A.I. Could Be Great for College Essays
Every year, the artificial intelligence company OpenAI improves its text-writing bot, GPT. And every year, the internet responds with shrieks of woe about the impending end of human-penned prose. This cycle repeated last week when OpenAI launched ChatGPT—a version of GPT that can seemingly spit out any text, from a Mozart-styled piano piece to the history of London in the style of Dr. Seuss. The response on Twitter was unanimous: The college essay is doomed. Why slave over a paper when ChatGPT can write an original for you?
Chatting with ChatGPT is fun. (Go play with it!) But the college essay isn’t doomed, and A.I. like ChatGPT won’t replace flesh and blood writers. They may make writing easier, though.
Continued here  S65 secret, pretty places to visit in Derbyshire
The creator of the dictionary should probably have consulted his own work for the definition of “exaggeration” but he wasn’t too far wrong. The River Dove contorts and snuggles its way from the summits to the flat lands of Derbyshire and is at its prettiest in the two-mile-long gorge that comprises Dovedale valley. Bring your wellies if there’s been rain – the walk can be boggy – but you’re only four miles or so from respite and warmth in the market town of Ashbourne.
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S69S9Where to find cherry blossoms in Japan
This magnificent beauty has become a vital part of life in Japan. The cherry trees only blossom for a short time, so a trip to see the cherry blossoms – known as “hanami” in Japanese – is the pinnacle of celebrating Japanese spring season in all its glory before the leaves flutter to the ground in a grand finale known as “sakura fubuki”
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S14The 20 best holiday destinations in May
Europe will be emerging into summer proper in 2023, everywhere from Tuscan hilltop towns to golden Grecian beaches – and, if you’re sustainably-minded, you can reach most of these dreamy destinations by train. And further afield, corners of Africa, the Caribbean and Canada will peak as well. So why wait a minute longer? It’s high time you hit the road. These are our favourite holiday destinations in May for sun, adventures and sightseeing.
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S44S8Win a staycation for two in the beautiful British countryside at Billesley Manor
The Billesley Estate is steeped in history, and there have been settlements on this pristine portion of British countryside since the eighth century. The site is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book, and purportedly welcomed Shakespeare himself, who allegedly married wife Anne Hathaway in All Saints Church, next to what is now the magnificent hotel and spa complex. This link to the bard is celebrated throughout the property – seek out artworks celebrating not just this literary great, but also centuries of local history.
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S15The traps of online shopping are hiding in plain sight
A cursory Google search reveals all sorts of marketers advertising their tools to help merchants boost sales. They boast countdown timers that are “a great way of creating urgency and encouraging shoppers to buy your products” and low stock counters that employ “psychological triggers” to ignite a sense of scarcity and increase sales. Some companies offer sellers tools to show how many people have added an item to their carts, ordered it, or looked at it, and they’re open that these numbers can be real or random — as in, made up.
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S62The fascination and complexity of the world's hardest math problems
Mathematics has been a fascinating and challenging subject for centuries. From the ancient Greeks to modern-day mathematicians, the pursuit of understanding and mastering math has been a source of intrigue and intellectual curiosity.
But have you ever wondered what the hardest math problem is? What could be so challenging and complex that even the most brilliant mathematicians have yet to find a solution?
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S58How to buy a social network, with Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23303666/VRG_ILLO_Decoder_Matt_Mullenweg_s.jpg)
But talking about Twitter in a vacuum seems wrong. There are lots of other social networks and community-based products, and they all have basically the same problems: some technical (you have to run the service), some political (you have to comply with various laws and platform regulations around the world), and some social (you have to get millions of users to post for free while making sure what they post is good stuff and not bad stuff).
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S377 major science and tech breakthroughs of 2022![]()
The release of several advanced generative AI systems was inarguably the biggest science and tech story of 2022 — DALL-E 2, ChatGPT, and others like them simply wowed the world this year with their ability to imitate human creativity.
Those AIs weren’t the only breakthroughs of 2022, though, and while you were busy writing screenplays with ChatGPT or creating new Pokémonwith Stable Diffusion, you may have missed some of the less celebrated, but still remarkable science and tech achievements of the past year.
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S23S28Don't be scared of ChatGPT, the latest AI chat fad
When ChatGPT went live, it convinced a good chunk of the internet that the end was nigh. This artificial intelligence that can write sonnets, code, and help you cheat on your exams has been harkened as the end of human agency.
We’ve been here before. It was not long ago that the end of truth was declared with the arrival of deep fake content, which would be able to slap anyone’s face on an avatar or stranger’s body, and make them say or do something they’d never done.
