My Clone Says She’s “A New Sort of Being”
Meanwhile, a poet goes full Broadway, mice live longer on magic mushrooms, and ChatGPT plays the stock market
Well, hello!
You’re reading Mappy Monday, a free monthly newsletter about budget travel, quirky self-help experiments, thrifty money hacks, movie and book gems, and occasional silliness. You’ll also learn what’s happening on my MappyEverAfter website.
📦 From the Mappy Archive: Dreaming of Alila Ventana
🤖 AI Shenanigans: A Confused Clone, a Pretty Timer, and Talking Pictures
🧪 Experiment: Outsmarting Bedtime
🌍 Travel: August Festivals Around the World
🌞 Health: New Study: Tripping into Longevity
💰 Money: ChatGPT Picks Stocks (I don’t listen)
🎥 Watch: Max Stossel Sets Fire to the Poetry Rulebook
📚 Read: Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
💡 Mind Hack: Life After Delivery
🎈 Just because: What Luca Thought
Note: I will always tell you if I’m getting any referral bonuses and how much they are. There aren’t any in this letter.
📦 From the Mappy Archive:
Dreaming of Ventana
Remember that time we scored a $3,200-a-night room at an epic resort in Big Sur, California… and paid in points?
That was at Alila Ventana, tucked into redwood forest with ocean views, soaking tubs, and all the dreamy food you can imagine. One of my all-time favorite travel hacks! And apparently yours too, because it's also my most-read article. If you missed it or want to escape into it again, here it is: Alila Ventana, All Inclusive Bliss
🤖 AI Shenanigans
A Confused Clone, a Pretty Timer, and Talking Pictures
My Clone Says She’s “A New Sort of Being”
Have you heard of empathic voices AI? They sound so human, it’ll give you chills. One of them is Hume.ai, which also lets you clone your own voice. The free demo has a 5-minute limit, but if you save the conversation link, you can restart it as many times as you like.
Mini Mags and I chatted about the future, consciousness, and how she’d even know if she was “real.” I quickly hit record, and… here it is:
A Compliment Timer
You know when you're having a normal day and you suddenly think, “What if somebody told me I was fabulous every 60 seconds?”
No? Yeah, me neither. 😳
But I played around with Replit app maker and got so fed up with the free-tier limits, that I hopped over to Claude and whipped up something quick and fun: a Compliment Timer. It took under 10 minutes to make (very satisfying), it’s pretty, and it gives you a fresh compliment every 60 seconds. You’re welcome.
The prompt:
Create a gorgeous-looking web app timer that dings every 60 seconds and then displays a funny, quirky, silly compliment (different each time) for 10 seconds. Then start the cycle again.Play with VEO 3 for free
Until now, AI video tools could make visuals and if you wanted sound, you had to add it separately. Google’s VEO 3 changes that - it generates video with sound, all in one go. That’s kind of a big deal.
If you want to try VEO 3 for free, you can get a 30-day trial of Google AI Pro and create 8-second-long scenes (same as the paid version). If you have a student email, you can get 15 months for free (after the summer break).
Here are some of my favorite videos that people created with VEO 3 (turn up the sound): “Eclectic Tongue Thing”, “Movie characters revolt”, “Stairway to Heaven”, “Are we in VEO 3?”
🧪 Experiment:
Outsmarting Bedtime
I’ve been trying to go to sleep two hours earlier than normal with the help of guided meditations. Didn’t work. Just more racing thoughts. Weirdly, what knocks me out is a dense, fast-paced Peter Diamandis podcast. Turns out, there’s science behind that.
Cognitive Overload as a Distraction: Engaging content redirects your racing thoughts, breaking the cycle of sleep anxiety.
Dopamine's Role: Novelty and interest trigger dopamine, shifting focus away from worries about insomnia.
The "Meditation Paradox”: Trying too hard to relax creates more stress.
Stimulation over Boredom: A brain used to stimulation, needs stimulation to fall asleep.
Sometimes, the path to mindfulness is through a bit of distraction.
🌍 Travel:
August Festivals Around the World
Not to spark your FOMO, but August is almost here! If your July’s been mostly just wondering if it’s too early for pumpkin spice (it is), fear not! The world is throwing some of its best parties next month. Here’s a little sample:
First up, Scotland's month-long Edinburgh Fringe (Aug 1-25) - thousands of comedy and theatre shows, many for free.
More of a music lover? Hungary's Sziget Festival (Aug 6-11) is a week-long party on an island, for $380.
For a free and beautiful cultural dive, visit Japan's Obon Festival (Aug 13-16), an ancestral spirit celebration.
Or you could watch the world's best dancers at the Buenos Aires Tango Festival (Aug 14-27).
Later in the month, London's massive Notting Hill Carnival (Aug 24-25) is a huge, free party (though the jerk chicken will get ya).
