Silly stories from now and then

TOTALLY DERAILED!

The Happiest Detour on Earth

European Parliament generally seems progressive, but they also have the ultimate “on-site mandatory” work policy. Thousands of political officials are sent packing across a country (or three), 12 times per year, just to hold meetings and votes. If you think that sounds like a major expense and a logistical headache—well, you’re probably right. But wait! It’s also not great for the environment. Most of the Parliamentarians travel to Strasbourg by chartered plane.

Except, that is, for those travelling from Brussels. They get chartered trains. And in mid-October, one of these trains ended up a wee bit off-track.

The train departed as usual from Brussels, but when it reached Charles de Gaulle Airport, there was a signalling mess-up…that literally sent the train to Disneyland Paris, 45 minutes away from the Strasbourg destination. A train stop in the amusement park is sandwiched right between the Art of Marvel and Main Street, USA (I assume that’s like an exotic locale to Europeans).

The reactions of everyone aboard the train? Not too surprisingly, the Disney nostalgia was contagious. Especially considering they couldn’t even disembark to blow off some steam before their four-day Death By Endless Committee Meeting. 

Sure, democracy is cool and all, but sometimes people just want to believe in magic! Members of Parliament took selfies with roller coasters as their backdrop, complained about the train’s lack of “free attractions,” and sardonically suggested applying the Disney motto (“Where dreams come true”) to Parliament. - AT

HOW... SWEET?

In Search of Lost Claudia

When it comes to scouting out their new school for dates, a couple of Missouri State University freshmen got way more than they bargained for.

Hayden Moll was idly sifting through his Tinder matches when he became intrigued by one in particular: a young woman named Claudia (last name unknown) who also attended the school. The only problem is, he was so fascinated by her profile that he inadvertently swiped left (for “nah”) instead of right (for “yeah!”). 

Initially devastated, he quickly chose to accept his quest: Find Claudia. With an almost The Notebook level of smitten foolhardiness, Hayden identified his own Ferris wheel to climb—by searching the name Claudia in the university’s student database and then emailing all of them.

How many Claudias can one university have? Well, Hayden said it was around 40, while AP reports a more modest 22, but either way, that’s a lot of emails. Especially considering all of this was based on his feelings for a single photo.

“I’m just asking, if this is your profile that I described, please message me back with ‘right’ or ‘left’ just so I know if you’re interested or not,” he beseeched the Claudia population. “If you choose ‘right’ we could totally get some donuts or something but if you choose ‘left’ that’s cool too. No worries!”

As it happened, the Claudia in question—Claudia Alley—saw his message almost immediately. And she couldn’t resist telling her Twitter followers, and I quote: “THIS GUY LITERALLY EMAILED EVERY CLAUDIA AT MISSOURI STATE TO FIND ME ON TINDER” 

Yup, Claudia was totally down to get donuts.

But that was not the end of it, because her tweet got hundreds of thousands of likes and retweets, which drew interest from the media—local, national, AND international. Claudia related that she hadn't planned on telling her mom. And she didn't have to, because her mom heard about it on the radio in another city. Meanwhile, a Springfield, MI-based clothing company started printing T-shirts that read, "I'll Be Your Claudia.”

So romantic!!! After all this, more than five years later…did this relationship stand the test of time? And more importantly, what flavours of donuts did they get? In my capacity as a professional journalist, I Googled “Hayden Claudia donuts,” but this crucial information remains sadly out of reach. - AT

COO COO CACHOO!

Pavlovian Pigeon Power?

In a study published in the journal iScience, researchers had a bunch of pigeons sort different lines and shapes into categories. How? By pecking at a button to indicate which category the line/shape belonged in, with four progressively more difficult "levels" to the task. 

Sounds like a fun way to spend a Tuesday, right? For these researchers, it probably was, because the pigeons were remarkably efficient learners—their accuracy improved, even on the harder tests.

This backs up some earlier research that suggested pigeons are weirdly good at “associative learning”—classical conditioning (à la Pavlov) is the most popular example of this.  

Except, what pigeons were doing in this new study was MORE advanced (sorry, humans' best friend!). Exhibit A: a few mutts (Pavlov wasn’t picky about his test subjects) hearing a bell and knowing it means snacktime? Let’s face it, not exactly genius. (I too am motivated by snacktime.) 

Exhibit B: pigeons learning to sort visual phenomena based on their shape. Sure, it doesn’t sound that hard, but my cutlery drawer would beg to differ. Because humans tend to be surprisingly bad at this specific type of learning, with our big ol’  brains looking for patterns and rules everywhere, while we [I] can't even keep the forks organized. 

But you know what we created to help us out with this? You guessed it: machine learning!!

Okay, maybe you didn’t guess, but anyway, lead researcher Brandon Turner points out that the pigeons seem to be learning with the same basic process that AI uses. Only, according to Turner, the pigeons are better at it.

Which leads me to…maybe the robot overlords we SHOULD be worried about are…AI designed by pigeons?? If those birds are even REAL?!?! - AT

HEAVY IS THE HEAD!

Queen to Bishop 4

In the way that all monarchs begin their careers on a down note, Phil’s dad Louis VII had a seizure when poor Phil was only 14 years old. I imagine he had “the talk” with his son that went a little something like this: “Son, you’re 14. You’re a man now. I’m going to make you King of the Franks. Go find a wife and you’ll figure the rest out for yourself.”

Based on his many attempts, he didn’t figure the rest out.

At age 15, he married Isabella, whose dowry included an entire county! Unfortunately she died in childbirth.

So Phil wrote to the King of Denmark, asking for a nice young lady, a fleet of ships, and some land claims in England. The Danish King sent his sister, Ingeborg, and 10,000 silver marks instead. Not sure how he felt about the cash, but he was NOT happy with Ingeborg. How do we know? He tried sending her back to Denmark… the VERY NEXT DAY. Not the most romantic honeymoon I’ve heard of!

Poor Ingeborg went to a French convent instead. Presumably it was warmer and quiet. Phil was called “God-given” so presumably she wanted to get some input on his “gift.”

So what’s a king to do? Weasel his way out, obvi! He wrote to the Pope and said, “The marriage wasn’t consummated, let me out please,” but the pope’s response was, “No can do, brosauce, she already wrote to me and you TOTALLY did, no backing out.” Phil made up a family tree for Ingeborg that made it look like she was related to his first wife (apparently before incest became super-cool for royals, the Catholic church was—checks notes—opposed to the practice) and sent THAT to the pope. “Fake news,” said the pope.

Next step? Just act like it never happened! Phil found a lady in Geneva and convinced her father to bring her to Paris to marry him…but they never made it. Thomas, Count of Savoy kidnapped her halfway to Paris, married her, and wrote to Phil, “You already HAVE a wife.”

A year later, continuing to ignore his Danish wife, Phil married Agnes of Merania. The pope, who must have been just so tired of this, wrote AGAIN and reminded Phil that he ALREADY had a wife. 

Phil left him on read.

Agnes—and I have to stress how much this story makes me appreciate modern medicine—died in childbirth 5 years later. Phil, having had two wives die in childbirth and one kidnapped before he could even meet her, finally gave in to Danish and papal pressures and remembered…he already had a wife!

…Who he would recognize as Queen of France 12 years later. What a guy! - SC