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Rejoice! Device That Sprays Your Butthole Now Connects to Alexa for Voice Control – Futurism

Alexa, clean my butt. Smart Throne

Kohler, a name that's practically synonymous with chic, premium plumbing, has long been on top of the smart toilet game.

Now, it's bringing its tech toilet offerings to the masses, announcing a new voice-controlled bidet seat called the PureWash E930 that you can install on your peasant porcelain throne to wash your ass on uttered or grunted royal command.

At $2,149, the PureWash E930 is far cheaper than getting a full blown toilet from Kohler's smart offerings. At that still exorbitant price point and here's the kicker your bidet comes with Amazon Alexa and Google Home compatibility built-in, according to The Verge. So, yes: you'll have to connect your fancy toilet hardware to devices known to be privacy nightmares to get the most out its lavatorial luxury.

But if you're willing to pay that price, Kohler lets you use the bidet's many featuresto get your business out of the way without so much as lifting a finger.

And let it be said that the bidet's spray is ridiculously fine-tuneable. It comes with oscillating and pulsating spray modes. The water pressure is adjustable, and so is the temperature. A gentler child mode is included, too. And for "consistent comfort," Kohler says the water is continuously heated, per The Verge. Rest assured that when nature calls, your E930 won't leave you cold.

The luxuries don't end there. The bidet thoughtfully pre-mists the toilet bowl for more effective flushing. It automatically opens and closes. It also has a self-cleaning mode using UV light, and a warm air dryer to keep your buns toasty as they're dried off. Built in LEDs can be used as a nightlight. All of these little features can be linked to Kohler's app to let you save and toggle your preferences at a click.

If getting your smartphone involved is too much tech for you and having to utter the steps of your sacred toilet routine aloud is a no-no Kohler's product also comes with a remote control.

And hey, if this is the kind of stuff you want to blow your hard-earned dough on, go for it. But be apprised that smart gadgetsencroaching on theprivacy of the bathroom has resulted in shocking violations of trust in the past.

More on tech: Amazon Caught Selling Bathroom Spy Cam Disguised as Clothes Hook

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Zuckerberg Brags About Feeding Cows Macadamia Nuts and Beer at His Alleged Doomsday Bunker – Futurism

"They'll grow up eating macadamia meal and drinking beer that we grow and produce here." Poster's Brain

Move over, Sam Altman it looks like there's a new doomsday-prepping tech titan in town.

As recent social media posts and news stories indicate, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is living someone's dream. Over the past few days, the BBQ-loving elder millennial shared on Instagram which, of course, he owns a video of him playing with a giant catapult and announced that he has been raising high-end cattle on his ranch in Hawaii.

"The cattle are wagyu and angus, and they'll grow up eating macadamia meal and drinking beer that we grow and produce here on the ranch," Zuckerberg wrote in the caption of one of the posts. "We want the whole process to be local and vertically integrated. Each cow eats 5,000-10,000 pounds of food each year, so that's a lot of acres of macadamia trees."

He went on to add that his daughters both help plant the "mac trees" and assist in the care of the Zuckerberg-Chan family's animals, which hopefully is their idea.

If viewed in a vacuum, these dadposts about Zuckerberg's goings-on would be less exciting, even, than his admission that he'd made bracelets and decorated his face with adhesive rhinestones when taking his daughters and their friends to see Taylor Swift last fall.

But when you add into the equationWired's recent reporting about the secret doomsday bunker on the family's palatial Hawaiian compound, which is said to cost an estimated $100 million to build, that IG activity starts to look more like not-so-humblebrags about having a private food source and weaponry in the event of global catastrophe.

So secretive is the estate, which is still under construction, that any security or grounds personnel working there would be fired immediately if caught speaking to the press.

"Its fight club," a former contractor told Wired. "We dont talk about fight club."

To be clear, there's absolutely nothing unusual about the uber-rich and techy crowd getting into hoarding remote properties, food stockades and weapons caches for the end of the world. Just ask OpenAI's embattled CEO, who once reportedly bragged years ago to people at a party that he "prep[s] for survival" from such catastrophes as lab-made virus leaks and "AI that attacks us"(yes, the irony is palpable.)

