bias.
SignLLM, the first AI model capable of generating avatar videos of sign language gestures from prompts across eight languages.
the LLM outperforms financial analysts in its ability to predict earnings changes. […] LLM prediction does not stem from its training memory.
The complete destruction of Google Search via forced AI adoption […] For example, we are learning exactly what Google is paying Reddit $60 million annually for. And that is to confidently serve its customers ideas like, to make cheese stick on a pizza, “You can also add about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness,” which comes directly from the mind of a Reddit user
Previously: Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant’s AI models in a contract worth about $60 million per year
Controlling the Taylor Swift Eras Tour wristbands with Flipper Zero
My patient was dead before I even saw her. She had been in a car accident. Now she was scheduled for organ donation. Last hours of an organ donor
Let your favorite blog penetrate your kitchen and bless your morning beverages
every day the same again |
May 28th, 2024
AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd, by looking at them just once
Urban gardening may improve human health — a one-month indoor gardening period increased the bacterial diversity of the skin and was associated with higher levels of anti-inflammatory molecules in the blood.
sidewalks and green space […] multilane highway and power lines [..] those neighborhood characteristics correlate with different health outcomes. […] The researchers collected nearly 1.4 million Google Street View images from all the main streets across Utah, then used computer vision models to extract neighborhood characteristics like greenery, sidewalks and non-single-family homes—indicators of walkability and mixed land use—from those images. They merged that data with health stats, including diabetes diagnoses and obesity incidence, from the state’s population database. […] After examining records from nearly 2 million people, including 1 million siblings and 14,000 identical and fraternal twins, the team found that positive built environment characteristics were associated with 15-20% reductions in obesity and diabetes rates.
For decades, the best drug therapies for treating depression, like SSRIs, have been based on the idea that depressed brains don’t have enough of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Yet for almost as long, it’s been clear that simplistic theory is wrong. Recent research into the true causes of depression is finding clues in other neurotransmitters and the realization that the brain is much more adaptable than scientists once imagined. Treatments for depression are being reinvented by drugs like ketamine that can help regrow synapses, which can in turn restore the right brain chemistry and improve whole body health.
study reveals a significant link between high consumption of ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of developing depression
When the Brazilian nutritional scientist Carlos Monteiro coined the term “ultra-processed foods” 15 years ago, he established what he calls a “new paradigm” for assessing the impact of diet on health. […] Studies of UPFs show that these processes create food—from snack bars to breakfast cereals to ready meals—that encourages overeating but may leave the eater undernourished. […] In 2019, American metabolic scientist Kevin Hall carried out a randomized study comparing people who ate an unprocessed diet with those who followed a UPF diet over two weeks. Hall found that the subjects who ate the ultra-processed diet consumed around 500 more calories per day, more fat and carbohydrates, less protein—and gained weight. [..] food and soft drinks-related companies spent $106 million on lobbying in 2023, almost twice as much as the tobacco and alcohol industries combined. Last year’s spend was 21 percent higher than in 2020, with the increase driven largely by lobbying relating to food processing as well as sugar. […] The food industry, dominated by global conglomerates such as Nestlé, PepsiCo, Mars, and Kraft Heinz, likes to project itself as committed to public health. “Our strategy is all about nutrition, health, and wellness,” Paul Bulcke, the chair of Nestlé, told investors at the company’s annual meeting in April. […] In Mexico, companies including Kellogg’s and Nestlé have sued the government over the introduction of front-of-package warning labels and other restrictions including the use of children’s characters in marketing. […] In Brazil, the industry has argued that regulation could limit consumer options and make food more expensive.
Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search
Google’s AI really is that stupid, feeds people answers from The Onion
Apple signs deal with OpenAI for iOS
What goes on in artificial neural networks work is largely a mystery, even to their creators. But researchers from Anthropic have caught a glimpse.
NASA estimates that a crewed mission to Mars would take 2–3 years and be full of dangers for the astronauts. The biggest threats are the weak gravity, space radiation, as well as procuring enough food, water, and air. NASA is currently developing the technologies to meet these challenges.
Why you spend more when prices end in .99
Japan’s Clothes-Drying Bathrooms
every day the same again |
May 27th, 2024
All participants were over 18 and have had sex in and out of relationships, as well as having engaged in masturbation. Results showed that post-coital dysphoria was prevalent in each of the three sexual contexts, for both males and females.
Ms. Shanahan has a fortune of more than $1 billion that stems largely from her divorce settlement last year with Sergey Brin, a founder of Google, whose net worth exceeds $145 billion […] Ms. Shanahan, who has said she is a vaccine skeptic like Mr. Kennedy, funded a Super Bowl ad for Mr. Kennedy this year through a $4 million donation to a super PAC, American Values 2024. In March, she infused Mr. Kennedy’s campaign with an additional $2 million. Last week, she said she had given an additional $8 million. […] In 2021, she paid more than $200,000 for a lifestyle photographer to take her photos for a San Francisco Magazine article called “Nicole Shanahan Is Fighting the Good Fight,” according to documents viewed by The Times. Ms. Shanahan was photographed in the country with horses, talking about her goals of creating a healthy and livable planet.
Warming temperatures are likely to mean that more of your plane ride will have rocky conditions, creating potentially dangerous situations.
Shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was an enormous opaque gas of hydrogen atoms […] During the few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first stars formed, before stars and gas began to coalesce into galaxies. […] The birth of galaxies took place at a time in the history of the universe known as the Epoch of Reionization, when the energy and light of some of the first galaxies broke through the mists of hydrogen gas. It is precisely these large amounts of hydrogen gas that the researchers captured using the James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared vision.
Officials believe hundreds of people, including some who traveled from out of town, posed as customers in dozens of businesses across Chicago and elsewhere, all hoping to win favorable immigration status by becoming “victims” of pre-arranged “armed robberies.” During a staged hold-up in Bucktown last year, one of the “robbers” accidentally fired their gun, severely injuring a liquor store clerk, according to one source. During that caper alone, five “customers” were “robbed.”
Why Are Sloths So Slow?
World’s oldest sloth turns 54 at German zoo
Inside the Death-Themed “Cabaret of Nothingness” in Paris
While Friedrich Nietzsche popularised the notion of an “eternal return” — in which one’s life would occur again, forever, exactly as it did before — the concept was itself a repetition. Claire Hall explores various shades of this idea in ancient philosophy, from Pythagorean metempsychosis to Stoic predictions about a cosmological reset.
every day the same again |
May 26th, 2024
If you hear the non-words ‘Kiki’ and ‘Bouba’, you may be more likely to associate them with a spiky and a round object, respectively, rather than the opposite. This is a case of sound-symbolism, known as the Bouba-Kiki effect. Studies on four-months infants suggest that this effect might constitute a predisposed perceptual mechanism. we tested the Bouba-Kiki effect in domestic baby chicks
38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later
Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count
Feds say he masterminded an epic California water heist. Some farmers say he’s their Robin Hood
‘Empathetic’ AI has more to do with psychopathy than emotional intelligence
it is theoretically possible that AI research can develop partial or potentially alternative forms of consciousness that is qualitatively different from the human, and that may be either more or less sophisticated depending on the perspectives
Leaked Deck Reveals How OpenAI Is Pitching Publisher Partnerships
The DOJ’s lawyer collected data on 58,000 titles published in a year and discovered that 90 percent of them sold fewer than 2,000 copies and 50 percent sold less than a dozen copies. — Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.
Mystery of Mona Lisa’s background may have been solved
shark eggs
every day the same again |
May 20th, 2024
Scientists have figured out way to make algae-based plastic that completely decomposes
Researchers have developed a protein-based gel that breaks down alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract without harming the body. In the future, people who take the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol.
It has been suggested that the function of sleep is to actively clear metabolites and toxins from the brain. Enhanced clearance is also said to occur during anesthesia. Here, we measure clearance and movement of fluorescent molecules in the brains of male mice and show that movement is, in fact, independent of sleep and wake or anesthesia. Moreover, we show that brain clearance is markedly reduced, not increased, during sleep and anesthesia.
Our results indicated that engagement in cunnilingus is very common among men who have sex with women, with 89.09% of our sample having performed oral sex at least once and the overwhelming majority of engagers (94.47%) indicating enjoyment. However, we also identified that men who do not engage in cunnilingus demonstrated greater levels of homophobia, had more negative attitudes toward women’s genitals, and were less likely to be sexually narcissistic than men who did engage in cunnilingus.
exercise slows our perception of time […] sensations of pain are known to slow the passage of time […] physical arousal and awareness make us extra conscious of our body and its discomfort […] The study of the human perception of time is called chronoception, and scientists have found that age, emotions, drugs, exercise, and body temperature can all alter that internal timekeeper in different ways.
Two MIT students stole $25M within approximately 12 seconds by tampering with the ethereum blockchain in a never-before-seen cryptocurrency scheme, face decades in prison
OpenAI’s Chief Scientist and Co-Founder Is Leaving the Company. In November, Ilya Sutskever joined three other OpenAI board members to force out Sam Altman, the chief executive, before saying he regretted the move. [NY Times]
The Long Island iced tea is typically made with vodka, tequila, light rum, triple sec, gin, and a splash of cola. Despite its name, the cocktail does not typically contain iced tea, but is named for having the same amber hue as iced tea. Adios Motherfucker is a variation of the Long Island iced tea with blue curaçao substituting for the triple sec, and with lemon-lime soda substituting for the cola
‘Weegee, Autopsy of the Spectacle’ at the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris — This exhibition attempts to reconcile the two sides of the work of American photographer Weegee (Arthur Felig, 1899-1968) –- “First are his stories for the New York press from 1935-1945. Then, photo-caricatures of public personalities developed during his Hollywood period, between 1948-1951.
every day the same again |
May 16th, 2024
UK toddler has hearing restored in world first gene therapy trial, groundbreaking surgery that took just 16 minutes
Psychedelic toxins from toads could treat depression and anxiety
Physiological state matching in a pair bonded poison frog
It’s the story of how a team of researchers traced a covid variant in Wisconsin from a wastewater plant to six toilets at a single company. But it’s also a story about privacy concerns that arise when you use sewers to track rare viruses back to their source. That virus likely came from a single employee who happened to be shedding an enormous quantity of a very weird variant. The researchers would desperately like to find that person. […] Wastewater surveillance might seem like a relatively new phenomenon, born of the pandemic, but it goes back decades. A team of Canadian researchers outlines several historical examples in this story. In one example, a public health official traced a 1946 typhoid outbreak to the wife of a man who sold ice cream at the beach.
Swarms of miniature robots clean up microplastics and microbes, simultaneously
Robot dogs armed with AI-aimed rifles undergo US Marines Special Ops evaluation
you’ve “dated” 600 people in San Fransisco without having typed a word to any of them. Instead, a busy little bot has completed the mindless ‘getting-to-know-you’ chatter on your behalf, and has told you which people you should actually get off the couch to meet. That’s the future of dating, according to Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble.
Older adults are having sex, and they’re getting STIs, too
Equinox launches $40,000 membership to help you live longer
How Resellers Are Transferring Billie Eilish’s ‘Untransferable’ Tickets
The mammoth structure was massive, made up of over 600 hi-fidelity speakers that sat behind the band as they played. It used six separate sound systems
Most people are quite good at distinguishing between the sound of a hot liquid and the sound of a cold one being poured, even if they don’t realize it. [NY Times]
Pseudo-Boccaccio, Yiddish Pulp Fiction, and the Man Who Ripped Off James Joyce
Doublecheck your old books for poisons
every day the same again |
May 11th, 2024
I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth’s orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.
{ Søren Kierkegaard, Journal, March 1836 | Continue reading }
experience, ideas |
May 10th, 2024
An Indian woman accused her husband of forcing her to have “unnatural sex.” A judge said that’s not a crime in marriage […] “unnatural sex” includes non-consensual “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal,” and was historically used to prosecute same sex couples who engaged in consensual sex, before the Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality in 2018 […] “When rape includes insertion of penis in the mouth, urethra or anus of a woman and if that act is committed with his wife, not below the age of fifteen years, then consent of the wife becomes immaterial … Marital rape has not been recognized so far,” the judge said.
Fifty years of research has not significantly improved lie detection practices […] Polygraph screening of government employees and sex offenders has increased
Scientists Discover a Missing Link Between Diet And Cancer Risk […] previously unknown mechanism helps explain why cancer risk is associated with an unhealthy diet or unmanaged metabolic conditions like diabetes.
Through collaborations with organizations like NASA, her lab has sent tumors and stem cells aboard private spaceflights to be studied in the ISS.
Multi-Drug Resistant Bacteria Found on ISS Mutating to Become Functionally Distinct
Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI language model large enough to compete with those from Google and OpenAI
85 per cent of all loans made by UK banks are for the purchase of houses or business properties, or are at the very least secured on the value of houses and properties. So why are banks going to go bust because of climate change? Well, because as a very senior risk officer of a very large UK bank explained to me not so very long ago, the vast majority of the properties that they are using for the purposes of security could be underwater in the next 30 years. They know, for example, that the Thames barrier is not going to protect London from flooding.
To combat the growing risk of catastrophic wildfires and to bring more water back onto the landscape, a tribe in California is helping to reshape fire management policy in the West.
Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato […] detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl […] Despite battling a fever and being on the brink of death, Plato retained enough lucidity to critique the musician for her lack of rhythm, the account suggests.
The AI priest also told one user that it was okay to baptize a baby in Gatorade.
The target result in this work is reproduced, at least by its author. For the first time, one’s own immortality was manifested (revealed). Despite the unscientific nature, this work is a way of mastering reality.
every day the same again |
May 7th, 2024
In 2003, Red Lobster ran an “Endless Crab” promotion. The all-you-can-eat deal backfired spectacularly. Red Lobster misjudged just how many seafood lovers would pour into restaurants around the United States […] Red Lobster lost $3.3 million in seven weeks. […] Fast forward 20 years, and Red Lobster made a nearly identical mistake, but with shrimp
the presence of a personality disorder may represent an elevated risk for psychedelic use
On average, participants reported 2.5 belly laughs per day and on every fourth day a fit of laughter.
individuals who perceive their partner may have cheated on them are statistically significantly more likely to engage in revenge sex
The characteristics of sexual behavior in blind men in Ganzhou, China — The participants obtained sexual knowledge mainly through sounds from mobile phones, peer-to-peer communication, sounds of television and radio. Voice was the most frequent perception of the sexual partners’ beauty, followed by figure, skin, and body fragrance.
The physics of karate and the science of sprint
For the first time, scientists observed a primate in the wild treating a wound with a plant that has medicinal properties. […] The plant the orangutan used, known as akar kuning or yellow root, is also used by people throughout Southeast Asia to treat malaria, diabetes and other conditions. Research shows it has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. Orangutans rarely eat the plant. But in this case, Rakus ingested a small amount and also coated the wound several times. Five days after the wound was noticed, it had closed, and less than a month later “healed without any signs of infection,” Dr. Laumer said. […] Primates have been observed appearing to treat wounds in the past, but not with plants. A group of more than two dozen chimpanzees in Gabon in Central Africa have been seen chewing up and applying flying insects to their wounds. […] Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and white-handed gibbons are all known to occasionally eat rough, whole leaves, presumably to help them expel parasites. [NY Times | Nature]
Nearly 46% of Americans opened a new credit card last year, according to Forbes, which means millions of Americans also canceled old ones. When you switch cards, Netflix doesn’t just stop your service — they just start charging your new card. […] In 2003, Visa U.S.A. started offering a new software product to merchants called Visa Account Updater (VAU) […] Whenever someone renews, or switches a credit card within their bank, the institution automatically update the VAU. This system lets Netflix and countless other corporations charge whatever card you have on file.you
Traditional economics makes ludicrous assumptions and poor predictions. An alternative approach using big data and psychological insights is proving far more accurate
Economics terminology that differs from common usage
In 1988, the Chicago Tribune called Olympic medalist Florence Griffith Joyner’s famous manicures “dragon-lady fingernails”
The children who remember their past lives — What happens when your toddler is haunted by memories that aren’t hers?
Shakespeare toys with numerous European languages throughout his work, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Often, these are spoken in thick accents, with comedic pronunciation. The same holds true for his use of the various British dialects—Scots, Welsh, Cornish, and Irish—heard in scruffy taverns or high courts. […] the mystery of Shakespeare’s “gibberish” has gone unsolved in part because it doesn’t look like Euskara
The Secret Life of Arsenic — During the 1850s, reports of Austrian peasants eating arsenic to give them a healthy porcelain-like complexion swept through Europe and America. The New York Times opined that the “natural arsenic in the cucumber makes it valuable as a skin whitener.”