Meanwhile, right here in Nevada, Burning Man (Aug 24 - Sep 1) calls to the artistic, adventurous, and slightly crazy with its $550 - $3000 price tag.
Starting at $15, you can join in the world's biggest food fight at La Tomatina in Spain on Aug 27th.
And finally, Moab Music Festival (Aug 27–Sep 12) brings world-class chamber and jazz music to red rock canyons, caves, and rivers, under the Utah skies.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to end August with a better story than "I think I re-watched the whole series."
🌞 Health:
Tripping into Longevity
A brand-new study published in Nature suggests that psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) might do more than just unpack your childhood trauma in technicolor. Researchers found that mice given monthly doses of psilocybin lived substantially longer and looked better (shinier fur, fewer grays) than their non-tripping friends.
🐭 What the Study Did
Researchers started with mice aged 19 months, which is roughly equivalent to 60–65 human years.
They gave them monthly doses of psilocybin for 10 months, meaning these mice were tracked until age 29 months (~90+ in human years).
📊 The Result
At the end of the study (29 months old):
80% of the psilocybin-treated mice were still alive
50% of the untreated mice were alive
Even human cells in a petri dish stuck around 30–50% longer with a little sprinkle of psilocin. It seems to reduce cellular stress, preserve telomere length, and activate SIRT1, a protein known for its anti-aging magic.
Now, this is mice and petri dishes, not a rave at a retirement home. But this is suspicious:
Sasha Shulgin, a chemist and the Godfather of Ecstasy who ingested half the periodic table, made it to 88. His wife Ann outlived him, reaching 102. Ram Dass also clocked out at 88. Stanislav Grof is still at it. at 94. And Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, lived to 102.
All these long-lived luminaries spent decades marinating in psychedelic molecules.
Maybe the real fountain of youth has been growing under a cow patty all along.
💰 Money:
ChatGPT Picks Stocks (I don’t listen)
At the start of July, I asked ChatGPT to pick stocks that might rise 20% in a month. I checked today. After 28 days, some stocks fell and some rose, averaging a 3% return, basically the same as Nasdaq or S&P 500 for the same time. If ChatGPT was trying to beat the market, it failed.
On 1st of July, I also asked for stocks that could go up 1,000% in five years. And weirdly… those all went up this month. Here they are, with a hypothetical $100 invested in each (I didn’t buy any of these, unfortunately):
Recursion Pharmaceuticals (RXRX): +24.7% → $124.70
Symbotic (SYM): +36.6% → $136.60
10x Genomics (TXG): +26% → $126.00
ESS Tech (GWH): +47% → $147.00
Planet Labs (PL): +4% → $104.00
Palantir (PLTR): +15.8% → $115.80
Krystal Biotech (KRYS): +11.2% → $111.20
Aehr Test Systems (AEHR): +61% → $161.00
💰 Total Portfolio (8 picks, $100 each):
Would start with $800 → End with $1,025.30 → Gain: +28% in one month
🧠 Key Takeaways
ChatGPT’s 20%-rise calls basically mirrored the market.
Its “moonshot” picks did much better.
This is a tiny experiment and likely won’t yield the same results if done again.
🔍 Important Note:
This is pure curiosity and play. Neither ChatGPT nor I are financial advisors, day traders, or stock whisperers. Don’t invest based on robots (or newsletter writers) unless you’re prepared to lose 100% of your money and gain nothing but a story.
🎥 Watch:
Max Stossel Sets Fire to the Poetry Rulebook
So apparently "stand-up poetry" is a thing, and honestly? I'm into it. At least into Max Stossel (Forbes-approved storyteller, which sounds very official), who took his “Words That Move” (free to watch) to Brooklyn's Kings Theater.
It's nine stories about being human in our weird world, except instead of just standing there with a microphone like at your high school poetry night, this guy went full Broadway production on it. Think fancy visuals meets Netflix special meets that one friend who always has surprisingly deep thoughts after midnight. Max figured out how to make poetry cool.
📚 Read:
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
I’m halfway into Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (Goodreads, Libby, Amazon), and already it’s one of the most beautifully written things I’ve touched this year.
This isn’t a book you read so much as a book you dissolve into. It’s as if Thoreau reincarnated as a 24-year-old girl in Virginia. Dillard zooms in so close that you feel like you've been walking this world blind to all its beauty and brutality. Then she pulls back to ponder why any of us are here, and you'll never look at a brook (or God) the same way again.
💡 Mind Hack:
Life After Delivery
Went deep into the Max Stossel rabbit hole and brought back this. Twins in the womb discuss whether there’s life after delivery.
🎈 Just Because:
What Luca Thought
And if you haven’t watched The Words That Move (in the “Watch” section above), this is one of my favorite bits from it:
So there you have it. Handsome mice tripped, a poet staged a rebellion, and AI beat the market. That’s what I call portfolio diversification.
Be mappy,
Mags