"I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to," Altman told folks gathered around a firepit at a long-ago Y Combinator party, per The New Yorker.

Whatever Zuckerberg's got at that giant Kauai estate is anyone's guess, but given his penchant for Sweet Baby Ray's barbeque sauce, he may have a room dedicated to the delicious sauce.

More on Zuckerberg: Elon Musk Started Screaming About Zuckerberg Immediately After Signing Twitter Deal

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Gaping Hole in Boeing 737 Linked to Stuffing More Passengers Into Flights – Futurism

Last week, passengers on board an Alaska Airlines flight were rattled by a terrifying incident involving a "door plug" being ripped out of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet that was taking them from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California.

The following "violent explosive decompression event," as National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy later described it, forced pilots to return back to the ground though luckily, nobody got seriously injured.

As regulators pore over the data the offending door plug has since been recovered alongside a fully intact iPhone from one of the passengers new questions have arisen over the events that led to the incident.

As The American Prospect reports, the plug door, which was designed to seal a hole in the fuselage that's used in some other configurations as a door opening, was possibly the result of "cost-cutting production techniques to facilitate cramming more passengers into the cabin."

The plug door was a fix to still meet Federal Aviation Administration requirements in the case of high-capacity passenger seat layouts without having to make major changes to the fuselage design.

"There are a lot of different ways to configure an aircraft to pack in air travelers like cattle, but it changed the calculus for manufacturers to meet standards," airline industry expert Bill McGee told the Prospect.

Worse yet, court documents obtained by The Lever suggest that former employees at Boeing spinoff Spirit AeroSystems, the company Boeing subcontracted to manufacture these plug doors, told Boeing officials about an "excessive amount of defects."

Instead of heeding these warnings, internal correspondence reviewed by The Lever suggest that officials told these former employees to falsify records.

One employee told a coworker that "he believed it was just a matter of time until a major defect escaped to a customer," per the report.

As more data comes to light, the situation is starting to look grim for Boeing and the timing couldn't be worse. The company has already been through several crises over the last couple of years, following two fateful crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving 737 MAX 8 aircraft that left 346 people dead.

As for the later model, according to theNew York Times, Alaska Airlines instructed MAX 9 planes not to fly over water due to warning lights indicating a loss of cabin pressure, though it's unclear if the latest incident was related to this issue.

In August, Boeing said it had identified quality problems related to parts supplied by Spirit. However, the issue was related to the planes' aft pressure bulkheads, not plug doors.

After Boeing and Spirit jointly announced an expanded investigation, the FAA said that there was "no immediate safety concern" as a result of the defective bulkheads.

So who's at fault following the latest incident? Was it Boeing, which subcontracted out the plug door, or did regulators fail to enforce rules that could've stopped the latest incident from happening in the first place? Or perhaps a mix of both?

The investigation has only begun, and we're only starting to get a clearer picture of the outrageous accident.

More on the incident: Schoolteacher Finds Door Plug That Fell Off Boeing 737 in His Backyard

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Wizards of the Coast Denies "Magic: The Gathering" Art Was AI-Generated, Then Admits It Was – Futurism

In a change of heart, "Magic: The Gathering" and "Dungeons & Dragons" publisher Wizards of the Coast has admitted to using generative AI in a recent promo image after initially claiming AI wasn't used.

Last week, users on social media noticed some strange incongruities in the image, a steampunk scene showcasing some of the company's new "Magic" cards.

After users pointed out wonky dials, wires that didn't line up, and lightbulbs that appeared to have far too many filaments, the company initially denied that it or its contractor had used any AI tools.

"This art was created by humans and not AI," Wizards of the Coast wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

The claim didn't sit well with keen onlookers, who kept pressing the company on the telltale details.

"Either you are lying to us or your artist is lying to you," tabletop game creator Tom Cartos tweeted. "This is blatantly AI, it took me less than a minute to find multiple examples of clear AI generation."

