Someone call nine-wine-wine

September 29, 2024

Someone call nine-wine-wine: A 79-year-old woman hiking alone took a bad fall and broke her leg. She was at High Rock Lookout in Washington, where she scattered her mother’s ashes 23 years ago. A passing U.S. airman carried her on his back all the way to safety. What a guy! If you hike solo, please bring a phone that can text via satellite or carry a Spot satellite GPS messenger.

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Tags: mother, phone

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Brace yourself: Superintelligent AI is on its way

Let me tell you a little about Sam Altman, one of the leading figures pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence. He’s 39, from Chicago and worth about $1 billion, give or take. He dropped out of Stanford after two years to start Loopt, a location-based social media app that sold for $43.4 million in 2005.

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I wasted 36 hours trying to do it myself

So many of the calls, emails, messages and DMs I get are about privacy and security. I can’t remember the last time I had a full day where no one asked me some version of “How do I get all this info about me off the internet?”

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1,000-year-old seed

Grew into a 10-foot tree with biblical significance. It took 14 years, but scientists grew a once-extinct plant. It appears to be the one that produced a medical extract called “tsori” that was referred to in the book of Genesis and Old Testament accounts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

740 million children

Will be nearsighted by 2050. Blame less time spent outside and more screen time for youngsters. An estimated four in 10 kids will need prescription glasses. Girls are more likely than boys to develop myopia (the fancy name for objects far away looking blurry).

$350,000 stolen

By a five-person scam ring pretending to be Brad Pitt. Authorities in Spain say the group faces fraud and money laundering charges after conning two women. One sent nearly $200,000! PSA: The real Brad Pitt isn’t on social media.

3,600-year-old cheese

Found buried with Bronze Age mummies in northwestern China. It took researchers a decade of DNA analysis to determine the substance was, in fact, the world’s oldest cheese. Un-brie-lievable.

Every 13 miles

How often Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode requires human intervention. In a 1,000-mile test, drivers had to intervene to prevent dangerous behavior more than 75 times. The good: Self-driving mode brakes for pedestrians and lets oncoming cars through. The bad: It also runs red lights and drives into oncoming traffic. Just say no.

18 years

Paying the neighbor’s electricity bill. A guy in Vacaville, California, has lived alone in the same apartment complex since 2006. The entire time, he wondered why the heck his power bill was so high. Turns out he was paying for the apartment next door, too. What a dope.

1,500 miles traveled

To return a kid’s beloved stuffed animal. A Texas woman took to Facebook after her 9-year-old left his stuffed gorilla at a California hotel. A stranger saw the post, went an hour out of her way to pick it up, then documented the gorilla’s journey home. Absolutely watch this if you need a smile!

38,366,479 people

Playing on gaming platform Steam at once, a new record. What’s popular right now? Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG, Final Fantasy 16 and Banana, among others. Banana is, I kid you not, just clicking on a JPEG of a banana. I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.