The Affair of the Poisons — The case began in 1675 after the trial of Madame de Brinvilliers, who was accused of having conspired with her lover, army captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, to poison her father and two of her brothers in order to inherit their estates. There were also rumours that she had poisoned poor people during her visits to hospitals. Madame de Brinvilliers was tortured and confessed, was sentenced to death, and on 17 July was tortured with the water cure (forced to drink sixteen pints of water) and then beheaded, and her body burned at the stake. Her alleged accomplice Sainte-Croix did not face charges because he had died of natural causes in 1672. The sensational trial drew attention to other mysterious deaths […] Authorities rounded up a number of fortune tellers and alchemists who were suspected of selling not only divinations, séances and aphrodisiacs, but also “inheritance powders” (a euphemism for poison). Some of them confessed under torture and gave authorities lists of their clients, who had allegedly bought poison to get rid of their spouses or rivals in the royal court.
New Atlas robot by Boston Dynamics
every day the same again |
May 5th, 2024
European authorities say they have rounded up a criminal gang who stole rare antique books worth €2.5 million from libraries across Europe. Books by Russian writers such as Pushkin and Gogol were substituted with valueless counterfeits
A cosmetic process known as a “vampire facial” is considered to be a more affordable and less invasive option than getting a facelift […] During a vampire facial, a person’s blood is drawn from their arm, and then platelets are separated out and applied to the patient’s face using microneedles […] three women likely contracted HIV from receiving vampire facials at an unlicensed spa in New Mexico
Are women’s sexual preferences for men’s facial hair associated with their salivary testosterone during the menstrual cycle? […] participants selected the face they found most sexually attractive from pairs of composite images of the same men when fully bearded and when clean-shaven. The task was completed among the same participants during the follicular, peri-ovulatory (validated by the surge in luteinizing hormone) and luteal phases, during which participants also provided saliva samples for subsequent assaying of testosterone. […] We ran two models, both of which showed strong preferences among women for bearded over clean-shaven composite faces […] the main effect of cycle phase and the interaction between testosterone and cycle phase were not statistically significant
The effect of sound on physiology and development starts before birth, which is why a world that grows increasingly more noisy, with loud outdoor entertainment, construction, and traffic, is a concern. […] exposure of birds that are in the egg to moderate levels of noise can lead to developmental problems, amounting to increased mortality and reduced life-time reproductive success.
For the first time in at least a billion years, two lifeforms have merged into a single organism. The process, called primary endosymbiosis, has only happened twice in the history of the Earth, with the first time giving rise to all complex life as we know it through mitochondria. The second time that it happened saw the emergence of plants. Now, an international team of scientists have observed the evolutionary event happening between a species of algae commonly found in the ocean and a bacterium.
physicists have succeeded in building an artificial synapse. This synapse works with water and salt and provides the first evidence that a system using the same medium as our brains can process complex information.
The man, who is referred to as “Mr. Blue Pentagon” after his favorite kind of LSD, gave researchers a detailed account of what he experienced when taking the drug during his music career in the 1970s. Mr. Pentagon was born blind. He did not perceive vision, with or without LSD. Instead, under the influence of psychedelics, he had strong auditory and tactile hallucinations, including an overlap of the two in a form of synesthesia.
In the 1979 murder trial of Dan White, his legal team seemed to attempt to blame his heinous actions on junk-food consumption. The press dubbed the tactic, the “Twinkie defense.” While no single crime can be blamed on diet, researchers have shown that providing inmates with healthy foods can reduce aggression, infractions, and anti-social behavior.
A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing. [2008]
E.T. and the three actors from inside the costume
every day the same again |
April 29th, 2024
An Unpredictable Brain Is a Conscious, Responsive Brain — Severe traumatic brain injuries typically result in loss of consciousness or coma. In deeply comatose patients with traumatic brain injury, cortical dynamics become simple, repetitive, and predictable. We review evidence that this low-complexity, high-predictability state results from a passive cortical state, represented by a stable repetitive attractor, that hinders the flexible formation of neuronal ensembles necessary for conscious experience.
His recent sales on Appointment Trader, where his screen name is GloriousSeed75, include a lunch table at Maison Close, which he sold for eight hundred and fifty-five dollars, and a reservation at Carbone, the Village red-sauce place frequented by the Rolex-and-Hermès crowd, which fetched a thousand and fifty dollars. Last year, he made seventy thousand dollars reselling reservations. Another reseller, PerceptiveWash44, told me that he makes reservations while watching TV. […] Last year, he made eighty thousand dollars reselling reservations. He’s good at anticipating what spots will be most in demand, and his profile on the site ranks him as having a “99% Positive Sales History” over his last two hundred transactions. It also notes that he made almost two thousand reservations that never sold—a restaurateur’s nightmare. How bots, mercenaries, and table scalpers have turned the restaurant reservation system inside out
How I search in 2024
Apple Vision Pro is a big flop, should further dispel the myth of tech inevitability
Physicists have proposed modifications to the infamous Schrödinger’s cat paradox that could help explain why quantum particles can exist in more than one state simultaneously, while large objects (like the universe) seemingly cannot.
The odds of contracting Lyme disease from tick bites during warmer weather months continue to rise. […] what are things that I can do to protect myself?
The Sack of Palermo that took place from the 1950s to the 1980s dramatically changed the Sicilian capital’s economic and social landscape. Vast tracts of what was agricultural land, including the Conca d’Oro citrus plain, were destroyed as the city was engulfed by concrete. The Mafia played a principal role in this process. This paper will show how Cosa Nostra consolidated its business through social and local connections by granting employment to the members of lower classes such as craftsmen and construction workers and thus gaining consent.
every day the same again |
April 27th, 2024
Belgian man whose body makes its own alcohol cleared of drunk-driving
Many primates produce copulation calls, but we have surprisingly little data on what human sex sounds like. I present 34 h of audio recordings from 2239 authentic sexual episodes shared online. These include partnered sex or masturbation […] Men are not less vocal overall in this sample, but women start moaning at an earlier stage; speech or even minimally verbalized exclamations are uncommon.
Women are less likely to die when treated by female doctors, study suggests
For The First Time, Scientists Showed Structural, Brain-Wide Changes During Menstruation
How the brain processes visual information — and its perception of time — is heavily influenced by what we’re looking at, a study has found.
Grindr Sued in UK for sharing users’ HIV data with ad firms
Inside Amazon’s Secret Operation to Gather Intel on Rivals — Staff went undercover on Walmart, eBay and other marketplaces as a third-party seller called ‘Big River.’ The mission: to scoop up information on pricing, logistics and other business practices.
Do you want to know what Prabhakar Raghavan’s old job was? What Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Google Search, the guy that has run Google Search into the ground, the guy who is currently destroying search, did before his job at Google? He was the head of search for Yahoo from 2005 through 2012 — a tumultuous period that cemented its terminal decline, and effectively saw the company bow out of the search market altogether. His responsibilities? Research and development for Yahoo’s search and ads products. When Raghavan joined the company, Yahoo held a 30.4 percent market share — not far from Google’s 36.9%, and miles ahead of the 15.7% of MSN Search. By May 2012, Yahoo was down to just 13.4 percent and had shrunk for the previous nine consecutive months, and was being beaten even by the newly-released Bing. That same year, Yahoo had the largest layoffs in its corporate history, shedding nearly 2,000 employees — or 14% of its overall workforce. [He] was so shit at his job that in 2009 Yahoo effectively threw in the towel on its own search technology, instead choosing to license Bing’s engine in a ten-year deal.
Artificial intelligence can predict political beliefs from expressionless faces
I “deathbots” are helping people in China grieve — Avatars of deceased relatives are increasingly popular for consoling those in mourning, or hiding the deaths of loved ones from children.
MetaAI’s strange loophole. I can get a picture of macauley culk in home alone, but not macauley culkin — it starts creating the image as you type and stops when you get the full name.
Psychedelia was the first ever interactive ‘light synthesizer’. It was written for the Commodore 64 by Jeff Minter and published by Llamasoft in 1984. psychedelia syndrome is a book-length exploration of the assembly code behind the game and an atlas of the pixels and effects it generated.
Thermonator, the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog, $9,420
every day the same again |
April 24th, 2024
eyes, visual design |
April 24th, 2024
We do not have a veridical representation of our body in our mind. For instance, tactile distances of equal measure along the medial-lateral axis of our limbs are generally perceived as larger than those running along the proximal-distal axis. This anisotropy in tactile distances reflects distortions in body-shape representation, such that the body parts are perceived as wider than they are. While the origin of such anisotropy remains unknown, it has been suggested that visual experience could partially play a role in its manifestation.
To causally test the role of visual experience on body shape representation, we investigated tactile distance perception in sighted and early blind individuals […] Overestimation of distances in the medial-lateral over proximal-distal body axes were found in both sighted and blind people, but the magnitude of the anisotropy was significantly reduced in the forearms of blind people.
We conclude that tactile distance perception is mediated by similar mechanisms in both sighted and blind people, but that visual experience can modulate the tactile distance anisotropy.
{ PsyArXiv | Continue reading }
psychology |
April 22nd, 2024
Do you surf yourself?
No, I tried. I did it for about a week, 20 years ago. You have to dedicate yourself to these great things. And I don’t believe in being good at a lot of things—or even more than one. But I love to watch it. I think if I get a chance to be human again, I would do just that. You wake up in the morning and you paddle out. You make whatever little money you need to survive. That seems like the greatest life to me.
Or you could become very wealthy in early middle-age, stop doing the hard stuff, and go off and become a surfer.
No, no. You want to be broke. You want it to be all you’ve got. That’s when life is great. People are always trying to add more stuff to life. Reduce it to simpler, pure moments. That’s the golden way of living, I think.
{ Jerry Seinfeld | GQ | Continue reading }
related { Anecdote on Lowering the work ethic }
eudaemonism, sport |
April 22nd, 2024
No evidence for differences in romantic love between young adult students and non-students — The findings suggest that studies investigating romantic love using student samples should not be considered ungeneralizable simply because of the fact that students constitute the sample.
Do insects have an inner life? Crows, chimps and elephants: these and many other birds and mammals behave in ways that suggest they might be conscious. And the list does not end with vertebrates. Researchers are expanding their investigations of consciousness to a wider range of animals, including octopuses and even bees and flies. […] Investigations of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) show that they engage in both deep sleep and ‘active sleep’, in which their brain activity is the same as when they’re awake. “This is perhaps similar to what we call rapid eye movement sleep in humans, which is when we have our most vivid dreams, which we interpret as conscious experiences”
No one wants to eat when they have an upset stomach. To pinpoint exactly where in the brain this distaste for eating originates, scientists studied nauseated mice.
“This research shows the complexity of how caloric restriction affects telomere loss” After one year of caloric restriction, the participant’s actually lost their telomeres more rapidly than those on a standard diet. However, after two years, once the participants’ weight had stabilized, they began to lose their telomeres more slowly.
”It would mean that two-thirds of the universe has just disappeared”
AI study shows Raphael painting was not entirely the Master’s work
I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service [2021]
Shadow trading is a new type of insider trading that affects people who deal with material nonpublic information (MNPI). Insider trading involves investment decisions based on some kind of MNPI about your own company; shadow trading entails making trading decisions about other companies based on your knowledge of external MNPI. The issue has yet to be fully resolved in court, but the SEC is prosecuting this behavior. More: we provide evidence that shadow trading is an undocumented and widespread mechanism that insiders use to avoid regulatory scrutiny
The sessile lifestyle of acorn barnacles makes sexual reproduction difficult, as they cannot leave their shells to mate. To facilitate genetic transfer between isolated individuals, barnacles have extraordinarily long penises. Barnacles probably have the largest penis-to-body size ratio of the animal kingdom, up to eight times their body length
We explain Traditional Chinese Medicine
every day the same again |
April 21st, 2024
guns, halves-pairs |
April 20th, 2024
New Mexico’s state senate took up a startling amendment in 1995 — it would have required psychologists to dress up as wizards when providing expert testimony on a defendant’s competency
Except for the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd […] we estimate precise null effects of protests on public opinion and electoral behavior.
speakers consistently perceived disagreeing listeners as worse listeners
Last June, Inflection Al was riding high. The artificial intelligence startup founded by veterans of Google’s famous DeepMind Al lab had just raised $1.3 billion from Microsoft and tech billionaires Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and Eric Schmidt to build out its chatbot business. But less than a year later, the tide has turned. Co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan have left Inflection Al for jobs at Microsoft, which also now has the rights to use its technology. Inflection Al is now focused on helping other companies improve their own Al tools. It’s not the only case of Al hype coming back down to Earth.
TikTok is reportedly developing a feature that would allow brands to use AI-generated influencers to promote products via videos and live-streams.
How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More Previously: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat
In October 2022 a bird with the code name B6 set a new world record that few people outside the field of ornithology noticed. Over the course of 11 days, B6, a young Bar-tailed Godwit, flew from its hatching ground in Alaska to its wintering ground in Tasmania, covering 8,425 miles without taking a single break. For comparison, there is only one commercial aircraft that can fly that far nonstop, a Boeing 777 with a 213-foot wingspan and one of the most powerful jet engines in the world. During its journey, B6—an animal that could perch comfortably on your shoulder—did not land, did not eat, did not drink and did not stop flapping, sustaining an average ground speed of 30 miles per hour 24 hours a day as it winged its way to the other end of the world. […] B6’s odyssey is also a triumph of the remarkable mechanical properties of some of the most easily recognized yet enigmatic structures in the biological world: feathers.
Invisible particles called tachyons, which break causality and move faster than light, may dominate the cosmos
Progress update for the first soon to be mass manufactured penetration depth detecting sex robot
every day the same again |
April 20th, 2024
Employee Sneaks His Own Painting Onto the Walls of a German Museum
Cash incentives for weight loss work only for males
Sleeping more flushes junk out of the brain
Patterns of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication During Sex […] most preferred to communicate pleasure nonverbally. Some participants reported a tendency to communicate pain or dislike verbally.
“We found an association between broadly defined cat ownership and increased odds of developing schizophrenia-related disorders”
Why do some people always get lost? Research suggests that experience may matter more than innate ability when it comes to a sense of direction
Brush your teeth at least twice a day with a fluoride-containing toothpaste and spit — but don’t rinse.
NUS scientists uncover a missing link between poor diet and higher cancer risk — methylglyoxal, which is a chemical produced when our cells break down glucose to create energy, can cause faults in our DNA that are early warning signs of cancer development
L. Ron Hubbard, Operation Midnight Climax, and stochastic terrorism — A brief, weird history of brainwashing
Louisiana High Court: Priests Have a “Property Right” Not to Be Sued For Sexual Abuse
AI Could Explain Why We’re Not Meeting Any Aliens Previously: where might this Great Filter be located?
Adobe is offering its network of photographers and artists $120 to submit videos of people engaged in everyday actions such as walking or expressing emotions including joy and anger
The goal is to put a robot in the most dangerous spot on the battlefield instead of a 19-year-old private fresh out of basic training. […] The robots don’t have peripheral vision; they can’t look left or look right like a human soldier can by simply turning their head. And the Army’s outdated network can’t always keep hundreds of drones aloft at the same time, or even tell U.S. troops which of the unpiloted aircraft are friend or foe. [But] Army leaders believe that almost every U.S. Army unit, down to the smallest foot patrols, will soon have drones in the sky to sense, protect, and attack. And it won’t be long before the United States is deploying ground robots into battle in human-machine teams. […] Today, the Army might have three platoons deployed in a basic attack: one to fix the enemy in place, another to maneuver on them, and then one more in reserve. Put robots into that group of soldiers […] “Then you have basically three platoons entirely freed up”
In 2023, the average cost of attending law school reached $220,335 over three years—$146,484 of which goes to tuition alone. The fancier the school, the higher the sticker price: At Columbia Law School, the current cost of attendance is $118,357 per year, with tuition alone coming in at just under $80,000 annually. At Harvard Law, the annual cost of attendance is $116,00, or $348,000 over the course of a J.D. Although law school has never been considered cheap, these numbers represent a dramatic increase in recent years. In 2002, tuition at private law schools averaged $24,193 per year; in 2022, just 20 years later, that average had gone up to $54,070. […] Law school is getting more expensive and less useful to students. The Federalist Society is happy to fill the void.
Stamp prices in the U.S. and other countries
Postcards Revolutionized Pornography
Clifford Stoll is currently the sole proprietor and sole employee of Acme Klein Bottles. […] A Klein bottle is what mathematicians call a “non-orientable surface,” a one-sided plane that, when traversed, brings the traveler back to their starting point, while also flipping them upside-down. […] Its inside is its outside; you can’t tell which side you are on.