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S59S11Lanserhof Sylt, Germany spa review
That life is a distant memory – now Sylt is a playground with 25 miles of pale-quartz sands, boutiques and restaurants. As New Yorkers flock to Martha’s Vineyard, so do north Germans to Sylt, swelling the population in summer like the migrant birds. The fishermen’s cottages are now prime real estate, joined by droves of immaculate replicas festooned with summer roses and parked up with the latest Mercs and Porsches. But Sylt’s real charms are eternal: those dunes coated with marram grass and heathers, and a sky cornflower and overcast by turns (On the same latitude as County Durham, it is sunshiney yet gusty).
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S38Arrakhis: the tiny satellite aiming to reveal what dark matter is made of
The European Space Agency (Esa) recently announced a new mission of its science programme: a small telescope orbiting the Earth dubbed Arrakhis. But although its name is inspired by the sci-fi novel Dune, it will not be looking for sandworms or “spice” on a desert planet.
Instead, this nimble satellite will punch hugely above its weight and try to track down one of the most elusive and mysterious substances in the universe: dark matter. This is the term given to the hypothetical invisible matter that is thought to be more abundant than normal matter and have a similar gravitational effect on its surroundings.
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S13The best dog-friendly pubs in London
Dog-friendly pubs in London, the ones that welcome punters and pooches alike, are golden, and make the process of meeting up with pals for a pint (and a refreshing bowl of water for the tail-wagging brigade) a whole lot easier. From canal-side haunts in Islington, armed with doggy bowls, biscuits and blankets, to Bethnal Green boozers that often hold events especially for their punter’s pets and a perfectly-placed pub in Lambeth that sits right beside Waterloo Millennium Green so that ‘walkies’ are never too far away.
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S65SpaceX may have to come to the rescue of the stranded ISS crew if the Russian plan fails
Reuters reports that NASA and SpaceX are discussing the possibility of sending a Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring back three astronauts who don't have a way to get home. The crew is stranded after a severe leak was detected in the Russian-built Soyuz capsule.
A severe leak that saw coolant shooting out of the Russian capsule occurred two weeks ago on the Soyuz spacecraft that carried the Americans Frank Rubio, Sergey Prokopyev, and Dmitri Petelin to the ISS in September.
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S36The physics of entropy and the origin of life
How did life on Earth originate? Scientists still aren’t sure, and this remains one of the world’s most fascinating and mind-boggling mysteries.
One way of approaching the question is to think generally about how complex systems emerge from chaos. Since the 1800s, scientists have known that entropy is always increasing, with everything in our Universe tending toward disorder over time.
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S68S10The best spas in Europe
Whether for cutting-edge treatments that tackle a specific issue such as insomnia or stress, or a cosseting retreat that rebalances and energises, this is our pick of the top game-changing spas in Europe that really deliver on wellness.
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S34The 10 Best and Cruelest Games of 2022
After several years of boom times for wholesome stories and colorful worlds, 2022 reminded us that sometimes there’s no truer form of fun than failing horribly, repeatedly.
FromSoftware often leads that charge, thanks to series like Dark Souls. This year, it rose to its own challenge. Elden Ring, maddening in its difficulty and unusually cruel in its creative ways to kill you, took center stage as players picked apart its every secret. Speed-runners found new ways to make the game even harder by racing against the clock. Not to be reduced to one punishing game, however, 2022 also brought with it a handful of roguelikes, pushing the genre while teaching players about patience and perseverance.
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S3Mandarin Oriental Bosphorus, Istanbul hotel review
On arrival, it wasn’t the lobby that struck me so much as its scent; a heady blend of Judas tree, jasmine, sandalwood and vanilla emanating from the marble interiors. To the right, find the lounge, restaurants and shops stacked with fine jewellery and couture wear, while check-in is to the left. Past the sun-lit lobby is the terrace overlooking the shimmering Bosphorus. On a winter's stay, sun-loungers and beach towels are replaced with pop-up igloos and cosy blankets. But no matter the season, the views will always be breathtaking – where old juts up against new and minaret towers stand graciously by iconic landmarks.
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S22S2The 19 best South London restaurants
Whether you're on the hunt for morning coffee and pastries, a leisurely weekend brunch, supper with friends or a drink somewhere a little more special than your local pub, head for the green awning of Rarebit in Elephant and Castle. Opened in June 2022, this deli-restaurant bar has quickly become a neighbourhood hotspot for relaxed dining. Interiors are industrial without feeling sterile, transforming from bright and cheery by day to dimly lit and intimate as evening falls but equally welcoming any time of day while resident mini-Schnauzer Herman can occasionally be found snoozing in a cosy corner.
