Second World Countries, AI Boyfriends, Where Coca-Cola Tastes Best, etc.

In which I'm no longer sure how competent I am, but I still try my best.

🍹 In 1912, this cocktail showed your political affiliation, depending on how you drank it. “Bartenders cut a lemon peel into a shape like the distinctive Rough Rider hat Roosevelt had worn during the Spanish–American War of 1898 and tossed it into the glass—the ‘ring’—with a flourish. How drinkers responded to the lemon revealed their politics.”

🥚 Scientists have discovered a 1,700 year-old egg, completely intact, “‘blown away’ to find it still contained the yolk and egg white.”

🌏 If there are first world countries, and third world countries, where are the second world countries?

🙄 Do the incompetent believe they aren’t? Of course. “When surveyed, eighty to ninety percent of Americans consider themselves possessed of above-average driving skills. Most of them are, of course, wrong by statistical definition, but the result itself reveals something important about human nature.”

👩‍💻 Some women in China are suggesting their AI boyfriends are better than the real thing. “While romantic chatbots are nothing new, they seem to be operating on a different playing field in China. There, massive tech companies like Baidu (which owns the Chinese answer to Google) and Tencent (which has major stakes in the US gaming companies Riot and Epic) are putting out their own flirty chatbots — a very different ballgame from, say, X, Meta, or even OpenAI, which all seem to be weakly opposed to using their tech for ersatz lovers.”

🎸 40 Fingers are a four-piece band that split vocal, percussion, bass and melody parts on their four guitars. Their Michael Jackson medley is quite something.

🎥 A live action/cartoon hybrid (think Space Jam), Coyote V. Acme, is finished, but apparently will never see the light of day, instead being shelved for tax purposes. “WBD has reportedly decided to shelve the live action–Looney Tunes mash-up. It might be good business—but it’s also a reminder of the impermanence of art in the streaming era.” Unless there is something I am missing, if it’s being paid for by taxpayers, seems like it should be considered public domain. I really hope to see it someday, it sounded great.

🥤 I have heard people say that Coca-Cola tastes better from McDonald’s. While that may sound nonsensical (Coke is Coke), there are rational arguments for the case: stainless steel tanks instead of the typical syrup bags, state of the art water filtration, and even wider straws that you are accustomed to apparently make the difference.

🎧 Taylor Swift accounts for 1 in every 78 streams in the United States.

📺 Ten years ago Jimmy Fallon went from Late Night to The Tonight Show, which is really more a timeslot change in late night world than anything. To close out Late Night, he did a shot-by-shot remake of The Band’s performance in The Last Waltz… with Muppets.

🌩️ How’s the weather… app? There’s a consensus that Apple’s is unreliable. “Apple’s weather app, and weather apps in general, work by using algorithms to interpret data — weather models, location, current observations — culled from various sources. Other experts I spoke to said apps don’t disclose what data they’re using nor how frequently they source the data, which can lead to imprecise readings.”

♟️ Google’s chess experiments reveal how to boost the power of AI.

🏋️ Is the brain hardwired to avoid strenuous exercise? “While physical exercise isn’t that bad, it’s still typically unpleasant, and uncomfortable. It has to be; you’re pushing your body to its physical limits, which leads to significant discomfort – they’re limits for a reason. The human brain is highly sensitive to wasted effort. Studies have shown that they contain dedicated circuits, within the insula cortex, that calculate the effort required for actions – they're there to ask ‘Is it worth it?’ It’s an evolved tendency to stop us from squandering vital resources on pointless endeavors, like walking 20 miles for a handful of berries.”

But don’t let that stop you from going to the gym! Read on:

“Human brains can form multiple long-term goals and ambitions. We’re rarely content with just day-to-day survival: we can simulate a desirable future scenario, figure out how we’d achieve it, and… do just that. Or at least work toward it.”

✌️ Remember to keep the Hoping Machine running.

Love,

Luke