Month: July 2017
This is not a tall tale. On the soggy seacoast of southern France sloshes a region called Les Landes. Ironically much of Les Landes is neither land nor water. For centuries …
On National Sleepy Head Day in Finland, the last person sleeping in the house gets dunked. Legend of the Saints of Ephesus The Saints of Ephesus cannily slept in a …
Ratcatcher’s Day celebrates that famous exterminator: the Pied Piper of Hamelin. On July 22, 1376, a ratcatcher lured over a hundred children from Hamelin, Germany. They were never to …
Put a couple of bots in a virtual room and what do you get? Hilarious bickering and sniping, that’s what. The first ever conversation between two simple artificial intelligence …
These place names are straight out of Monthy Python. An AI has invented silly and rude place names for a country that already boasts Nob End, Pity Me, and Great …
Nathan’s hot dogs were so cheap that people didn’t trust the quality. Nathan Handwerker charged 5 cents for hot dogs until 1944. He raised the price to 7 cents, after …
My chatbots will call your chatbots. There’s a chatbot that will negotiate your cable bill with Comcast. Hand over your email, address, and phone number and Trim barters for …
Take a graphic designer, some devious salesmen, and an ambitious newspaper man. Graphic designer Harvey Ball was hired by State Mutual Life Assurance Company to make employees in …
The Nazis wanted to breed a racially “pure” cow. Hecks cows were an attempt to bring back the Auroch, a species of ancient, extinct wild bull. The Aurochs were …
Maybe, on a long Winter night. (You know it’s coming). I took 10 great fan questions (thanks, Gizmodo) and put them to the Game of Thrones Chatbot. These were: 1) …
Nothing says post-apocalyptic wasteland like teddy bears. Teddy bears are popping up all over video games, particularly in the Fallout World. They’re jailed, tied to train tracks and posed …
It wasn’t usually sweet; it didn’t melt in the mouth, and it sometimes came mixed with human blood. The history of chocolate is as bitter as the Aztec’s original …