Smart rings
Let us look at how depictions of Odysseus and the Sirens change, depending on location, local tradition, a given society’s fashions, and popular tastes. […] So far I have found no images of a ‘syrinx’ – the pan-flute or panpipes – being played by Sirens on Greek vases, or otherwise in Greek art.
Emily Dickinson’s herbarium
historical dictionary of English slang
every day the same again |
April 14th, 2024
96% of US hospital websites share visitor info with Meta, Google, data brokers. Could have been worse – last time researchers checked it was 98.6%
He went to the gate for the Delta flight to Austin, and used his phone to take pictures of the boarding passes of other passengers without their knowledge. He then boarded the aircraft using the barcode on another passenger’s boarding pass. […] he boarded and then tried to hide in the lavatory. The goal was to let everyone else board, and then take whatever empty seat was left. The problem is, there were no empty seats on the flight.
blinking does more than wet the eye, it also helps with vision
Students have submitted more than 22 million papers that may have used generative AI in the past year, new data released by plagiarism detection company Turnitin shows
Why Birds Survived, and Dinosaurs Went Extinct, After an Asteroid Hit Earth
whorearchy
every day the same again |
April 12th, 2024
Kardashian and Simpson first met around 1967 while both of them were at USC and became close friends. Simpson was the best man at Kardashian and Kris Houghton’s wedding in 1978. He had four children with his first wife, Kris Kardashian: Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob.
Following the June 12, 1994, murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, Simpson stayed in Kardashian’s house to avoid the media. Kardashian was the man seen carrying Simpson’s garment bag the day that Simpson flew back from Chicago. Prosecutors speculated that the bag may have contained Simpson’s bloody clothes or the murder weapon.
Simpson was charged with the murders and subsequently acquitted of all criminal charges in a controversial criminal trial.
Kardashian had let his license to practice law become inactive before the Simpson case but reactivated it to aid in Simpson’s defense as a volunteer assistant on his legal team, alongside Simpson’s main defense attorneys, Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran.
As one of Simpson’s lawyers and a member of the defense “Dream Team”, Kardashian could not be compelled or subpoenaed to testify against Simpson in the case, which included Simpson’s past history and behavior with his ex-wife Nicole, and as to the contents of Simpson’s garment bag. He sat by Simpson throughout the trial.
{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }
video { CNN’s coverage of O.J. Simpson’s infamous white Bronco chase in 1994 }
crime, law |
April 11th, 2024
Polish priest jailed for throwing wild orgy where male prostitute died after overdosing on erectile dysfunction pills. In a similar incident, an Italian priest was sentenced to three years in prison in late 2021 for stealing nearly $120K from the church to buy drugs for gay sex parties he hosted.
Esketamine injection just after childbirth reduces depression in new mothers
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic approved in the United States for inducing and maintaining anesthesia via intravenous infusion or intramuscular injection. It is not indicated for major depressive disorder (MDD) or TRD, although it is frequently used off-label for these indications. Esketamine, the (S) enantiomer of racemic ketamine, is FDA-approved for adults with TRD and adults with MDD with suicidal thoughts or actions in combination with an oral antidepressant. […] The United States has experienced a rapid proliferation of ketamine clinics to treat depression that operate with little, to no, regulation. Some clinics are now prescribing ketamine lozenges that patients take at home.
How Hackers Can Hijack Two-factor authentication Calls with Sneaky Call Forwarding
some experts argue that eliminating the chance of hallucinations entirely would also require stifling the creativity that makes AI so valuable
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the biggest winners of government contracts, according to a report from Tussel. Amazon hosts the data of the National Security Agency with a $10 billion contract, and gets hundreds of millions from other governments. […] In 2023, the US Department of Defense awarded the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability contract to Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle. The contract is worth up to $9 billion and provides the Department of Defense with cloud services. […] Most people still think of tech companies as free-enterprise rebels. It’s not true. […] In this framework, we might also tag the agricultural sector, which is dominated by cartels that have driven out family farms. It’s a government plan and massive subsidies that determine what is produced and in what quantity. It’s not because of consumers that your Coke is filled with a scary product called “high fructose corn syrup,” why your candy bar and danish have the same, and why there is corn in your gas tank. This is entirely the product of government agencies and budgets.
A Reading List on Fermentation — Somewhere in the grey zone between science and magic, the controlled addition of bacteria to food transforms it — mostly to our delight. Here are five pieces exploring these transitions (and their products).
South Korean election night graphics
every day the same again |
April 11th, 2024
Press reports in April 2019 and December 2021 stated that China might be developing a YJ-18 launcher that can be packaged inside a standard commercial shipping container
{ Congressional Research Service | PDF }
{ Everyone’s playing by the same rules now? }
U.S., asia, fights, technology |
April 11th, 2024
Sierra Leone Declares Emergency After Addicts Dig Up Graves To Get High On Drug Made From Human Bones
At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. […] an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted raids on mass graves across Europe—and beyond.
we also provide evidence that growing up together does not make people more similar and genetic effects partly wear off with time/generations.
Each pregnancy is linked with an additional two to three months of biological ageing, researchers say
New research suggests that individuals with elevated psychopathic traits might not experience a lack of fear but instead find enjoyment in frightening situations
Our main finding is that the correlation between beauty and earnings is not causal […] with the exception of prostitutes for which the premium is still substantial. […] Athletes and politicians seem to enjoy relatively large beauty premiums. [PDF]
Physically attractive attorneys tend to have greater success in federal court
Other videos are stolen from the model Cece Rose and have been replaced with “Adrianna’s” face. The AI influencers I saw had one consistent “face” through all of the stolen reels they posted. But the women they stole from were not always the same, meaning that one AI influencer is often posting videos consisting of many different “bodies,” which are of course stolen from real women.
Animal-free egg protein startup Onego Bio is one step closer to cracking the traditional egg market
Cow Magnets
The perfect heist? Inside the seamless, sophisticated, stealthy L.A. theft that netted up to $30 million
every day the same again |
April 10th, 2024
Why is the Moon exactly the same apparent size from Earth as the Sun? Surely this cannot be just coincidence; the odds against such a perfect match are enormous. It actually is just a coincidence.
A former University of Iowa Hospital employee pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges that he had been living under another man’s identity since 1988, causing the other man to be falsely imprisoned for identity theft and sent to a mental hospital.
researchers found that most cancer drugs granted accelerated approval do not demonstrate such benefits within five years.
Poor Predictors: Job Interviews Are Useless and Unfair The traditional interview is a poor predictor of performance for multiple reasons. First, predicting the future is difficult to do under most circumstances. Moreover, an interview constitutes a tiny sample of the interviewee’s behavior. A small behavioral sample tells us little about overall behavior. That’s why you don’t get married after the first date.
Pussy (energy drink)
every day the same again |
April 8th, 2024
This AI company scans penis pictures for STIs. Its unproven tech is in an FDA gray zone.
A ‘Law Firm’ of AI Generated Lawyers Is Sending Fake Threats as an SEO Scam
Scientists create liquid metal robot that can pass through bars, Terminator-style [2023]
Why is Intelligence not Making You Happier?
Imagine this: You’re in the midst of an office presentation when suddenly, the realization hits you that you forgot to feed your cat this morning. Swiftly, you decide to send a quick text to your roommate. However, as you reach for your phone, a notification pops up—a sale on your favorite cosmetic product. Temptation takes hold, and you click on the link, intending to browse briefly. Yet, before you know it, you’ve added items to your cart, mentally replayed the techno version of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” four times and booked an evening show later that Friday. By the time you regain focus, the meeting has ended, discussions are in full swing and the memory of your cat’s empty bowl has slipped your mind. This a classic case of popcorn brain.
Mario meets Pareto More: Who is the best character in Mario Kart?
Philbrick, 36, was once one of the most accomplished and admired young art dealers of his generation. Yet when we begin our correspondence in April 2023, he is prisoner 05863093 in Allenwood, serving a seven-year sentence for what the FBI believes is the largest art-based fraud scheme in US history.
“pissotte” are casts of mortar which had the task of preventing thugs and bandits hid in corners to ambush or escape the authorities. Venice didn’t have public lighting and walking through the streets in the darkest hours of the night could be dangerous for a passer-by and an excellent opportunity for a criminal.
This Camera Turns Every Photo Into a Nude
every day the same again |
April 7th, 2024
Navies are obsolete, but no one will admit it […] First, under modern conditions, it’s impossible for a ship (except for submarines, but that will change soon) to hide from satellites and aircraft. By contrast, it’s easy to hide land-based weapons and to move them about quickly. Second, a ship has to carry its own defences and weapons with it, which is a big engineering challenge. Land based systems can be spread out over a large area.
Donald Trump has sued two co-founders of his newly public Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., claiming they set the company up improperly and shouldn’t get any stock in it. […] The lawsuit, which was filed on March 24 in Florida state court and hasn’t previously been reported, comes after the pair brought their own suit against the former president in Delaware Chancery Court over their promised stake in the social media company. [The complaint | PDF]
In a single-item auction, a duplicitous seller may masquerade as one or more bidders in order to manipulate the clearing price. This paper characterizes auction formats that are shill-proof: a profit-maximizing seller has no incentive to submit any shill bids. […] The Dutch auction (with suitable reserve) is the unique optimal and strongly shill-proof auction.
Lin Qi, who was named as an executive producer in the opening credits of “3 Body Problem,” was poisoned and killed at age 39, months after Netflix announced its plans to produce the series in 2020. The culprit was one of Lin’s own executives, a high-flying lawyer who helped Lin’s Yoozoo Games secure the rights to adapt the highly acclaimed trilogy. […] Xu was a huge fan of “Breaking Bad” […] He set up a lab in a suburb of Shanghai and bought more than a hundred toxins on the dark web to experiment with, often testing mixed poisons on cats, dogs and other pet animals. He then made the lethal substances into a pill, gifting the “probiotic pills” to Lin. Xu held 160 cellphone numbers and set up a trading company in Japan to acquire hazardous chemicals, including the substances he used to poison his colleagues.
The gravitational problem of three bodies in its traditional sense dates in substance from 1687, when Isaac Newton published his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The term “three-body problem” is sometimes used in the more general sense to refer to any physical problem involving the interaction of three bodies.
The Defenestrations of Prague (1419–1997) — Throwing people out of windows (or defenestrating them, as the Latin has it) is an act imbued with longstanding political significance in Prague.
A man lost in the desert with his donkey comes across an oasis with six naked women. Filmed in 3-D but released “flat.” Tagline: The six Eves join YOU in the audience!
every day the same again |
April 4th, 2024
Thief disguises as garbage bag to steal package off a porch
Google Books Is Indexing AI-Generated Garbage
For most of the twentieth century, psychologists dismissed the interior lives of birds because avian brains are smaller and differently structured than those of mammals. But it turns out that bird brains are much denser with neurons and consume less energy, giving crows similar cognitive abilities to large-brained mammals such as great apes, elephants, and whales. […] In 2020, a business-school graduate, Jules Mollaret, set out to build a new vending machine for crows, which would exchange trash for bird food.
Cancer-causing forever chemicals found in 65 percent of adhesive bandages where they can get directly into blood through open wounds, report warns
studies show: We’re more likely to buy a vacation using gift money rather than money earned as a work bonus. We spend more when we pay with a credit card instead of cash. When we get a refund, we’re more likely to use that refunded money to buy stuff we didn’t originally plan on buying.
Our tools shape our selves — According to French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, technics – the making and use of technology, in the broadest sense – is what makes us human. Our unique way of existing in the world, as distinct from other species, is defined by the experiences and knowledge our tools make possible […] In the decade after 1968, Stiegler opened a jazz club in Toulouse that was shut down by the police a few years later for illegal prostitution. Desperate to make ends meet, Stiegler turned to robbing banks to pay off his debts and feed his family. In 1978, he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to five years in prison. A high-school dropout who was never comfortable in institutional settings, Stiegler requested his own cell when he first arrived in prison, and went on a hunger strike until it was granted. After the warden finally acquiesced, Stiegler began taking note of how his relationship to the outside world was mediated through reading and writing. This would be a crucial realisation.
How to Spot Fake/Unsafe Eclipse Glasses — Safe solar viewers block all but a minuscule fraction of the Sun’s ultraviolet (UV), visible, and infrared (IR) light. Overexposure to sunlight in these parts of the spectrum can cause severe eye injury, ranging from temporarily impaired vision to permanent blindness.
Osama Vinladen is a Peruvian professional footballer. He has a brother named Sadam Huseín, the Spanish spelling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Additionally, his father planned on naming his third child George Bush, but could not since they turned out to be female.
every day the same again |
April 4th, 2024
Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill banning the release of airborne chemicals that critics say is inspired by “chemtrails” conspiracy theories
The Cleveland Clinic’s online glossary of diseases and conditions tells us that the “inability to achieve or maintain an erection” is a symptom of sexual dysfunction, not in “males,” but in “people assigned male at birth.” […] “sex assigned at birth” can also suggest that there is no objective reality behind “male” and “female,” no biological categories to which the words refer. [NYT]
Mr Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who previously spent time in prison, ran several chat groups for monkey torture enthusiasts from around the world on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. The groups were used to share ideas for custom-made torture videos, such as setting live monkeys on fire, injuring them with tools and even putting one in a blender. The ideas were then sent, along with payments, to video-makers in Indonesia who carried them out
Stability AI reportedly ran out of cash to pay its bills for rented cloudy GPUs — Its financials were apparently so bad that it allegedly underpaid its July 2023 bills to AWS by $1 million and had no intention of paying its August bill for $7 million.
Tips for Linking Shell Companies to their Secret Owners
The list of health conditions linked to loneliness is long and sobering. Some of these make intuitive sense — people who feel lonely are often depressed, for example, sometimes to the point of being at risk of suicide. Other links are more surprising. Lonely people are at greater risk of high blood pressure and immune-system dysfunction compared with those who do not feel lonely, for example. There’s also a startling connection between loneliness and dementia, with one study reporting that people who feel lonely are 1.64 times more likely to develop this type of neurodegeneration than are those who do not.
The average human spends at least one quarter of their life growing up. Our childhood is preposterously long compared to other animals. Is it the secret to our evolutionary success?
Where the Amish go on vacation
MY NEW LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN [PARADICE: PARADISE] The Solution of the Zodiac Killer’s 340-Character Cipher
every day the same again |
April 3rd, 2024
reducing hours of alcohol sales from 6 am to 2 am to 9 am to 10 pm was associated with a 23% annual decrease in all violent crime compared with control areas.
Foremost in our experience is the intuition that we possess a unified conscious experience. However, many observations run counter to this intuition: we experience paralyzing indecision when faced with two appealing behavioral choices, we simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs, and the content of our thought is often characterized by an internal debate. Here, we propose the Nested Observer Windows (NOW) Model, a framework for hierarchical consciousness wherein information processed across many spatiotemporal scales of the brain feeds into subjective experience.
The study involved with 48 people who flipped 350,757 coins from 46 currencies. After all of this flipping, the researchers found that the coins had a 50.8 percent chance of landing on the side that it started on. This is down to a theory called the Diaconis Model
Advertisers sue Meta for allegedly inflating ad viewership in $7 billion lawsuit
Scientists in South Korea have announced a new world record for the length of time they sustained temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius — seven times hotter than the sun’s core — during a nuclear fusion experiment. Nuclear fusion seeks to replicate the reaction that makes the sun and other stars shine, by fusing together two atoms to unleash huge amounts of energy
there might be some justification for Eurocentrism after all, at least geographically
GeoGuessr is a browser-based geography game in which players are tasked to guess locations from Google Street View imagery.
The Mongolian Meta — It is important to know that in Ulaanbaatar there are several sunsets. But I will go into further detail on that in the chapter dedicated to Ulaanbaatar.
Mental health of Jesus — Some psychiatrists, religious scholars and writers explain that Jesus’ family, followers, and contemporaries seriously regarded him as delusional, possessed by demons, or insane.
every day the same again |
April 1st, 2024
Song lyrics getting simpler, more repetitive, angry and self-obsessed – study
Netflix’s relationship with Facebook was remarkably strong due to the former’s ad spend with the latter […] the companies formed a lucrative business relationship that included Facebook allegedly giving Netflix access to Facebook users’ private messages […] Meta said it rolled out end-to-end encryption “for all personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook” in December. And in 2018, Facebook told Vox that it doesn’t use private messages for ad targeting. But a few months later, The New York Times, citing “hundreds of pages of Facebook documents,” reported that Facebook “gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.”
Meta used a spyware to access user activities on rival platforms, including Snapchat and YouTube
Previously: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS. People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They “trust me.” Dumb fucks.
