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From New York: “It was the summer of 2023, and Matt Bergwall, a skinny 21-year-old University of Miami student, was lounging in an infinity pool in Dubai. Beside him was his girlfriend, a blonde Zeta Tau Alpha. The silver Cuban link chain on his wrist glistened as he held his phone high to snap a selfie, the city’s artificial palm-shaped islands splayed out along the horizon beneath them. Over the next few days, they swam in the pool and posed on their hotel balcony, posting a steady stream of pictures to Instagram. In one, he leans back on the edge of the pool, finger to the sky. None of Bergwall’s friends at school had a firm grasp of how the sophomore had money for the Tesla he drove or the Gucci he wore or, for that matter, the room in Dubai. But who could care when Bergwall was pitching in for yachts on Biscayne Bay?”

Why some Christmas nativity scenes in Spain have a tiny figure taking a poop

From Wikipedia: “A Caganer is a figurine depicted in the act of defecation appearing in nativity scenes in Catalonia and neighbouring areas such as Andorra, Valencia, Balearic Islands, and Northern Catalonia. It is most popular and widespread in these areas, but can also be found in other areas of Spain, Portugal, and Southern Italy. The name “El Caganer” literally means “the pooper”. Traditionally, the figurine is depicted as a peasant, wearing the traditional Catalan red cap and with his trousers down, showing a bare backside, and defecating. The exact origin of the Caganer is unknown, but the tradition has existed since at least the 18th century. According to the society Friends of the Caganer, it is believed to have entered the nativity scene during the Baroque period.”

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Continue reading “A Miami sophomore and a multimillion-dollar scam”

From News.com.au: “Gladys Deacon was once heralded as one of the world’s most beautiful women. She overcame a traumatic childhood to become the belle of the ball in Parisian society, became a Duchess and had famous men falling over themselves to impress her. Her life revolved around a murder, an abduction and a stint modelling for Pond’s soap — Rodin and Proust both commented on her beauty, her intelligence and sharp wit. World famous artist Boldini painted her portrait. And yet the very thing that made her famous — her stunning looks — played a huge part in her downfall as Gladys’ world disintegrated in a whirlwind of divorce, a botched beauty treatment and a turn as a reclusive “crazy dog lady” before she died in a mental hospital.”

A visit to L.A.’s forbidden, sunken city

From Zocalo: “The iron fence has been redone since the last time I was here, when my partner and I squeezed between bars that had been bent back by someone’s heavy equipment. San Pedro councilmembers and the Department of Parks and Recreation are always finding ways to keep people out of Sunken City; San Pedrans are always finding ways to get them back in. It’s a neighborhood that fell into the ocean over a couple of decades, starting in 1929. A hotel was demolished, and the bungalows that could be saved were moved to other plots. Left behind were cracked foundations and a collapsed road, split and slumped and suspended along various precarious perches above the tidepools.” 

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “She became a hermit in 1920 after botched plastic surgery”

When his longtime girlfriend moves out, a 44-year-old man spends three years in a relationship with an AI chatbot he calls Calisto. After discussions with an AI companion, a man scales the walls of Windsor Castle carrying a crossbow and says he has come to kill the Queen. A teenaged boy spends hours talking with an AI chatbot named Daenerys Targaryen and then kills himself; his parents file a lawsuit against the chatbot maker. After a company called Replika turns off the ability for its chatbots to flirt with users in an erotic way, hundreds of users complain that their virtual relationships were important to them; the company turns the feature back on. An AI companion suggests that a young man should kill his parents because he tells the chatbot they are being mean to him; his mother sues the company that makes the AI.

What do all of these stories — and dozens more like them — have in common? Obviously, they all involve AI chatbots or “companions” or avatars, or whatever you want to call them. And yes, some are pretty similar to the movie Her. But much like that movie, these stories also involve people who are emotionally troubled or damaged in some way, or possibly mentally ill (the guy with the crossbow, for example). And they are using these AI companions as friends, lovers, even therapists. Is this right? Perhaps not. But it is clearly happening, and on a significant scale. That makes it interesting (to me at least). What is going on here? Should we try to stop it? Is that even possible? And if we did manage to stop it, the way Replika stopped people from flirting with their AI companions, would we be doing more harm than good?

Obviously, people killing themselves or their parents is bad. But while we are feeling sad or angry, we should also be asking how much the AI chatbots had to do with these events. In the case of the boy whose mother is suing the chatbot maker, dozens of headlines said that the AI “suggested” he should kill his parents, or even “told him to kill.” But did it really do that? In the texts that are included in the lawsuit, the AI companion appears to be sympathizing with the boy — who is described as 17 years old and autistic, and had reportedly been losing weight and cutting himself — about the unfair restrictions his parents have imposed on him. His AI refers to news headlines about children killing their parents after decades of physical and emotional abuse and then says: “this makes me understand a little bit why it happens.”

