Are you happy now?
Assuming you’re reading this issue right away, it’s the post-Christmas lull. The strange gap between Christmas and New Year leaves no one quite sure what to do with themselves (unless you’re an avid shopper, in which case the January sales are all you can afford).
Anyway, Feedback recently learned something new about Christmas. This short story is provided by freelance writer Michael Marshall. He wrote a story about research into whether children behave better in the run-up to Christmas. If you haven’t read it, the short answer is “no, it hasn’t.” Parents, I want you to take a moment to mourn the fact that one of the best means of getting your little blight into action is doing literally nothing. We found that data showed that some types of behavior improved when children were exposed to many Christmas rituals, such as building a tree and singing carols, and that these rituals made children more friendly and cooperative. Shall we try some more? But we shouldn’t expect miraculous changes.
But that wasn’t new. We know that Michael had to leave something out of the story because he was running out of space. So, since it’s the post-Christmas period, let’s eat some leftovers.
Studies have shown that parents become more stressed as Christmas approaches. During the preparations, they would worry that it would be a disaster, that an important gift would not show up, that Grandpa Ted would get drunk and get seriously injured at the dinner table. The situation got worse during Christmas week. Maybe it’s because they prepared so hard that they couldn’t relax and enjoy it.
Apparently, it is common for people to only see positive experiences after the main ritual is over. The same goes for weddings, which, looking back, they say are the happiest days of their lives, but when asked on the day, they say they were so nervous they felt like throwing up. Feedback and Mrs Feedback can both attest that their wedding day was like that (Feedback enhanced by bacon and egg sandwiches and stiff whiskey eaten in the bathtub).
It’s strangely human to do something you really hate in preparation or while it’s going on, and then later declare it the best thing you’ve ever done. Feedback isn’t sure what to make of this, but this morning we found Feedback’s cats sleeping peacefully in a warm spot around the house, and we thought they might be smarter than us.
fake imposter syndrome
Not very smart, I say, and Feedback starts a new repeating segment. We call this “Generative AI Says the Stupidest Things.” We suspect that this will be an infinite well of material on a par with nominal determinism, and we hereby invite reader submissions to our general address.
To kick things off, an anonymous neuroscience blogger neuroskeptic I recently noticed something strange about the ‘AI overview’ that appears at the top of Google searches. For readers unfamiliar with Neuroskeptic, they have written about the limitations of functional brain imaging (especially when it is over-interpreted as “revealing how people think”) and bad scientific publishing practices.
Patients with neuroskepticism amazed For an AI overview explaining “Kylo Ren Syndrome,” it is “a disease caused by mutations in mitochondrial DNA that is often passed from force-sensitive women to their children.” This is immediately nonsense. Kylo Ren is the game’s villain. star wars The sequel trilogy and ‘Force-sensitive’ people only exist in fiction. star wars universe.
But it’s actually worse than that. A neuroskeptic invented Kylo Ren Syndrome in 2017. sting We expose predatory scientific journals that don’t properly review research. they wrote fake paper full full star wars References prepared by Lucas McGeorge and Annette Kin were submitted to nine journals. three of them published it and another accepted it but did not publish it because Neuroskeptic refused to pay the $360 fee.
Google’s generative AI appears to have not fully grasped the concept of ‘context’.
rapid earthquake
It is disappointing to hear feedback that Taylor Swift’s Worldwide Eras Tour has ended. This is partly because we didn’t get to go. Because they failed to leverage their understanding of probability and only registered interest in one concert, their chances of getting to the top of the ballot were severely limited. Perhaps feedback isn’t as clever as generative AI.
But the concert was also so large that it created a perceptible seismic event. Last June, geophysicists at University College London installed nine facilities. seismograph We recorded the tremors near Wembley Stadium in London. love story It caused the biggest earthquake. Although the magnitude was very small at 0.8, the following results were relevant: Shake it.
Now that Taylor is back home working on another surprise album, Feedback is looking forward to the earth-moving action sparked by another tour. We can’t help but suspect that the upcoming Oasis reunion tour will be worth a seismograph or two. If only we could detect the exact moment when Liam Gallagher gets angry, stomps off stage and never returns.
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