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S5Win an indulgent all-inclusive escape for two with Ikos Resorts
The sixth resort in Ikos’ portfolio, and the second on the island of Corfu, Ikos Odisia is set to open its complex to discerning Grecophiles in May 2023. In a secluded bay across from sister resort Ikos Dassia, guests can appreciate sweeping Ionian Sea views thanks to its elevated position. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Old Town Corfu is within easy reach – ideal for breaking up beach days with island exploration and culture.
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S43S52The 35 Best Podcasts of 2022
Widespread remote work may have changed where people listened to podcasts, but many are back to their prior routines and hitting “Play” like it’s 2019. Fittingly, certain trends from yesteryear have stuck around for this resurgence: The audio space is still packed with true crime, which is often entertaining yet rarely remarkable. Shows about right-wing extremists and conspiracy theories are still popular. (Now, though, we’re finally hearing about the left’s fringe, too.) But a lot of what’s emerging in 2022 seems to be a rebuttal to two years of vegetation.
Dating shows have guests who are meeting in person again, and the latest podcasts are heavy on the fieldwork. Makers went back out into the world; some revisited their hometowns, some headed abroad, and others journeyed through ungoverned waters. We also observed the inverse of travel—burrowing deeper into one’s own headspace. Podcast hosts read poetry or, like so many people, came to terms with sorrow and grief, both private and shared. One thing remained constant: The best material we heard subverted popular tendencies or flat out surprised us.
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S54Readers Share Their 2023 Resolutions
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
This week I asked you all to send in your New Year’s resolutions for 2023, and you answered the call: We had hundreds of responses. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
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S16Phil Knight still has plenty to say about college sports. Is anyone listening?
Phil Knight turns 85 in February, and in response to the age-old what-do-you-get-the-man-who-has-everything dilemma, Nike is giving him a basketball tournament. It’s not an original idea; Knight got the same gift five years ago. But, hey, when something is a hit, who among us hasn’t regifted? As these things tend to go, the PK85 is bigger, with an eight-team women’s field added to the 16-team men’s slate.
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S20S78 places on earth we should protect before it's too late
Over the last century or two, with the arrival of industrialisation on a grand scale and a booming population, humankind's impact on the planet has become much more dramatic. Fires, uncontrolled deforestation, rising temperatures, wars, pollution, growing social inequalities, and massive agricultural, fishing, and livestock exploitation are all reshaping the earth. The list of ways in which we are altering the planet could go on and on.
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S40S49The IRS Really, Really Should Have Audited Trump
Six years after Donald Trump should have disclosed his tax returns to the public, they have finally been released. This took advocacy, congressional action, and litigation that went to the Supreme Court—all to obtain basic financial transparency from a president.
But the House Ways and Means Committee’s report on its investigation, released last week in conjunction with the committee’s vote to disclose Trump’s tax returns, revealed new information that may be as astonishing as anything in the returns themselves: The IRS did not even begin auditing Trump’s taxes until 2019, on the same day the committee began asking the agency about them. This is outrageous, and it must be investigated.
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S55Three Pioneering Scholars Who Died This Year/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/d2/9a/d29aca99-12e2-45a7-b2c6-284b87d99efe/obitpioneeringscholars.jpg)
Over the summer, the popular Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough died at age 89. Revered by history buffs, his best sellers were lauded for the way he spun the complex lives of famous Americans—from John Adams to the Wright brothers—into compelling narratives. The stories he told were not new, but the innovative, captivating ways he told them inspired millions of Americans to learn more about their past.
This year, the United States also lost scholars in a category that’s almost the inverse of McCullough’s: those who painstakingly collected stories from undercovered communities that had rarely been studied before. These researchers aren’t widely known, and they didn’t focus on America’s famous chapters or heroes. Instead, they broke ground. They built the foundations of entirely new fields of study, chronicling groups that academia had long overlooked or failed to take seriously.
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S63Metaverse fails to meet expectations as VR headset sales shrink in 2022
Virtual reality (VR) technology, once hailed as the next big thing in the tech industry, has yet to live up to its hype. According to data acquired by CNBC from research firm NPD Group, sales of VR headsets in the U.S. declined 2% to $1.1 billion in 2022, while analyst firm CCS Insight reported that worldwide shipments of VR headsets and augmented reality devices fell 12% to 9.6 million during the same period. These figures represent a setback for companies like Facebook, which has invested heavily in the development of its metaverse and VR technology.
