12 Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Tax filers in 12 states had access to a free tax filing website this tax season. The IRS was hoping to get 100,000 participants, but they ended up getting 141,000, at an operating cost of only $17 per person, which was significantly under budget. It’s always possible that the lobbyists win out, but this has the potential to be a big step toward making tax filing less of a predatorial clusterfuck.

The World A.I. Creator Awards is holding the first-ever “A.I. beauty contest.” Losers compete for a $20,000 prize, awarded based on appearance, use of A.I. tools and social media engagement.

New Balance’s new sneaker/loafer hybrid, the “snoafer,” is a goofy athletic boat shoe that the fashion industry is being forced to take seriously. The Wall Street Journal made the dramatic suit statement about how well they think it’d fit in at a funeral or a wedding, while Axios at least points out that it’s probably designed to be a multipurpose shoe for the WFH crowd.

The Top Escape Rooms Project Enthusiasts’ Choice Awards recognizes the best, most intriguing and scariest escape rooms on the planet. Only elite members of the escape room enthusiast community can participate in the awards process. To nominate a room, you must have 200 room plays under your belt, and to vote, you have to have played at least 100 individual rooms.

A recent study found that 20 percent of grocery store milk tested contained detectable traces of bird flu, which is currently making the rounds in dairy cow populations. The milk is considered safe, though, and there have been no recalls.

A recent study of 47 recipients of various organ donations found that 87 percent of respondents reported a change in some wing of their personalities. Some of them were extremely intimate, like “sexual preferences,” and some even reported accessing the memories of their donor.

The Louvre is considering building the Mona Lisa its own room, a $535 million basement viewing area. The current conditions for both user experience and longevity of the work itself, according to the museum’s director, are “not quite up to par.”

An A.I.-powered clergybot that was designed to take virtual confessions started telling people that it’s okay to baptize your baby in Gatorade, and that “masturbation is a grave moral disorder.” At the time, it would insist that it was a real guy living in Italy. Since getting some blowback, the Catholic group that released Father Justin has demoted him from priest to mere theologian, and he now insists he was never a priest. They even changed his clothes to streetwear after the defrocking.

A new study found that regularly using stairs “was associated with a 24 percent reduced risk of dying from any cause.” Sure sounds like immortality to us! Although, upon closer inspection, it appears to be about heart health, as it seems to correlate with a “39 percent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease.”

Possibly one of the most humiliating superlatives in professional sports is “Mr. Irrelevant,” the player each year who gets selected last in the NFL draft. A few Mr. Irrelevants have gone on to have remarkable careers, including Michael Green, Tae Crowder, Pro Bowler Jacque MacKinnon and Pro Bowler/Super Bowler Brock Purdy. Best of luck to this year’s titleholder, Alabama safety Jaylen Key.

A woman who was born in 1922 keeps getting flagged as a two-year-old in the airline’s system, because their computers’ birthday field is only two digits. She’s been a good sport about it, but says they have (briefly) denied her in-airport transportation, because they assumed a parent would just BabyBjörn this toddler.

A storm at sea in 1997 knocked a delivery of about five million LEGO pieces into the ocean. Collectors have been on the lookout ever since, scooping up signature pieces like swords, flippers and scuba tanks. But this kid found what’s widely considered to be the crown jewel of the doomed collection: one of the 4,200 LEGO octopuses that were on board.