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97% of travelers regret a trip

What’s the worst trip you’ve ever gone on? Was it terrible because the place just didn’t live up to your expectations or because things just went horribly wrong? The childhood trip my family took to Yellowstone was the best, but also had a couple of less than stellar moments, including the time my brothers suitcase flew off of the luggage rack, and all of his clothes were strewn on the highway. We didn’t notice until hours later. We backtracked and actually did find them and were able to salvage some of it. But he ended up spending most of the trip wearing t-shirts from Wall Drug and Jackson Hole

The Strange Appeal of the Solitude Influencer

Interesting piece from The Atlantic. They profile one user who has 195,000 followers and apparently zero friends. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say they have no friends if 195,000 people are following them. That seems like they just interact with people a little different. It’s something wouldn’t have existed as an option for super-introverted people only a few years ago. People are still doing the same things they’ve always done, they’re just doing it in different ways

More Stories Below, but first some new content in the News Sidequest Podcast Universe…

Auditory Anthology

SCI-FI SHORT STORIES - NARRATED BY DARREN MARLAR & PRODUCED BY KEITH CONRAD

Tales From the Blue Line - The Caretaker - When a young historian takes a job as the live-in caretaker of a sprawling Victorian estate, she discovers that the restless spirit of a teenage girl trapped in the past isn’t haunting the house—she’s just bored and looking for a friend.

Tales From The Blue Line: Every morning at three, Mason and Ally ride the Blue Line into downtown Chicago together. The train brings out its own brand of weird, which has led to Mason and Ally trading spooky stories to help their commute pass a little faster.

Tales From the Blue Line - The Caretaker Keith Conrad / Darren Marlar Episode

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Also Worth A Look…

• Your Brain May ‘Decide’ To Be Social Before You Realize - They were studying fish, but I think that definitely carries over to humans. Not only have I decided whether or not to be social well in advance, but I’ve also game-planned every single way the interaction could go

• AI Image Labels Work, Until They Don’t: Study Finds Dangerous Loophole - Basically, if a story is labeled as AI and has an AI-generated image, people will believe the AI label. On the other hand, if you pair a real image with an AI story, people will be more likely to ignore the label and think it’s real

• Pandemic Disruptions Led to 55,000 Missed Cancer Diagnoses - That’s really sad but it also makes a lot of sense. Some people who were diligently monitoring their health got knocked out of their routines and never re-established them

• Study: Prayer More Effective Than Music for Pain Relief - Split the difference and sing the prayers

• Meteor as heavy as an elephant causes widespread speculation across New England - This headline proves Americans really will use anything other than the metric system

• Engineer builds AI laser defense system that wiped out every mosquito in his home - If you’re name is Sarah Connor, it might be a good idea to go into hiding at this point

• The Federal Government’s Insect-Defense Agency Is Infested With Bed Bugs - Because of course it is. Look on the bright side though, now they’ll be extremely familiar with the latest bed bug mitigation strategies

• Google wants to release 32,000,000 infected mosquitoes into the wild - No longer content with only dealing with software bugs

• Uber Lost & Found Index includes breast milk, ankle monitor - Wouldn’t the police show up pretty quickly for the owner of the ankle monitor?

• Ontario man wins epic 19-year fight over Toronto red light ticket - Never give up