A crappy excuse of a database
Have you ever been so impressed with your bowel movement that you’ve been compelled to record the incident for posterity? No? Just us? Well, you may want to reconsider, because a pair of AI tech companies are looking for a few good poop pictures.
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It’s all part of the “Give a S--t” (you can probably guess what we’ve censored out) campaign, a joint venture from Auggi, a gut health start-up, and Seed Health. The companies hope to use photos sent in by regular people to build an app that would help people with chronic gut problems automatically track their own bowel movements. In addition, the photo library could also be used for research into gut-related diseases such as irritable bowl syndrome.
The two companies hope to collect 100,000 photos for their library, which is an absolutely prodigious amount of poop to sort through. But hey, that’s what the AI is for. They already know the AI works, as Auggi created a proof-of-concept library of 36,000 images of faux feces made from blue Play-Doh. The AI was able to recognize consistency according to the Bristol scale basically 100% of the time.
If you’ve been inspired, you can submit your lovely poop pictures here. Seed and Auggi expect contributers to send only one image each, but multiple submissions are welcome. They’ve already received a dozen from LOTME world headquarters. We love a good bowel movement here.
Criminal moon
“The Wolf Man.” “An American Werewolf in London.” “The Howling.” “Teen Wolf.” All terrifying Hollywood tales of bloodthirsty behavior and sanguinary slaughter. (Michael J. Fox as a hirsute homicidal lycan? Okay, maybe not “Teen Wolf.”)
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And the propellant igniting all that criminal lycanthropy? The full moon.
Any teacher will swear a full moon portends the kind of student behavior that an entire pot of teachers’ lounge coffee can’t counter. And every cop knows it’s going to be a “Training Day” shift when the lunar light shines brightest.
But is the Thin Blue Line truly stretched to snapping during a full moon? New York University’s BetaGov research team looked at the purported “lunar effect” linking crime and the full moon. A lit review revealed mixed findings for and against a criminal lunar effect. The team then collaborated with the Vallejo, Calif., police department to match the moon’s phases with the city’s crime events. They did the same with departments in Canada and Mexico.
The results? A full moon had no effect on Vallejo’s crime rate, or anywhere else in North America.
While the finding eviscerates the moon-induced mayhem hypothesis, cops walking a full-moonlit beat can at least take comfort in this fact: Unlike London, Vallejo is clearly free of American werewolves.
A doctor’s note … of terror
With Halloween upon us, here’s a veddy scary riddle: When is a sports physical not a sports physical?
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When it’s a haunted house physical.
Specifically, when the haunted house is McKamey Manor in Summertown, Tenn. … and in Huntsville, Ala. That’s right, it can be in two places at the same time. Terrifying.
McKamey Manor is considered by many to be the most terrifying haunted house in the United States, and by some to be a “torture chamber under disguise.”
The “Surivial [we think they misspelled it on purpose to make it even scarier] Horror Challenge” is so terrifying that management requires all participants to have a “completed ‘sports physical’ and doctor’s letter stating you are physically and mentally cleared,” as well as proof of medical insurance. Each paying customer also has to “pass a portable drug test on the day of the show,” according to the McKamey Manor website.
The manor also happens to be the subject of a petition, which currently has over 58,000 signatures, asking state officials in Alabama and Tennessee to shut it down because “some people have had to seek professional psychiatric help and medical care for extensive injuries.”
Ironically, we hear that some of the most traumatized customers have been actual physicians who succumbed to the horrors of Prior Approval Asylum, the EHR Torment Room, and the River of the Damned Maintenance of Certification.
