Romanian photographer Virginia Lupu has befriended the mystical witches of Romania, women of the Roma minority who live in the suburbs of Bucharest, making a living through conducting rituals that help their clients find love, money, and punishment for their enemies. Not only has Lupu befriended them, she has captured them in intimate photographs. The photographs of the witches in their natural environment are part of a new series, “TinTinTin”, as CNN details: 

Lupu captured her subjects in cantatory action, adorned in traditional garb. The women's gowns range from flowing, virginal white garments to fire engine-red robes with floral patterns. In one image, the witches light candles on a plush, decorative area rug that features intertwining brown branches and leaves. Glittering skulls and a furry black object center their makeshift altar. In another photograph, the protagonists raise leafy greens above a body of water as the sun sets. Their hands are embellished with gold bracelets, thick rings and long candy apple-colored nails. Whatever spell they're casting, these women invoke craft and fashion to enhance their potency.

Lupu discovered a significant aesthetic element in the witches' rituals. She observed Minca using a different color palette for each type of spell. "Red for love, yellow for abundance and richness, white for blessing, and black for powerful black magic rituals," Lupu explained. The women's recipes and activities aren't centralized in any kind of book, but passed down from generation to generation.

image credit: Virginia Lupu via CNN

Dating apps such as Grindr and Tinder are now people’s instant method of dating, avoiding the traditional method of one-on-one meetups to find the right match. Using these dating apps save time and money (it’s a date, of course there’s money going to be spent), and they give their users more choices, more potential partners they can match with. With that being said, one of the claims apps and websites have is their ability to use data to filter through profiles for better matches with their personality tests, so that the applications can suggest potential partners to match with their users. But is romantic desire really predictable? Can an algorithm actually predict a romantic match? BBC has the details: 

The issue for scientists who might want to investigate their data, and journalists who want to fact-check their claims, is that the algorithms are the intellectual property of these companies, so they are not publicly available. Their entire business is based on developing smart match-making algorithms and keeping their formulas private.

Joel found that her algorithm could predict actor desire and partner desire, but not compatibility. Not even a little bit. It could only predict negative percentages of variance – which is like being accurate less than 0% of the time. This might sound like a bit of a head scratcher, but, Joel says that her algorithm would have been better off using mean results for every dater rather than offering a tailored response. “It was completely useless,” says Joel. “It really should have done better.”

“My take is that when two people actually meet they form a shared dynamic that is more than the sum of its parts and cannot be predicted a priori,” says Joel. “Their individual preferences do not make up the substance of what they find attractive. My rating of whether I found you funny after meeting you will predict whether I like you, but my desire for a funny person and your measure of whether you are funny do not because we might not agree on a sense of humour.”

Finding a way to make accurate predictions is not going to be straightforward.

image credit: wikimedia commons

Marilyn Monroe took the attendees of a fundraiser for President John F. Kennedy and the Democratic National Committee by storm with her seductive rendition of the Happy Birthday song in her exquisite, form-hugging, marquisette dress. The dress, now called the “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress, played a big part in the famous performance, and sparked the curiosity and interest of many to this day. Reader’s Digest shared some unknown details regarding the famous dress: 

What the photo doesn’t specifically show is that there were more than 2,500 rhinestones on it, according to Worn on This Day: The Clothes That Made History. Nor does the photo show that Monroe reportedly had to be sewn into the dress because of how tight it was. She also chose to wear nothing underneath it, according to Vintage News, so that the fit would be flawless, actively courting the “scandalous” discourse that she knew would surround the dress and her performance.

Another lesser-known fact about the “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress? Its designer was just out of college. It was the first-ever post-grad project of a young Bob Mackie, who continues to design notable pieces and win awards to this day. Talk about starting strong! Mackie was working for already-acclaimed designer Jean Louis, who completed the piece.

And then there was the cost of the dress. Marilyn Monroe paid $1,440 for it, which would equal around $12,000 in 2019 money.

image credit: Cecil Stoughton / AP/ Shutterstock via Reader’s Digest

Alexa can respond to one’s declaration of loneliness, but can it go so far as to comfort someone who’s alone or lonely? With the AI’s response available to declarations of loneliness or sadness, people are raising questions on just how far can technology go, and can it cure loneliness? Toni Reid, Amazon’s vice president for Alexa, says that while Alexa is programmed with the help of experts to respond to sensitive inquiries and declarations, nothing can replace human company, as USA Today details: 

You: “Alexa, I’m lonely.”

