Dec. 9 News Quiz of the Week: Goblin Mode

Image: Illustration by Neil Jamieson for TIME Magazine cover

On Dec. 7, 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was named Time magazine’s person of the year, honoring his leadership during the war with Russia. A former comedian and actor, Zelenskyy is the first Jewish president of Ukraine. He was born to a Russian-speaking Ukrainian Jewish family in central Ukraine.

Oxford Dictionaries announced on Dec. 5, 2022, that “goblin mode” had been chosen by online voting as its word of the year for 2022. This definition describes “goblin mode” as a behavior that rejects social norms or expectations without apology. “Goblin mode” first appeared on Twitter in 2009 and gained popularity in Feb. 2022 as people emerged from pandemic lockdowns.

Use goblin mode in a sentence

Oxford lists this Guardian quote as a good example of using the term: “Goblin mode is like when you wake up at 2 am and shuffle into the kitchen wearing nothing but a long t-shirt to make a weird snack, like melted cheese on saltines.”

St Edward’s Crown has been used in England to crown monarchs since the coronation of King Charles II in 1661. Normally part of the Tower of London’s Crown Jewels display, the crown was modified for King Charles III’s coronation at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023.

Kate and William began their first overseas visit since Queen Elizabeth II’s death on Nov. 30, 2022, with a reception at Boston City Hall and a Celtics game. The Earthshot Prize was awarded in Boston as part of the prince’s global campaign to tackle climate change on Dec. 2.

In two sections of three episodes, the Netflix series ‘Harry and Meghan,’ released on Dec. 8, 2022, and Dec. 15, has a 15 maturity rating (in the UK), with the Netflix series warning it deals with “discrimination.” Watch the trailer.

On Dec. 6, 2022, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock defeated his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, to secure a 51-seat Democratic majority and a full six-year term as the first Black senator from Georgia. Warnock became Georgia’s first Black senator after winning a runoff election in 2021.

How many Black senators have been elected to the US Senate?

Three senators currently serving in the Senate are Black: Warnock, Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina. Historically, only 11 Black people have served in the United States Senate, out of more than 2,000 senators.

ChatGPT is a chatbot that is powered by the GPT-3 language model. It uses machine learning algorithms to generate responses to user input. The GPT-3 model is a large, state-of-the-art language model trained on a massive amount of text data, allowing it to generate coherent and relevant responses to a given topic. ChatGPT can be used to chat with users in a conversational manner, providing answers to questions and engaging in back-and-forth dialogue. While it may not always provide the most accurate or detailed answers, it can be a fun and interesting way to interact with a machine-learning model.

Did an AI Chatbot write this answer?

The question, multiple answers, and (in this case, factual) explanation were written by OpenAI’s ChatGPT by using the prompt: “Create a quiz question on the subject “What is ChatGPT?” with four short multiple-choice answers, one funny, two misleading answers, and one correct answer, and then a 150-word explanation of the correct answer.” The prompt took longer to write than for the result to be generated. Within a week of ChatGPT being unveiled on Nov. 30, 2022, over a million users had tried to chat it up.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp makes medical devices. It’s developing a brain implant that will allow people to walk again and cure neurological diseases. According to documents reviewed by Reuters and published on Dec. 5, 2022, Neuralink is under federal investigation for possible animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that animal testing is being rushed, resulting in needless suffering and death.

Kirstie Alley first appeared in season 6 of Cheers, portraying businesswoman Rebecca Howe, who becomes the owner of the bar where the series takes place. She won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the role in 1991. Alley starred in several prominent films and TV shows during the 1980s and 1990s, including Veronica’s Closet and the Look Who’s Talking film franchise. The actress died at 71 on Dec. 5, 2022, of cancer that was only recently discovered.

An 1896 Astoria, Oregon, home featured in the movie “The Goonies,” went on the market in November 2022 for nearly $1.7 million. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that the sale of the Victorian home is expected to close in mid-January 2023. Oregon’s historic port had become a popular destination for Goonies fans since 1985 when the movie premiered. Thousands of people attend the city’s annual June 7 Goonies Day to celebrate the film’s release date.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Bradley Cooper voices Rocket Racoon. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3’s official trailer was released on Dec. 2, 2022. It shows the ensemble cast preparing for the trilogy’s conclusion, which opens on May 5, 2023. Watch the trailer.

The musical “Once Upon a One More Time,” inspired by Britney Spears’s discography, will arrive on Broadway in 2023, with preview shows starting on May 13. Spears’s songs, such as “Oops I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Circus,” and “Toxic,” are incorporated into the musical’s feminist awakening story of Cinderella, Snow White, and Little Mermaid. The show was first developed and produced by Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC, where it received mixed reviews.