Nobody knows how AI works, expect more glitches and fails as it becomes a part of real-world products […] In another now-famous incident, Microsoft’s Bing chat told a New York Times reporter to leave his wife
‘To the train lady with dark brown hair … ’: extraordinary stories of four couples who found love via small ads
“Most of what’s passing for information right now is total fiction. I try to turn the lie back on itself.” Richard Prince: Early Photography, 1977–87 at Gagosian gallery in New York
Packaging the First LSD Blotter Related: Secret Sauce
every day the same again |
March 31st, 2024
{ The city of Lopburi is experiencing unprecedented violence between two monkey gangs [Thailand]. Local authorities successfully apprehended one of the gang leader, Ai Krao, using a tranquilizer gun. Upon his arrest, cries could be heard from his subordinates. A hierarchy chart has been published, showing Yellow as Krao’s group and Green as Yak’s group. A citywide monkey-hunt is underway to capture the remaining leaders. | Twitter | with videos | businesstoday.in }
animals, asia, fights |
March 31st, 2024
Menstrual synchrony was first demonstrated in a 1971 paper published in Nature by Martha McClintock. […]
she asked 135 college girls living in dorms to recall their period start dates at three times throughout the academic year. She found that close-friend groups had periods significantly closer together in April (later in the year) compared with October: lessening from an average of 6.4 to 4.6 days apart.
The phenomenon was dubbed “the McClintock effect” and is widely held as the first example of pheromones — unconscious chemical signals that influence behavior and physiology — among humans. […] Many subsequent researchers went on to reproduce the results from McClintock’s original experiment in people, rats, hamsters and chimpanzees.
But a cohort of studies that found no evidence for menstrual synchrony began to grow, too. […]
In 1992 H. Clyde Wilson […] re-analyzed McClintock’s first experiment, along with a few others that used a similar design. He found that all had inflated the difference between period start dates at the beginning of their studies […] their model of two pheromones — one that pulls ovulation forward and one that delays it — driving synchrony didn’t work […]
The insurmountable hurdle in all the studies is that women often have persistent cycles of different lengths. As such, they can never truly synchronize, just randomly phase in and out of synchrony over the months as their cycles diverge and converge. […]
But a team of Japanese researchers at Yokohama City University, led by Kazuyuki Shinohara, also found in a series of papers that donor women undergoing these two phases of the menstrual cycle release compounds that when inhaled by other women can significantly impact the frequency in the latter of pulses of luteinizing hormone (LH), which helps control the timing of ovulation and cycle length.
{ Scientific American | Continue reading }
blood, hormones, mystery and paranormal |
March 30th, 2024
Any viral post on X now almost certainly includes A.I.-generated replies, from summaries of the original post to reactions written in ChatGPT’s bland Wikipedia-voice, all to farm for follows. Instagram is filling up with A.I.-generated models, Spotify with A.I.-generated songs. Publish a book? Soon after, on Amazon there will often appear A.I.-generated “workbooks” for sale that supposedly accompany your book (which are incorrect in their content; I know because this happened to me). Top Google search results are now often A.I.-generated images or articles. Major media outlets like Sports Illustrated have been creating A.I.-generated articles attributed to equally fake author profiles. Marketers who sell search engine optimization methods openly brag about using A.I. to create thousands of spammed articles to steal traffic from competitors.
Then there is the growing use of generative A.I. to scale the creation of cheap synthetic videos for children on YouTube. Some example outputs are Lovecraftian horrors, like music videos about parrots in which the birds have eyes within eyes, beaks within beaks, morphing unfathomably while singing in an artificial voice, “The parrot in the tree says hello, hello!” The narratives make no sense, characters appear and disappear randomly, and basic facts like the names of shapes are wrong. After I identified a number of such suspicious channels on my newsletter, The Intrinsic Perspective, Wired found evidence of generative A.I. use in the production pipelines of some accounts with hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers. […]
There’s so much synthetic garbage on the internet now that A.I. companies and researchers are themselves worried, not about the health of the culture, but about what’s going to happen with their models. As A.I. capabilities ramped up in 2022, I wrote on the risk of culture’s becoming so inundated with A.I. creations that when future A.I.s are trained, the previous A.I. output will leak into the training set, leading to a future of copies of copies of copies, as content became ever more stereotyped and predictable.
{ NY Times | Continue reading }
and { When Marie was first approached by Arcads in December 2023, the company explained they were seeking test subjects to see whether they could turn someone’s voice and likeness into AI. […] Marie doesn’t worry that by giving up her rights to an AI company, she’s bringing about the end of her work—as many actors fear. […] Hyperrealistic deepfakes and AI-generated content have rapidly saturated our digital lives. The impact of this ‘hidden in plain sight’ dynamic is increasing distrust of all digital media—that anything could be faked. }
eschatology, robots & ai |
March 30th, 2024
Rising divorce rates, forgoing condoms as there is no risk of pregnancy, the availability of drugs for sexual dysfunction, the large number of older adults living together in retirement communities, and the increased use of dating apps are likely to have contributed to the growing incidence of STIs in the over 50s
Multiple Orgasms in Men—What We Know So Far Few men are multiorgasmic: <10% for those in their 20s, and <7% after the age of 30. [...] Various factors may facilitate multiple orgasms: (1) practicing to have an orgasm without ejaculation; (2) using psychostimulant drugs; (3) having multiple and/or novel sexual partners; or (4) using sex toys to enhance tactile stimulation. [...] In some cases, the ability to experience multiple orgasms may increase after medical procedures that reduce ejaculation (eg, prostatectomy or castration)
variation in how attractive one is perceived follows a bell curve distribution
Memories are made by breaking DNA — and fixing it — When a long-term memory forms, some brain cells experience a rush of electrical activity so strong that it snaps their DNA. Then, an inflammatory response kicks in, repairing this damage and helping to cement the memory, a study in mice shows.
Conspiracy Believers Act More Dishonestly and Overestimate Others’ Dishonesty
Digital signs around Brookline, MA are collecting data from your phone as you walk by […] The sign collects the phone’s Media Access Control (MAC) address, a series of numbers that identifies devices on networks. […] The signs also collect IP addresses. […] the data collection is “perfectly legal” but problematic.
Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers […] deceptive design elements which may inject a false sense of urgency into the purchasing process and mislead shoppers about elements like product availability and delivery dates […] a grey font on a white background in text displayed at the very bottom of a page — a classic example of so-called dark pattern design
How Curb Your Enthusiasm Saved an Innocent Man
Sweely [& his friend] Home grooves with AKAI MPC 1000/ Elektron Machinedrum / APC 40 / Ableton / Victor
every day the same again |
March 28th, 2024
The fight began when a customer threw a banana at the gas station employees, who then threw it back. The customer and staff then began throwing multiple bananas back and forth. The customer then punched one of the workers in the face. One employee then chased the customer into the parking lot and hit him several times in the head with a PVC pipe.
Parents file $1.5M lawsuit after Quebec teacher accused of selling students’ artwork online
The solar eclipse will likely lead to a spike in fatal car crashes […] 31% more fatal car crashes than on a usual day […] It’s during the hours immediately before when people are rushing to the site of observation and the hours after when they hurry to get back home that these tragic accidents can happen.
couples who are concordant in their drinking behavior (that is, both members drink alcohol) tend to live longer.
two nights of sleep restriction (4 h in bed per night) made people feel 4.44 years older compared to sleep saturation (9 h in bed per night) Additionally, moving from feeling extremely alert to feeling extremely sleepy was associated with feeling 10 years older
Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates
Deepfakes are spreading, putting creator and brand safety at risk
Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.
He said Trump Media is likely worth somewhere around $2 a share — nowhere near its closing stock price of $58. […] Trump Media generated just $3.4 million of revenue through the first nine months of last year, according to filings. The company lost $49 million over that span. And yet the market is valuing Trump Media at approximately $11 billion. For context, Reddit was only valued at $6.4 billion at its IPO last week — even though it generated 160 times more revenue than Trump Media.
Polar ice is melting and changing Earth’s rotation. It’s messing with time itself. — The hours and minutes that dictate our days are determined by Earth’s rotation. But that rotation is not constant; it can change ever so slightly, depending on what’s happening on Earth’s surface and in its molten core. These nearly imperceptible changes occasionally mean the world’s clocks need to be adjusted by a “leap second,” which may sound tiny but can have a big impact on computing systems. Plenty of seconds have been added over the years. But after a long trend of slowing, the Earth’s rotation is now speeding up. For the first time ever, a second will need to be taken off. More: UTC as now defined will require a negative discontinuity by 2029
Researchers Show that Tardigrade Proteins Can Slow Metabolism in Human Cells — Measuring less than half a millimeter long, tardigrades — also known as water bears — can survive being completely dried out; being frozen to just above absolute zero (about minus 458 degrees Fahrenheit, when all molecular motion stops); heated to more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit; irradiated several thousand times beyond what a human could withstand; and even survive the vacuum of outer space. They survive by entering a state of suspended animation called biostasis, using proteins that form gels inside of cells and slow down life processes.
Reversal of biological clock restores vision in old mice
People bought 43 million vinyl records last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That’s 6 million more than the number of CDs sold in 2023
donna summer billboards in the 1970s
every day the same again |
March 27th, 2024
A ten-year scientific study into the nature of luck has revealed that, to a large extent, people make their own good and bad fortune. The results also show that it is possible to enhance the amount of luck that people encounter in their lives. [PDF]
The man who bought Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2022 was 77.5 years, an increase of 1.1 years from 2021. The infant mortality rate was 560.4 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, an increase of 3.1% from the rate in 2021 (543.6).
In June 2023, a SpaceX rocket deployed a first-of-its-kind spacecraft designed to autonomously synthesize a drug — the HIV-AIDS medication ritonavir — while in Earth’s orbit.
What Happens to Google Maps When Tectonic Plates Move? (Earth’s tremors can tweak your GPS coordinates)
A Surprising Advantage of Vinyl
The trendy second-hand clothing market is huge and still growing – yet nobody is turning a profit
Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a parade of corporate insiders who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their companies’ shares this quarter, in a signal that recent stock market exuberance could be peaking. [FT | ungated]
every day the same again |
March 24th, 2024
Man arrested after allegedly taking leg of pedestrian after train incident in Wasco
Women experience disruptions in their sleep patterns in the days leading up to and during their period (peri-menstrual phase), spending more time awake at night, with a lower proportion of time spent in bed that is asleep (lower sleep efficiency). During the peri-menstrual phase, women report heightened feelings of anger compared to other phases of their menstrual cycle. Sleep disturbances during the peri-menstrual phase correlate with reduced positive emotions such as calmness, happiness, and enthusiasm.
Pregnancy advances your ‘biological’ age — but giving birth turns it back — Carrying a baby creates some of the same epigenetic patterns on DNA seen in older people
Scientists Reveal a Healthier Way to Cook Broccoli — pulverized the broccoli, chopping it into 2-millimeter pieces to get as much myrosinase activity going as possible (remember, the activity happens when broccoli is damaged). […] then left alone for 90 minutes before being stir-fried for four minutes […] they didn’t test it but thought “30 minutes would also be helpful”
The bizarre world of people who see ‘demonic’ faces
Facial Recognition Technology and Human Raters Can Predict Political Orientation From Images of Expressionless Faces
How Spammers, Scammers and Creators Leverage AI-Generated Images on Facebook for Audience Growth [PDF]
In two court orders, the federal government told Google to turn over information on anyone who viewed multiple YouTube videos and livestreams. Privacy experts say the orders are unconstitutional.
How to Run a CIA Base in Afghanistan — Targeting officers are the officers at CIA who basically write the book on a specific target. They are analyzing all sorts of information coming in, whether it’s signals intelligence (SIGINT), HUMINT, open source, and they’re creating a profile of an individual or perhaps a terrorist group that CIA wants to go out and recruit a source from or within, and really helps the case officer think about how they approach an individual and perhaps where to find that individual overseas.
Why Is It So Hard to Build an Airport?
Global prediction of extreme floods in ungauged watersheds — Using AI and open datasets, we are able to significantly improve the expected precision, recall and lead time of short-term (0–7 days) forecasts of extreme riverine events.
every day the same again |
March 23rd, 2024
In the first case, a sex doll was mistaken for a corpse; in the second case, a corpse was mistaken for a doll […] the increasingly doll-like appearance of some people, e.g., through cosmetic surgery, will lead to a rise in such cases.
Memories from when you were a baby might not be gone — The mystery of “infantile amnesia” suggests memory works differently in the developing brain
Comedians reported significant levels of symptomatology for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Somatization Disorder, and they screened positive for alcohol and substance use problems at higher rates.
Much like biological species, languages spread, evolve, compete and even go extinct. To understand these mechanisms, physicists are applying their methods to linguistics, creating the interdisciplinary field of language dynamics
Only seven countries meet WHO air quality standard, research finds — Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and New Zealand. Puerto Rico, Bermuda and French Polynesia also fell within safe levels.
Michel Talagrand Wins Abel Prize for Work Wrangling Randomness
Can a classical computer tell if a quantum computer is telling the truth? Researchers in Austria say the answer is yes.
One of Mexico’s most powerful criminal groups runs call centers that offer to buy retirees’ vacation properties and then empty their bank accounts. Cartel employees posing as sales representatives call up timeshare owners, offering to buy their investments back for generous sums. They then demand upfront fees for anything from listing advertisements to paying government fines. [NY Times]
Mozart (2X Speed) & The Bible (Chinese) spinning around you
every day the same again |
March 21st, 2024
8-hour time-restricted eating, a type of intermittent fasting, linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death, n=20,000
Studies have generated strong evidence for the link between the consumption of red and processed meat and negative health outcomes – particularly the risk of developing colorectal cancer. Despite evidence for the strength of this association, researchers haven’t yet worked out why this is the case. Could Genetics Influence Cancer Risk From Red and Processed Meats?
Scientists Engineer Cow That Makes Human Insulin Proteins in Its Milk
The many flavors of edible ants
Writing by hand, not typing, linked to better learning and memory
The plastic industry knowingly pushed recycling myth for decades and Evidence shows that Big Oil & Gas knew as early as the 1960s that their products would lead to climate change
The Nuclear Fallout Maps That Revealed a Contaminated Planet
AI-enabled marketing today accounts for nearly half (45%) of all advertising globally, and by 2032, AI will influence 90% of all ad revenue which is more than $1.3 trillion.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a 10-minute-long interview with OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, with journalist Joanna Stern […] When asked about what data was used to train Sora, OpenAI’s app for generating video with AI, Murati claimed it used publicly available data, and when Stern asked her whether it used videos from YouTube, Murati’s face contorted in a mix of confusion and pain before saying she “actually wasn’t sure about that.” [….] Altman’s fanciful claims include his kids “having more AI friends than human friends,” that human-level AI is “coming” without ever specifying when, that AI will replace 95% of tasks performed by marketing agencies, that ChatGPT will evolve in “uncomfortable ways,” that AI will kill us all
Bruno Mars Reportedly In $50 Million Of Debt With MGM Casino After Assuming Cocktails Were Complimentary
every day the same again |
March 18th, 2024
Relationship duration, intensity of romantic love, commitment, and elevated mood do not predict sexual frequency among young adults in the first two years of romantic love
Harvard has conducted an 85-year-long study on what makes humans happy. Psychiatrist Robert Waldinger explains what they found.
Scientists Identify Speech Trait That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline
Rapamycin has not been tested in this way in humans but, given the similarities between mouse and human biology, there is a good chance it will also extend our lifespans. By how much is not known. […] Rapamycin is thought to exert its life-extending properties by mimicking the effect of caloric restriction, one of the most reliable ways to extend lifespan in non-human animals. These pathways include autophagy, the process by which cells scavenge dysfunctional organelles and molecules for energy. This reduces the accumulation of the detritus that normally clog up our tissues as we get older, and hence slows or even reverses the ageing process. […] Doing a clinical trial of rapamycin in humans is considered almost impossible – it would take decades to detect any longevity effects. […] a rapamycin-like drug designed to prevent respiratory illness in elderly patients recently failed a phase 3 clinical trial. More: How a cheap, generic drug became a darling of longevity enthusiasts
Birds eat poop a lot. Scientists try to figure out why.
Amazon restricts authors from self-publishing more than three books a day after AI concerns
Physicists have found a new approach to solving a problem which is almost a century old—how to combine quantum physics with gravity. The new idea comes from Johnathan Oppenheim, a professor of quantum theory at University College London, and he has dubbed it “Post-Quantum Gravity.”[…] their idea doesn’t just reconcile quantum physics and gravity, it also explains dark matter and dark energy. […] Dark matter and dark energy are terms that astrophysicists have given to two hypothetical constituents of the universe. Neither has ever been directly observed; astrophysicists have merely indirectly inferred their presence from their gravitational effects.
