Monday 13th May 2024

If You Want to Get Stronger, Routine Is the Enemy

To get the most out of your strength training, try progressive overload.

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How to fight without ruining a relationship

You can have healthy disagreements with the people in your life.

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The return of Cambodia's food lost during the Khmer Rouge regime

A Cambodian chef is one of a few women looking to revive her culture's nearly forgotten Khmer recipes; her recent cookbook, Saoy, was named 'the best cookbook in the world'.

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How AI Skews Our Sense of Responsibility

The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.

The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.

As artificial intelligence plays an ever-larger role in automated systems and decision-making processes, the question of how it affects humans’ sense of their own agency is becoming less theoretical — and more urgent. It’s no surprise that humans often defer to automated decision recommendations, with exhortations to “trust the AI!” spurring user adoption in corporate settings. However, there’s growing evidence that AI diminishes users’ sense of responsibility for the consequences of those decisions.

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'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' Raises the Question: How Intelligent Are Apes?

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. King Kong. Curious George. It’s clear humans have a fascination with our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom.

The newest installment of The Planet of the Apes franchise hits movie theaters on Friday. The science fiction storyline puts humans in the forests, and apes as the dominant primate. But in real life, how intelligent are primates? Primatologist Zarin Machanda has dedicated her life to studying this most social order of animals — of which we belong. We share many traits with other primates, such as establishing and maintaining societies and other permanent groups.

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Could the 2 Oldest Sci-Fi Shows Finally Cross Over?

In “Space Babies,” the debut episode of the newly relaunched 2024 Doctor Who “Season 1” (or Season 14, or Season 40, depending on how you count) the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) have a quick discussion about how beaming works in the universe of Star Trek. When the Doctor makes one small quip, fans of both venerable sci-fi franchises might wonder if travel between the Final Frontier and the Whoinverse, is, indeed possible in some kind of mega-geek-multiverse.

While Doctor Who is clearly making a quick joke here, there’s a long history of the two franchises referencing each other with a loving nod. But, on top of that, there’s also a precedent for a legit crossover between Trek and Who, a crossover that current showrunner Russell T Davies would say that he would love to see happen. No spoilers ahead for “Space Babies.”

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Ancient DNA Is Helping To Reconstruct Entire Bygone Societies

Researchers analyzed the genetics of hundreds of people who lived in the Carpathian Basin in southeastern central Europe more than 1,000 years ago.

How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been pottery sherds, burial sites, and ancient texts.

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40 Years Later, a Divisive Stephen King Thriller Has Only Gotten Better With Age

Stephen King famously turns into Statler and Waldorf when it comes to reviewing Hollywood adaptations of his work, and in the mid-’80s a new film appeared to incur his wrath every other month. However, the horror maestro’s harshest criticism was reserved for one of the mid-tier transfers from page to screen, the Drew Barrymore-starring Firestarter.

In a damning interview with American Film two years after its 1984 release, King described the supernatural tale as “one of the worst of the bunch,” “flavorless,” and “like cafeteria mashed potatoes,” while also questioning its apparently nonsensical special effects and the cast’s lack of direction. Poor David Keith, who plays mind-controlling father Andy, was singled out not only for his acting skills, but the fact King’s wife said he had “stupid eyes.” Brutal observations obviously run in the family.

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25 Years Ago, Nintendo Set the Bar for Remaking a Classic

Updating an old video game for a modern console sounds simple, but every few months an attempt to do just that ends in high-profile catastrophe. Grand Theft Auto: Definitive Edition was rife with visual and technical issues. Warcraft III: Reforged made bizarre interface changes and cut features from the original title. The Silent Hill HD Collection was missing an entire Silent Hill game, and somehow that wasn’t its biggest problem.

Remaster disasters are disappointing in part because it’s often so difficult to play the originals today. Maybe you sold or broke your old PlayStation, or maybe you were forced to update to the version of the game you didn’t want (ahem, Reforged). But as dire as the gaming industry’s treatment of its own legacy can be, that’s nothing compared to the days before digital storefronts and sketchy ROM sites. Back then, classic video games just vanished into basements and flea markets.

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22 Years Ago, a Beloved Star Wars Anti-Hero Finally Got an Origin Story

By the time the Star Wars prequels began in 1999, Boba Fett had become a cult favorite character. Much of his legend was based around the idea that, just like his reputation in his fictional galaxy, no two interpretations of him were alike. Your idea of Boba Fett was cobbled together from wherever you’d seen him (and the portrayals you most preferred), whether it was the cool-looking original trilogy mercenary, the heavy-duty action figure, the honor-driven survivor of the books and comics, or yet another variation. It wasn’t until Attack of the Clones introduced his father, Jango Fett, that Boba Fett was solidified, for better or worse.

This puzzle-piece approach to Fett made him easy to obsess over, and his humiliating “demise” in Return of the Jedi’s Sarlacc Pit courtesy of a blindly swinging Han Solo made fans eager for retribution. If only general audiences, who saw the movies and nothing else, could understand just how badass he was! Jango Fett was that opportunity. He goes from a terse standoff with Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Kamino cloning facility, to taking on the Jedi Master in a hand-to-hand-to-laser brawl, to a dogfight in a field of asteroids. It’s an awesome guy speedrun.

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