In 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would be rebranding as Meta and investing billions of dollars in the development of the metaverse, a virtual world in which people can interact and do business. Zuckerberg has stated that he expects it to take up to a decade for the metaverse to go mainstream and that it will eventually host hundreds of billions of dollars in commerce. However, the slow adoption of VR technology and the decline in sales and shipments of VR headsets suggest that this goal may be more difficult to achieve than Zuckerberg anticipated.
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S47My Mother Just Died of COVID in Wuhan
She was one of millions left virtually defenseless by China’s sudden abandonment of its failing zero-COVID policy.
When I got the news, I was in the United States, thousands of miles and 13 time zones away. It was the end of a tough semester teaching modern Chinese literature to American students. I had just finished grading all of their final papers. I was in a cheerful mood, washing dishes, when my phone rang.
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S4The biggest travel trends for 2023
In 2023, travellers will be going one step further as we look to deepen these experiences by having a lasting positive impact on the places and people we visit. We'll immerse ourselves in new, mind-bending wellness practices with benefits that continue far beyond checkout and make meaningful changes to the way we travel with protecting our planet top of mind.
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S42S66S60S33The Best Wireless Earbuds for Working Out
If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED
Luxurious over-the-ear headphones are plush and comfortable, and they sound great. But for most everyday activities—working out, traveling, and wandering around my house pretending to put things away—I much prefer a pair of convenient, durable, wireless workout buds. Since I started testing them, their sound and comfort have improved dramatically. I trail run, hike, work on my yard, lift weights, and watch mildly embarrassing barre and yoga videos on my laptop, all while testing the best wireless workout headphones around.
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S12Where is hot in May? Our top 10 destinations
With every wannabe influencer and their mother draping themselves over Santorini and Mykonos this summer, it might be time to turn your attention to another Cyclades stunner. Antiparos’s quiet beauty has increasingly drawn seclusion-seeking celebs: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson bought a villa here 15 years ago, while Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Matthew McConaughey have all been spotted enjoying an under-the-radar getaway (no, not with each other). The excellent selection of private villas with ridiculous Aegean views (Villa Melissa from White Key, Villa Emerald with Elite) probably helps. There’s also the many, many sandy beaches lapped by electric-blue shallows; the unpretentious fun of ’til-dawn cocktail bars (Boogaloo, Loco); and even a beach club/restaurant/boutique hotel, The Beach House, hidden in its own secret cove.
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S53The Method in the Markets’ Madness
Predicting stock-price moves is usually a mug’s game—but beneath this year’s wild gyrations is an underlying logic.
The stock market was down sharply on Wednesday this week. It was up sharply on Thursday. And it will surprise no one if it ends up or down sharply today, the final trading day of the year. That’s because, though the market will finish the year down almost 20 percent (per the S&P 500 index), stocks have not taken a steady downward path to get there. Instead, they’ve been on an extraordinarily bumpy ride, oscillating between bouts of optimism and gloom, regularly adding or erasing trillions of dollars of market capitalization in a matter of weeks.
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S56In Praise of Walking: A Poetic Manifesto for Our Simplest Instrument of Discovery, Transformation, and Transcendence
When you walk, you move more than the body — you move the mind, the spirit, the entire system of being. As you traverse spatial distance, you gain vital spiritual distance with which to see afresh the problems that haunt your day, your work, your life. Ideas collide and connect in ways they never would have on the static plane. Pains are left behind in the forward motion. Doubts fall away by the footfall. I do my best writing on foot — the rest, what happens at the desk, is mere transcription. Nietzsche saw the link between walking and creativity. “There is nothing more revealing than to see a thinking person walking,” wrote Thomas Bernhard, “just as there is nothing more revealing than to see a walking person thinking.” A passionate walker herself, Rebecca Solnit has defined the act as “a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned.”
But no writer has composed a more succinct and symphonic manifesto for walking than the Scottish poet Thomas A. Clark in his 1988 chapbook In Praise of Walking (public library).
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S4874 Things That Blew Our Minds in 2022
Where The Atlantic’s science, technology, and health reporters found wonder in a sometimes-sobering year
The writers on The Atlantic’s Science, Technology, and Health desks have learned a lot this year. Our coverage of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has continued, but this year, more so than in 2020 and 2021, we’ve also had the chance to report on topics that have filled us with awe and delight. Though the past 12 months have not been free of concerns about infectious disease, climate change, and even nuclear war, we’ve embraced more fascination and curiosity in our coverage this year, and we wanted to share and reflect on some of the most compelling tidbits we’ve stumbled across. We hope you find these facts as mind-blowing as we did.
