Presumably, most people want to improve their morality because this would benefit others, but is this in fact their primary motivation? The strongest predictor of moral motivation was the extent to which people believed that making the change would have positive consequences for their own well-being.
Meta’s New Headset Will Track Your Eyes for Targeted Ads
How to Run Surveys: A Guide to Creating Your Own Identifying Variation and Revealing the Invisible [PDF]
Ethereum's big 'merge' is causing big headaches -- Aside from the problem with miners, the new system, known as "proof of stake", has several issues baked in. Anyone willing to stake a large amount of ether can now "validate" new entries on the blockchain. [...] The system gives an advantage to the biggest players, and just three companies now account for more than half of "validators", according to research by Dune Analytics.
Space billboards could cost $65M and still turn a profit
What Makes Single Life Attractive The “More time for myself,” followed by the “Focus on my goals,” and the “No one dictates my actions,” were rated as the most important. Men found the “Freedom to flirt around” more important than women, while women found the Focus on my goals and the “No tensions and fights” more important than men.
How To Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive in 2022
A beret-wearing avatar named I Love My Cat expressed concern about how long people wore their headsets. She was a “community guide,” one of the many moderators hired by Meta to hang out in the Plaza, answer questions and enforce the company’s code of conduct. She took a break every hour or so during her eight-hour shift. [NY Times]
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most successful NFT projects to date, with the main collection of 10,000 NFTs initially selling to the public at $190 worth of Ethereum apiece. That sale yielded Yuga roughly $1.9 million. Follow-up and spinoff projects, the Mutant Ape Yacht Club and the Otherside metaverse game, then raked in $96 million and $319 million, respectively. BAYC has also generated nearly $2.5 billion worth of secondary trading volume, per data from CryptoSlam. Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Otherside have added another $3.35 billion worth of secondary trading volume to that tally. Yuga Labs earns a 2.5% royalty fee on each of those sales. SEC Investigating Bored Ape Creator Yuga Labs Over Securities Violations
In pursuit of efficiency, railroad companies across the entire industry adopted the theory of precision scheduled railroading (P.S.R.), developed by the railroad executive E. Hunter Harrison in the 1990s. [...] Alas, the actual implementation of P.S.R. led neither to precision nor scheduling nor railroading. When companies implemented P.S.R., they also adopted new technology that allowed for locomotive engines to be placed along the length of a train. Now, instead of engines pulling the train from the front, additional engines in the middle and the back help move even more train cars. Average train length grew around 25 percent from 2008 to 2017, and companies now regularly run trains that are three miles long. Our infrastructure isn’t built for these “monster trains,” which are now so long that many no longer fit the tracks designed to allow trains to pass one another. These trains are almost always overseen by a crew of just two people, who must walk for miles if a problem is found, in all kinds of weather. The trains are difficult to control, and if weight is unevenly distributed along them, they may break apart or even derail. [...] Nearly two decades ago, companies used to spend around 80 percent of their revenues on running trains and covering operating expenses like payroll, fuel and maintenance. The remaining 20 percent could then be used for stock dividends and buybacks for shareholders. Today that operating ratio is much closer to 60 percent. [NY Times]
The Heartbeat drum machine produces rhythms made using the electrocardiograms of four children with different heart defects.
The iPhone 14 dials 911 on rollercoasters
Chicago scientists are testing an unhackable quantum internet in their basement closet
Kevin Baugh is the "benevolent dictator" of the Republic of Molossia — a one-acre micronation in Nevada with a population of 35. It has a currency pegged to the value of cookie dough and a navy consisting of two kayaks. [...] The human citizens all have "dual citizenship" with the US. "It helps to still have that US citizenship," Baugh said. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to go to Walmart or something like that.”[...] The time zone is 39 minutes ahead of Pacific Standard Time and 21 minutes behind Mountain Standard Time. Using the unique and non-sensical Kokintz system, measurements base lengths on the size of Baugh's hand and volume relative to the size of Diet Pepsi cans.
Since the Supreme Court struck down a law preventing sports wagering beyond Nevada four years ago, more than half of all states have permitted betting on sports, with 21 making it legal to wager online. [...] New revenue streams are nice. But the dark truth that states will begin to reckon with in the 2020s is that the money is not worth it. Generating $400 million or $500 million or even $800 million annually for New York sounds impressive until the actual scope of the state budget is considered: $220 billion, making the new gambling revenue barely a rounding error. Take for example New York City’s $40 billion education budget: If all the mobile sports-betting cash in the state were funneled into it, the amount would make only a marginal difference.
Hibernating bears stay healthy despite being very fat and sedentary. New research is focusing on what humans can learn from them. -- Superficially, hibernating bears seem passive and inert. For five months or more, they do not eat, drink, urinate, defecate or move, except occasionally to turn over or shiver. Their metabolisms drop by about 75 percent. Hearts beat and lungs inflate only a few times a minute. Kidneys shut down. The bears grow profoundly insulin resistant.
Fake Joe Rogan interviews fake Steve Jobs in an AI-powered podcast
When adult entertainers initially filed a lawsuit alleging that OnlyFans bribed Meta to block competitors on Instagram by flagging their content as terrorism, it was not clear who at Meta was being accused of accepting bribes. OnlyFans lawyers accidentally reveal which Meta execs allegedly took bribes
Your future sex robot could be hacked and programmed to murder you [2017]