Halloween foods from history reveal the holiday's surprising romantic side - and you can try them yourself

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Halloween foods from history reveal the holiday's surprising romantic side - and you can try them yourself     Think about Halloween, and romance is unlikely to be the first thing that comes to mind. But Victorian periodicals and newspapers show that alongside dressing in costumes, enjoying themed cuisine and telling ghost stories, historical Halloween food traditions were often centred on love. Here are three examples you can try for yourself. An article published in the London magazine Kind Words for Boys and Girls in 1889 describes the autumnal traditions that marked this time of year throughout history. One particularly popular snack they point to is hazelnuts and cobnuts, which were in plentiful supply in the autumn. Continued here

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The 7 Most Futuristic Robots, Scooters, and Aircraft at Japan Mobility Show 2023     Japan Mobility Show 2023 just kicked off, and as predicted, futuristic EV concepts are hogging the limelight.But with the rebranding from the Tokyo Auto Show also comes a boatload of non-car technology to see and inspire. From robots to scooters, here are seven of the coolest non-car concepts coming out of Japan Mobility Show 2023. Continued here

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Mike Johnson and the Power of the Big Lie     It’s been a major week for the unfounded idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. First, House Republicans elevated Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who was formerly almost unknown on the national level, to be Speaker of the House. Johnson is a creationist and a climate-change denier, and he was a key figure in the effort to keep Trump in power—which certainly helped in his bid for leadership this week. On the other hand, as some of the former President’s most loyal associates have faced the threat of jail time in Georgia, they have renounced their false election theories. “You have to lie about the election to rise in power if you’re a Republican in the House,” the staff writer Jane Mayer says, “but when you face potential sentencing in a court yourself, the truth finally comes out.” Mayer joins the New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser and Evan Osnos to look at the current dynamics of election denialism in Republican politics.After high-school football stars were accused of rape, online vigilantes demanded that justice be served. Continued here

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The 10 Best Horror Games You Can Play Right Now on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and More     October may be the most thematically appropriate time to play horror games, but the genre is good in all seasons. Horror games have had something of a renaissance in the past year thanks to a combination of indie darlings, beloved remakes, and stunning new entries in the genre. There is something for everybody, and there has never been a better time to be a horror game fan than right now. With so many to choose from, it can be a little scary trying to figure out where to start. Here are 10 of the best horror games you can play right now.From the mind of Shinji Mikami, the father of the Resident Evil franchise, comes The Evil Within. Nearly two decades after bringing horror games into vogue with the first Resident Evil, Mikami and Tango Gameworks returned to the genre to give a new take on horror. The product is The Evil Within, one of the most truly terrifying and gruesome games ever made. It isn’t for the faint of heart, but for hardcore fans of the genre, it is a must-play. Continued here

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"The Killer" Misses     A dozen years have passed since "Shame," in which Michael Fassbender played an unappeasable sex addict named Brandon, and I remember wondering, back then, what Brandon would do once the juice ran dry. Sell real estate, perhaps? Get married, raise three kids, and work on his short game on weekends? Another possibility is suggested by "The Killer," a new film from David Fincher, in which Fassbender—still lean and staring, spookily unchanged by time—takes the role of a professional assassin. I can't prove anything, but I suspect that he is Brandon reloaded. From picking up strangers on the subway to picking them off with a silenced rifle, through a hotel window, is just a hop and a skip.Fassbender is one of those actors who seem alone even when they're in company. He specializes in the hard, the hollow, and the robotic, and the anonymous figure he plays in "The Killer"—which is based on a multivolume graphic novel by Alexis Nolent—spends the first half hour or so in monkish solitude. He waits in empty rooms on the top floor of an apartment building, in Paris, preparing to shoot someone across the way. He has a gun, a telescopic sight, and a watch that measures his pulse. (No trigger should be squeezed until the rate drops below sixty.) Determined to leave no trace, he wears gloves at all times and dozes on a workbench as if it were an operating table. And, in voice-over, he talks to us. Continued here

