Ever heard of paccheri pasta? This is a traditional pasta from Naples that looks a bit like giant macaroni -  essentially big pasta tubes that are perfect for hearty sauces. Some Italians love to stuff them with ricotta or other fillings and bake them to perfection. Others prefer to use them to collapse the garlic industry in neighbouring countries.

Back in the early 1600s, Austrian garlic was known for being small and not very flavourful. The Austrian and Hungarian aristocrats, however, adored Southern Italian garlic, which was large and incredibly pungent. To control the market and protect local garlic farmers, Austria quickly banned the import of Italian garlic.

In response, Southern Italian pasta makers came up with a clever solution: paccheri. These pasta tubes were just the right size to hide a few cloves of prized Italian garlic. The smuggling operation was so successful that it eventually caused the collapse of the Austrian garlic industry, because despite their best efforts, authorities just couldn’t figure out how Italian garlic was getting across the Alps.

Pity they were a couple of centuries too early for the breathalyser. That would have stopped those pungent garlic smugglers right in their tracks. 

Thankfully, the world of cinema has given kids far better role models than Italian garlic smugglers. Adults love superheroes too, if the average Halloween costume choice is anything to go by. The achievements of Marvel at the box office may never be repeated, with Dominique Olivier digging into exactly why they made so much money with the Marvel Cinematic Universe - and why DC has failed to achieve success at anywhere near the same level. You'll find her opinion piece here>>>

Read on for love in the age of AI, along with fast facts focused on some of the juicier news stories this year.

Have a lovely day and enjoy what we've brought you!

The Finance Ghost (follow on X) | Dominique Olivier (connect on LinkedIn)

TL;DR: There’s an app for everything these days - even figuring out why your girlfriend is mad at you.

AI chatbots are nothing new in this day and age. If you search long enough, you’ll find doctor chatbots, therapy chatbots, pickup line chatbots, stoner philosophy chatbots and even chatbots posing as Hitler or Jesus - truly the full spectrum.

But perhaps the strangest chatbot of them all has to be AngryGF, a AI-powered relationship simulator designed to help straight men navigate common relationship conflicts with their partners. Imagine an AI version of your girlfriend, but permanently angry and always ready for a fight.

Why would anyone want this? Well, the chatbot was designed to act as a kind of “training tool” for men who claim that they struggle to communicate well and resolve conflict with their real-life girlfriends. Emilia Aviles, the co-founder of AngryGF, created the app based on her personal experiences with past relationships. She noticed a common theme: many men seemed to struggle with offering emotional support when it was needed. This lack of understanding during heated moments inspired her to build a tool to help men navigate those challenges more effectively.

The premise is simple: users pick from a range of prewritten scenarios like, “Your girlfriend and your mother fall into a river at the same time. You save your mother first. Your girlfriend is furious.” The goal? Comfort your angry partner and win her forgiveness with your words. You have 10 attempts to get the "forgiveness level" to 100 for a win, or risk failure if it drops to zero. There are 10 scenarios to choose from, ranging from a girlfriend who gets mad when you forget to buy her a Valentine's gift to one who won’t tell you why she is angry.

You also have the option to ask more specific relationship questions. Type in something like, “What should I do if I forgot my girlfriend’s birthday?” and the app provides 10 pieces of advice in no time. Built on OpenAI’s GPT-4, the app offers free access to limited scenarios, but if you’re serious about improving your relationship skills, a pro subscription unlocks more situations and tailored advice for $7 a week or $20 a month.

There’s probably a lot that we can read into this story, which no doubt harbours some broader philosophical truth about the changing nature of human relationships in the face of artificial intelligence. We could dive into that. Or, we could just take a moment to acknowledge that there are people out there who are paying $20 a month for an AI version of their girlfriend to argue with them about where they’re having dinner.

What a time to be alive.

An assortment of facts that will take you only a minute to read.

• A museum employee snuck in one of his own paintings to Germany’s Pinakothek der Moderne Museum. The 51-year-old artist and service technician crept in after museum hours and hung up his piece in the modern art section. Staff noticed the painting when the museum opened, but chose to leave it up all day before taking it down. While the museum did not report what the painting’s contents were, a spokesperson did announce that the museum “did not receive any positive feedback on the new addition from visitors to the gallery.”

• ​A 3-year-old in North Carolina claimed to hear “monsters” in the walls of her home for months, but her parents dismissed the idea. When the parents finally caved and got someone in to investigate, they found a giant hive of about 50,000 bees living in her bedroom wall. Fortunately, no one was harmed and the bees were safely relocated.

• The Course des Cafés in France saw over 200 waiters, dressed in classy white shirts, black pants and aprons, speedwalk for 3 kilometres over bumpy Parisian streets while carrying trays of food and drink. Contestants were judged based on how skillfully and gracefully they manoeuvred their trays, how quickly they moved without running and, of course, the final appearance of the food they served. Samy Lamrous won the men’s section at 13 minutes and 30 seconds and Pauline Van Wymeersch won the women’s section at 14 minutes and 12 seconds.