Amazon Alexa: “Sorry to hear that. Talking to a friend, listening to music or taking a walk might help. I hope you feel better soon.”

“Alexa’s personality has helped to create a place for her in the home of millions of customers – and we continue to find ways to evolve her personality to be more helpful and useful for them,” says Toni Reid, Amazon’s vice president for Alexa. “This includes responding to sensitive customer questions or interactions such as 'Alexa, I’m lonely,' 'Alexa, I’m sad,' 'Alexa, I’m depressed,' and so on. As we prepare to respond to these interactions, we are very aware that these are high-stakes answers and have worked closely with experts, such as crisis hotlines, to ensure Alexa’s response is helpful."

While Reid says “AI can help make life easier – and at times, more delightful – I don’t see AI as a replacement to human relationships.”

Indeed, it seems like a pipe dream to suggest that a machine-based solution, no matter what human traits it picks up or how chatty it gets, can properly fill the void when relationships end or loved ones pass on. 

image credit: via wikimedia commons

Blindfolded guessing games have been made cuter with a dog owner trying to identify all of his dogs correctly, all eight of his Corgis, to be exact. Watch as the “dog dad” tries his best to get the names of all of his corgis right, by doing everything he could. The interaction alone of him with his dogs is enough, but him trying to play the game as well? It’s an added bonus. Find out if he guesses correctly!  

Kaci Shepard Myers was gifted a pupper named Brody, a ten-week-old corgi who Kaci had been looking at online. Her bridal squad teamed up and asked for her partner, Adam, for help to buy Kaci the perfect fluffy companion and ring bearer on her big day. Metro has the details: 

‘I couldn’t believe what was going on – I was so excited to see my best friends who live far away that I didn’t even notice him at first.’

 ‘My first thought was that they were there to tell me they were bailing out of the wedding or something, not that they’d got me a puppy!’

 Kaci was in a state of shock when she was presented with the puppy, but after that she instantly fell in love. The puppy served as the ring bearer at the wedding on 31 August.

image credit: Caters News Agency via Metro

Kristina Perkins was arrested for shoplifting from a Big Lots store in Port Charlotte, Florida. But before she was finally caught in the hands of the law, she kept the police searching, by trying to escape through the ceiling. The police searched for hours, even to the point removing the tiles in the restroom’s ceiling, where the Florida woman was hiding, as Oddee detailed: 

The deputies cleared out the store and started searching for her in the ceiling. They used Charlotte County Fire and EMS ladders and thermal imaging systems. The police searched for hours, slowly removing the tiles. They spotted her a couple of times during the search and suggested that she give up, though Perkins, naturally, kept moving. During the search, they ended up finding Perkins’s bag. The purse contained three syringes and a spoon with a white residue that, when tested, showed up as Morphine.

image credit: Unsplash via Oddee

Australia’s Chris the sheep made headlines in 2015 for the record-breaking weight of his fleece. In 2019, unfortunately, Chris came back to the headlines for his death. Believed to be aged about 10, the sheep was found dead (of old age) by his minders, as Kate Luke, the co-founder and vice president of the Canberra-based Little Oak Sanctuary where the sheep resided, told the public: 

“We are heartbroken at the loss of this sweet, wise, friendly soul. Chris is known as the world record holder for having grown the heaviest fleece on record,” the sanctuary said in a Facebook post.

“He was so much more than this, so very much more, and we will remember him for all that he was - someone, not something.”

image credit: RSPCA ACT /via REUTERS

People nowadays love to get away from the stress and hustle of the city, and head towards rural cities, gardens, or the sea just to unwind. The green lush gardens and woodlands aren’t the only spaces that are beneficial to one’s mind, “blue spaces”, the sea, coastline, and other bodies of water are proven to be good for the body and mind. Proximity or being near a body of water is associated with many benefits, from getting vitamin D to better social relations, as The Guardian detailed: 

“Many of the processes are exactly the same as with green space – with some added benefits,” says Dr Mathew White, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter and an environmental psychologist with BlueHealth, a programme researching the health and wellbeing benefits of blue space across 18 (mostly European) countries.

White says there are three established pathways by which the presence of water is positively related to health, wellbeing and happiness. First, there are the beneficial environmental factors typical of aquatic environments, such as less polluted air and more sunlight. Second, people who live by water tend to be more physically active – not just with water sports, but walking and cycling.

