Tag Archives: considered

Novels with Distinctive Structures are Often Considered Classics

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The persistent appeal of books may hinge on more than their narratives

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What causes certain novels to be forgotten over time while others achieve bestseller status upon release only to vanish later? This research suggests the answers may lie within the intricacies of their language and sentence structure.

Prior studies have delved into the attributes that elevate certain books to bestseller status. Charming male protagonists often dominate; however, we know little about the factors that sustain a novel’s popularity a century later.

For deeper insights, refer to Leyao Wang from York University in Toronto, Canada. She and her colleagues examined 300 English novels published between 1909 and 1923. Half of these titles have made it to the top 10 bestseller lists. Publishers weekly commenced its trade in 1872 with titles like Lucky Young Man by William John Locke and Black Cow by Gertrude Thurston.

However, these novels don’t appear in readers’ top 10 read lists—past, present, or future. This data reflects the publication year of the novels. The other half, which includes titles like The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie and Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery, regardless of their bestseller status at the time, continue to gain traction on Goodreads today.

The research team employed AI models to classify these two categories based on 70% of the selected novels. When these models analyzed the full text for word patterns, it was observed that bestsellers were generally longer and incorporated more colloquial expressions like “yeah,” “oh,” and “okay.” These books also made greater use of punctuation.

Researchers assert these characteristics don’t carry the same weight in capturing today’s readers’ interest, yet they significantly enhance readability and overall appeal.

Notably, modern favorites tend to be concise yet feature more complex sentences and vocabulary. This prompted researchers to question whether this necessitates greater attention from readers.

When the AI models were evaluated against the remaining 30% of books, they successfully categorized them with approximately 70% accuracy.

“Numerous other factors likely influence longevity, such as themes, marketing strategies, and author recognition, yet our findings indicate that aspects of the text alone can potentially predict timelessness without considering these more apparent external factors,” the researchers noted. Gaining an understanding of what elements render literature both captivating and enduring “could prove crucial for both publishers and authors.”

However, Dorothy Hale at the University of California, Berkeley cautions that the impact of a novel should be assessed over a century before deeming it timeless. She highlights that the popularity of well-established classics also varies over time. “While many might regard Shakespeare as the quintessential timeless author in English literature, there’s a current trend in American institutions to drop Shakespeare requirements from English majors,” she observes.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Is Top of the Flop More Considered a Success in the Gaming Industry?

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bSquare Enix, which ACK purchased the series from Eidos in 2013, has released a reboot of the 1990s hit action game Tomb Raider. I I loved that game despite the first nearby semi-assault scene, I later came to consider it a bit nasty. I wasn’t the only one. It was very well received, selling 3.4 million copies in the first month alone. After that, Square Enix came out. I called it a disappointment.

The sale did not meet the publisher’s expectations. It was What are your expectations? Was it supposed to sell 5m? One month? If the book sells 10,000 copies in a week, it is considered a bestseller. Even at its popularity in the 90s, no Tomb Raider game sold over millions. Square Enix’s expectations were clearly unrealistic. That’s not the last one. In a 2016 interview with Hajime Tabata, director of Final Fantasy XV, he told me that he needs to sell 10m for the game to succeed.

In last week’s revenue call, EA executives had to explain their lack of profits. It was driven primarily by EA FC. This is the ubiquitous football series, which saw revenue declines the previous year, but CEO Andrew Wilson also chose to go single-out for the much-anticipated RPG Dragon Age: Bailguard, which was announced last October. “Dragon Age had a high quality launch and was well reviewed by critics and those who played it. However, in this highly competitive market, it didn’t resonate with a wide audience,” he says. I did.

Dragon Age “reached 1.5 million players” for several months since its release. This is likely to include people paying through subscription services and direct sales. If 3.4m was Square Enix’s disappointment in 2013, then the game can imagine 1.5m was a disaster for EA in 2024.

But as Polygon’s Maddie Myers points out Detailed analysis of comparable games 1. Last year’s genre breakout hit, Dragon’s Dogma, sold 3.3m over six months.




Breakout hit… Dragon’s Dogma 2. Photo: Capcom

Source: www.theguardian.com

Could this academic paper be considered the most dull and uninteresting?

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revenge on the referee

Our news colleagues Jacob Aaron and Michael Le Page drew attention to feedback on a post on social media site BlueSky that highlighted a scientific paper with reverence.

The study in question was recently conducted published in International Hydrogen Energy Journal. There are 7 authors. It's about how hydrogen atoms can penetrate certain metal alloys and cause them to become brittle. To understand the mechanism of this embrittlement, we focus on calculating precisely where hydrogen atoms are located in the metal's crystal structure.

At this point, you may be wondering what this survey does with feedback. Well, the introduction ends with the next paragraph. [[35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]” has nothing to do with it.