Now, in an apparent attempt to save face in light of a massive wave of users flooding the company's social media accounts, the official "Magic" X account issued a new statement.

"Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI," it reads. "As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image."

The controversy highlights a raging debate surrounding the use of generative AI tools in creative fields, a practice that many artists now worry may undermine their livelihoods.

It's an especially egregious example, given Wizards of the Coast's close relationship with illustrators and animators. Their well-loved products make use of extensive illustrations and other creative works.

Worse yet, the company had promised last year to introduce strict rules regarding the use of such tools after a veteran D&Dartist admitted to using AI to enhance images for a book.

The company had already landed in hot water early last year for severely restricting how D&D-inspired game creators could adapt the game's base rules in an apparent attempt to cash in.

At the time, Wizards of the Coast reneged on its new rules following a massive outcry from fans and left its old rules in place instead.

Now, the latest offense seems unlikely to sit well with the company's community.

"We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to theMagicTCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create finalMagic products," the company wrote in its latest statement.

Wizards isn't the only company to get caught using generative AI. Digital pen tablet maker Wacom was also recently accused of using AI to generate an image of an illustrated dragon whose body parts didn't line up.

In short, creatives' jobs are on the line, and the public is on the lookout.

"Jobs are going in real time, makes me nauseous," film concept artist and illustrator Reid Southen tweeted in response to the news.

"It's insane that they'll damage their brands to save a few bucks," he added in a follow-up.

More on generative AI: Image Database Powering Google's AI Contains Explicit Images of Children

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Scientists Say Stimulating Part of Brain Makes Subjects Easier to Hypnotize – Futurism

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Scientists at Stanford University have discovered how to use magnetic pulses to more easily induce hypnosis, a fascinating study published in the journal Nature Mental Health claims.

To be clear, the method clunkily dubbed the Stanford Hypnosis Integrated with Functional Connectivity-targeted Transcranial Stimulation, or SHIFT for short doesn't do the hypnotizing. Instead, SHIFT seeks to facilitate an individual's response to hypnosis, especially in cases where a patient was previously resistant.

Hypnosis isn't just a circus hustle; as The New York Times reported in 2023, several science-backed studies have shown hypnotherapy to have promising health benefits in the realms of pain management, mental health, addiction, and more. But as Stanford psychiatric researcher and lead study author Afik Faerman told The Daily Beast, "only about 20 percent" of the human population is uniquely susceptible to hypnosis and thus, to its potential health benefits. The introduction of a method like SHIFT, then, could make noninvasive hypnosis therapy more feasible for the remaining four-fifths of the world's humans.

"Hypnotizability, one's ability to experience cognitive, emotional, behavioral and physical changes in response to suggestions in the context of hypnosis, is a stable neurobehavioral trait associated with improved treatment outcomes from hypnosis-based therapy," the researchers write in the study. "Increasing hypnotizability in people who are low-to-medium hypnotizable individuals could improve both the efficacy and effectiveness of therapeutic hypnosis as a clinical intervention."

Per the study, SHIFT applies targeted transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in short, a nonintrusive form of electric brain stimulation achieved by administering repeated magnetic pulses using an electromagnetic coil to certain areas of the brain closely associated with susceptibility to hypnosis. It's a simple hypothesis: artificially stimulate these cranial regions, the researchers posit, and the newfound brain activity might cause a patient to be more receptive to hypnosis treatment.

To test that hypothesis, the Stanford researchers recruited 80 study participants suffering from fibromyalgia a chronic disorder associated with often debilitating musculoskeletal pain, among other symptoms. These patients were also all judged to have low-to-medium hypnotizability.

"We tested SHIFT in people with fibromyalgia," Faerman told PsyPost, "because hypnosis has been shown to be effective in reducing pain, and higher hypnotizability is typically associated with better outcomes."

