Bee's knees

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: How to rein in skyrocketing home insurance premiums ;Why asking AI for financial retirement advice is a bad idea; What is that hum that only some can hear; and a Triumph-ant return!

Let’s get into it!

Do you ever hear a strange humming sound at a low frequency, but you can’t identify where it’s coming from?

The phenomenon was first reported in various coastal cities of the U.K. in the 1970s. The Bristol Evening Post was inundated with letters from readers asking what that mysterious humming sound was, and it was initially dismissed as coming from industrial fans inside a department store…until the department store closed and the hum persisted.

A study published in PLOS One analyzed 28 Germans who reported hearing it, and the researchers attempted to identify the source based on two hypotheses: the sound can be measured, or it cannot.

The first one would require it to be emitted from an external source. Theories abounds regarding what that source could be, including military vehicles, lightning, volcanoes, ocean waves, a CIA-controlled experiment, and aliens.

The second would require the source to be internal, such as otoacoustic emissions or low-frequency tinnitus.

"Based on our results, although we haven't ruled out cases of physical external sound sources, we suggest that subjective tinnitus in the low-frequency range is often the cause of hearing pulsations of low-frequency sound perceptions," said researcher Markus Drexl, an NTNU professor.," said researcher Markus Drexl, an NTNU professor.

Stake Your Day recently reported on the general precautions one should take when consulting artificial intelligence for financial advice. It’s particularly risky, however, when leaning on large language models (LLMs) for retirement investment advice, because once you stop working, you aren’t going to make back any money you lose to a potential scam.

According to Fidelity Investments Canada, over one in four “pre-retirees” are currently using AI for financial advice. 11% of retirees are doing the same.

The company said the three most common uses are budgeting (27%), tax (29%), and investing (36%).

The last one is of particular concern to some experts. Over a third of people relying on an LLM for investing advice could 1) rewire that model to placate certain predispositions displayed by those seeking its advice, and 2) incentivize bad actors to attempt to manipulate the LLM in order to fool people into taking faulty advice.

“Working with an experienced adviser that is legally required to act in your interest has an accountability that is missing in AI,” said Paul MacDonald, president of investment firm Harvest ETFs.

A recent study found LLMs are prone to indulging or reinforcing a user’s biases; in other words, confirmation bias. Accredited advisors are required to be objective, whereas AI models are not.

For decades, business leaders have been clawing to get a leg up on competition by hacking into the most sacred and transcendent state of being, first identified by Abraham Maslow and later named by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Mihalyi) in his first book on the topic, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

(If we’re being honest, the concept was first identified by Aristotle, whose word for self-actualization and the peak of one’s own potential was entelechy.)

These days, the most common attempts at harnessing flow are done so by putting the cart before the horse. While Mihalyi called it optimal experience, big business calls it optimal performance, ironically overlooking the fact that flow is—by definition—indifferent to outcomes.

In his paper entitled Cognition of Being in the Peak Experiences, Maslow referred to it as a state in which a person is at their “happiest, healthiest, and most thrilling.”

It’s described by Mihalyi as a state in which action and awareness become one—led by the former, while the latter takes a back seat.

Neuroscientist Charles Limb found that activity in regions of the prefrontal cortices of jazz musicians literally quieted down while they were in flow. Those regions were responsible for “self-monitoring,” a.k.a. self-criticizing.

So while it’s perhaps understandable why business leaders would be keen on optimizing this state for performance, it’s important to remember flow isn’t about quarterly earnings, but a life worth living.

Triumph has been on the road for their 50th anniversary and reunion tour for the last few months, and according to frontman Rik Emmett, it couldn’t be going better.

“In some cases it's a little overwhelming, and in other cases it's just a beautiful celebration of joyful noise with these new guys,” he told the Tuning in With Thom Jennings podcast. “And the harmonies and the songs and the hard work that we all put in, and now we get this payoff of having these audiences…And every night it gets better. That's the thing, too. It just keeps kind of resonating and growing."

Those new guys include Phil X on guitar, who played with and sang for Triumph for a couple years in the early ‘90s. He’s also officially replaced Richie Sambora in Bon Jovi in 2011.

Drummer Brent Fitz and bassist Todd “Damnit” Kerns are also touring with the band, both of whom are Conspirators in the super group named Slash feat. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators.

Emmett had no shortage of praise for the newest additions to the band.

"It's not what Triumph was,” he noted. “It's Triumph, but it's kind of this 'über Triumph', like this kind of Triumph on 'roids. So the reload actually seemed to give it a lot more cylinders in the engine.”

Yippee Ki-yay!

Buckle up, Staker, we’re throwin’ it back to iconic action movies with today’s trivia!