This week's recommended links: a giant 1000-year-old turd, the mystery of the letter H, don't accept candy from strangers, and the four waves of artificial intelligence that will hit society, among many other things that can fry your brain. Links are always a better plan than going outside or interacting with real humans.
This giant human turd is the largest and oldest ever found (and it belongs to one man): "The scientific value of this poop lies in the improbable possibility that something like this will be seen on Earth again, that is, intact and 1,000 years old. Researchers say that finding large deposits of biodegraded human waste is not unusual, but it is usually only found in large masses, such as at the bottom of latrine pits, and archaeologists can only draw general conclusions about the people who used them."
Why in Germany people leave work to play video games in which they have to work: "Anyone can buy these games today for PC (by the way, you have 'Euro Truck Simulator 2' on Steam at 75% off), and in fact doing a quick search on YouTube I am surprised by the amount of videos I found about it. It is true that most of them focus on the ridiculousness of the video game itself, but despite how absurd it may seem to us to play a street-cleaning simulator, these games keep appearing out of nowhere. The obvious conclusion is that there is indeed a group of people who buys and enjoys them."
Indiana Jones and the best movie never made: "The script of The Fate Of Atlantis was undoubtedly approached with the feigned idea of building the fourth film in the saga. Only that explains the solidity of an adventure that offers such a passionate legend, such an implacable course of events, and such a thrilling adventure as any of its cinematic predecessors. In fact, the magnitude of the McGuffin is greater than the Ark of the Covenant and the Sankara stones, closer to the importance of the Holy Grail, though without the symbolism implicit in it."
The mystery of the letter H: why does it exist if it doesn't make a sound?: "The difficulty of the H is that it is the only mute letter in the Spanish alphabet, the only one that has no sound at all. It is only pronounced when preceded by C, forming the CH sound. But when it goes alone, orphaned of C, it is as if it did not exist. The problem is that in Spanish there are more than 2,000 words that begin with that letter H, which goes unnoticed because it cannot be heard. And, to make it worse, H can also appear in the middle of words like zanahoria, adhesivo, tahúr, or bahía. The absolutely legitimate question that arises is: if it doesn't sound, why the hell does H exist? Is it a useless letter that is there only to complicate our lives?"
The kidnapping of a child in 1874 that gave rise to the warning 'Don't accept candy from strangers': "We have all heard the warning given to the little ones that says 'Don't accept candy from a stranger'. Obviously, any of us could deduce that this warning is made to advise children of the danger of accepting any kind of sweets from people they don't know, since these can hide the identity of a sexual predator, kidnapper, or killer (if not all three at once). But this type of warning did not come out of nowhere, and behind its origin, which dates back almost a century and a half, lies the distressing story of the kidnapping of a small child in Philadelphia."
The embarrassing human zoos of the colonial era: "In 2012, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, an institution dedicated to ethnology and anthropology, organized an exhibition titled Exhibitions. L'invention du sauvage, which, through photos, posters, films, and postcards, and driven by the former French national team footballer Lilian Thuram, reminded the public of the embarrassing existence until very little time before of unheard-of zoos that exhibited human beings instead of wild animals. It was not a performance but a grotesque concept of science that, by cataloging African natives as intellectually and socially inferior, considered it normal to show them in such places for the public's curiosity. The last one was held in 1958, in the context of the Brussels General Exhibition, although cases still persist today, such as the Augsburg Zoo, which in 2007 inaugurated an African village in its facilities."
How the death penalty works in Japan, the country that tests the prisoner's sanity until the day of execution: "In Japan, according to its laws, the death penalty must be carried out within six months after the prisoner's final appeal, by order of the Minister of Justice. However, the period requesting a new trial or a pardon is exempt from this regulation. Thus, a kind of vacuum occurs in practice. Prisoners usually spend between five and seven years on death row, although a quarter of prisoners have been on death row for more than ten years. For some, the stay has lasted more than 30 years."
Why do we sometimes feel relief and joy when we cancel a plan?: "Even in the case that we really want to meet someone in person, on many occasions, when we cancel the plan, we feel relief or joy. One reason is that, in general, we have busy schedules, and it is always satisfying to have a few free hours that we had already assigned. Another reason could be that, in a way, we are all social slackers: until we are at the meeting or date, from the comfort of the couch, everything seems like a big deal. But there are more reasons fostered by online relationships."
The gigantic machine buried in a German city that studies the most insignificant particle in the universe: "As big as a whale, the device is actually one of the largest vacuum chambers in the world. It was built to solve a single, very elusive answer: discovering the mass of one of the least significant entities in the universe, the neutrino. If we consider that the universe contains more of these subatomic particles than any other type of particle, that the Sun hurls billions of neutrinos into space per minute, or that billions were left scattered through space after the Big Bang, one might think that finding out their weight shouldn't be so difficult."
This is what fruit looked like before selective breeding according to historical paintings: "Since 8500 BC, man has been devoted to cultivating his own food. It was in the Middle East where the first hunter-gatherers began to become producers in order to better manage their pantries and not depend on their transhumance to survive. Since then, man has tried to improve the quality of his crops through trial and error and by pushing natural evolution to improve the productive efficiency of his settlements. The first farmers saved the seeds of the largest fruits and got rid of the less tasty ones to ensure an optimal harvest the following season. Until today."
The influence of climate on the cultural behaviors of humanity: "Throughout Earth's history, there have been climate changes that have resulted in significant variation in landscape and living conditions. Cycle changes in sunspots, variation in the magnetic axis, large earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. All of them are natural in nature, although some have been produced by phenomena external to the dynamics of nature, such as meteorite impacts, in some cases with catastrophic consequences, or the current climate change, which is accelerating a foreseeable change in the climatological cycle, with unpredictable consequences. All these climate changes have marked life on Earth for both animal species and humanity. Which leads us to ask: How does climate affect our daily lives, our needs?"
The four waves of artificial intelligence that will hit society: "Lee identified four waves of artificial intelligence, distinct but not sequential. The first is being driven by the availability of large amounts of labeled data. Large internet companies, both in China and the US, have already taken advantage of this to gain an edge in building their businesses and consolidating their experience in artificial intelligence. The second wave, the most relevant for the labor revolution Lee anticipates, relies on the availability of data from companies themselves, especially in industries such as law and accounting."
VIDEOS: Invasion of locusts, super spicy ramen noodles, kitten smells another cat and goes crazy with hate, Papoman - No fumes mas, automaton that blows bubbles, San Francisco in 1906, self-portrait looking in the mirror, Mario Kart in real life, I'm not sure you want to see this, William Shatner - "Garbageman", fish eats fish, the largest mermaid in the world, super realistic augmented reality car, sharks attack submarine, the horror car wash and the shorts Lunatique, Lucas la araña, Here’s the plan, I Am Here, and many other great animated shorts
GALLERIES: Eroticism in the Soviet countryside, underground rock formations, strange inventions, flower sellers in India, Japan's demon festival, China's fish farms, 80s kids' rooms, the 1939 New York Fair, dark surreal art, finalists of the funniest nature photos, unintentionally ironic posters, the art of Evelyn Bencicova, photorealistic pencil-drawn art, and the first Visual Dump of the Week from NeoTeo.
That's all, folks! See you next week!
