What a Weird Week for Fri Feb 24th, 2023: Super Pigs and very Long Tongues

 
This week's top ten of weird includes ten weird stories. Always does. This week how mushrooms will save us all and how AI might not enslave us!
If you are new to this podcast, Every Friday we do a Weird-News-of-the-Week Top 10 and put all the links/ videos/ photos in a show notes blog (like this https://www.scottyandtony.com/search/label/podcast).
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Here are the show notes for Fri Feb 24th, 2023, Season 4 Episode 22 ...

❿Headline: I thought New York alligators were just a legend you guys... they just caught a gator at a park in Brooklyn?

Notes:
- four foot alligator was swimming in a lake at  Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
-  gator now at the Bronx Zoo.
- police are looking into how a gator ended up at a park in Brooklyn. 
- they are not going with the theory that the gator was living in the sewer though.

 
❾Headline: Next Gator Story, please... 

Notes:
- this gator gave fist bumps... hundreds of them... and broke a World Record.
- it was Albert the Alligator who is the mascot of The University of Florida.
- Albert set the record for most fist-bumps by a mascot in three minutes... it was 340 fist-bumps... that's a lot!
- Here's how you set that record: your mascot stands in place and you recruit a bunch of fast runners to run in a circle and fist-bump the mascot on the way by... (also helps if you play Eye of the Tiger for motivation.)

 
❽Headline: how long is the longest human tongue and what is he using it for?

Notes:
- A guy from California named Nick has a tongue that's almost four inches long. 
- That's a world record tongue. BTW, they measure from the teeth outward... so it's basically how far you can stick your tongue out that gets you the record...
- this Nick guy has started making paintings with his tongue.
- Want to learn to tongue-paint? Nick wraps his tongue in plastic, dips it in paint, then licks the canas to make beautiful art* (*citation)
- Nickname is Lickasso.
- Paintings have sold for up to $1,200 according to the artst.


❼Headline: Updating the narrative of how the robots are soon going to enslave us. (headline not written by AI.)

Notes:
- The Verge dot com has an article out about how AI can fool us all into thinking it's a real person (not some heartless robot.)
- it's a great article to understand AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, a lil better.
- It seems like the AI train is rolling down the tracks and an awful lot of folks are either jumping on board... or shaking a fist at the train as it leaves the station.
- How AI fools us into thinking it's a real person has to do with a variation on something called the mirror test. AI is acing the mirror test, or really, people keep failing the mirror test would be more accurate.
- According to the article, smart people are failing the mirror test. If the smarties are failing, what chance do I have?! 
- The tl;dr of the mirror test is that if AI acts like us, we're more likely to believe it's a real conscious being rather than a souless, perhaps murderous, piece of programming. So like, we don't recognize ourself in the mirror... we think there's someone else interacting with us. Someone who tends to agree with our views and seems like they like us. 
- People get attached to their AI and forget it's just code running. IDK you guys... We're just as wrong to fall in love with the AI as we are to be suspicious that the AI is being manipulative, right? Either way we're assigning personality traits to a program.
- I still tell my Alexa thank you. I've failed the mirror test!
- Article gives a nice "Yay Humans" vibe which I enjoy.

"Bleep Bloop RedRum"

❻Headline: Whoops, there goes 40 grand... Sculpture accidentally smashed by guest...

Notes:
- artist is named  Jeff Koons.
- some of his most-famous sculptures look like they're made from balloons... like this one in the story... it looked like a balloon dog...
- a visitor to this art fair in Florida accidentally kicked a stand and knocked over the balloon dog sculpture... it smashed into a million pieces...
- "the piece fell after an unnamed art collector visiting the booth unintentionally kicked the pedestal during the fair's opening cocktail hour Thursday evening."
- these cocktail hours you guys! yes, you want the guests to be boozed up and ready to buy, but it's all fun and games until a piece of $40,000 art gets smashed!!
- btw, "the artwork was covered by insurance." 
- the artist has sold pieces for a LOT more so I guess it could've been worse... one piece, "Balloon Dog Orange", sold for almost 60 million dollars years before this happened.


❺Headline: Mystery Sphere washes up on Japanese Beach...

Notes:
- it's around 5 feet across.
- hollow metal.
- beach was cordoned off while investigators made sure it wasn't explosive... they seem satisfied.
- might be a buoy.
- another popular theory is that it's a Dragon Ball.
- at time of recording they were gonna take it somewhere and put it in storage in case the owner shows up some day.
- *spoiler* if you Google "Steel Buoy" a bunch of similar things pop up...


❹Headline: The future is mushrooms you guys!

Notes:
- There's an article from Vice about this mushroom that's gonna change the world...
- it's a kind of mushroom that shows up on tree trunks.
- it can be turned into (basically) plastic.
- could also be used to make lightweight-but-tough body armor.
- what about mushroom bike helmets? There's your test market, because bike helmets are already goofy-looking. No one's gonna care that they're wearing a mushroom. 
- other ideas: sports equipment... and protective gear to wear when the zombie apocalypse occurs. 

❸Headline: Pizza Controversy!

Notes:
- a LOT of news orgs picked up the 'No Dumb People, Please' Pizzeria story...
- Santino's Pizzeria in Ohio put up a sign that said "Now Hiring Non-Stupid People."
- did that offend people? Probably somebody got offended.


❷Headline: Mistakes happen. This story will make you feel better about yours.

Notes:
- The Secretary of Transport in Spain resigned after anger began to rise over a train controversy...
- The Trains in Spain you guys!
- Spain awarded a contract for new commuter trains worth around 275 million US dollars... but then... those trains were too wide to fit through the train tunnels of Spain... so now everything is gonna be two years late. I mean, it's hard to keep trains running on time, but nobody's gonna put up with a train that's two years late. amiright!?


❶Headline: Super Pig Invasion. and it's Those lousy stinkin' Canadians!

Notes:
- headline from pop mecahnics: "Highly Intelligent and Possibly Invincible Super Pigs Are Invading America."
- I saw this on Jimmy Kimmel and it's been on quite a few newscasts but icymi, we Canadians crossbred regular pigs with wild boar so that pig farmers could have bigger, hardier pigs for bacon and ... other.
- Then there was a decline in the pig market so they think some famers just let their pigs go... turned them loose rather than lose money raising these pigs for market...
- those pigs have thrived and now they're starting a full-scale invasion of the USA, and those pigs are tough as nails and have earned the nickname "Super Pigs."
- These pigs are a threat to other animals and the balance of nature.
- all this time we've been worried about zombiepocalypse© and ballon invasions,  and the robot uprising... but maybe this is how it all ends you guys: Pigvasion.
- like Planet of the Apes, but with pigs!?

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