For those who have never worked in academia, the best way to describe this is that the authors are spectacularly sneaky. Their paper was reviewed by anonymous reviewers, who (along with other suggestions) encouraged them to cite the 13 older studies on the list. The authors had no choice but to insert supposedly irrelevant studies, so they refused to incorporate them into the actual text and instead called attention to their irrelevance. However, I included them.

or blue sky user @Dave nʎ=2dsinɵ :protein: Please enter: “absolute shot I was fired.” By the way, kudos to @Dave nʎ=2dsinɵ :protein: for pushing the username new scientistWe have revised the fonts to the limit and submitted feedback to search engines. The little equation in the middle that we discovered is Bragg's law, which describes how a crystal lattice scatters incoming waves.

Anyway, once the feedback stopped flashing back to us during our brief period in academia, something like this happened to us, but we didn't have the courage to go back to print, we did our due diligence and listed all 13 references. I looked into it.

All of them concern alloys and other composite materials, but none seem to concern hydrogen embrittlement. The feedback was pretty overwhelming in our attempts to fully understand, as most are very technical. Readers familiar with composite materials are welcome to attend regular talks. Still, despite our poor understanding, none of the references seem to be directly relevant.

However, I found the feedback strange. The same authors appeared multiple times in the author lists of 13 studies, and one author was involved in all studies.

Feedback doesn't want to wear a tinfoil hat, especially if it's brittle with hydrogen. However, it is questionable whether anonymous reviewers could be identified. The question we have now is how did this get printed? Did the editor not notice the prank, or did he allow it for his own reasons? Inquiring minds want to know.

Shady story

Speaking of incorporating ideas from colleagues, associate editor Sam Wong flagged an interesting study. water resources research. I'll admit this diary isn't one of Feedback's daily readers, but it seems like we missed it.

of study This piece is about the Biblical miracle of the loaves and fishes, in which Jesus supposedly fed 5,000 people using five loaves and two fish. The authors propose a naturalistic explanation: a seiche or standing wave. The idea is that the waves blowing into the lake sometimes create standing waves that cause deeper water to rise to the surface. The deep waters of Lake Kinneret, the Biblical Sea of ​​Galilee, are low in oxygen, so when oxygen rises to the surface, fish can suffocate en masse.

The authors document two such events at Lake Kinneret in 2012. They also point out that they appear to be extremely rare. No such event has occurred since 2012. That means most people may not have been aware of the possibility, especially if they've traveled before. I lacked the local knowledge to listen to charismatic speakers.

Feedback has led to a long list of scientific explanations for seemingly supernatural occurrences, including that manna from heaven is nectar crystallized from scale insects, and that infrasonic waves tend to cause eerie sensations that can be interpreted as ghosts. This is being added to. We also removed our tinfoil hats because we were worried that they might act as a conductor for the sacred lightning.

moon of uranus

News from this issue's cover that Voyager 2 visited Uranus in 1986, thanks to a gust of solar wind, and Uranus wasn't in its normal state. As a result, many of our ideas about Uranus need to be reconsidered, and some believe there may even be life on one or more of its moons.

Are you saying there is life on Uranus? Is there actually life on Uranus' moons? I hope you're not a Klingon. or as writer Tess Stenson put it down: NASA, “Let's go for Uranus.”

Feedback took longer than necessary to come up with a pun, but the blank slate was wiped clean. One bright spark, conscious of the joke about planet names, decided to name all of Uranus' moons after Shakespearean characters, choosing respectable names like Rosalind and Oberon. This means we can rule out the possibility of life on any of the moons. Juliet is definitely lifeless. There was a play about it. Meanwhile, astronomers urgently need to find a few more moons so that Uranus can enter Bottom's orbit.

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Send it to feedback@newscientist.com or New Scientist, 9 Derry Street, London, W8 5HY.
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You can email your article to Feedback at feedback@newscientist.com. Please enter your home address. This week's and past feedback can be found on our website.

Source: www.newscientist.com

“Bots” are now considered negative on social platforms

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Analysis of millions of tweets shows the changing meaning of the word “bot”

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Calling someone a bot on social media once meant suspecting they were in fact software, but now the use of the word is evolving into an insult for known human users, researchers say.

Many efforts to detect social media bots use algorithms that attempt to identify behavioral patterns that are more typical of the traditional meaning of a bot: automated accounts controlled by a computer, but their accuracy remains questionable.

“Recent research has focused on detecting social bots, which is a problem in itself because of the ground truthing issues,” he said. Dennis Assenmacher The Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany, said it was unclear whether the findings were accurate.

To investigate, Assenmacher and his colleagues looked at how users perceive bots: They looked at how the word “bot” was used on Twitter between 2007 and December 2022 (the social network was renamed X in 2023 after being acquired by Elon Musk), analyzing the words that appeared next to it in more than 22 million English-language tweets.

The researchers found that before 2017, the term was often used in conjunction with allegations of automated behavior, such as “software,” “scripts,” or “machines,” the kinds of things that traditionally fit the definition of a bot. Since that year, that usage has changed.

“The accusation has now become like an insult, it’s used to dehumanize people, it’s used to denigrate people’s intelligence, it’s used to deny them their right to participate in the conversation,” Assenmacher said.