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In the Cities of Killing     The only way to tell this story is to try to tell it truthfully and to know that you will fail.On the evening of Wednesday, October 18th, with the entire Middle East in a state of mourning and outrage, I took a taxi to the information offices of the Israel Defense Forces, a heavily guarded compound in northwest Tel Aviv. Like many reporters, I’d accepted an invitation to see video evidence of the worst massacre of Jews in generations, certainly in the history of Israel—Hamas’s rampage through Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Be’eri, and other communities near the Gaza Strip, extending to an outdoor electronic-music festival, Nova. At last count, the attack throughout what Israelis call Otef Aza—“the Gaza envelope”—had claimed some fourteen hundred lives; thousands were wounded, and around two hundred and twenty people had been kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. Hamas gave the operation a name, the Al-Aqsa Flood. Continued here

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What the anti-woke backlash against liberal feminism misses about causes like the gender pay gap     This week, thousands of women across Iceland went on strike to demand greater gender equality. That’s right, Iceland: the country that has ranked highest in the world for gender equality for the past 14 years in a row. So even in places such as Iceland that have focused on narrowing the gender pay gap, women are still concerned about how housework and caregiving falls on their shoulders, is undervalued in society and impacts their careers. Continued here

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Chad's first dengue fever outbreak: what you should know     Medical Entomologist at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nairobi Chad has reported its first dengue outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The country’s health ministry declared an outbreak on 15 August and so far 1,342 suspected cases have been reported, 41 of them confirmed in the laboratory. One death was reported among the patients with lab-confirmed cases. The outbreak started in Ouaddaï province in eastern Chad, currently the outbreak epicentre. Illnesses have also been reported in three other provinces. Godfred Akoto Boafo spoke to medical entomologist Eunice Anyango Owino about the disease. Continued here

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Everything You Need To Know About 'Star Wars Outlaws', Ubisoft's Open-World Scoundrel Game     There has never been a better time to be a Star Wars fan. With the many amazing Disney+ shows like Andor and great games like Jedi Survivor there are more ways than ever to dive into a galaxy far far away. Ubisoft is bringing its own take on the universe with Star Wars Outlaws, an open-world scoundrel game announced during the Xbox Games Showcase 2023. It looks like it will fill the void left by canceled projects like Star Wars 1313 and Project Ragtag. Here’s everything you need to know about Star Wars Outlaws.The official reveal of Star Wars Outlaws gave no release date for the game, only a very tentative release window. The end of the game’s reveal trailer announced it is coming in 2024. Continued here

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An International Student on Lockdown During the Shooting in Lewiston, Maine     Alan Wang, a twenty-one-year-old from the Henan Province of central China, had never seen a gun before he moved to the United States—not even one attached to a police officer. When he was leaving home to attend Bates College, a liberal-arts school in Lewiston, Maine, his grandmother warned him not to go out on weekends; she had been reading about the increase in mass shootings in the U.S. and was concerned that he would be shot. He told her that the U.S. was safe, and that Chinese state media was exaggerating the gun-violence problem to make America look bad.Two days ago, the worst mass shooting in Maine’s history—and the deadliest in the United States this year—occurred in Lewiston, when a gunman opened fire at a local bowling alley, and then a bar, killing eighteen people and injuring thirteen more. The shootings were just a couple of miles away from the Bates campus, and the school went into lockdown, along with the rest of Androscoggin County. The suspect, Robert Card, has not yet been caught, and a manhunt—involving local and state police, federal agents, and the Coast Guard—is under way. As of Friday afternoon, county residents and Bates students are still sheltering in place. Continued here

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Parkinson's disease: tai chi may help manage symptoms - new research     The centuries-old martial art of tai chi is shown to have many health benefits – including improving balance, reducing anxiety and preventing cardiovascular disease.But these aren’t the only benefits this exercise may have. A recently published study has demonstrated for the first time that tai chi can reduce the severity of Parkinson’s symptoms in the long-term. Continued here

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ChatGPT is Coming to the World's Creepiest Robot Dog     If you thought Boston Dynamics’ robot “dog” couldn’t get any creepier, well... Happy Halloween. The robotics company behind shockingly agile humanoids like Atlas has made the outrageous, but obvious decision to add ChatGPT to its Spot robot dog. That integration with ChatGPT also brings two other creepy developments: programmable personalities and a fake moving mouth. Yikes. Continued here