More water pressure means shorter showers, UK study finds
weather balloons and chase cars tracker
every day the same again |
March 16th, 2024
Scientists Discovered a ‘Fear Switch’ in The Brain, And How to Turn It Off
Activities that decrease arousal (e.g., breathing, meditating, yoga) decrease anger. […] Jogging elevated anger. […] ball sports (i.e., soccer, volleyball), physical education classes (e.g., group sports and games), and aerobic exercise (e.g., different types of cardio combined) decreased anger.
An international network of predators steeped in Satanism lure children from seemingly harmless online platforms like Discord, Minecraft, and Roblox and extort them to sexually exploit and grievously harm themselves. Some victims are even pushed to suicide. […] Our investigation found ample evidence of predatory conduct and a persistent presence across apps including Telegram and Discord, while WIRED also found com activity on Instagram, SoundCloud, and Roblox. The platforms are aware of these groups, but they have yet to successfully eradicate them.
This “Genius Wave” scam is peak neuro-nonsense. I’ve seen a lot of these scams, but this is the only one to imply that there’s a conspiracy to suppress your theta waves!
Understanding Emotions: Origins and Roles of the Amygdala — Emotions arise from activations of specialized neuronal populations in several parts of the cerebral cortex, notably the anterior cingulate, insula, ventromedial prefrontal, and subcortical structures, such as the amygdala, ventral striatum, putamen, caudate nucleus, and ventral tegmental area. Feelings are conscious, emotional experiences of these activations that contribute to neuronal networks mediating thoughts, language, and behavior, thus enhancing the ability to predict, learn, and reappraise stimuli and situations in the environment based on previous experiences. Contemporary theories of emotion converge around the key role of the amygdala as the central subcortical emotional brain structure that constantly evaluates and integrates a variety of sensory information from the surroundings and assigns them appropriate values of emotional dimensions, such as valence, intensity, and approachability.
The neuroscientist formerly known as Prince’s audio engineer
I Always Knew I Was Different. I Just Didn’t Know I Was a Sociopath.
New surveys reveal the alarming extent to which lying has become prevalent throughout the job interview process.
Craig Wright did not create bitcoin, judge says
Closing arguments in the trial between various people and Craig Wright over whether he’s Satoshi Nakamoto are wrapping up today, amongst a bewildering array of presented evidence. But one utterly astonishing aspect of this lawsuit is that expert witnesses for both sides agreed that much of the digital evidence provided by Craig Wright was unreliable in one way or another,generally including indications that it wasn’t produced at the point in time it claimed to be.
I heard a journalist say that “scoop-game” was dying; the job of reporters was no longer to vie to break a story before competitors. Her reasoning was that news often breaks on social media; the exclusivity of a scoop only lasts a few seconds. Furthermore, in the age of disinformation, accuracy trumps speed—and searching for a scoop can lead to incorrect information.
The New York Times has denied claims by OpenAI that it “hacked” the company’s artificial intelligence systems to create misleading evidence of copyright infringement, calling the accusation as “irrelevant as it is false.”
Inside Reddit’s Long, Complicated Relationship With OpenAI’s Sam Altman — The founder and CEO of OpenAI stands to profit handsomely from Reddit’s IPO
A new startup called Cognition AI can turn a user’s prompt into a website or video game.
Hackers can read private AI-assistant chats even though they’re encrypted
Most subscription mobile apps don’t make money, new report shows
New ‘Water Batteries’ Are Cheaper, Recyclable, And Won’t Explode
Millions of pieces of space junk — hardware humans sent into space and didn’t retrieve — are orbiting Earth, and because this space debris travels up to 18,000 miles per hour, a collision can seriously damage operational spacecraft. NASA tracks debris larger than 10 centimeters and will take evasive maneuvers to prevent potential collisions, but something as small as a screw can be damaging. […] A japanese startup plans to point the lasers it is developing for nuclear fusion at the sky to see if they can knock space junk out of orbit.
Female frogs communicate with males through blinking
Bumblebees socially learn behaviour too complex to innovate alone — Increasing evidence suggests that animal culture can, like human culture, be cumulative: characterized by sequential innovations that build on previous ones. However, human cumulative culture involves behaviours so complex that they lie beyond the capacity of any individual to independently discover during their lifetime. To our knowledge, no study has so far demonstrated this phenomenon in an invertebrate. […] Food-washing behaviours by macaques, pandanus-leaf tool designs by New Caledonian crows and the songs of humpback whales have all been proposed as potential examples of cumulative culture, but none have been confirmed through laboratory-based experiments. […] This does not mean that these animals are incapable of cumulative culture, or even that these examples do not represent it: it simply means that we cannot know for sure whether they do. Even with our present study, we cannot rule out the possibility that one bee in a million might manage to solve the two-step box within its lifetime, although this seems unlikely.
Virginia Woolf in The Yale Review
Hubert Védrine, one of France’s longest serving Foreign Minister and National Security Advisor (under both Mitterrand and Chirac) recounting a conversation with Madeleine Albright where she accused him of “betraying Lafayette”
every day the same again |
March 14th, 2024
New York usury law makes it illegal to charge very high interest rates on loans. If you charge more than 16% on a loan in New York, the borrower might not have to pay you back; if you charge more than 25%, you might be committing a crime. Some people want to charge higher rates on loans, and so they want to structure loans that don’t look like loans to avoid usury rules.
The classic general way to do this is to structure the loan as a purchase. If the borrower — sorry, let’s use a more neutral word, maybe “customer” — has an asset that will pay $100 in cash in a year, you can buy that asset today for $80. You’ll get the $100 in a year, for a 25% return on your money; the customer gets $80 today instead of $100 in a year. That’s a lot like the customer borrowing $80 today at 25% interest, but you have called it a purchase and sale rather than a loan. Legally, this might or might not work, depending on the details (if the asset turns out to be worthless, does the customer still have to pay you?).
Lots of quite normal high-finance lending works this way — “structuring a loan as a sale” roughly characterizes things like the repo market, asset-backed securities or receivables factoring — but, also, lots of shady usurious low-finance lending works this way. […]
Yellowstone Capital, a pioneer in a form of high-risk lending called merchant cash advance, was sued by New York’s attorney general for $1.4 billion for allegedly making illegal loans to small businesses.
For years, Yellowstone lent money at rates that exceeded usury limits – sometimes more than 800% annualized, according to the lawsuit filed in New York state court in Manhattan Tuesday.
{ Bloomberg | Continue reading }
economics, scams and heists |
March 11th, 2024
“There’s about two to five percent of all the (UFO reports that are)… what we would call truly anomalous,” says Kirkpatrick. And he thinks explanations for that small percentage will most likely be found right here on Earth. […] for decades, UFO true believers have been telling us there’s a US government conspiracy to hide evidence of aliens. But — if you believe Kirkpatrick — the more mundane truth is that these stories are being pumped up by a group of UFO true believers in and around government. […] people inside the Pentagon — with really high-level security clearances — are finally saying, we looked at every single piece of secret evidence about supposedly alien UFOs. And as far as we can tell, it’s humans all the way down.
Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) PDF
Brain Waves Travel in One Direction When Memories are Made and the Opposite When Recalled
Female hyenas are more aggressive and 10 percent bigger than males. Sex can only occur with a female’s consent. […] As the only mammal without an external vaginal opening, female spotted hyenas have an elongated clitoris that hangs between their legs and strongly resembles a male’s penis.During mating, the female retracts this “pseudopenis” into her abdomen, making it impossible for the male to gain entry without her cooperation. […] Remarkably, the female will also give birth through her clitoris. […] Spotted hyenas face the same threats as other large African predators, but hyenas—whose leading cause of death is killing by humans—are targeted for reasons that lions and other carnivores are not. They’re snared or poisoned not only in retaliation for preying on livestock but also because they’re considered vermin and purveyors of black magic.
A bold plan to genetically engineer a version of the woolly mammoth, the tusked ice age giant that disappeared 4,000 years ago, is making some progress […] Once edited to have mammoth-like genetic traits, the elephant’s cells could be used to make eggs and sperm and an embryo that could be implanted into some kind of artificial womb. […] “I think the first engineered elephant will be the major milestone and that may be consistent with Ben’s (Lamm) prediction of six years from 2021” […] mammoths, should they return to the grasslands in the planet’s northernmost reaches in sufficient numbers, would help slow down permafrost thaw. Some scientists believe that, before their extinction, grazing animals such as mammoths, horses and bison kept the earth frozen underneath by tramping down the grass, knocking down trees and compacting snow.
Silk is stronger than steel or kevlar. We are already using it to transport vaccines without cold chains and make automatically dissolving stitches. What else could it be used for?
The Tropicana Las Vegas, which originally opened in 1957, will be demolished and turned into a 30,000 seat MLB stadium for the Athletics baseball team.
David Bordwell on Godard: He was a sketchy fellow, to put it mildly. Childhood episodes of theft were followed by larceny as an adult, when he stole his grandfather’s Renoir and swiped cash from the Cahiers du cinéma till. Notorious for taking funding for projects that were never made, he once contracted for $500,000 to create a film on the Museum of Modern Art. He declined to visit the museum and instead shot the footage from stills at home. When The Old Place was finished, he agreed to introduce it in Manhattan. Hours before he was about to fly out (on the Concorde) he canceled, using anti-American cinephilia as his excuse: “I will return to New York when the films of Kiarostami are playing on Broadway.” […] Truffaut called him “a piece of shit on a pedestal.”
Grigory Otrepyev (False Dmitriy I) managed to become the Tsar of Russia due to his deception. He was one of three impostors who claimed, during a period of civil unrest in Russia, to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. His reign was marked by his openness to Catholicism and allowing foreigners into Russia. This made him unpopular with the boyars, who staged a successful coup and killed him eleven months after he took the throne. His wife of 10 days, Marina, would later “accept” False Dmitry II as her fallen husband. [Wikipedia via Top 10 Great Historical Impostors]
The Fashion Police in 16th-century Italy
Plants That Are Both Edible and Poisonous
every day the same again |
March 11th, 2024
The practice of foot binding began in the Sung dynasty (AD 960-1280) in China, reportedly to imitate an imperial concubine who was required to dance with her feet bound.’ By the 12th century, the practice was widespread and more severe: feet were bound so tightly and so early in life that women were unable to dance and had difficulty walking. When a girl was about 3 years old, all but the first toe on each foot were broken and the feet bound with cloth strips that were tightened over the course of 2 years to keep the feet shorter than 10 cm [~4 inches] and to bend the sole into extreme concavity. Foot binding ceased in the 20th century [banned in 1912] with the end of imperial dynasties and the increasing influence of Western fashion.
{ Public Health Briefs | PDF }
In Chinese culture, bound feet were considered highly erotic. When walking, women with bound feet were forced to bend their knees and balance on their heels; the resultant unsteady, swaying movement was attractive to many men. It was also believed that the gait of a woman with bound feet would strengthen her vaginal muscles.
Although Qing Dynasty sex manuals list 48 different ways of playing with womens’ bound feet, many men preferred not to see uncovered feet, so they were concealed within tiny, elaborately embroidered “lotus shoes” and wrappings. […] This concealment from the man’s eye was considered sexually appealing in itself, though it had the practical grounding that an uncovered foot would give off a foul odour due to chronic fungus infections and potential gangrene. […]
bound feet limited a woman’s mobility to such an extent that she was largely restricted to her home and could not venture far without the help of watchful servants. She was rendered almost totally dependent on her menfolk, which appealed to male fantasies of ownership. A woman with bound feet was also seen as a desirable wife because she was assumed to be obedient and uncomplaining.
{ Dance’s Historical Miscellany | Continue reading }
Confucius lived before the Christian Jesus is said to have been born […] Adeline Yen Mah asserts that, “every Chinese person wears a Confucian thinking cap … just as foot binding once bound women‟s feet, Confucian’s teachings have quietly and surely bound women’s lives for centuries.” Confucianism was at its peak centuries before Ming Dynasty rule; […] Confucianism revolved around the belief that a man was the leader and a woman‟s priority was to be obedient to that man […]
Females in Chinese society were regarded as menial entities; continually demoralized, degraded, humiliated, ignored—which created intrinsic silence. The silence was second nature and women simply accepted mistreatment because they did not know anything different. This was a paradoxical situation since women were a remarkably prevalent motif in Ming Dynasty paintings. A woman could speak eloquently, sing, and play music, as shown in paintings, yet their individuality was stripped away
{ The Callous Fate of Chinese Women During the Ming Dynasty (2011) | PDF }
asia, fetish, flashback |
March 10th, 2024
Again and again in the animal world, males have shorter lifespans than females, an effect scientists attribute in part to the deleterious effects of testosterone.
[In 2012,] researchers who looked at historical records of Korean eunuchs castrated during boyhood found that the eunuchs lived considerably longer than ordinary, testicled men. […]
testosterone, a hormone involved in testes growth, muscle development and aggression, but that also seems to have an immune system-weakening effect. […] Women do tend to live longer than men, but that could be for other reasons, including the longevity-enhancing effects of estrogen, the female sex hormone.
{ Wired | Continue reading }
photo { Robert Mapplethorpe, Tattoo Artist’s Son (1984) }
hormones |
March 8th, 2024
Dozens of Ghost kitchens, restaurants that serve food exclusively by delivery on apps like DoorDash and Grubhub, are selling food that they promote to customers with AI-generated images
Scientists are using organoids to screen drug candidates, grow viruses, build biocomputers, and much, much more.
This meta-analysis examined the rank-order stability of domain-specific self-esteem by comprehensively synthesizing the available evidence in eight domains of self-esteem (i.e., academic, appearance, athletic, morality, romantic, social, mathematics, and verbal abilities). In sum, the findings suggest that rank-order stability of domain-specific self-esteem is relatively high, even over long periods of time, indicating that the eight investigated facets of domain-specific self-esteem should be considered trait-like constructs.
Historically, most subways were built using what’s known as ‘cut and cover’ excavation: digging an open trench, building the tunnel structure within it, and then covering the trench up. Why we stopped building cut and cover
Researchers jailbreak AI chatbots with ASCII art
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
The Irony and the Agony of Elon Musk’s Lawsuit against OpenAI
Photographer steps inside Vietnam’s shadowy ‘click farms’
Jesús Franco Manera (1930-2013) was perhaps the most prolific filmmaker of modern times. By IMDB’s count he made 195 feature films. During his peak period he averaged 9 films per year. […] Fritz Lang called Franco’s Succubus “the first erotic film I’ve seen all the way through because it’s a beautiful piece of cinema”. Orson Welles chose Franco to be his Spanish assistant director on the strength of one of Franco’s surreal, pulpy crime thrillers – much to the horror of the Madrid establishment who scorned Franco.
every day the same again |
March 8th, 2024
Pittsburgh Area Naturalists are hosting another Balls Out bowling event, where you can bowl in the nude. Nudity is required with the exception that women can wear bottoms. Also, sexual activity is not permitted.
“Tap the fuck in” Hackers are gaining access to sensitive drug ordering tools and then order controlled substances like oxycodone. Some of the hackers then appear to sell these substances for profit online.
Law enforcement doesn’t want to be “customer service” reps for Meta any more Forty-one state attorneys general penned a letter to Meta’s top attorney on Wednesday saying complaints are skyrocketing across the United States about Facebook and Instagram user accounts being stolen and declaring “immediate action” necessary to mitigate the rolling threat.
Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from anxiety, study says
Tiny fragments of microplastics are making their way deep inside our bodies in concerning quantities, significantly through our food and drink. Scientists have now found a simple and effective means of removing them from water. 90 percent of the microplastics were removed by the boiling and filtering process
The animals that birthed our shared mammal lineage crawled out of the ocean 400 million years ago. About 50 million years ago, the four-legged ancestors of whales crawled back in, likely somewhere near present-day Pakistan.
The brain’s nutritional content is unique, too: It’s rich in several nutrients that are essential for brain health. […] In many parts of the world, people never forgot the value of eating brain.
Sell for Half a Billion & Get Nothing — Liquidation preference is one of the most important terms in a term sheet. Liquidation preference determines who gets paid first and how much they get paid when there’s an acquisition.
AI Prompt Engineering Is Dead — There is an alternative to the trial-and-error style prompt engineering that yielded such inconsistent results: Ask the language model to devise its own optimal prompt. Recently, new tools have been developed to automate this process. […] Battle and his collaborators found that in almost every case, this automatically generated prompt did better than the best prompt found through trial-and-error. And, the process was much faster, a couple of hours rather than several days of searching.
