Reading

I used AI to make a video that sucks. It is bad. It is boring. But I made it in under an hour. And now it is my entire personality.

To some, my AI-made video that sucks is only that: a video that sucks. A two-minute-long, barely coherent amalgam of regurgitated stock photo tropes used to promote my private business coaching sessions, populated with the kind of really hot women you can only find when you prompt a planet-frying neural computer with the words “really hot women.” The lip-sync is off. The voices are wooden. The breasts are turgid and spine-deforming.

But to me, my video that sucks is a revelation. It is my burning bush. My bodhi tree. It has delivered unto me two pieces of sacred knowledge:

First, videos that suck are the future. If I could make a video that sucks this much in one hour, imagine how hard I could make something suck in two hours, or even three. Through simple extrapolation, it becomes apparent that the amount of suck is bounded only by how many hours I can devote to it when I am not promoting my private business coaching sessions.

My production company, Knuckle Sandwich LLC, is officially suspending active search operations for the most gangster enchilada in the Albuquerque and larger Bernalillo County area.

Initially, our search was a small film crew conducting a half-day television segment. It was meant to be lighthearted and normal, with a funkalicious twist. Around the four-hour mark, we were off the chain and descending into a financial and existential disaster. Albuquerque Police Department, in coordination with the New Mexico Department of Public Safety and the New Mexico National Guard, conducted a thorough and extensive search of Bernalillo County drive-ins, dives, holes, spots, hideouts, and stops. Our civilian volunteer search party performed two days’ worth of city searches. Upon their refusal to continue, Knuckle Sandwich LLC held what was not originally called a draft, but upon further reflection, was a draft. In conjunction with the Albuquerque mayor’s office, a reverse curfew was put in place: No one was to return home until the most gangster enchilada was found.

What does hope mean when your city is flattened and everyone you know is slowly starving?

The post Will Gaza Ever Know a Real Ceasefire, or Just a Pause Before the Next Bomb? appeared first on The Intercept.

It was a massive escalation that angered China — and there was no congressional debate, no televised announcement, and no vote.

The post The Philippine Missile Crisis: U.S. Deployed Arms to the Philippines and No One Noticed But China appeared first on The Intercept.

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

Researchers studied the effect of slow breathing on people’s brain activity while they experienced anticipatory anxiety

- by Christian Jarrett

Read on Psyche

Knowing the psychology behind why moments drag or whizz by can give you a degree of control over your experience of time

- by Martin Wiener

Read on Psyche

How we behave in the urban wilds has changed

The post Pedestrians Are Walking Faster appeared first on Nautilus.

And they could help some creatures adjust to changing climates

The post These “Junk” Proteins May Fuel Adaptation appeared first on Nautilus.

A pending VA rule appears designed to strip crucial health care from hundreds of thousands of veterans in states with abortion bans.

The post Trump Prepares to Revoke Lifesaving Abortion Care for Veterans appeared first on The Intercept.