This post was triggered by a story this week by True contributor Alexander Cohen, who properly wrote the slug (story title) in the form of a question:
Explainer
The Pillars of Creation
…and my idea for an art piece to celebrate it.
The Hubble Space Telescope took the first photo of the “Pillars of Creation” (a section of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation about 7,000 light-years away from Earth) in 1995.
Chuck Shepherd: News of the Weird
Chuck Shepherd started “News of the Weird” as a newspaper column in 1988, and was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate in 1989. Similarly, a year after I started I was offered a contract by their biggest competitor, Creators Syndicate, almost certainly as way to compete with the very popular NotW, but I turned it down.
My Interview with an AI Chatbot about… Thinking
What happens when you talk to an artificial intelligence language model about the value of something it can’t actually do? Thinking, I mean.
You Won’t Believe Your Eyes
Or maybe the second word in the title should be “Shouldn’t”!
Phishing Emails: Be Smarter!
“Phishing” is when scammers send you an email that’s trying to trick you into revealing information, or installing malware on your computer or phone. And a lot of you are falling for it.
How do I know?
When Scams Become Deadly
by Paul Myers
©2022 by Paul Myers, excerpted with permission from his Talkbiz News newsletter.
Memorial Day Story
Some years ago I saw this meme posted on social media on Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t make it, but I wanted to know the story behind it. No one who posted it ever said who James was, or who the woman is, so I researched it.
Zero Gravity Bureaucracy: The Real Story
When NASA first started sending astronauts to space, they knew ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.
Biohacking with Hardware 1:
the Apollo Neuro Wearable Band
Last May, I wrote that after going to a meeting on biohacking, I’d have more to say on the “tech stuff” I’ve learned about after I play with it a little. “The theory of operation,” I said, “is really interesting!” It has taken much longer to “play with it” than I had hoped before I came up with my conclusions.
The Best of April Fools:
Earlier Generations Did It Better
A lot of sites and publications will be running crazy stories as true to try to trick you today. Not me.
We Just Need a Little More
What do you need to break out of your rut? You might have a business idea, or something you want to do with your life.
How Not to Call 911: A Real World Example
True contributor Alexander Cohen and I had quite the discussion about the Canadian woman desperately trying to get police help when there was an intruder in her home.
Shades of Gray
A Recent Story brought several questions from readers wanting to know why it referred to a Black guy and a white guy — with those specific capitalizations:
Amazon’s New Robot: Evil Wall-E?
My thoughts on Amazon’s new personal robot …and why I’ll NEVER have one in my home.
Our Dr. Brooks
Sometimes, the Lives of Readers intersect with mine in interesting ways. This is one such story, and it started in 1971 — though I didn’t realize the connection until much more recently.
091: Don’t Die in the Next Five Years
In This Episode: The title — Don’t Die in the Next Five Years — is an unofficial motto of an organization my wife and I joined, and we went to our first conference with them as members last week. They say this because of coming advances in medicine in the next several years, and we got a glimpse into some of those advances, including some things that aren’t even published yet in medical journals, that were mind-blowing. This episode is my first report on what I learned.
Snopsing Snopes
| Claim |
| In August 2021, Snopes’ co-founder and CEO David Mikkelson was revealed to be a serial plagiarizer, sloppily violating copyrights of other publications in an attempt to make the site look extremely proactive in uncovering news. |
| Rating |
 True |
Absurd Amazon-Aided Antics
We start with a story from this week’s column:
The Pulitzer Prize & This is True
When muckraking New York newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, he left a $2 million endowment to Columbia University. To this day, Pulitzer’s name is best known for the resulting Pulitzer Prizes, given each year in multiple categories by the university.
This year, This is True was under consideration for the Prize in three categories.