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Shudder Just Quietly Released the Scariest Movie of the Year     If you’re a bonafide horror fan, there’s no better streaming service for you than Shudder. The AMC-owned platform has built a reputation for itself over the past few years as the go-to streaming home for new and niche horror titles. While Shudder is constantly adding fresh films and TV shows to its media library, too, there’s no better time of the year to check it out than in the weeks and days leading up to Halloween — a period that allows the service to highlight all of its more recent horror acquisitions and additions.This year, those titles include gems like Perpetrator, Influencer, and When Evil Lurks. The latter film, an American and Argentinian co-production, is a possession thriller unlike any that you’ve likely seen before. It's one of the boldest, most viscerally intense, and unpredictable horror movies of the year, and, as of today, it’s officially available to stream on Shudder. Heading into the final few days of the month, genre fans should consider it a must-watch October title. Continued here

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A Murdered Israeli Filmmaker's Prophetic Warning, in "The Boy"     The violence of the Israel-Palestine conflict marked Winner's life early, and trauma became the preoccupation of his art.On the morning of October 7th, as Hamas militants paraglided over Israel's razor-wire fence to carry out a mass killing, Yahav Winner was waking up to his newborn daughter, Shaya, in his family's home, in an idyllic desert community with fields of sunflowers and rows of palm trees. Winner and his wife, Shaylee Atary, both filmmakers, had started their family where Winner grew up, in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, a village of some seven hundred residents, just a few kilometres from the border that separates Israel and Gaza. That morning, she described, seventy Hamas militants surrounded Winner and Atary's home. When a Hamas fighter's arm burst through their bedroom window, Winner seemed to grasp that the entire family couldn't survive. He fought off the intruders, and flashed a hand signal for his wife to flee. Atary, who has a disability that affects her left leg, limped out the door with their sleeping daughter in her arms. Outside in a courtyard, the militants were going from house to house—Atary could hear the muffled whistles of gunshots through silencers. She found refuge in a garden shed, and hid among empty pots and topsoil. After what seemed like an hour, her sleeping baby woke and began to cry. Sucking on Atary's pinky didn't quiet the infant. So Atary ran again, trying each house, until she found refuge for herself and Shaya in the safe room of some family friends. When they emerged, twenty-seven hours later, Atary found the village in ruins, and her husband missing. She hoped that he was among the more than two hundred hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza. She found out while being interviewed on live TV that he had, in fact, been killed. "He gave his life, I feel, to love me," Atary told me. "I'll miss him for the rest of my life." Continued here

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The Most Controversial Epic Movie Franchise in the World Is in Serious Trouble     There’s no overstating how Harry Potter dominated 2000s culture. Fans would camp outside bookstores for midnight releases, spoilers could ruin friendships, and Warner Bros. captured lightning in a bottle for its accompanying movie series, which showed the wizard and his friends growing up alongside the kids who watched them.But now, those kids are growing up. Liking Harry Potter has become the hallmark of Millennial corniness, and J.K. Rowling’s political stances are making the nostalgia harder to embrace. That shift is being felt by the minds behind what could have been the next phase in a new cinematic universe, but instead has become a cultural behemoth simply petering out to a quiet conclusion. Continued here

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Nintendo Switch Just Quietly Added the Most Inventive Indie Adventure of 2023     The idea of “too many cooks in the kitchen” certainly doesn’t apply to Dave the Diver. Despite the way this indie darling constantly throws new systems at the player to the point it’s nearly bursting, none of these get in the way of the other. Instead, the game’s cornucopia of features helps enthrall the player into what would otherwise be a monotonous routine. Roguelike, farming sim, management sim, and more all wrapped into one, Dave the Diver probably checks every box there is and will have something for everybody.Meet Dave, he is — shocker — a diver. Dave likes to spend his time exploring the waters of a spot called the Blue Hole, and one day, he is convinced to take over a local sushi restaurant as well. So, Dave isn’t just a diver anymore, he is Dave the diver... and restaurant manager. These two jobs make up the game’s core loops. Continued here

