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Coolness qualified
Science can now identify traits that make someone cool.
A new study suggests that there are six specific traits that these people tend to have in common: Cool people are largely perceived to be extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous.
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Acid tripping with ChatGPT
People are using AI to ‘sit’ with them while they trip on psychedelics.
Peter—who asked to have his last name omitted from this story for privacy reasons—is far from alone. A growing number of people are using AI chatbots as “trip sitters”—a phrase that traditionally refers to a sober person tasked with monitoring someone who’s under the influence of a psychedelic—and sharing their experiences online. It’s a potent blend of two cultural trends: using AI for therapy and using psychedelics to alleviate mental-health problems. But this is a potentially dangerous psychological cocktail, according to experts. While it’s far cheaper than in-person psychedelic therapy, it can go badly awry.
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Cassette players roll back into popularity
While I don’t think they ever truly went away, cassette players are making a comeback of sorts with a thriving underground and indie tape scene. Maxell is making a new one with bluetooth and USB-C.
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USA brain drain coming soon
- Europe has invested nearly a billion dollars in attracting top US scientific talent, including special additional funding for researchers to move their labs/research programs overseas.
- Individual European nations, such as France, have developed special programs to bring in displaced Americans.
- Japan has built a fund of ¥100 billion to attract researchers from abroad, with the Kavli Institute for Physics and Mathematics of the Universe offering additional special postdoctoral positions for displaced scientists.
- Other countries, such as Canada and Australia, are also working to attract displaced American scientists.
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The Way of Code by Rick Rubin
I’m not sure if this is sincere or satire: The Way of Code by Rick Rubin, inspired by Lao Tzu. It contains 81 koans about programming, each accompanied by a AI generated gif.
The artwork above was created by vibe coding, generated based on the themes of each chapter. You can add prompts to change the images to your liking. You ultimately get to shape each of the art pieces.
This is how art creation always happens.
It starts with a prompt, a seed. It can be several sentences or something you notice on a walk. Anything can work as a first prompt. Only you can decide that.
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The DC pizza tracker
Domino’s has their fancy pizza tracker, allowing you to see where your order is in the process. In Washington D.C., pizzeria’s can track national security when the Pentagon orders large quantities of pizzas, especially outside of regular times.
On Saturday, June 21, at 7:13 p.m. EST – shortly before President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social of the U.S. bunker-buster attack, Pentagon Pizza Report tracked a “HIGH activity [of sales] at the closest Papa Johns to the Pentagon.”
@PenPizzaReport’s account is dedicated to “open-source tracking of pizza spot activity around the Pentagon (and other places).” The X handle went live last August — months before the 2024 election — and it already has over 203,000 followers.
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This band doesn’t exist
Velvet Sundown, a band with 350,000 monthly listeners, most likely doesn’t exist–a growing phenomenon enabled by AI.
Though they’re not yet dominating the charts, disturbingly realistic AI songs are slowly but surely creeping into our headphones – and you may even be listening to them without realizing what you’re hearing. Smuggled into popular playlists and hidden in plain sight among authentic, well-known tracks, AI-generated artists with fake photos, ChatGPT-generated biographies and no genuine fans to speak of are picking up hundreds of thousands of streams.
One such artist is The Velvet Sundown, a band with almost 350,000 monthly Spotify listeners but no discernible online presence or social media accounts. (“There’s not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed,” as one Redditor put it.) While we can’t confirm that the band’s music is AI-generated, a glance at their artist image and bio should be enough to persuade even the least skeptical observer.
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Breakfast in America covered by The Graystones
Originally performed by Supertramp, The Graystones–comprised of pre-teens–knock it out of the park.
