A little ear massage for a chaotic day.
[Fkj]
Dua Lipa In Conversation With Max Porter
Today I learned that Dua Lipa has been expertly interviewing authors for the past year on a small YouTube channel/book club she founded.
“For the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa Interviews Max Porter, the author of Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, Her Monthly Read For April.”
South Korea Is Over
Societal, parental, and educational pressures have made a lot of Koreans apprehensive about bringing children into what they view as an overly demanding country. Despite offers of childbirth incentives by the state and employers, the year to year decline in births may have already done irreparable damage to the future of the population.
“South Korea is heading toward a demographic collapse unlike anything the world has seen before. With the lowest fertility rate ever recorded and a rapidly aging population, the country faces a future of economic decline, shrinking cities, cultural erosion, and a vanishing workforce.
By 2060, nearly half of South Koreans could be over the age of 65, and entire regions may be abandoned as the population continues to shrink.
How did South Korea reach this point? Why might it no longer be possible to reverse the trend? And what does this mean for other countries on a similar path?”
The First Dire Wolf Howl Heard in 10,000 Years (?)
Colossal Biosciences (the company trying to bring the Woolly Mammoth back to the planet) has successfully (or maybe not?) brought the Dire Wolf back from extinction.
[TIME]
What If The Earth Rotated 90 Degrees?
xkcd‘s explanatory series takes on a question no one has probably ever asked but now we have to know.
“What would the world be like if the land masses were spread out the same way as now, but rotated by 90 degrees?”
[xkcd’s What If]
Coffee Break
Borys Musielak, a Polish researcher, created a fake passport using ChatGPT-4o that worked well enough to pass standard digital identity checks used by major financial platforms.
- The Dangerous-Son Problem: Netflix’s Adolescence has upped the panic over teen boys’ internet brain rot. [theCUT]
- A League of Their Own: A cottage industry has sprung up at Harvard, Penn, and other Ivy League colleges, providing nepo babies and children of the ultra-wealthy a luxury alternative to campus living [AirMail]
- She Was a Gen Z Influencer for Kamala Harris. Now She’s Running for Congress [Vanity Fair]
- QVC, the original video shopping network, is pivoting to TikTok [Fast Company]
- Declassified CIA Documents Reveal Search For Adolf Hitler, 10 Years After His Supposed Death [BroBible]
Chocolate Droppa: NPR Tiny Desk Concert
Kevin “Chocolate Droppa” Hart does a Relatively Normal-Sized Desk Concert for NPR/April Fools Day.