🐤 And the survey says...

🏦 Markets: All three major stock indexes finished lower on Thursday as earnings reports continue to drop from major corporations of all types.

Tesla was a big loser as it missed first-quarter projections and saw its stocks dip by nearly 10% for the lowest trading value since January.

Other economic data, including housing trends and jobs reports, also had a measurable impact on Wall Street yesterday.

🚀 Four minutes: That’s how long Thursday’s flight of the SpaceX Starship lasted after it launched from Texas. Although the liftoff appeared to go as planned, the craft began to veer off course a short time later and it disintegrated just before the stage separation portion of the flight. It’s unclear from early reports what caused the explosion, but fortunately, no one was aboard and there were no injuries reported on the ground below. The launchpad was not damaged.

🧑‍⚖️ Courtroom drama: A debate over criminal justice reform has been raging in communities across the country for years, and now the Department of Justice is getting involved on a local and state level. The federal agency is calling on judges to reduce the fines and other court fees assessed in criminal, civil, or juvenile cases, arguing that they can often be exorbitant and have a disproportionate impact on minority communities and the poor.

⏰ False alarm: Most of us have received a sudden emergency notification from our phones, but when it occurs before 5 a.m., it can be especially jarring. That’s what happened to many individuals in Florida early Thursday morning when the service that alerts residents to natural disasters and other emergencies went off errantly. The state’s Division of Emergency Management apologized for the disruption.

📉 Bye-bye boom: If you’ve been enjoying the relatively high rate of interest being paid for series I savings bonds throughout as inflation remained high, be prepared for it to end. Reports indicate they will pay out a rate of 3.8% starting next month and the relative benefits are set to get even smaller as consumer prices continue to come down.

While it’s tempting to look at polls and surveys as a reliable snapshot of the public’s sentiment on a particular issue, it’s important to remember that they’re only as good as the pollsters who conduct them.

From leading questions to polling samples that don’t represent the overall population, there are many reasons to take survey results with a grain of salt. But many pollsters are starting to learn from past mistakes, which is why today’s methods are much different than they were just a few short years ago.

Lessons from 2016

Throughout the presidential race of 2016, most mainstream polls indicated that Donald Trump had virtually no chance of winning. When he did, it created some serious doubt about how much stock we should be putting into such surveys.

The 2020 polls were somewhat more accurate, but there was clearly room for improvement. Since then, however, the industry has seen some rapid and fundamental changes to its strategies, which insiders hope will make a big impact on how trustworthy their future results will be.

Adapting to the times

One of the most significant ways that modern polls are different than they were in the not-too-distant past is that there’s no longer a reliance on phone surveys. Since most households no longer have a landline, this once-ubiquitous strategy just doesn’t make sense.

The method is still alive, but most pollsters who use it also supplement those results through alternate means — like text or online.

Here’s an overview of how the latest surveys are being handled:

• 61% of those who conducted polls in 2016 and 2022 have changed methods.
• 17% of national polls used three methods in 2022 compared to just 2% in 2016.
• 37% of pollsters shifted strategies after 2020 and 26% did the same after 2016.

Plastic water bottles are so passé. If you want to help save the planet and look cool in the process, grab an ice-cold can of Liquid Death.

Despite its name, each can contains the purest form of life-sustaining H20 available. So why should you buy Liquid Death instead of one of the generic bottles of water filling the supermarket shelves?

Aside from doing your part to cut back on harmful plastic waste, here are a few advantages:

• The premium water comes straight from natural springs in the Austrian Alps.
• The cans keep your beverage cold, crisp, and refreshing for longer.
• The bold graphics and trademark skull look cooler than any boring bottle.

Liquid Death contributes a portion of the proceeds to help environmental causes, so you can crack open a can and feel good about how you stay hydrated!

Artificial intelligence has become an unavoidable topic of debate in recent months as some people see it as the dawn of a new evolutionary age for humanity while others think it could bring about the end of the world as we know it.

It remains to be seen where the truth lies between those two extremes, but if you really take a close look at what makes AI work, it might be a little less impressive than its biggest fans and critics would have you believe.

A handful of websites

As intuitive as platforms like ChatGPT might seem, they do not think. Instead, developers program chatbots to parrot back information that they find online.

Most of that information is text taken from a relatively small number of websites, and understanding where they are trained to look can give us some insight into their strengths and weaknesses.

Of course, companies like OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent) aren’t too keen on divulging their trade secrets … but industrious journalists have done their homework and have a pretty good idea about where chatbots get their information.

Some troubling sources

The websites that Google’s AI bot scours for data run the gamut from entertainment to news, but the one that comes out on top might be surprising. It’s patents.google.com, which is a clearinghouse for text related to patents held by individuals and companies worldwide.

Rounding out the top three are Wikipedia and the digital library Scribd.

Digging deeper into the list reveals some even stranger (and sometimes troubling) sites.

There are more than two dozen destinations that have been flagged for peddling pirated or counterfeit content. The site b-ok.org, which gained attention for dealing in pirated ebooks, came in at a pretty high #190 on the list.

Few sights capture the immense beauty of nature more purely than a field of blooming flowers, which is probably why so many artists choose such scenes as an inspiration for their work.

But if you’re truly looking for an impressive sight, it might be a good time to plan a trip to California.

The superbloom is here

Thanks to a massive amount of precipitation across much of the American West, about half of California was able to move out of the drought conditions that have plagued the region for years. Of course, a few weeks of rain and snow isn’t enough for a permanent solution, but it’s good news nonetheless.

And there’s clear evidence of those recent downpours on hills and in meadows across the state. Flowers prominently displaying vibrant hues from across the color spectrum have popped up in staggering numbers, earning the descriptive nickname of “superbloom.”

Experts say the current level of vegetation won’t last too long, since rising temperatures will quell much of the growth that has taken place in recent days. But the images of this unusually widespread phenomenon will last forever.

In fact, you don’t even have to be in California (or on the planet) to enjoy it. Photos from satellites in the Earth’s orbit reveal the colorful display across what was recently a brown and barren expanse.

Enjoy the views responsibly

If you do decide to take a trip to view the superbloom, be sure to do so with care. According to Jorge Moreno with the state’s Department of Parks and Recreation, similar growth in 2017 “saw damages from people walking off trails,” and evidence is still visible to this day.

The town of Lake Elsinore is taking preventative action by requiring visitors to keep away from the blooms in its Walker Canyon.