Coming out of your shell

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: American employees want a public sovereign wealth fund; Blue Mind Theory is the latest travel trend; Meta drops its new image creator after swift backlash; and Mick Jagger shares his thoughts on aging…🤔

Let’s get into it!

Blue Mind Theory refers to the feeling of calm and serenity that human beings experience when they’re close to water. As the Eagles would say, it’s a peaceful, easy feeling, and its name was coined by marine biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols.

He came up with it as a response to what neuroscientists refer to as “Red Mind” which describes the chaos often caused by the overstimulation from smartphones, electronics, and much of today’s technology.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the concept has led to the growing popularity of Blue Mind travel, which encompasses travel that’s guided by the wellness benefits associated with the tranquility of the sea.

It doesn’t actually have to be the sea, though. It can be by a lake, a pond, or even a river with its free-flowing current.

There are plenty of destinations now advertising themselves to attract the world’s Blue Minded wanderers. Whether it’s in the Maldives, Greece, or Canada, there are lots of options and you can read all about them, and several more, here.

According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings reported by CBS News last week, Eric Baker isn’t just the founder of StubHub, he also runs a sizeable ticket reseller operation on the platform.

It’s unclear what kind of conflict is at play here. While it intuitively seems like a pretty direct one, a StubHub spokesman’s statement to Gizmodo on the matter almost suggests the company doesn’t think much of it.

“This information has been fully disclosed in StubHub’s public SEC filings, and we don’t have anything to add beyond what is in those filings,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement.

StubHub has been under fire in recent weeks for its role in World Cup tickets being resold but never actually being delivered to the buyers, many of whom were out thousands and thousands of dollars. The incidents triggered a class-action lawsuit and even an ongoing investigation by the Texas attorney general.

“StubHub misrepresents its authority to sell World Cup Tickets, then, when Plaintiffs and Class members travel thousands of miles to attend World Cup matches, there are no tickets to be found despite having paid for them,” the lawsuit reads.

Meta released an image-generating AI feature last week using its Muse Image model, which made use of all publicly available Instagram photos.

Unsurprisingly, the public backlash was swift and loud, and resulted in Meta pulling the feature from the Meta AI app just days later.

“Earlier this week, we announced that one way for people to generate images in Meta AI is by @-mentioning public Instagram accounts that they want to reference. Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way. We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”

It’s unclear how such a feature could make its way through production at the company without someone flagging how problematic the public would find it.

SAG-AFTRA released a statement summing up pretty much that exact observation.

“Anything other than a clear and conspicuous OPT-IN for these types of uses of Instagram users’ images is unacceptable, and an utter miscalculation of public sentiment regarding the obvious dangers and harms inherent in such use,” the union’s statement (on Instagram) said.

Mick Jagger spoke with the New York Times the other day, and pulled no punches when asked for his thoughts on growing old.

“There’s nothing good about it,” the Englishman blanketly stated. “So, no, it’s not particularly pleasant. You can’t do things as quickly as you want to. Physically you’ve got to be more careful. You know, when you’re playing football, they put you in goal a lot. I’m not very good at it!”

Pressed to think of maybe one or two good things, he pretty much held his ground, though found a little humor in it as he continued on.

“I forgot all my wisdom. I might have had a couple of pearls drop, but I’ve already forgotten what they are!”

Still, aware of the irony of still having a pulse after the life lived by the soon-to-be 83-year-old rock star, he offered up a few pearls he certainly hasn’t forgotten.

“You’ve heard all these stories about method actors,“ he said. “They take it to the absolute extreme, so they’re like the character all the time, and then after the movie’s over, they’re still in character. It takes a long time to slough off the character.

“So which character do you go back to? Is he always going to carry some of that character in his ‘true’ character, whatever that is? This is the show business dichotomy and it’s something you learn to live with, and you always hope that you’re a so-called normal person underneath.”

Another oddball

It’s time for another round of odd one out as we quiz you on classic shows, characters, and even guest stars, with today’s trivia! 📺️ 😏