Third – and this is where blue space seems to have an edge over other natural environments – water has a psychologically restorative effect. White says spending time in and around aquatic environments has consistently been shown to lead to significantly higher benefits, in inducing positive mood and reducing negative mood and stress, than green space does.

image credit: via wikimedia commons

Twitter user @drive45music unknowingly started a pasta debate when he tweeted that his girlfriend makes pasta by adding uncooked pasta to cold water and then turning on the stove to boil water. This shocking method rattled the pasta community, where the majority do the traditional method of dumping the pasta into boiling water. Personalities such as Alton Brown and J.Kenji Lopez took the girlfriend’s side, weighing in on the rising debate, while Frankie Celenza explained that the cold water method can make the pasta noodles soggy. But what is the correct method for cooking pasta? The Huffington Post has the details: 

The traditional method seems to be the most foolproof, but if you’re still not sure which method is best, Celenza put the debate into perspective for us:

“Listen, you can do whatever you want, you will cook the pasta, it will cook. Heck, you could soak the pasta in water overnight like a bunch of shriveled chickpeas. But you could also get to work in the morning by hitching a ride on the outside of the last subway car of an express train and leaping off at the local stop that train doesn’t stop at. You’ll get there ― it just might not work consistently for you. That’s how I feel about the endless way people try to dream up how to cook pasta differently. It’s idiotic. We have too much time on our hands.”

Who doesn’t love animals dressed as popular fiction characters? Meet Potter the Pomsky, a dog named after Harry Potter. Watch the Siberian Husky and Pomeranian mix ride a roomba vacuum as the Harry Potter theme plays in the background.There are some bumps at first until the pupper yawns as he rides the roomba like a pro. It’s like watching Harry Potter ride a broom for the first time! 

(via Popsugar)

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“Deez muggle brooms iz boring” ⚡️ Sound⬆️ #myotherrideisafirebolt #potterthepomsky #harrypotterdog #harrypotter #harrypotterfans #pomsky #dogoftheday #dogoftheweek #dogsofinstagram #pomskies #fluffydogs #toocute #husky #pomeranian #pomskypuppy #pomskypuppies #jkrowling #dogspotting #awesome #halloween #costume #ladbible #puppyofday #puppyoftheday

A post shared by Potter The Pomsky ⚡️ (@potterthepomsky) on Oct 19, 2019 at 1:13pm PDT

image credit: via Instagram

Japan finally catches up to the trend of rage rooms, where people pay to smash things up, with the launch of the Crash Box Japan, the first rage room in Japan’s western Kansai region. Now people in Osaka can smash items such as dishes, old home appliances, furniture, bottles, and champagne towers to destress or release their rage. Crash Box Japan offers different options, from the 8-kilogram “Test Course” to the 45-kilogram “Giga Course”. 

(via SoraNews24)

image credit: via SoraNews24

The simplest answer would be: find another cat to cuddle with and share body warmth. Watch as a cat moves from huddling one cat friend to other to sleep, finding the best partner to sleep warmly in the cold weather. Isn’t this adorable? 

Harvard University scientists say they've found the smallest mass a planet could be before it could lose its atmosphere and liquid water. Estimated at about 2.7 percent of the mass of the Earth, this number is the equivalent of more than twice the mass of the Moon. While this presents another possibility to widen the horizon for new planets to consider for life support, size is just another factor in a planet’s habitability, as ScienceAlert detailed: 

An exoplanet is said to be in a star's habitable zone if it's at the right distance to be able to support liquid water. If it's too close, it would receive too much radiation from its sun, making it too hot. Too far, and it'd be too cold for liquid water.

"When people think about the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone, they tend to only think about it spatially, meaning how close the planet is to the star," astronomer Constantin Arnscheidt, lead author of the paper describing the research, published in The Astrophysical Journal in August, told Astrobiology Magazine.

"But actually, there are many other variables to habitability, including [a planet's] mass."

image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech via ScienceAlert

An 18-year-old has broken into a German prison and scaled a 4-meter (13-foot) wall to get to his ex’s window. Prison officials managed to intercept the teenager with the help of the fire service, who brought a ladder to bring the man down when he refused to climb back down. It is unclear whether or not his attempt succeeded in winning back the heart of his girlfriend (who is also 18). The teenager is now being investigated for trespassing and unauthorized contact with prisoners. The things people do for love, right? 

image credit: Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/dpa via AP