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55 Weird Things With Near-Perfect Amazon Reviews You'll Wish You Knew About Sooner     Are you tired of buying a new lint roller every week because your four-legged pal leaves behind a furry trail everywhere he goes? Or have you dropped one too many lip balms in the abyss of the car seat gap? If you’re nodding your head, this list of weird things with near-perfect Amazon reviews is here to help. From clever cleaning tools to game-changing kitchen gadgets, it includes tons of useful things you probably never even knew existed, but won’t be able to live without once you hit that magical “add to cart” button.If you’ve lost one too many things to the abyss of the gap between car seats, get this clever seat gap filler. The Shark Tank-featured product has garnered over 48,000 perfect ratings and is a game-changer according to shoppers. To install it, simply attach the universal fit fillers to the seat belt on the driver or passenger side using the built-in slot. Continued here

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Is There a Path Forward for Gaza and Israel?     After returning from a week of reporting in Israel, David Remnick has two important conversations about the conflict between Israelis and Arabs both in and outside of Gaza. First, he speaks with Yonit Levi, a veteran news anchor on Israeli television, about how her country is both reeling from the October 7th terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and grappling with how to strike at Hamas as the country prepares for an invasion that would be catastrophic for Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh maintains that peace is possible, if the influence of Hamas and the Israeli far right can be curtailed.David Remnick’s Letter from Israel appears in The New Yorker, along with extensive coverage of the conflict. Continued here

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The Strangest Sci-Fi Fantasy of the Year is an Urgent Warning About the Future     Godfrey Reggio’s latest is an archival dreamscape... and a self-aware warning about climate change.Experimental filmmaker Godfrey Reggio may not be a household name, but his non-narrative, disarming features have subtly shaped the way we look at our world. Modern-day environmentalism owes a great deal to Reggio: since his assured ‘80s debut with Koyaanisqatsi, the director has been delivering cautionary tales about exploitation and the perils of greed. His films leave their lessons up to the audience — though to the naked eye, it’d be easy to reduce his work strictly to its anti-tech message (and label him a hypocrite for embracing modern film techniques in his work). Continued here

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The app that revolutionized money transfers in Nigeria     OPay isn’t just Nigeria’s most popular fintech app but also its most downloaded one, outperforming global giants like WhatsApp, TikTok, Snapchat, and Telegram as of October 15, 2023, according to analytics platform Data.ai.A revolutionary feature of OPay is its use of money transfer technology that does not rely on the traditional banking system. Anyone can transfer money via OPay — no matter what their bank is — and it is credited to the recipient’s account almost instantly. The app is also popular with ride-hailing drivers and artisans who work in low-trust environments and rely on getting paid quickly. New members are automatically assigned a bank account number using the last 10 digits of their phone number. Continued here

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White patients are more likely than Black patients to be given opioid medication for pain in US emergency departments     White people who visit hospital emergency departments with pain are 26% more likely than Black people to be given opioid pain medications such as morphine. This was a key finding from our recent study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. We also found that Black patients were 25% more likely than white patients to be given only non-opioid painkillers such as ibuprofen, which are typically available over the counter. We examined more than 200,000 visit records of patients treated for pain, taken from a representative sample of U.S. emergency departments from 1999 to 2020. Although white patients were far more likely to be prescribed opioid medication for their pain, we found no significant differences across race in either the type or severity of patients’ pain. Furthermore, racial disparities in pain medication remained even after we adjusted for any differences in insurance status, patient age, census region or other potentially important factors. Continued here

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How to redesign social media algorithms to bridge divides     Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University Aviv Ovadya is affiliated with the the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, the AI & Democracy Foundation, the newDemocracy Foundation, and the Centre for Governance of AI. Continued here

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How to think computationally about AI, the universe and everything     Drawing on his decades-long mission to formulate the world in computational terms, Stephen Wolfram delivers a profound vision of computation and its role in the future of AI. Amid a debut of mesmerizing visuals depicting the underlying structure of the universe, he provides a sweeping survey of his life's work, offering a new perspective on the applications — and consequences — of AI powered by computational language. Continued here

