The Christmas season is a time of love, generosity, and joy. But for one little girl, this holiday almost became the season of being, perhaps, just a bit too honest. While we do not know the exact details, what is clear is that this little girl was involved in a school Christmas show. Odds are, she and her classmates spent weeks in order to be ready for their show. For the most part, it seems that things have been running smoothly. So, when given the chance to talk on stage, this thoughtful little girl is quick to compliment her classmates. She notes that she is “proud” of them and that they are “sweet.” But that is not all she has to say… get a glimpse of the potential drama going on in this girl’s class in the video below. @imissnj ♬ original sound – Gena Mutone Jacobson When the girl shares that everyone in her class is “sweet,” her teacher thinks nothing of it. If anything, she’s probably feeling proud. But the moment the child adds that there is one little boy who is the exception, her teacher is quick to intervene. Best of all, though, even the girl herself is quick to accept that maybe she went a little far with that one. All of this to say, folks are absolutely loving the candor of this hilarious little girl! Adorable Little Girl Gets a Little Too Honest During Her School’s Christmas Show “The pauses for effect: ‘One… little… boy.’ Comedic timing for the win,” someone in the comment section of the viral video points out, with another adding, “‘I need to tell you….’ She was about to give us the tea.” A third person adds, “She walked off like ‘yeah, you right, simmer down self, simmer down.'” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Little Girl Goes Hilariously Off Script At Christmas Show & Calls Out Classmate appeared first on InspireMore.

There have been some issues with the roll-out of artificial technology (AI) technology that we won’t address here. Today, we will tell you about everyone’s new favorite Grandma. Finally, a use for AI that almost no one will be complaining about. Grandma Daisy is being deployed to answer the phone and converse with scammers. The human-like Grandma Daisy is so realistic that a phone scammer can’t tell she is not real. This allows Grandma Daisy to occupy the fraudsters for large swaths of time. For the average person, this means that the longer she talks with them, the fewer calls these scammers will make to you! Daisy has one primary goal — to waste a phone scammer’s time. Virgin Media O2, a British telecom company, introduced her to the world last week. She has her own phone number, which is in databases the scammers frequently use. The AI Grandma has secondary goals: to frustrate and annoy a phone scammer by keeping them on the phone as long as possible. Image from YouTube. Daisy’s training comes from software engineer and YouTuber Jim Browning. Jim works online to expose scammers and has 4.4 million subscribers. Jim’s experience in “scambaiting” provides much of Grandma Daisy’s ability to occupy phone scammers for an average of 40 minutes per call. At that point, the scammers usually get frustrated and hang up. Grandma Daisy Collects Info From Phone Scammers A benefit of Grandma Daisy’s programming is that she records conversations. This will help anti-scammer groups inform potential victims of scammers’ tactics and tricks. She also collects and forwards valuable information to law enforcement agencies. Her “job title” is Head of Scammer Relations. They have programmed Grandma Daisy as a senior citizen because the elderly are favorite targets of phone scammers. While there are human operators who perform this function, Grandma Daisy can “man” her phone 24 hours a day without potty breaks. She will happily chat away, without mentioning any pertinent information, for as long as possible. She adds lovely tales about her cat, Fluffy, her fondness for knitting, and random chit-chat to distract the scammers. Image from YouTube. Her voice is based on a staff member’s real Grandma to increase believability. Unlike earlier AI models, Grandma Daisy does not sound robotic, and her sweet voice will melt the icy hearts of the best phone scammer. Her speech patterns are typical for an elderly person, using a regional accent and dialect with no funky word pronunciations. The roll-out of this innovative Grandma who deters phone scammers is brilliant. She has “all the time in the world” and is a perfect “patsy.” She appears naive and gullible, and scammers are persistent. Please share to introduce Grandma Daisy to everyone. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post This AI Grandma Is A Phone Scammer’s Worst Enemy appeared first on InspireMore.

A viral image shared on Threads purports to show a fake identification card used by Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.   View on Threads   Verdict: False A content detection scan using the website “TrueMedia.org” indicates the image shows “substantial signs of manipulation” and “detects signatures of generative […]

'Concern is growing'

A viral screenshot of a tweet shared on Facebook claims Hunter Biden appears in a photograph of President Joe Biden’s 1973 Senate swearing-in ceremony. Verdict: False The claim is false, as the photograph shows Biden’s elder son Beau, not Hunter, according to Getty Images and The Associated Press. Fact Check: Biden told 2024 Democratic nominee […]

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It was clear that the tragic school shooting was bothering Doc Rivers

The FIDE World Championships have just concluded in Singapore having seen an 18-year-old become the youngest chess champion in history. Gukesh Dommaraju has earned the title a full four years ahead of the legendary Gary Kasparov who became World Champion at 22 years of age. Dommaraju won the title in 58 moves with a final […] The post 18-year-old Is Youngest World Chess Champion–Besting Garry Kasparov Who Did it in 1985 at Age 22 appeared first on Good News Network.

