January 27, 2026
The Torment Nexus is a term used in critical commentary of the influence of science fiction on technological development. It was coined in a 2021 Tweet by American writer Alex Blechman, shortly following Facebook’s announcement that it would be rebranding to Meta Platforms as part of a shift in the company’s focus towards developing a metaverse.
Dais Johnston of Inverse has defined the Torment Nexus as ‘shorthand for something that backfired in fiction being unironically replicated in reality.’ Reviewing the 2023 CES trade show, Katie Wickens of ‘PC Gamer’ defined the Torment Nexus as ‘a concept that encompasses our growing concern that science fiction will continue to become science fact across the consumer market, with the phobias wrought by technological speculation turning palpable in the hands of money-hungry corporations.’
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Posted in Humor, Technology |
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January 24, 2026
The Highest Court in the Land is the basketball court located on the fifth floor of the United States Supreme Court Building. The Supreme Court of the United States is nicknamed the ‘highest court in the land’ because it is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States, and the basketball court is located on a higher floor than the courtroom where the Supreme Court meets, hence the basketball court’s nickname.
While Supreme Court law clerks regularly play on the court, it is less common for the justices to do so. The first justice to play basketball on the court was Byron White, according to fellow justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
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Posted in Games, Politics |
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January 20, 2026
Chatbot psychosis, also called AI psychosis, is a phenomenon wherein individuals reportedly develop or experience worsening psychosis, such as paranoia and delusions, in connection with their use of chatbots. The term was first suggested in a 2023 editorial by Danish psychiatrist Søren Dinesen Østergaard. It is not a recognized clinical diagnosis.
Journalistic accounts describe individuals who have developed strong beliefs that chatbots are sentient, are channeling spirits, or are revealing conspiracies, sometimes leading to personal crises or criminal acts. Proposed causes include the tendency of chatbots to provide inaccurate information (‘hallucinate’) and to affirm or validate users’ beliefs, or their ability to mimic an intimacy that users do not experience with other humans.
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Posted in Health, Technology |
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January 14, 2026
‘Even a worm will turn‘ is an English language expression used to convey the message that even the meekest or most docile of creatures will retaliate or seek revenge if pushed too far.
The phrase was first recorded in a 1546 collection of proverbs by John Heywood, in the form ‘Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne.’ At the time ‘agayne’ also meant ‘against’ or ‘oppose.’
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Posted in Language |
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January 10, 2026
A pig-butchering scam is a type of online fraud where the victim is encouraged to make increasing financial contributions over a long period, usually in the form of cryptocurrency. The term compares the initial phase of gaining the victims’ trust to the fattening of pigs before slaughtering them. Such scams are commonplace on social media and dating apps, and often involve elements of catfishing (using false identities), investment fraud, and romance scams.
The scammer builds trust with the victim through online communication, subsequently persuading them to invest in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. Perpetrators are typically victims of a fraud factory, where they are lured to travel internationally under false pretenses, trafficked to another location, and forced to commit the fraud by organised crime gangs.
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Posted in Money, Politics |
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January 1, 2026
A Witness Tree is a tree that was present during a grand historical or cultural event of America. Witness trees are centuries old and are known to be of great importance to the U.S. nation’s history. It is unclear how many witness trees there are, but the ones documented are archived in the Library of Congress through the Witness Tree Protection Program, which was founded in 2006.
The program was initially created to document and identify two dozen historically significant trees in the Washington DC area. The creation of the program came from the discovery of Yoshino cherry trees from the year 1910.
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Posted in Politics, War |
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