1 . Flinging brightly coloured objects around a screen at high speed is not what computers’ central processing units were designed for. So manufacturers of arcade machines invented the graphics-processing unit (GPU), a set of circuits to handle video games’ visuals in parallel to the work done by the central processor. The GPU’s ability to speed up complex tasks has since found wider uses: video editing, cryptocurrency mining and most recently, the training of artificial intelligence.

AI is now disrupting the industry that helped bring it into being. Every part of entertainment stands to be affected by generative AI, which digests inputs of text, image, audio or video to create new outputs of the same. But the games business will change the most, argues Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital (VC) firm. Games interactivity requires them to be stuffed with laboriously designed content: consider the 30 square miles of landscape or 60 hours of music in “Red Dead Redemption 2”, a recent cowboy adventure. Enlisting AI assistants to churn it out could drastically shrink timescales and budgets.

AI represents an “explosion of opportunity” and could drastically change the landscape of game development. Making a game is already easier than it was: nearly 13,000 titles were published last year on Steam, a games platform, almost double the number in 2017. Gaming may soon resemble the music and video industries in which most new content on Spotify or YouTube is user-generated. One games executive predicts that small firms will be the quickest to work out what new genres are made possible by AI. Last month Raja Koduri, an executive at Intel, left the chip maker to found an AI-gaming startup.

Don’t count the big studios out, though. If they can release half a dozen high-quality titles a year instead of a couple, it might chip away at the hit-driven nature of their business, says Josh Chapman of Konvoy, a gaming focused VC firm. A world of more choices also favors those with big marketing budgets. And the giants may have better answers to the mounting copyright questions around AI. If generative models have to be trained on data to which the developer has the rights, those with big back-catalogues will be better placed than startups. Trent Kaniuga, an artist who has worked on games like “Fortnite”, said last month that several clients had updated their contracts to ban AI-generated art.

If the lawyers don’t intervene, unions might. Studios diplomatically refer to AI assistants as “co-pilots”, not replacements for humans.

Exploring the Appeal of Vintage

Today, the term “vintage” applies to almost everything. Vintage is more recent than an antique (古董) which is defined as 100 years old or more. It basically means reviving something old-fashioned or filled with memories. For an object to be considered vintage, it must be unique and genuine enough to retain at least some of its original charm.

We buy vintage because it creates a sense of personal connection for us: it speaks to our childhood memories and that feels good. We also buy vintage because we’re rebels. Vintage is a protest against modern mainstream culture. In an age of technology, buying vintage is a refuge from our fast-paced, high-tech world. We want our children to make the most of their creativity and know how to entertain themselves without electronic gadgets. Ironically, early video games are now considered vintage.

Of all the vintage objects, vintage toys are forever attractive for both adults and children. Although some toys have emotional value, others have high market value and are expensive to collect. Vintage toys that were made in small quantities often bring a higher value than those that were mass produced. That means, if you own one of the 2,000 “Peanuts” royal blue beanie baby elephants that were manufactured with a darker blue coat than originally intended, you might have something valuable on your hands. In fact, due to a manufacturer error, this is the most collectible beanie baby around — and worth about £3,000.

If you’re motivated and feeling lucky, you can find deals on vintage toys by browsing charity shops, secondhand stores, community centers, flea markets and garage sales. You never know what kind of treasures are hiding at the bottom of a mixed box in someone’s basement, garage or attic.

8 . Time to end Santa’s “naughty list”?

Many of us have magical memories of Santa secretly bringing gifts and joy to our childhood homes — but is there a darker side to the beloved Christmas tradition?

I was — and I’m happy to admit it — a loyal believer of Santa. I absolutely loved the magic of Christmas, especially Santa Claus, and my parents went above and beyond to encourage it. However, as I begin to construct my own Santa Claus myth for my daughter, I can’t help but feel guilty. Could it undermine her trust in me?

    1     Back in 1978, a study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (矫正精神医学) found that 85% of four-year-olds said they believed in Santa. In 2011, research published in the Journal of Cognition and Development found that 83% of 5-year-olds claimed to be true believers.