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Cockney and Queen's English have all but disappeared among young people - here's what's replaced them     Cockney and received pronunciation (Queen’s English) were once spoken by people of all ages, but they are no longer commonly spoken among young people in the south-east of England. We identified three main accents:standard southern British English, multicultural London English and estuary English. Continued here

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Taylor Swift and Beyonc     Christopher Nolan is a Taylor Swift fan. This is an actual sentence typed in the year 2023. Why does this matter? you ask? Simple, Nolan is a longtime champion of the cinematic experience, and during a recent event at the City University of New York he noted that Hollywood studios need to pay attention to how Swift distributed The Eras Tour, her nearly three-hour concert film. Rather than partnering with a studio to release the movie, Swift went straight to theater owner AMC and secured a multimillion-dollar deal for herself. Nolan said the move was a demonstration of the power theatrical releases still wield and that if studios and streamers "don't want it, somebody else will."Nolan's comments came just before The Eras Tour blew Martin Scorsese's new movie Killers of the Flower Moon out of the water at the US box office during the latter's opening weekend. (Not that Scorsese would necessarily mind being bested by a concert film.) Swift made $33 million; Marty made $23 million. It wasn't quite a Barbenheimer-level face-off. In fact, it didn't even inspire wondrously twisted double-feature outings. Instead, cineasts went to see KIllers of the Flower Moon and took to TikTok and X afterwards to complain they couldn't hear it due to the boom-boom-boom of Swift's movie. Now we're all in our Swifties of the Flower Moon/Killers of the Eras Moon era. Continued here

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'Marvel's Wolverine' Release Date Window, Plot Details, Spider-Man Connections, and More for the Insomniac Game     With Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 now out in the wild, Marvel’s Wolverine is now the biggest upcoming Marvel game for PlayStation 5. Developer Insomniac Games shocked the world during the September 2021 PlayStation Showcase by revealing Marvel’s Wolverine. Yes, the people who made those excellent Spider-Man games for Sony consoles are doing Wolverine next. The project is headed up by Brian Horton and Cameron Christian, who led the charge on Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales development. Details surrounding the game are still quite scarce, but here is everything we do know about Marvel’s Wolverine.Marvel’s Wolverine doesn’t even have a rough release window just yet. In a PlayStation Blog post about the game, Insomniac’s Head of Franchise Strategy & Studio Relations Ryan Schneider mentioned that it’s “very early in development,” which makes sense, considering Miles Morales came out less than a year before Wolverine’s announcement. Continued here

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'Loki' Just Broke a TV Rule -- and Reversed the Biggest MCU Curse     Episode 4 of the Marvel series takes a big swing — and sets the stage for an earth-shattering finale.Say what you will about Loki; the series is not afraid to take risks. Sure, its second season has gotten a bit of flack for its lack of narrative focus or truly bonkers pacing — but there’s something about this wild ride that almost makes Marvel’s Multiverse Saga worth the time. Continued here

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Children Face Unequal Treatment in the Classroom - With Devastating Consequences     Students often receive feedback that conveys expectations linked to their socioeconomic background As a university student studying psychology, I observed classrooms in a local elementary school to learn more about teacher feedback. On one occasion, an 11-year-old boy named Mark received a six out of 10 on a test he had taken a week earlier. In response to his disappointment, the boy’s teacher said, “It’s okay, Mark—not everyone has to be an Einstein.” Continued here

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The Job Hunt: Our Favorite Reads     Everything you need to know to land your first role. Continued here

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This Transparent Shell Gives the Asus ROG Ally a Dose of See-Through Nostalgia     Transparent design is big again, and we’ve got another accessory to prove it. Jsaux’s latest mod for the Asus ROG Ally replaces the back of the handheld with a transparent shell that pulses with RGB lighting to hammer home that Gamer (capital “G” intentional) look.Considering how impressive the Asus ROG Ally is as a handheld, you should be able to admire its internals, especially the ones built with AMD’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme chips. As a fair warning, you should have some DIY know-how before cracking open your ROG Ally to install this backplate. Continued here