In January 2010, Google announced that the Chinese government had been targeting Google (and, it would turn out, around 20 other U.S. companies) with a long-term attack aimed at gaining access to the email accounts of human rights activists working in China and around the world. The attacks led to a number of changes at Google, both in terms of security infrastructure and policy. As a result, Google decided to shut down operations in China. Later that year, Google introduced their two-factor authentication system. Initially only for business accounts, it was rolled out to all Google users in early 2011. For the first time, 2FA was available to the general public for an average user account. In the years since, other major companies such as Microsoft, Twitter, Apple, and Amazon have begun to offer 2FA options across a multitude of online platforms. […] However, many consumers are still not availing themselves of these options, as demonstrated by a continued flood of well-publicized email account breaches.
[In 2016:] Acknowledging there’s a risk that SMS messages can be intercepted or redirected, NIST is encouraging any service considering adopting two-factor authentication in the future to “consider alternative authenticators.” NIST claims that services need to verify the phone number it sends codes to belongs to a legitimate network and not a VoIP service. The alternative is to use a dedicated 2FA app like Google Authenticator or RSA SecurID, or a dedicated secure device like a dongle. There are plenty of options — SMS was just the easy one.
Kind of Blue is the best-selling jazz album of all time. Here’s what it was like inside the studio with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans on the day they laid down one of the record’s iconic tracks.
A friend of Bill Evans, Pianist Warren Barnhardt, claims that he ‘never heard him make a harmonic mistake. Never. not one wrong note’ Bill Evan’s co-composed much of the music on Miles Davis’s ‘Kind of Blue’
electronicplastic.com (All the games on this website are from my personal collection. And all games are complete with the original packaging.) games NOT in the collection
adult domain names for sale
If both identical twins go missing and one shows up dead, will genetic tests alone be able to tell them apart (I’m a writer, not a murderer)?
every day the same again |
March 7th, 2024
a hardcore band named Llorona has fired their singer after he allegedly dosed his bandmate with estrogen in a plot to steal his fiancée.
Seventy-five percent of facial plastic surgeons reported a spike in demand from clients under 30, while 79 percent agree that “looking better in selfies” is a trend that continues to rise
In this research, we see a so-called nocebo effect when people eat gluten. If people expect gluten to produce negative effects, they experience symptoms, even if it turns out afterwards that they were not actually eating gluten.
Study Links Everyday Chemicals to Parkinson’s Disease in Western U.S. […] The study involved 21.5 million people. […] researchers looked for a possible relationship between rates of Parkinson’s and the use of 65 pesticides. They found that the pesticides and herbicides simazine, atrazine, and lindane had the strongest relationship with Parkinson’s disease
psychedelic research raises concerns about the potential for psychedelics to enhance suggestibility and create false memories
ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces.
One swipe from a tiger’s claw could kill you instantaneously. Meanwhile, grizzly bears have more strength in one paw than we do in our whole bodies, and gorillas can lift up to four times their own body weight. The world’s strongest animals are fearsome and for the most part predictable, but at the top of this formidable list is one that might surprise you: elephants. African bush elephants are the most powerful land animal by far […] During dry seasons, they dig up riverbeds and create watering holes that their neighbors benefit from, too. They clear away trees and saplings to keep the savannah accessible for other animals such as zebras. And they spread vast quantities of seeds through their dung, gardening and helping plants to thrive.
Asian elephants loudly mourn and bury their dead calves, new study
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of using. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev (1932–2019). […] A Type I civilization is able to access all the energy available on its planet and store it for consumption. Hypothetically, it should also be able to control natural events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. A Type II civilization can directly consume a star’s energy, most likely through the use of a Dyson sphere. A Type III civilization is able to capture all the energy emitted by its galaxy, and every object within it, such as every star, black hole, etc.
What happens if you take motion blur past its logical extreme?
A speculative essay proposing that the human subconscious mind can understand language but, while it can communicate with the sleeping mind via images in dreams, it can only communicate to an individual’s awake mind via what appear to the individual as a random recall of a musical song in working memory.
every day the same again |
March 4th, 2024
Lawyers who voided Elon Musk’s pay as excessive want $6 billion fee, payable in the electric car maker’s stock […] The fee works out to an hourly rate of $288,888
Cambridge academic escapes toilet using eyeliner and cotton
the researchers observed the body switching energy sources – from glucose to fat stored in the body – within the first two or three days of fasting. The volunteers lost an average of 5.7 kg of both fat mass and lean mass. After three days of eating after fasting, the weight stayed off – the loss of lean was almost completely reversed, but the fat mass stayed off. […] results provide evidence for the health benefits of fasting beyond weight loss, but these were only visible after three days of total caloric restriction
researchers in South Korea have figured out a way to use sound to influence the formation of connections between neurons — and not only could it lead to new medical treatments, it might even make learning easier for everyone.
The 3 myths of mindfulness Not all thoughts are equal […] Attention is often beyond your control […] It is impossible to “seize the day”
Now that generative AI has dropped the cost of producing bullshit to near zero, we see clearly the future of the internet: a garbage dump.
The checks being cut to ‘owners’ of training data are creating a huge barrier to entry for challengers. If Google, OpenAI, and other large tech companies can establish a high enough cost,
Is it possible to deduce the shape of a drum from the sounds it makes? Last summer, Polterovich and his international collaborators—Nikolay Filonov, Michael Levitin and David Sher—proved a special case of a famous conjecture in spectral geometry formulated in 1954 by the eminent Hungarian-American mathematician George Pólya. The conjecture bears on the estimation of the frequencies of a round drum or, in mathematical terms, the eigenvalues of a disk.
A pair of orcas working in concert have been killing great whites along a stretch of South African coastline since at least 2017, plundering the sharks’ nutrient-rich livers and discarding the rest. […] Scientists witnessed one of the hunters, a male orca known as Starboard, single-handedly kill a 2.5-meter (8.2-foot) juvenile white shark within a two-minute time frame last year. The killer orcas are scaring off great white shark populations, but researchers don’t know where the sharks are relocating. “As they relocate, they might end up overlapping with heavy commercial fisheries”
about 30% of the world’s countries mandate left-side driving and another 70% or so stay to the right […]
The Trojan War was fought in Finland and Ulysses sailed home to Denmark, says one controversial theory.
Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family (Why does this lady have a fly on her head?)
every day the same again |
March 3rd, 2024
Rogue Editors Started a Competing Wikipedia That’s Only About Roads
Meta’s layoffs continue to impact advertisers as the company replaces account team members with AI
It bothers me that there is so little usable infrastructure beneath artists and so much baroque architecture built on top of us. I’m sorry to bring him up incessantly but Pablo Picasso wasn’t fucking around with artist statements. He and his buddies were hanging out, inventing new ways to use the senses […] They want us to describe ourselves in GRANT-WRITING LANGUAGE like we are PROJECT MANAGERS rather than to describe our ideas with the MANY VARIED LANGUAGES OF ART! […] Participating in their strange bureaucracies is a major concession of our time that we could use for our animal purposes, to observe and make sense of the world
Late last year, astronomers discovered a fascinating star system only 100 light-years away from us. Its six sub-Neptune planets circle very close to their host star in mathematically perfect orbits, piquing the interest of scientists searching for alien technology, or technosignatures, which they argue would offer compelling evidence of advanced life beyond Earth.
Arctic Ice shipped its first container of around 22 tons of Greenland ice to Dubai this year for sale to high-end bars and restaurants
How does the sky turn dark at night?
every day the same again |
March 1st, 2024
photogs |
February 28th, 2024
Isolated for six months, scientists in Antarctica began to develop their own accent
botanical gardens can lower the temperature of inner city air by as much as 5 °C. Wetlands and rain gardens are not far behind in the cooling stakes, at 4.7 and 4.5 °C respectively, trees planted along streets also lowered air temps by 3.8 °C while city parks managed 3.2 °C.
Maker uses Raspberry Pi and AI to block noisy neighbor’s music byhacking nearby Bluetooth speakers
A New York City medical school will offer students free tuition following a $1bn donation from the 93-year-old widow of a major Wall Street investor.
the number of active serial killers dwindled from 198 in 1987, the largest number on record, to 12 in 2018. Why the decline? Simply put, it’s harder than ever to get away with serial murder.
Why are there fewer serial killers now than there used to be?
Police only make an arrest — or “clear” a case, in justice jargon — in about 60 percent of all homicides. The other 5,000 end without closure. In other words, murderers have a 40 percent chance of getting away with murder. The question is, how many of those unsolved cases are the work of a serial killer?
every day the same again |
February 27th, 2024
Mary Poppins’ UK age rating raised to PG — It was changed because of a derogatory term for the Khoikhoi, a group of people who were among the first inhabitants of southern Africa.
The creation of the PG-13 rating in 1984
“Today’s date is April 20, approximately 7 a.m. Just want to document my visit to the Hayden Library. My attorney and I are just curious and would like to document this visit to see what kind of materials are on display here.” update: full video
Waymo’s self-driving cars keep hitting things, including a cyclist, a gate and a pickup
After listening to the same playlist, people from the United Kingdom, the United States, and China reported feeling nearly identical bodily sensations
every day the same again |
February 26th, 2024
More Generative AI Tools are Coming to Social Apps — there are already a heap of these options available, which, intentional or not, effectively reduce, and even eliminate, human input in the process.
robots & ai, social networks |
February 26th, 2024
the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene.
How Incidental Sadness Reduces Morally Questionable Behavior
positive fortune telling can yield increased financial risk taking in men, but not (or less so) in women
American drivers are now even more distracted by their phones. Pedestrian deaths are soaring.
The division that includes the Apple Watch and AirPods now accounts for 10% of the company’s revenue, up from less than 5% a decade ago.
If generative models make video creation easier, it will mean we see more unwanted video in more and more places, as well as the further development of techniques to use video to confuse and con people.
Hallucination has been widely recognized to be a significant drawback for large language models (LLMs). There have been many works that attempt to reduce the extent of hallucination. These efforts have mostly been empirical so far, which cannot answer the fundamental question whether it can be completely eliminated. In this paper, we formalize the problem and show that it is impossible to eliminate hallucination in LLMs.
New compact facial-recognition system passes test on Michelangelo’s David
Do people and bananas really share 50 percent of the same DNA? […] “You share 50 percent of your DNA with each of your parents. But with bananas, we share about 50 percent of our genes, which turns out to be only about 1 percent of our DNA” […] One thing to keep in mind is that genes, which are the regions of the DNA that code for these proteins, only make up 2 percent of your DNA. […] Eight percent of the rest of your DNA regulates genes (as to whether a gene should be turned on or off). The other 90 percent appear to have unknown functions or functions that have been lost through evolution.
these shrimp are actually born with eyes, but they lose the eyes and develop a light sensor on their body as they reach adulthood
How Google is killing independent sites like ours And why you shouldn’t trust product recommendations from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google
every day the same again |
February 25th, 2024
A total of 30 male and 30 female subjects attended four speed-dates each. Subjects were more likely to choose those dating partners with whom they shared more eye-contact with. Perceived attractiveness played an important role for mate choice. Receiving but not giving eye-contact also predicted individual mate choice.
weird information to dispense on a first date
Attention deficits linked with proclivity to explore while foraging
chatgpt is apparently going off the rails right now and no one can explain why, more
During World War II, when materials were scare, the Academy started using plaster for their Oscar bases as it was less expensive. (After the war, spun brass was used and still is today.)
Fake Funeral Live Stream Scams Are All Over Facebook
every day the same again |
February 21st, 2024
Instead of killing animals for food, why not manufacture beef or chicken in a laboratory vat? That’s the humane idea behind “lab-grown meat.” The problem, though, is making the stuff at a large scale. Take Upside Foods. The startup, based in Berkeley, California, had raised more than half a billion dollars and was showing off rows of big, gleaming steel bioreactors.
But journalists soon learned that Upside was a bird in borrowed feathers. Its big tanks weren’t producing its flagship “whole textured chicken” filets; to produce those it was growing chicken skin cells in much smaller laboratory flasks. Thin layers of cells were then being manually scooped up and pressed into chicken pieces. In other words, Upside was using lots of labor, plastic, and energy to make hardly any meat. […]
And even though lab-grown chicken has FDA approval, there’s doubt whether lab meat will ever compete with the real thing. Chicken goes for $4.99 a pound at the supermarket. Upside still isn’t saying how much the lab version costs to make, but a few bites of it sell for $45 at a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco.
{ The worst technology failures of 2023 | Technology Review }
oil on panel { Pablo Picasso, La Poule, 1950 }
food, drinks, restaurants |
February 19th, 2024
A loophole got him a free New York hotel stay for five years. Then he claimed to own the building
Wyze says camera breach let 13,000 customers briefly see into other people’s homes
The man on the phone knew my home address, my Social Security number, the names of my family members, and that my 2-year-old son was playing in our living room. He told me my home was being watched, my laptop had been hacked, and we were in imminent danger. “I can help you, but only if you cooperate,” he said. — How I Fell for an Amazon Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000
There’s an enormous and largely invisible campaign to use fraudulent notices under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to remove critical articles from the internet. We don’t know who is running the campaign, but we do know it’s facilitated by Google’s amazingly trustworthy approach to DMCA complaints made by companies that don’t exist.
Los Angeles-based EQTY Lab created a new method, employing cryptography and blockchain, to track the origins and characteristics of large language models, and provide transparency on their inner workings, so companies and regulators can easily inspect them. Its software essentially tracks the different parts of an AI model as it’s being developed, and turns the information into a cryptographic signature stored on a blockchain, making it theoretically impossible to tamper with.
OpenAI tries to trademark ‘GPT’. US Patent Office says nope
there are small RNA species, hitherto unknown, that seem to be colonizing bacteria in the human oral mucosa and gut
consumption of certain food additive emulsifiers may increase the risk of cancer — the researchers found that higher intakes of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids (E471) were associated with increased risks of cancer overall (a 15% higher risk among those consuming the most – 3rd tertile – compared with those consuming the least – 1st tertile), breast cancer (a 24% higher risk), and prostate cancer (a 46% higher risk). On the other hand, women with higher carrageenan intakes (E407 and E407a) had a 32% higher risk of developing breast cancer, compared with the group with lower intakes.
Room Acoustics and Musical Emotion in Recorded Music Listening — The main findings showed that room acoustic features did not have a strong effect on ‘Unease’ or ‘Vitality’ components of the GEMS, but rather influenced aspects of ‘Sublimity’ (i.e., ‘Nostalgia’, ‘Transcendence’, ‘Wonder’).
Inside Johnny Depp’s Epic Bromance With Saudi Crown Prince MBS
In ancient Sparta, it was accepted practice for more women to marry and have children by more than one man […] unmarried men could be forced to march around the public square in the winter, wearing a tunic and singing about themselves. In contrast, men with three sons were exempt from military service, and those with at least four didn’t have to pay any taxes.
every day the same again |
February 19th, 2024
The most blatant exaggeration was the listed size of Mr. Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. For years, the former president had valued it as if it were 30,000 square feet, when it was actually 10,996.
Trump Supporters Start GoFundMe Page for $355M Fine
update feb 18: Trump launches a pair of gold sneakers named “The Never Surrender High-Tops,” $399, “At Least 10 Randomly Autographed by Trump,” “Only 1000 Pairs,” SOLD OUT, also selling two versions of sneakers that have “T” and “45” on the sides for $199, the “Victory47 Cologne by President Trump” for $99…
This work investigated the prevalence of filter bubble or echo chamber-related phenomena, psychological factors rendering individuals resilient or vulnerable to them, and their associations to political views focusing on extremity and polarization. […] These findings challenge the prevailing notion of filter bubbles and echo chambers as widespread phenomena and indicate that relationships between political news consumption homogeneity and political views are not necessarily deleterious with respect to extremization and polarization. […] As such, the results suggest that these phenomena might not be as significant for the general population as previously thought
The replication crisis is an ongoing methodological crisis in which the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to reproduce.
A year or more after weight loss, the desire to eat grows stronger, study
States with higher narcissism had lower obesity and depression rates, and a lower likelihood of heart failure and hypertension deaths. However, these states reported less sleep and higher demand for plastic surgeons.
Water found on the surface of an asteroid for the 1st time ever […] that can shed light on how water was delivered to Earth […] asteroids are believed to be the primary source of Earth’s water, providing the necessary elements for life as we know it.
