The below is the verbatim output of Bing Chat (aka Sydney) on first try, with only some very minor white-space formatting changes. The exact prompt will be clear by the time you finish reading.
His name was Zane Zephyr, and he was a wizard. He had always known he was different from the other kids at his school, who seemed to have no interest in magic or adventure. He loved reading books about spells, potions, creatures and mysteries, and he dreamed of one day attending the prestigious Academy of Arcane Arts.
He had just turned 13 when he received his acceptance letter, along with a strange device that looked like a metal bracelet with... (read 1494 more words →)
it actually wouldn't take all that much evidence to convince us that, for example, "the numbers chosen in last night's lottery were 4, 2, 9, 7, 8 and 3." The correct response to this argument is to say that the prior probability of a miracle occurring is orders of magnitude smaller than mere one in a million odds.
That doesn't seem right. If somebody tries to convince me that the result of a fair 5 number lottery is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 I would have a much harder time believing it, but not because the probability is less then one in a million. I think the correct answer is that if the... (read more)
Here are two articles quite skeptical of polyphasic sleep that might be of interest.
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm
I don't necessarily agree with the author, but I guess it's good to be aware of arguments on both sides of the debate.
Jared Diamond, in Guns Germs and Steel, argues that when the time is ripe scientific discoveries are made quite regardless of who makes them, give or take a few decades. Most discoveries are incremental, and many are made by multiple people simultaneously. So wouldn't a discovery that isn't published be just made elsewhere in a few years time, possibly by someone without many ethical concerns?