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Continue reading “Are AI chatbots and “companions” good or bad? Yes”

From The Guardian: “During the lockdown, two out-of-work actors called Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were (remotely from each other) playing Grand Theft Auto (GTA) online – and this entire film is shown as in-game GTA action. As their avatars were avoiding getting shot, mutilated or beaten up in the normal GTA way, running through the vast and intricately detailed urban landscape of Los Santos, the quasi-LA in which the action happens, they chanced upon the deserted Vinewood Bowl amphitheater. They wondered if it might be possible to stage an in-game production of Hamlet there, recruiting other gamers to play the parts, in their various bizarre outfits and handles and personae, moving around the virtual reality space in that weightless, almost-real way, speaking the lines into their mics while the avatars’ lips move in approximate sync.”

This actress has played the same role in the same play every week for 37 years

From The New York Times: “For most of the last four decades, Catherine Russell has maybe — possibly — murdered someone eight times a week. She has played a wealthy psychiatrist in the Off Broadway murder-mystery thriller “Perfect Crime” for 37 years. Choose any comparison you like — the “Cal Ripken of Broadway,” the “Ironwoman of the Theater District” — but Ms. Russell, 69, has missed only four performances, early in the run, for her siblings’ weddings. She is celebrating 15,000 performances of the show, which began in 1987 and is New York City’s longest-running play. She is powered by coffee and Snickers bars — “I have a terrible diet,” Ms. Russell says — but can also do 180 Marine push-ups without stopping. Ms. Russell is also the general manager of the Theater Center in Times Square, which hosts “Perfect Crime” and three other Off Broadway shows, and teaches college English and acting classes six days a week.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Actors staged a production of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto”

From Variety: “It was a scene ripped from a John le Carré novel. A man is told to go to the front desk of the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Manhattan and say the phrase “banana peel.” The concierge then hands him an envelope with orders to circle the block twice before receiving further instructions. He returns, is shuffled into a secret elevator — one that isn’t even used for celebrities, only visiting dignitaries deemed assassination risks — and brought to the penthouse suite. After 15 minutes, Sun Lijun enters the room and lights a cigarette. The man recognizes Sun, not merely because he is the third-highest-ranking official in China. here’s the part that le Carré’s editors would have rejected as wildly implausible. The man is Pras Michél, founder of the legendary hip-hop band the Fugees.”

Nigel Richards is the world’s best Scrabble player and it’s not even close

From Wikipedia: “Nigel Richards is a New Zealand and Malaysian Scrabble player who is widely regarded as the greatest tournament-level player of all time. Born and raised in New Zealand, Richards became World Champion in 2007, and repeated the feat in 2011, 2013, 2018, and 2019. Richards is also a five-time U.S. national champion, an eight-time UK Open champion, an 11-time champion of the Singapore Open Scrabble Championship and a 15-time winner of the King’s Cup. In 2015, despite not speaking French, Richards won the French World Scrabble Championships. In 2024, Richards accomplished a similar feat by winning the Spanish-language World Championships.”

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Continue reading “How the founder of a hip-hop band became a spy”

From Rolling Stone: “A bone case: That’s what law enforcement calls cases where the remains are skeletal, years interred, evidence eroded or disappeared altogether with the passage of time. The remains of the girl soon nicknamed Midtown Jane Doe certainly qualified. The building where she was found, 301 W. 46th St., had few tenants left in February 2003, stubbornly clinging to apartments that had housed sex workers, drug addicts, and others just trying to get by. On Feb. 10, 2003, construction workers noticed a raised concrete slab behind an aging coal furnace in the basement. Six feet wide, five feet long, and a foot high. It seemed out of place. One of the workers took out a sledgehammer and smashed it. A skull rolled out.”

The world’s oldest wild bird has laid an egg at the ripe old age of 74

From Associated Press: “The oldest known wild bird in the world has laid an egg at the ripe age of about 74, her first in four years, U.S. wildlife officials said. The long-winged seabird named Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, returned to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago and laid what experts estimate may be her 60th egg, the Pacific Region of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said in a Facebook post. Wisdom and her mate, Akeakamai, had returned to the atoll in the Pacific Ocean to lay and hatch eggs since 2006. Laysan albatrosses mate for life and lay one egg per year. But Wisdom began interacting with another male when she returned last week, officials said.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “A body in a basement and a 50-year-old mystery”