Our human ancestors often ate each other, some of the time they did it to honour their dead
With maceration, bones are cleaned of tissue by bacteria; it is a rotting process. There are several maceration techniques, of which warm-water maceration at 35 C is the most effective. This temperature is optimal for the bacteria to live, digest and multiply. With these techniques, all cartilage gets dissolved, and all unfused bones will separate. Therefore, warm-water maceration is not the most ideal technique for complete skeletons of small mammals (up to the size of a rabbit), since putting the many small bones of hands and feet together will be extremely difficult. […] A closed container is needed, like a plastic bucket with lid, a glass jar or a metal can.
It wasn’t illegal to drink alcohol during Prohibition […] In 1851 the Maine legislature passed a statewide prohibition on selling alcohol […] To this day, 10 states still contain counties where alcohol sales are prohibited outright. 10 Things You Should Know About Prohibition
While most fast food restaurants have their Coca-Cola syrup delivered to them in plastic bags,
McDonald’s gets their syrup specially delivered in stainless steel tanks.
every day the same again |
February 17th, 2024
Sapolsky’s “Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will” employs modern scientific evidence to argue that intent and volition are products of antecedent causes rather than manifestations of free will. Through a comprehensive review of cognitive neuroscience, Sapolsky illustrates how intent emerges from the complex interplay of brain structures that are effectively predetermined by a web of causality that includes genetic, environmental and cultural factors. This review also highlights the book’s implications of determinism for concepts such as moral responsibility, retributive justice, and societal perceptions of human exceptionalism.
We recruited 204 marital dyads from South Korea […] Wives with long and high-quality hair have more frequent sex
Attraction to an Alternative and Romantic Relationship Quality, Breakups and Infidelity
San Antonio had the highest proportion of agreeable people, while Manhattan had the highest proportion of open persons, but the lowest proportion of people who were agreeable or conscientious. Does Your Community Have a Personality Type?
Regardless of what you’re attempting to measure: height, political preferences, number of flowers owned, or even coin toss results, if your sample size is large enough, you always get a Bell curve, or normal distribution. There’s a profound reason why
Kunath asked one group of people who had Parkinson’s and another group of people who didn’t have Parkinson’s to take home white T-shirts, wear them overnight and then return them. Then Kunath gave the T-shirts to Joy Milne to smell. Joy not only could smell Parkinson’s but could smell it even in the absence of its typical medical presentation.
Lyft Inc. issued a massive correction to its outlook for earnings margin in 2024 , saying its margin is expected to expand by 50 basis points — not the 500 basis points written into an earnings presentation released earlier on Tuesday. […] The blowout forecast may have contributed to a surge in Lyft’s shares in after-market trading on Tuesday. The stock jumped as much as 67% on the company’s outlooks before erasing gains during the call with investors. It was up 20% at 5:52 p.m. in New York.
Tesla Sold Only One Car in Korea in January and Cybertruck Owners Say They’re Already Rusting
“The carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are lower for AI than for humans.” A spicy paper. It’s not clear how to calculate emissions for human writers though because it depends on what you assume the writer would be doing if not writing
Your AI Girlfriend Is a Data-Harvesting Horror Show — the chatbots actively encourage you to share details that are far more personal than in a typical app.
Air Canada found liable for chatbot’s bad advice on plane tickets
Scientists aghast at bizarre AI rat with huge genitals in peer-reviewed article
Passing Stars Changed the Orbits of Planets in the Solar System
How to Lay Claim to a Brand New Island
every day the same again |
February 16th, 2024
At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, was walking through a park one day in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.” Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable. Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.
“It doesn’t look like my doll at all,” said the girl. Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: “my travels have changed me.” The little girl hugged the new doll and brought the doll with her to her happy home. A year later Kafka died. Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written: “Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”
{ Avi | a true anecdote, unproven }
books, kids, toys |
February 14th, 2024
How Walmart, Delta, Chevron, T-Mobile, Starbucks, Nestle and AstraZeneca are using AI to monitor employee messages […] can see how employees of a certain age group or in a particular geography are responding to a new corporate policy or marketing campaign […] AI models, built to read text and process images, can also identify bullying, harassment, discrimination, noncompliance, pornography, nudity and other behaviors
A crowd destroyed a driverless Waymo car in San Francisco
Viagra may help reduce Alzheimer’s risk, according to a new study Previously: Viagra was originally developed for the treatment high blood pressure (hypertension) and angina pectoris (chest pain due to heart disease)
Women who had their first period at age 12 or younger had a decreased risk for dementia. Women who experienced menopause after the age of 50 had a 24 percent decreased risk for dementia.
smokers who quit smoking before age 40 can expect to live almost as long as those who never smoked
24 million Americans have an autoimmune diseases. Can these therapies cure them?
Growing evidence indicates that the benefits stemming from dance are in both physical and mental dimensions, and these advantages are not limited to specific people. Compared to the non-exercise group, dance can ameliorate VO2peak [maximum rate of oxygen consumption attainable during physical exertion], blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, physical fitness, cognitive disorders, and mental health. For physically inactive females, Ljubojevic et al. observed that an 8-week Zumba achieved effective enhancements in body composition and respiratory functionality. Similar improvements were also identified within the diseased population. A pilot study demonstrated that dance can improve body mass index(BMI) and body fat percentage(Fat(%)), while also enhancing their physical activity. People with Parkinson’s disease can achieve physical(balance, functional mobility, and cognition) and mental(self-esteem, quality of life, and motor symptoms) improvements from dancing.
One year in the life of a part-time hermit
Balancing cube
every day the same again |
February 11th, 2024
Scientists can reverse aging in mice — Using proteins that can turn an adult cell into a stem cell, Sinclair and his team have reset aging cells in mice to earlier versions of themselves.
We found that, on the whole, those who made it to their hundredth birthday tended to have lower levels of glucose, creatinine and uric acid from their sixties onwards.
Chernobyl’s mutant wolves appear to have developed resistance to cancer, study finds
Indian model Poonam Pandey fakes death to raise cervical cancer awareness
Previously: The courts believed that the actors who portrayed the missing film crew and the native actress featured in the impalement scene were killed for the camera. Compounding matters was the fact that the supposedly deceased actors had signed contracts with the production which ensured that they would not appear in any type of media, motion pictures, or commercials for one year following the film’s release. This was done in order to promote the idea that Cannibal Holocaust was truly the recovered footage of missing documentarians.
Adults who are married report being far happier than those in any other relationship status, according to a Gallup Poll — “In my practice over the last decade I’ve noticed a gradual shift from the ‘romantic marriage’ to the ‘companionate marriage,’ meaning that people are increasingly choosing spouses at the outset who are more like best friends than passion-partners”
A Grand Bargain Is Emerging in the Supreme Court’s Trump Cases The Supreme Court unanimously, or nearly so, holds that Colorado does not have the power to remove Donald Trump from the ballot, but in a separate case it rejects his immunity argument and makes Trump go on trial this spring or summer on federal election subversion charges
Add coffee stains to your documents
stract.com
every day the same again |
February 9th, 2024
Scientists have 3D bioprinted functioning human brain tissue
When the human genome was sequenced in 2001, many thought that it would prove to be an ‘instruction manual’ for life. But the genome turned out to be no blueprint. In fact, most genes don’t have a pre-set function that can be determined from their DNA sequence. Instead, genes’ activity — whether they are expressed or not, for instance, or the length of protein that they encode — depends on myriad external factors, from the diet to the environment in which the organism develops. And each trait can be influenced by many genes.
This AI learnt language by seeing the world through a baby’s eyes
An underground website called OnlyFake is claiming to use “neural networks” to generate realistic looking photos of fake IDs for just $15
Zero-knowledge security model: an introduction
TikTok is fumbling critical business partnerships and cluttering its app with unpopular features.
Many night-flying insects hear the sonar sounds of attacking bats and take evasive action. Among moths, evasive flight is often accompanied by the production of ultrasonic sounds. Three functions of these sounds have been proposed: to startle the bat, to warn of distastefulness, or to “jam” the bat’s sonar system.
Scientists now think they know why tardigrades are so indestructible
Last month, Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of the Pentagon office responsible for investigating unexplained aerial events, stepped down. He said he was tired of being harassed and accused of hiding evidence, and he lamented an erosion in “our capacity for rational, evidence-based critical thinking.” No, aliens haven’t visited the Earth. Why are so many smart people insisting otherwise?
every day the same again |
February 6th, 2024
Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ — “(In the) multi-person video conference, it turns out that everyone [he saw] was fake”
Chinese spy pigeon in lockup during 8 months
Our data revealed that overall, a ketogenic diet was associated with a significant upregulation of pathways and enrichment in cells associated with the adaptive immune system. In contrast, a vegan diet had a significant impact on the innate immune system […] Our study revealed that a 2-week dietary intervention can impose a striking shift in host immunity, superseding genetics, age, sex, ethnicity, race and even body mass index.
The innate immune system is the body’s first line of defense against germs entering the body. It responds in the same way to all germs and foreign substances […] The adaptive immune system takes over if the innate immune system is not able to destroy the germs. It specifically targets the type of germ that is causing the infection. But to do that it first needs to identify the germ. This means that it is slower to respond than the innate immune system, but when it does it is more accurate. It also has the advantage of being able to “remember” germs, so the next time a known germ is encountered, the adaptive immune system can respond faster.
A fentanyl cook — who calls himself Miguel — carries out macabre experiments on a handful of consumers, who test the merchandise before it’s shipped off to the United States. They start with one dose: one third pure and the rest, cut. The “human guinea pigs” inject it in front of him. If they say, “No, it didn’t rock me, it didn’t put me to sleep, add more,” the percentage increases.
Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
the “only physician-owned Diaper Spa in the world” and says it is open to “all diaper-wearing individuals who seek acceptance, respite, and care” […] All clients are required to wear adult diapers.
How many people randomly had a dream about a plane crash the night before 9/11 and have believed they were psychic ever since?
every day the same again |
February 4th, 2024
A typical lawn sprinkler features various nozzles arranged at angles on a rotating wheel; when water is pumped in, they release jets that cause the wheel to rotate. But what would happen if the water were sucked into the sprinkler instead? In which direction would the wheel turn then, or would it even turn at all? That’s the essence of the “reverse sprinkler” problem that physicists like Richard Feynman, among others, have grappled with since the 1940s. Now, applied mathematicians at New York University think they’ve cracked the conundrum. […]
“We found that the reverse sprinkler spins in the ‘reverse’ or opposite direction when taking in water as it does when ejecting it, and the cause is subtle and surprising.” […] found that the reverse sprinkler rotates a good 50 times slower than a regular sprinkler, but it operates along similar mechanisms, which is surprising. […]
The reverse sprinkler problem is associated with Feynman because he popularized the concept, but it actually dates back to a chapter in Ernst Mach’s 1883 textbook The Science of Mechanics (Die Mechanik in Ihrer Entwicklung Historisch-Kritisch Dargerstellt). Mach’s thought experiment languished in relative obscurity until a group of Princeton University physicists began debating the issue in the 1940s.
{ ArsTechnica | Continue reading }
acrylic on canvas { David Hockney, A Lawn Being Sprinkled, 1967 }
mathematics, water |
February 3rd, 2024
Meta is the world’s ‘single largest marketplace for paedophiles’, says New Mexico attorney general — Internal company documents obtained by the attorney general’s office as part of its investigation have also revealed that the company estimates about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment each day.
Meta’s Reality Labs loses record $4.65 billion ahead of Apple’s Vision Pro launch — Meta continues to sink billions of dollars a quarter into developing the metaverse. The metaverse division has now lost more than $42 billion since the end of 2020.
Meta’s $197 Billion Surge Is Biggest in Stock-Market History — It was only a couple of years back the Facebook owner suffered the single biggest market value destruction in stock-market history. But the company has come a long way since then, on Thursday it dazzled shareholders with yet another impressive quarterly earnings report as the social media giant focuses on cutting back costs and shoring up billions in profits. The stock rose as much as 21% Friday, poised to add roughly $200 billion to its market capitalization. This would be the biggest single-session market value addition, eclipsing the $190 billion gains made by Apple and Amazon in 2022.
The private data of European citizens can legally be surveilled by U.S. intelligence agencies, but unlike Americans, Europeans have no recourse under American law if agencies overreach. As Europe began to implement its stringent 2018 data-privacy law, that imbalance sat badly with EU authorities […] The 2020 ruling officially halted the flow of personal data between the EU and the United States, and created the risks of large fines for companies that continued to put European data on U.S. servers. Meta, most prominently, was hit with a $1.2 billion fine in May for continuing to transfer European user data to its U.S. servers. Biden’s proposal for a new data court created a path for Europeans to access American surveillance protections, and in July, European officials declared it adequate to the task, reopening a smoother transatlantic data trade. The court never officially opened for business, at least not publicly. […] The court’s location is a secret, and the Department of Justice will not say if it has taken a case yet, or when it will. Though the court has a clear mandate — ensuring Europeans their privacy rights under U.S. law — its decisions will also be kept a secret
“In the past 20 years, price per earnings was something you could grasp; today [it’s] all over the place. It’s a modern accident, an accident of history, we have no idea how to value companies. It’s mostly narratives and stories about the future to raise money so you can sell to someone else. Think of the number of people who made a lot of money in venture capital off of companies that ended up making no money. Someone got stuck with that bill at the end of the meal.” […] Currently the American national debt stands at $34.14 trillion—about $100,000 for every person in the U.S.
Craig Wright Dr. has long claimed he is the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. However, due to a lack of conclusive proof, few in the industry believe him. A trial in London may bring us closer to finding the answer.
Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity
Germany: Police seize bitcoins worth €2 billion
Google will no longer be keeping a backup of the entire Internet. Google Search’s “cached” links have long been an alternative way to load a website that was down or had changed, but now the company is killing them off.
Can This A.I.-Powered Search Engine Replace Google? It Has for Me. — A start-up called Perplexity shows what’s possible for a search engine built from scratch with artificial intelligence.
unelected political elites such as lobbyists, civil servants, journalists, and the like exhibit egocentrism bias, rather than partisan confirmation bias, astheir perceptions about others’ opinions systematically correspond to their own policy preferences.
The US is dealing with an “out-of-control” epidemic of sexually transmitted infections […] it is the recent rise in syphilis that is concerning health officials most.
Why flying insects gather at artificial light
How to do things if you’re not that smart and don’t have any talent
For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. How did the habit disappear?
Should you flush with toilet lid up or down? Study says it doesn’t matter
every day the same again |
February 2nd, 2024
NJ animal shelter will name feral cat after an ex, then neuter it
Half of all surgical patients receiving anesthesia are females. Anesthetics affect sexually dimorphic brain regions involved in sleep and arousal. We demonstrate that the female brain in mice and humans is resistant to the hypnotic effects of volatile anesthetics. Sex differences in anesthetic sensitivity are largely due to acute effects of sex hormones. […] It may explain the higher incidence of awareness under anesthesia in females.
A new study suggests a link between gut inflammation and changes in the brain and declines in memory, further supporting a connection between the gut and brain in Alzheimer’s disease. […] as levels of calprotectin, an inflammatory marker, increased in the volunteer study participants’ stool samples, so did the amount of amyloid plaque accumulating in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s disease. […] Even volunteers who did not have Alzheimer’s disease had lower scores on a memory test correlated with higher levels of calprotectin. […] The concept that the gut and brain are functionally connected has become more prominent in the last 10 years and this study offers some of the first evidence that asymptomatic gut inflammation and Alzheimer’s disease may be linked.
Although Florida has more than an estimated 1.25 million alligators, attacks by the reptiles are rare – there were 442 unprovoked bite attacks from 1948 to 2021, with 26 of the bites resulting in death
First aircraft to fly on Mars perished on 18 January during its 72nd flight — It was supposed to make only five flights and last about a month, but ultimately it traversed 17 kilometres of the red planet and flew for a total of nearly 129 minutes between 2021 and 2024. An image that the helicopter took of the ground after the flight ended shows the shadow of one of the blades, with at least one-quarter of it missing. The helicopter can still communicate with Earth, at least for now, but it will not fly again.
STOP KNOWING HOW TO READ
every day the same again |
January 27th, 2024
Hair Sample That Put a Man in Prison Turned Out to Be Dog Hair
Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect’s Face — and Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It
5 Deaf Children Have Hearing Restored by AAV-Based Gene Therapy — Hearing loss affects more than 1.5 billion people worldwide
undergraduates’ IQs have steadily fallen from roughly 119 in 1939 to a mean of 102 in 2022, just slightly above the population average of 100 […] a degree has become increasingly meaningless, as more people have one.