I guess it’s not all that surprising.     2     He features in every Christmas TV show and movie. Each year the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) allows you to track Santa’s journey on Christmas Eve. To reassure children during the pandemic in 2020, the World Health Organization issued a statement declaring that Santa was “immune” from Covid 19. And it’s precisely this effort on behalf of parents, and society in general, to create such seemingly overwhelming evidence for the existence of Santa Claus that David Kyle Johnson, a professor of philosophy at King’s College in Pennsylvania, describes as ‘The Santa Lie’ in his book The Myths That Stole Christmas. He highlights how we don’t simply ask children to imagine Santa, but rather to actually believe in him.     3    

The “Santa lie” can reduce trust between a parent and a child.     4     It is the creation of false evidence and convincing kids that bad evidence is in fact good evidence that discourages the kind of critical thinking we should be encouraging in children in this era. “The ‘Santa lie’ is part of a parenting practice that encourages people to believe what they want to believe, simply because of the psychological reward,” says Johnson. “That’s really bad for society in general.”

9 . Is an electric vehicle right for you?

Many people will ask themselves that question for the first time this year. Prices are falling, battery range is rising and mainstream brands are adding new EVs at a breakneck pace.

Here are three things anybody seriously considering buying an EV should know:

1. The price to install a 240v charger

Anybody who owns an electric vehicle needs a 240-volt charger at home. With one, you can recharge overnight, so you start every day with the equivalent of a full tank.

Just a few years ago, home 240v EV chargers cost $2,500-$3,000, including installation, but prices have declined as competition grows with the number of EVs on the road.

2. The time it takes to charge

About 80% of miles driven in EVs are powered by electricity charged at home, but you’ll need to charge elsewhere occasionally. That’s when charging time becomes a big deal, but how long it takes depends on a couple of factors.

First, voltage from the charger. Getting 250 miles of range in seven hours from a 240v charger is fine when you’re charging overnight at home, but it’s a deal breaker if you’re going 300 miles for a weekend getaway. In that case, you’ll want to look for a 400v DC fast charger. They’re not as common as 240v public chargers yet, but they’re becoming more widespread.

There’s another factor: the on-board charger. It regulates how fast the battery can accept electricity. A vehicle with a higher-capacity on-board charger accepts electricity faster.

3. Where to charge

Good route-planning apps will help you find chargers on a road trip.

“Most people have no idea how many public charging stations are within, say, a 10-or 15-mile radius(半径) because they’re small, people don’t look for them or even don’t know what to look for, and they’re rarely signposted,” said journalist John Voelcker, who has studied EVs and charging exhaustively.

4. On the horizon

If an EV doesn’t meet your needs now, watch this space. They’re coming closer, but large numbers of gasoline vehicles will remain in production for years. Beyond that, companies will keep making spare parts for oil-burners for decades.

10 . From Marie Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion (鬼屋) to horror-themed escape rooms, haunted house attractions have terrified and delighted audiences around the world for more than 200 years.

These attractions turn out to be good places to study fear. They help scientists understand the body’s response to fright and how we perceive some situations as enjoyably thrilling and others as truly terrible. One surprising finding: having friends close at hand in a haunted house might make you more jumpy, not less so.

Psychologist and study co-author Sarah Tashjian, who is now at the University of Melbourne, and her team conducted their research with 156 adults, who each wore a wireless wrist sensor during their visit. The sensor measured skin responses linked to the body’s reactions to stress and other situations. When the sensor picked up, for example, greater skin conductance — that is, the degree to which the skin can transmit an electric current — that was a sign that the body was more aroused and ready for fight or flight. In addition to this measure, people reported their expected fear (on a scale of 1 to 10) before entering the haunted house and their experienced fear (on the same scale) after completing the haunt.

The scientists found that people who reported greater fear also showed heightened skin responses. Being with friends, Tashjian and her colleagues further found, increased physiological arousal during the experience, which was linked to stronger feelings of fright. In fact, the fear response was actually weaker when people went through the house in the presence of strangers.

Other investigators have used haunted houses to understand how fear and enjoyment can coexist. In a 2020 study led by Marc Malmdorf Andersen, a member of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark, scientists joined forces with Dystopia Haunted House. The Danish attraction includes such terrifying experiences as being chased by “Mr. Piggy”, a large, chain-saw-wielding man wearing a bloody butcher’s apron and pig mask. People between the ages of 12 and 57 were video recorded at peak moments during the attraction, wore heart-rate monitors throughout and reported on their experience. People’s fright was tied to large-scale heart-rate fluctuations; their enjoyment was linked to small-scale ones. The results suggest that fear and enjoyment can happen together when physiological arousal is balanced “just right”.