Each patient underwent a short, minute-and-a-half SHIFT treatment session, albeit with one catch: some patients were randomly selected to receive a placebo treatment, while the rest indeed received 800 magnetic pulses to the brain. The Stanford team was ultimately able to determine that the magnetic zaps were "associated with increased hypnotizability," as Faerman told the Daily Beast, "while the sham stimulation did not."

"It was also interesting that participants' guesses as to whether they received active or sham treatment were not associated with the change in hypnotizability," the study leader added.

In other words? The SHIFT treatment appears to have held its own against a placebo control, and may well pave the way towards noninvasive and drug-free therapies. To put such an outcome into context, a wider implementation of drug-free hypnosis treatments could in theory mean a reduction in the wider use of addictive pharmaceuticals like pain-relieving opiates. That hypothetical outcome is still a long way off, but it's an enticing vision nonetheless and the folks at Stanford certainly seem hopeful about the electromagnetic treatment's potential future.

"My vision, as a clinical psychologist, is that patients will have a brief stimulation session to increase the effectiveness of treatment before their therapy appointment," Faerman told PsyPost.

"This will allow us to offer effective drug-free treatments and improve our patients' well-being," he added, "and also to save time and money for our patients and the healthcare system."

More on future therapies: Scientists Say Semaglutide Appears to Help Alcoholics, Too

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People Close to Elon Musk Concerned About Alleged Drug Use, Slurring Words – Futurism

Image by Antonio Masiello / Getty Images

As Elon Musk'spublic behavior becomes stranger and more disturbing, his business associates are concerned that a factor could be his use of drugs.

In interviews with theWall Street Journal, insiders at SpaceX and Tesla said that there have been multiple occasions in which C-suiters became alarmed by their perception of the billionaire's use of drugs. That substance list allegedly includes regular use of ketamine as well as cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms.

Two of those instances, of course, are extremely well-known: the infamous "420" Tesla stock price tweet from 2018 and its seemingly endless consequencesand the time Musk inexpertly smoked a blunt on Joe Rogan's podcast. Reports of more serious drug use, though, haven't seen as much daylight and though there's nothing wrong with dabbling with drugs safely, Musk's many government contracts and leadership position over many billions of dollars of assets give the allegations unusual heft.

In late 2017, people familiar with the matter told theWSJ, the serial entrepreneur took to the stage very late for an all-hands SpaceX meeting and began rambling and slurring his words for about 15 minutes. At one point, he referred to the company's Big Falcon Rocket prototype as its "Big F*cking Rocket" which, to be fair, was a running joke before it was renamed "Starship" and was eventually intercepted by SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, who took over for the incoherent CEO.

After that spectacle, the WSJ's unnamed insiders allege, SpaceX leadership began to privately confer about what they'd just witnessed. One even referred to Musk's performance as "cringeworthy," "nonsensical," and "unhinged."

Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, denied these claims and said that Musk is "regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test," which the South African-born tech mogul has alluded to before.

He also said that "there are other false facts" in theWSJ's reporting, but declined to say what they were.

After theWSJ's article was published, Musk weighed in to say that it was "not fit to line a parrot cage for bird."

Over at Tesla, there have been similar concerns. According to the WSJ's sources, board members at the electric vehicle maker have gone so far as to reach out to Kimbal Musk, the billionaire's brother, to tactfully communicate their concerns without using the term "drugs."

Soon after that infamous 2018 appearance, people in Musk's inner circle learned, per insider allegations, that the multi-hyphenate CEO was under the influence of something when he got choked up during aNew York Timesinterview when discussing some of his personal and business difficulties though to be fair, being wont to cry is apparently part of his whole deal.

There could, of course, be other explanations for the CEO's strange behavior. In 2017, he seemed to claim in response to a tweet that he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and also seemed to publicly suggest that he microdoses ketamine therapeutically to treat depression.

To be clear: taking drugs recreationally or therapeutically can be fun and beneficial. But it's very easy to over-do it, especially with ketamine and its infamous "K-hole," making Musk's seeming drug of choice cast a dark shadow over his antics.

More on drugs: Incredible Hotline Counsels Drug Users Through Potential Overdoses Without Shame

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