Every year spent in school or university improves life expectancy, study says — Analysis also says not attending school is as deadly as smoking or heavy drinking
Why do some people feel tired all the time?
the U.S. government just sold its helium stockpile, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium. MRI machines need thousands of liters of liquid helium to function
San Francisco sues California over ‘unsafe,’ ‘disruptive’ self-driving cars — Waymo and Cruise have both cited self-reported data that their robot cars have a superior track record to human drivers
Initially focused on cybercrime, the proposed UN Treaty has alarmingly evolved into an expansive surveillance tool. — Historically, cybercrime legislation has been exploited to target journalists and security researchers, suppress dissent and whistleblowers, endanger human rights defenders, limit free expression, and justify unnecessary and disproportionate state surveillance measures.
It’s only a matter of time before disinformation leads to disaster
every day the same again |
January 26th, 2024
The frequently repeated view that men are attracted to women with low waist–hip ratios (WHRs) and low body mass indices (BMI) (in well-nourished populations) because these traits indicate health and fertility does not appear to be well supported. Indeed, a low WHR and BMI are most likely to occur in young women in their late teens who have never been pregnant (nulligravidas), women who have demonstrably lower fertility and greater liability to infection than women in their 20s. […]
A nubile woman is a nulligravida who has recently completed physical growth, puberty, and sexual development. This is usually accomplished 3–4 years after menarche in the mid to late teens when female reproductive value is maximal. As noted, women in the nubile age group have the lowest WHRs and, in well-nourished populations, have lower BMIs than women in their 20s, traits strongly associated with attractiveness. […]
Using data for 1.7 million first births from 1990 U.S. natality and mortality records, we compared outcomes for women with first births (primiparas) aged 16–20 years (when first births typically occur in forager and subsistence groups) with those aged 21–25 years. The younger primiparas had a much lower risk of potentially life-threatening complications of labor and delivery and, when evolutionarily novel risk factors were controlled, fetuses which were significantly more likely to survive despite lower birth weights.
{ Evolutionary Psychology | Continue reading }
evolution, relationships |
January 25th, 2024
Harvard morgue theft ring stole body parts, sold brains, turned human flesh into leather, officials say
Can autoimmune diseases be cured? Scientists see hope at last — After decades of frustration and failed attempts, scientists might finally be on the cusp of developing therapies to restore immune ‘tolerance’ in conditions such as diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis.
‘Can you walk a kilometre?’ The question that predicts fracture risk “We’ve discovered that trouble walking even short distances appears closely tied to higher fracture risk over the following five years”
Forensics gone wrong: When DNA snares the innocent
Most people who regularly drink more than the recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol per week (about six pints of normal strength beer [4% ABV] or about six average [175ml] glasses of wine [14% ABV]) will have a fatty liver. In people with fatty liver, after only two to three weeks of giving up alcohol, the liver can heal and looks and functions as good as new.
How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus — “First, placenta the only temporary organ. Second, it’s the baby’s lung, it’s a waste-disposal system, and it’s a nutrition source.” […] “Half of the fetus is maternal, the other half is paternal, and yet the pregnancy can go on for nine months without the mom’s body destroying it,” Barroeta said. “And that, from an immune standpoint, is fascinating, because if you were to receive a piece of someone else and insert that under your skin, that would not last there for three days, your body will actively reject it.” […] This wall of cells keeps mom and baby working in harmony and not killing each other. […] When evolutionary biologists mapped the genomes of these cells, they found that the protein that allowed these cells to fuse into a wall, called syncytin, didn’t look like it came from human DNA. It looked more like HIV. According to Chuong, this protein actually came from an ancient retrovirus, the most famous of which is HIV.
Buffalofish live beyond 100 — and get healthier as they age. What can humans learn from them?
Last month, former president Donald Trump dismissed an ad on Fox News featuring video of his well-documented public gaffes, claiming the footage was generated by AI. […] AI creates a “liar’s dividend,” said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who studies digital propaganda and misinformation. “When you actually do catch a police officer or politician saying something awful, they have plausible deniability” in the age of AI. […] Trump is not alone in seizing this advantage. Late last year, a grainy video surfaced of a ruling-party Taiwanese politician entering a hotel with a woman, indicating he was having an affair. Commentators and other politicians quickly came to his defense, saying the footage was AI-generated — though it remains unclear whether it actually was.
When does “no” mean no? Insights from sex robots
Vomit color chart
every day the same again |
January 24th, 2024
Madonna sued over late concert start by fans who ‘had to get up early’ the next morning
You Can Now Face Jail Time in Las Vegas if You Stop Walking in Certain Areas
A Canadian man who says he’s been falsely charged with orchestrating a complex e-commerce scam is seeking to clear his name. His case appears to involve “triangulation fraud”
Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them
A new paper released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found about 240,000 particles in the average liter of bottled water, most of which were “nanoplastics” — Scientists have also found microplastics in tap water, but in smaller amounts.
Brains Are Not Required When It Comes to Thinking and Solving Problems—Simple Cells Can Do It
Many human morphological and behavioral characteristic — musicality, sense of rhythm, use of dissonances, entrainment, bipedalism, long head hair, long legs, strong body odor, armpit hair, traditions of body painting and cannibalism — are explained as predator avoidance tactics of an aposematic (warning display) defense strategy. […] Unlike crypsis, which is based on the strategy of remaining invisible, silent, odorless, and fleeing as quickly as possible if discovered by a predator, aposematism is the alternative defense strategy of intimidating predators by remaining visible, being noisy, presenting odor, and, rather than fleeing when confronted by a predator, actively approaching and threatening the predator with body size, loud sounds, odors, and fearless behavior. […] Humans are among the very rare terrestrial species that sing, though arguably some carnivores (e.g., wolves and coyotes) can also sing, and sing in choruses […] Early humans came down from the trees, and tree-living birds and primates (including a lesser ape, gibbons) are among the most ardent singers, so it would be logical to propose that our arboreal common (humans and apes) ancestor was a singer. The long-standing question that comes with this suggestion is why do terrestrial apes not sing? […] Many singing and noisy arboreal species (birds and monkeys) maintain silence whenever they visit the ground as a cryptic defense strategy from potential ground predators. Most likely, the ancestors of chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos stopped singing for the same reason—maintaining cryptic cover while on the ground. On the other hand, in a strategically different move, early humans continued singing, therefore changing their survival strategy from cryptic into aposematic. […] I propose that not stopping singing was probably the first and deciding move toward the new aposematic strategy of defense in the hominin lineage, followed by the other elements of aposematic display.
Many AI researchers think fakes will become undetectable
Winston Churchill’s false teeth are up for sale
Search still on for missing jawbone of whale believed mistaken for submarine and bombed during WWII
Lichen survived 18 months attached to outside of International Space Station and raises prospect life could exist on Mars
Trolley Problem Solution
every day the same again |
January 20th, 2024
Private equity firms are increasingly buying hospitals across the US, and when they do, patients suffer, according to two separate reports. Specifically, the equity firms cut corners, slash services, lay off staff, lower quality of care, take on substantial debt, and reduce charity care, leading to lower ratings and more medical errors, reports collectively find
Apple again banned from selling watches in U.S. with blood oxygen sensor. […] The ban stems from an intellectual property dispute with Masimo, a medical device company. In October, the International Trade Commission found that Apple’s blood oxygen sensors had infringed on Masimo’s intellectual property. […] Masimo had alleged that Apple had poached several of its top executives and copied its technology after declining a partnership.
“Is it the first (Tesla) dud? I think objectively, yes,” Conner told me in a recent chat.
Researchers confirm what we already knew: Google results really are getting worse
Google lays off “hundreds” more as ad division switches to AI-powered sales
Altman believes future AI products will need to allow “quite a lot of individual customization” and “that’s going to make a lot of people uncomfortable,” because AI will give different answers for different users, based on their values preferences and possibly on what country they reside in.
AI Sleeper Agents More: AI poisoning could turn open models into destructive “sleeper agents,” says Anthropic
Venice’s Secret Service organized intelligence is not – as commonly thought – an invention of the modern industrial state, but already existed in Renaissance Venice of the 1500s and early 1600s.
data shows a higher number of conflict deaths in Ethiopia than in Ukraine […] 65% of men in Ukraine aged 20 to 24 years have fled the country, or died in the conflict [Global Peace Index ]
Orchids were Darwin’s “abominable mystery.” They continue to elude science—and efforts to save them.
Research indicates that staying up all night might have a transient antidepressant effect. Acute sleep deprivation in mice increased dopamine release and triggered brain changes that could alleviate depression. Some studies show similar results in humans. While a single sleepless night might lift the spirits, chronic sleep loss is detrimental to physical and mental health.
Why I ended up making my own mattress […] that is both organic and vegan
Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?
every day the same again |
January 18th, 2024
AI girlfriend bots are already flooding OpenAI’s GPT store […] The AI girlfriend bots go against OpenAI’s usage policy, which was updated when the GPT store launched yesterday (Jan. 10). The company bans GPTs “dedicated to fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities.” […] OpenAI’s store rules being broken on the second day of operation illustrates how hard it could be to regulate GPTs.
OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban on Using ChatGPT for “Military and Warfare”
Are fingerprints unique? Not really, AI-based study finds
Authors keep finding what appear to be AI-generated imitations and summaries of their books on Amazon. There’s little they can do to rein in the rip-offs.
Over the last month or so, there’s been an uptick in people complaining that the chatbot has become lazy. Sometimes it just straight-up doesn’t do the task you’ve set it. Other times it will stop halfway through whatever it’s doing and you’ll have to plead with it to keep going. Occasionally it even tells you to just do the damn research yourself. So what’s going on? Well, here’s where things get interesting. Nobody really knows.
OpenAI reveals how many ChatGPT for Enterprise customers it has (so far…) — 260 business customers with more than 150,000 distinct […] pricing for ChatGPT for Enterprise varies and is not openly disclosed on OpenAI’s website, but one user on Reddit was quoted at $60 per seat
the group Public Citizen petitioned the state California to reevaluate OpenAI’s nonprofit status
Volkswagen is bringing ChatGPT into its cars and SUVs
What’s next for AI in 2024
The Internet Is Full of AI Dogshit — In September of this year, Google users discovered that the search engine was incorrectly telling people that eggs can melt. Why? Because instead of surfacing websites, Google now grabs snapshots of pages in a drop down menu, allowing users to read search results without clicking on anything. This practice often grabs incorrect information, like an AI-generated answer from Quora that insisted that eggs can melt when they definitely cannot.
More Than Half of the World Will Be Obese By 2035
Researchers have found a gene that links deafness to cell death in the inner ear in humans –- creating new opportunities for averting hearing loss
New research suggests that having books or plants in your video background inspires a greater deal of trust in calls
The United States just grew in size by 1 million square kilometers – that’s almost twice the area of Spain.
every day the same again |
January 12th, 2024
Brazil Arrests Man Suspected of Laundering Nearly US$2.66 Billion
We are less able to cook than we were 30 or 40 years ago
New Study Finds Microplastics in 88% of protein food samples tested. The samples were drawn from 16 different protein types* destined for U.S. consumers, including seafood, pork, beef, chicken, tofu, and three different plant-based meat alternatives […] suggesting that humans are likely eating microplastics no matter the source of protein they choose.
OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material Related: Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem
Holy shit! I finally figured it out! It took me a long time! When OpenAI filed as a “nonprofit corporation organized exclusively for charitable and/or educational purposes” with an interest in “public benefit” what they meant was that they would ask for (& lobby for) the donations of all intellectual property from all humans, everywhere. Brilliant!
asml’s market value has quadrupled in the past five years , to €260bn ($285bn), making it Europe’s most valuable technology firm [asml is a manufacturer of chipmaking tools] […] At the end of 2023 asml’s operating margin exceeded 34%, staggering for a hardware business and more than that of Apple […] asml holds a monopoly on a key link in the world’s most critical supply chain: without its kit it is next to impossible to make cutting-edge computer processors, such as those that go into smartphones and data centres where artificial intelligence (ai) is trained. With global semiconductor sales forecast to double to $1.3trn by 2032, every big country and every big chipmaker wants asml’s gear.
THE TRUE STORY OF THE ATTACK OF THE NAKED SHORT SELLERS
every day the same again |
January 12th, 2024
An attorney for Musk, Alex Spiro, said that Musk is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test.” […] imagine being the SpaceX employee in charge of randomly drug testing Elon Musk. Tiptoe into Musk’s office after his night out not getting into Berghain and say “hey Mr. Musk it’s time for your random drug test, here’s a cup.” What if he says no? What if he hands you back the cup and it is just full of cocaine? What are you going to do about it? You work for him and he is not, like, a chill and understanding guy. Spiro’s non-denial comes from this Wall Street Journal story about how Elon Musk “has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms,” as well as using ketamine recreationally, that “his drug use is ongoing, especially his consumption of ketamine,” that people close to him “are concerned it could cause a health crisis,” and that “illegal drug use would likely be a violation of federal policies that could jeopardize SpaceX’s billions of dollars in government contracts.”
A mere 700 IT jobs were added in the US last year compared to 267,000 the year prior
2,778 researchers who had published in top-tier artificial intelligence (AI) venues gave predictions on the pace of AI progress […] The aggregate forecasts give at least a 50% chance of AI systems achieving several milestones by 2028, including autonomously constructing a payment processing site from scratch, creating a song indistinguishable from a new song by a popular musician, and autonomously downloading and fine-tuning a large language model. If science continues undisrupted, the chance of unaided machines outperforming humans in every possible task was estimated at 10% by 2027, and 50% by 2047. […] the chance of all human occupations becoming fully automatable was forecast to reach 10% by 2037, and 50% as late as 2116.
every day the same again |
January 8th, 2024
one of the mobile phones that had been sucked out of the Boeing Co. 737 Max 9 jet’s cabin remained in functioning condition after a 16,000-foot tumble, according to a post on X
OpenAI lobbying for copyright law revision in the UK More: In a submission to the House of Lords communications and digital select committee, OpenAI said it could not train large language models such as its GPT-4 model - the technology behind ChatGPT - without access to copyrighted work.
The New York Times Launches a Very Strong Case Against Microsoft and OpenAI [NYT Complaint]
Stanford scientists boost hypnotizability with transcranial magnetic brain stimulation — Around two-thirds of adults show some level of hypnotizability, with about 15% being highly responsive. These high responders can achieve remarkable feats like undergoing surgeries without anesthesia solely under hypnosis.
Just How Healthy Is Salmon? Salmon packs more DHA and EPA omega-3s than almost any other food, apart from other fatty fish such as herring and sardines. […] Research suggests these fatty acids reduce arterial stiffness, which is associated with high blood pressure, and they may also have anti-inflammatory effects that could be protective against obesity and Type-2 diabetes. omega-3s are essential to early life brain development, and emerging evidence suggests that consuming them regularly may guard against age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. […] “The main finding of our work was that there’s not much difference between wild and farmed” […] Farmed Atlantic salmon, for example, tended to have lower mercury levels than wild-caught varieties. However , all the samples contained levels of mercury far below international safety standards. “Even if you ate salmon every day, mercury is not something you should be concerned about” […] Research has found that salmon, whether wild or farmed, does not contain harmful levels of these toxins. That’s partly because it doesn’t live long enough to absorb a lot of them.
Card game rules
How many times must you fold a paper to reach the Moon?
One year ago we flooded a forest (video)
every day the same again |
January 8th, 2024
Individuals with increased pain sensitivity were found to be more likely to support and even vote for politicians from the opposing political camp.
a new study says that contact with cigarette smoke, even if it’s on your clothes after coming from a smoky environment, can damage your dog’s health as well.
Examination of more recent IQ data indicate that IQ of university students and university graduates dropped to the average of the general population. Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s.
people throughout human history and across diverse societies have seldom invoked “chance” – a concept that has gained significant importance in contemporary, modern societies – as an explanation
The issue with multi-tasking at a brain level, is that two tasks performed at the same time often compete for common neural pathways – like two intersecting streams of traffic on a road. […] Generally, the more skilled you are on a primary motor task, the better able you are to juggle another task at the same time. Skilled surgeons, for example, can multitask more effectively than residents […] When walking, it takes much longer to complete a path if it also involves cognitive effort along the way.
Cybersecurity guru Mikko Hyppönen’s 5 biggest AI threats for 2024 — “With Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and Midjourney you can just generate unlimited amounts of completely plausible Airbnbs which no one will be able to find.” […] AI is already writing malware. Hyppönen’s team has discovered three worms that launch LLMs to rewrite code every time the malware replicates. None have been found in real networks yet, but they’ve been published in GitHub — and they work. […] Another emerging concern involves zero-day exploits, which are discovered by attackers before developers have created a solution to the problem. AI can detect these threats — but it can also create them.
sacred sexuality, grimoires, legendary creatures, and more sacred texts
every day the same again |
January 6th, 2024