The cause of this change is unclear, but Assenmacher said it may be political in nature. The researchers looked at the accounts of prominent people, such as politicians and journalists, that each Twitter user followed, and classified users as left- or right-leaning. They found that left-leaning users were more likely to accuse other users of being bots, and that those who were accused were more likely to be right-leaning.

“One possible explanation is that the media has reported that right-wing bot networks [2016] “The US elections,” Assenmacher said, “but this is just speculation and needs to be confirmed.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Have we Actually Considered the Possibility of Cities on Mars?

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SpaceX launched one of the largest rockets ever built on November 18, 2023. The Starship rocket has the potential to revolutionize humanity’s interaction with space, including the Mars base. This reusable rocket is so powerful that it could transport the entire International Space Station’s mass in just a few launches, possibly at a lower cost.

While the dreams of the Apollo era were initially shattered due to the high costs of space access, Starship’s launch has reignited the debate about the significance of space exploration for humans. Despite facing setbacks and challenges in achieving its goals, the space enthusiast community views the Starship launch as a success, given the valuable data collected during the flight.

Is a Mars base really worth the investment?

Space advocates believe that space offers hope, opportunities for resource extraction from asteroids, environmental protection, and the establishment of a second home for humanity. However, some question the allocation of resources to space exploration instead of addressing pressing issues on Earth.

The space industry is rapidly growing and is projected to reach a value of over $1 trillion in the next two decades. Investments in space exploration often lead to innovations in navigation, data transmission, and environmental monitoring, benefiting both space and Earth. The share of government spending on space, particularly NASA, is minimal compared to other sectors.

Concerns about space billionaires building Martian fortresses as a safeguard against Earth’s destruction remain speculative. While asteroid mining and space resource utilization hold potential, the practical challenges and time required for extraction may limit immediate benefits. Therefore, it is crucial to approach space exploration with caution and realistic expectations.

Credit: Alamy

A Mars base will involve complex life.

Extraterrestrial resource utilization may offer new opportunities, but the majority of Earth’s wealth derives from ideas and technologies rather than material resources. Building infrastructure in space to reduce Earth’s burden and provide a sustainable living environment poses significant challenges and requires substantial investment.

Practical considerations for Mars bases include long travel times, harsh environmental conditions, and limited resources. Establishing a sustainable colony on Mars involves complex engineering solutions and adaptation to the planet’s inhospitable environment.

Big questions about Mars biology

Challenges in Mars biology include reproduction in low gravity, creating enclosed ecosystems for sustenance, and understanding the long-term effects of living on Mars. Addressing these biological questions requires extensive research and investment, which may not align with current priorities in space exploration.

Despite the uncertainties and challenges of Mars colonization, space exploration continues to offer economic benefits, valuable knowledge, and opportunities for progress. While the feasibility of large-scale space migration remains uncertain, the exploration of space contributes to our understanding of the universe and benefits our society as a whole.

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Minister Says Ban on Social Media for Under-16s Should Be Considered Due to Potential Harm, Despite Being Speculative

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A ban on social media use for under-16s has been branded “speculative”, but the government must “continue to consider” the need to protect children, the minister said.

Science Minister Andrew Griffiths dismissed “speculative” reports that some young people’s access to social media could be restricted as part of a “potential consultation” into the issue.

Ministers are reportedly discussing the impact of sites such as TikTok and Instagram on young people’s wellbeing, with future plans potentially forcing them to get parental permission before using social networks. It is said that there is a sex.

Asked by Sky News whether such a proposal could be enforceable, Mr Griffiths said: “Well, we’re just talking about speculation.”

He said the government had already passed online safety laws that would “make activities that were illegal offline illegal online.”

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But he went on to say that social media has had “real harm” as well as “good”.

“As a parent myself, I understand that parents feel a very strong need to protect their children from the evils of society that have been prevalent on social media in the past,” he said.

“We have already taken action and it is right to continue to consider it. I don’t think we can ever say the job is done.

“That is speculation about the possibility of talks taking place in the new year.”

Asked whether talks were taking place, he said: “I don’t think any of us know what’s going on and I’m not going to comment on any further talks at this point.”

The Online Safety Act was passed in October and aims to make the UK “the safest place online in the world”.

Under this law, regulations are imposed on businesses such as: meta and apple This is to ensure that inappropriate and potentially dangerous content is kept away from young people and vulnerable people.

Examples include content that promotes suicide or self-harm. The coroner handed down the verdict last year. that it contributed to teenagers Molly Russell to take one’s own life.

read more:
What is the Online Safety Bill? Who is for it, who is against it, and how will it be enforced?
Pornographic websites may require the use of photo ID and credit card checks to protect children

The law would also hold platforms accountable for illegal content such as child sexual abuse images, force adult websites to properly enforce age restrictions, and prevent underage children from creating social media accounts. The purpose is

Media regulator Ofcom will be responsible for enforcing the new rules, and companies that fail to do so will face fines of up to £18m or 10% of their global annual turnover, whichever is greater.

Companies and senior managers could also face criminal charges if it is determined that they are not doing enough to protect children, and in the most extreme cases, the platform’s operations in the UK could be suspended completely. There is also a possibility that it will be blocked.

Source: news.sky.com