Books murder mysteries Five SF Murder Mysteries Set in Space What’s more thrilling than a murder investigation set amongst the stars? By James Davis Nicoll | Published on December 17, 2024 Blood on the Moon cover art by Tom Kidd Comment 0 Share New Share Blood on the Moon cover art by Tom Kidd It should come as no surprise that humans transported to space will be just as homicidal as their kin back on Earth. Nor is it surprising that interested parties—the authorities or private citizens—will seek redress for such affronts. Human is as human does. Don’t believe me? Consider these five works about MURDER IN SPACE1. “The Singing Bell” by Isaac Asimov (1955) (Collected in Asimov’s Mysteries) Inspector Davenport is convinced that Louis Peyton committed the first murder on the Moon. Psychoprobing could prove that. Peyton cannot be probed unless the evidence against him is overwhelming2. Davenport cannot even prove that Peyton was on the Moon when the murder was committed. Enter Wendell Urth. Urth is as brilliant as he is sedentary. Is Urth brilliant enough to outwit Peyton, a career criminal who has eluded all previous attempts to bring him to justice? Or has Urth finally met his match in this, the very first Wendell Urth story? I am always surprised to discover that Asimov penned only four Wendell Urth stories. Urth seems tailor-made for a lengthy series but that’s not what we got. Flight of Exiles by Ben Bova (1972) Scientists who were exiled from Earth (over fears that genetic engineering would destabilize an already imperiled planet) managed to transform their satellite prison into a generation ship and set off for Alpha Centauri. Half a century later, the jury-rigged starship arrives at its destination, only to discover that a planet can be life-bearing and still uninhabitable to baseline humans. The same genetic engineering that got the exiles exiled could transform their unborn babies to suit the new world… but would the children still be human? At least the starfarers can take comfort in the fact that, unlike the inhabitants of degenerate Earth, each crewperson is the product of eugenic selection designed to staff the ship with the brightest, sanest, most clear-minded humans possible. They are all paragons in every possible way… except for that one crewmember who is currently murdering their way through the rest of the crew. Bova’s Exiles series is a fine example of a series in which the characters are all convinced that they are terribly smart while making decisions that suggest just the opposite. For example, in the third book, it’s plot-relevant that the designers ran a cryogen pipe (whose contents would surely kill everyone exposed should the pipe burst) right through the bridge, and that the astrogators chose for some reason to aim their ship directly at the target system’s star. Blood on the Moon by Barney Cohen (1984) Asher Bockhorn spent twenty years as a Fleet Agent, chasing contract truants. Belatedly promoted to Detective Sergeant, Bockhorn is reassigned to the Moon3 just in time to be confronted with a dramatic case. Person or persons unknown have converted the staff and customers of Danny’s Castaways into a collection of gruesomely murdered corpses. Was a single person the target and the other victims simply unlucky collateral damage? Or did someone have a grudge against everyone in the bar? And how does the bizarre sex cult figure into things? The evidence is voluminous, complex, and contradictory. As for Bockhorn? Bockhorn is easily distracted by unrelated minutiae. There are police procedurals where every member of the team is a skilled professional bringing their unique expertise to the case in hand. This isn’t one of those procedurals. This is a procedural in which the characters flail for 260 pages, hoping to get lucky. An Oath of Dogs by Wendy N. Wagner (2017) Kate Standish wakes after a year spent in cold sleep to discover that she has been promoted. Standish was originally intended to work for communications manager Duncan Chambers. But Chambers vanished while Standish was making her way from Earth to the life-bearing moon Huginn. That leaves Standish as Canaan Lake’s new communications manager. When not engaged in her professional responsibilities, Standish is drawn to the mystery of Chamber’s disappearance. Was it a simple accident? Or was Chambers murdered? If he was murdered, which of Canaan Lake’s many factions are to blame? And what’s up with Canaan Lake’s dogs? Oath is one part murder investigation to one part alien worldbuilding. Both elements are nicely executed, so I am happy that Wagner’s upcoming horror/mystery novel, Girl in the Creek, looks as if it might touch on some of the same elements as An Oath of Dogs. Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard (2020) Scholar Vân barely supports herself tutoring students. The revelation from shipmind The Wild Orchid in Sunless Woods that the poetry club to which both belong intends to cancel Vân’s membership is alarming. Her students might take the club’s example to heart and fire the already struggling Vân. The unidentified corpse4 found in Vân’s student Uyên’s room is a distraction, but not a welcome one. The militia prioritizes resolving cases quickly over solving cases correctly. Vân has secrets, whose exposure she will not survive. Vân’s proximity to the death makes her a suspect. The obvious solution is to provide the authorities with an acceptable explanation. That will not be easy, even with the help of Sunless Wood. The state of which Vân is a subject is authoritarian, hierarchical, and unacquainted with justice or mercy. It’s comprehensively unpleasant. Despite this, the characters still manage to find moments of contentment and happiness. Of course there have been more than five SF works about murders in space. No doubt I missed your favorites. Please let us know about them by sharing the titles in the comments below.[end-mark] Alas, the obvious example, television show Murder in Space—can you guess what it was about?—was mentioned in a previous essay. I try not to repeat myself. Too often. ︎In a later story, Urth establishes that the psychoprobe is inherently dangerous to those subjected to it. Not only can the probe not be deployed arbitrarily, it can only be used once on any suspect. Some criminals deliberately orchestrate psychoprobing for minor crimes, to ensure they won’t be probed for more serious transgressions. ︎This is a moon of the future (2084) where Betamax is still a standard, as are VT100 computer terminals. ︎It is an interesting question whether the woman’s death was murder, execution, suicide, or death by misadventure. Does murder require a non-state-sanctioned element? However, there are other deaths in this story that are indisputably murders, so this is definitely a mystery with murders. ︎The post Five SF Murder Mysteries Set in Space appeared first on Reactor.