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Choose Your Own Adventure Books Mapped
The Choose Your Own Adventure books introduced interactive fiction to millions of school children. While fans have shared diagrams of various branching paths in each book, recently, the publisher has republished some of the original books with diagrams.
The last installment of the original “Choose Your Own Adventure” series came out in 1998, but since 2004, Chooseco, founded by one of the series’ original authors, R.A. Montgomery, has been republishing classic volumes, as well as new riffs on the form of interactive fiction that seemed ubiquitous in the 1980s and ’90s. The new editions also carry an additional feature—maps of the hidden structure of each book.
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They’re Made of Meat by Tony Bisson
Tony Bisson with a delightful short story, “They Are Made of Meat.”
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Trump Action Tracker
Informative and depressing: the Trump Action Tracker. Tracks all the actions and orders taken and what they affect.
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Drinking all 102 official IBA cocktails
The International Bartender Association maintains a list of official cocktails, intending to represent different styles and flavors across the world. Adam Aaronson set out on a quest to drink all of them.
A formative moment early in the quest came at Uncle Charlie’s Piano Lounge in Midtown with Ming and Alina. A divey gay bar with no menu? Sounded like a perfect opportunity to check off some drinks! I scanned through my list to find something simple to try and order, went up to a mustachioed bartender, and asked, “could you do a caipirinha?” He replied, “nah, we don’t have cachaça”—a reality check—and I said, “alright, I’ll just do uhhh an Aperol spritz” (one of my old reliables).
After crushing my spritz, I went back to the same bartender. Still determined to check some boxes, I asked for a mint julep. “I’m afraid we don’t have mint,” he laughed, “you fancy boy!” Unwilling to settle for another spritz, I scurried back to Ming and Alina and asked them what to do. Alina suggested, “why don’t you just show him the list and see what he can make?”
So that’s exactly what I did. Back at the bar, I briefly explained my mission to the bartender, handed him my phone, and he scrolled through the list. “Oh, I can do a few of these,” he said, “You’re cool with any of them?” “Yeah, whatever you can make,” I replied. Soon enough, I had a lemon drop martini in hand. (Alina tried mine and then ordered one for herself, but the bartender asked her, “Is that for your friend or you? If it’s for your friend I’ll make him something new!”)
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Ukrainian soldier escapes on e-bike delivered by drone
A wild story, something out of a dystopian war novel: Ukrainian soldier escapes on e-bike delivered by drone
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Aura farming
According to the website Know Your Meme, the expression was popularized in 2024 largely in reference to anime characters and various celebrities. It generally refers to someone who does something repetitive to look cool and build, as Gen Alpha would say, aura.
The phrase, aura farming, has risen in pop culture because of an Indonesian boat racer.
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Subliminal AI messages
Different AI models can send subliminal messages to other models.
Alarming new research suggests that AI models can pick up “subliminal” patterns in training data generated by another AI that can make their behavior unimaginably more dangerous, The Verge reports.
Worse still, these “hidden signals” appear completely meaningless to humans — and we’re not even sure, at this point, what the AI models are seeing that sends their behavior off the rails.
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Niche Internet forums thriving
Delve deep into a hobby, and you will surely come across websites dedicated to those specific interests. Forums, with old school topic and thread organization still thrive. Here is a great listing of forum communities that are still active.