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S61The year's worst video game writing/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24293867/Marvel_s_Midnight_Suns___Hunter___Talking_with_Captain_Marvel.png)
I’m going to pick on Neon White, which is still a very good game that I would recommend. It’s a first-person speedrunner with clever level design — a combination of readable elements and mechanics that make parkouring across the map intuitive and satisfying. I’m neither a twitchy perfectionist nor a completionist, but the game compelled me to shave milliseconds off of my time. (A sneaky leaderboard shows you scores from your friends, and I suddenly became very competitive with Jay.)
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S46Photos of the Week:Â Confetti Test, Food Battle, Glowing Waterfall
A moment of peace on Ukraine’s front line, a Boxing Day hunt in England, scootering across a dry riverbed in China, beach cleaning in Bali, frozen structures along the Great Lakes, a forest fire in Chile, colorful ice sculptures in China, yacht racing in Australia, and much more
Sunlight passes through Keyhole Arch during sunset at Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur, California, on December 24, 2022. #
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S64Watch: A Chinese fighter jet flew within 20 feet of US recon plane this month
A Chinese fighter jet came dangerously close to an American aircraft belonging to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, forcing the U.S. pilot to evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision, The New York Times reported. The U.S. Air Force has declassified the video of the incident and published it.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is part of the U.S. Air Force tasked with protecting the national interests of roughly three dozen countries in the South China Sea region, where China has begun flexing its muscles in the past few years.
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S35Ask Ethan: Can hidden variables save quantum physics?
Ever since the discovery of the bizarre behavior of quantum systems, we’ve been forced to reckon with a seemingly uncomfortable truth. For whatever reason, it appears that what we perceive of as reality — where objects are and what properties they possess — isn’t itself fundamentally determined. As long as you don’t measure or interact with your quantum system, it exists in an indeterminate state; we can only speak of the properties it possess and the outcomes of any potential measurements in a statistical, probabilistic sense.
But is that a fundamental limitation of nature, where there exists an inherent indeterminism until a measurement is made or a quantum interaction occurs? Or could there be a “hidden reality” that’s completely predictable, understandable, and deterministic underlying what we see? It’s a fascinating possibility, one that was preferred by no less a titanic figure than Albert Einstein. It’s also the question of Patreon supporter William Blair, who wants to know:
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S45Busting a myth: Saturn V rocket wasn't loud enough to melt concrete
The 1967 Apollo 4 mission was an uncrewed flight to test the Saturn V rocket as a viable launch vehicle for future manned missions. The test was a smashing success and a critical step in the US space program. But the Saturn V was also incredibly loud—so loud that a rumor emerged claiming that the acoustic energy was sufficient to melt concrete. That is not the case, according to an August paper published in a special educational issue if the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA).
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S57S50Why Travel Inspires So Many Writers
Journeys force us to consider where we’re headed and what we’ve left behind: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The last few weeks of the year are marked by movement. Some people might return to their hometown to spend the holidays with their family and friends, while others may use the lull to take a much-needed vacation. Travelers flock to airports and train stations, anxious to reach their final destination. Tempers may flare as the stress of the season reaches a fever pitch. But it helps us all get where we’re going if we remember that, for the most part, everyone—even the weary parent trying to manage their child on a plane—is trying their best.
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S51Harry, Meghan, and the Men Who Hate Them
At the end of the first episode of Harry & Meghan—the five-and-a-half-hour exploration into the tender center of everlasting love; rat-bastard English people and the nasty things they get up to; heady, “Goodbye to You” defection from the British Royal Family; and the reality-show-within-a-reality-show miniseries Fifteen Million Dollar Listing—I informed my husband that henceforth he should call me “C” and I would call him “R.” This would put us in league with the glamorous young couple, and also allow us to imagine that we are characters in a Victorian novel whose names must never be revealed, not even to each other.
This project was immediately undermined, because it is just about impossible to impose a new nickname on someone you’ve known intimately for three decades, and with whom—even in the early years, back in the rent-controlled apartment with your big dreams and your red wine—you have never achieved even an ounce of the “Band on the Run”/Sentence Finishing/Pillow Talk Spectacular of the famous couple. These kids are so in love that absolutely any obstacle—bad press, frosty English sister-in-law, mean American half sister-in-law, disappointing fathers, paparazzo in a boat—only makes their love more passionate, their need to review their wedding videos and photo albums more urgent.
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