A giant step

September 13, 2024

🚀 A giant step: On the morning of Sept. 12, 2024, the Polaris Dawn mission made history. Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and an engineer floated 435 miles above Earth, making them the first private astronauts to complete a spacewalk. Isaacman spent 12 minutes outside the spacecraft, relying on SpaceX’s new spacesuit for oxygen. Here’s the video. It’s incredible.

Tags: billionaire, Earth, history, miles, privacy, SpaceX, video

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Will we merge with AI by 2050?

ChatGPT launched in November 2022. I’ll never forget the thought that hit me after a few minutes of playing around with it: This is going to change every single thing.

Less than two years later, yep, it has. Website traffic is in the tank, Google is panicking and the web as we know it has changed already. Now imagine what’s coming in the next five, 10 or 20 years.

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Scam watch: 3 scams spreading like fire across the U.S.

Scammers are clever, but they’re not very creative. Most of their tricks are recycled versions of tricks that worked in the past. There are a few I’ve seen cropping up again because criminals know they work every time.

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SpaceX performs historic first spacewalk with Polaris Dawn crew

SpaceX pulled off its first spacewalk in the early hours of Thursday morning, Sept. 12. The marquee event of the private Polaris Dawn mission went smoothly, with two of the crew members stepping outside of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, “Resilience.” It’s the first time civilians, rather than government astronauts, have performed a spacewalk.

75% memory boost

For older folks who mixed up their mental exercises. Just like with food, a “diet” of only a couple of things is less effective than a diet with a variety of foods. This study used different exercises for working memory — aka our ability to remember information while performing other tasks.

17% worse

Test results for kids who used AI as a study assistant. Students were split into three groups: One working through practice problems on their own, one using ChatGPT and one in which ChatGPT worked like a tutor. The kids who used AI all scored worse on their exams, likely because they used the bot as a crutch instead of truly learning.

2 years

Time since becoming the Prince of Wales that Prince William began using the Duolingo app to learn Welsh. Makes me wonder why he didn’t learn it before that happened. Bore da! (That’s “Good morning” in Welsh.) Go ahead and try to pronounce this 58-letter Welsh town’s name: lanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch.

$700 PlayStation 5 Pro

Isn’t worth it for most gamers. It’s 75% more expensive than the PS5 was when it launched. What’s the big deal? A larger GPU, advanced ray tracing and AI-driven upscaling. Translation: Sharper images with more detail.

$200,000 machine

For creating diamonds, now listed for sale on Alibaba. The two main methods for making lab-grown diamonds are the HPHT process and chemical vapor deposition. Sadly, it’s not as easy as just shelling out for the machine. Making your own lab-grown diamonds requires a whole lot of money and expertise. Talk about a gem of a job!

2.7 million preorders

For Huawei’s trifold smartphone. The Chinese company’s Mate XT looks pretty dang cool, but just know the FBI called Huawei a threat to national security — basically, “It’s my way or the Huawei!”

10 happiest U.S. states

Are Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Utah, Delaware, Minnesota, Connecticut, Idaho, Nebraska and Massachusetts. WalletHub analyzed states on a 100-point scale. Totally agree with Hawaii! Sorry, but here are the 10 least happy states.