Just A Bi Scientist

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

In an average year, I travel to around 5 or 6 cities for conventions. Almost every time I announce an appearance, the most common response is some version of “that’s great! When are you coming to [my town]?” I’m not coming to your town, but I am coming to your computer (or your tablet or your phone or even your TV, I think) on June 7 for a virtual convention that needs a much better name than…

Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. They proved it with math.

Even with perfect training data and unlimited computing power, AI models will still confidently tell you things that are completely false. This isn't a bug they're working on. It's baked into how these systems work at a fundamental level.

And their own numbers are brutal. OpenAI's o1 reasoning model hallucinates 16% of the time. Their newer o3 model? 33%. Their newest o4-mini? 48%. Nearly half of what their most recent model tells you could be fabricated. The "smarter" models are actually getting worse at telling the truth.

Here's why it can't be fixed. Language models work by predicting the next word based on probability. When they hit something uncertain, they don't pause. They don't flag it. They guess. And they guess with complete confidence, because that's exactly what they were trained to do.

The researchers looked at the 10 biggest AI benchmarks used to measure how good these models are. 9 out of 10 give the same score for saying "I don't know" as for giving a completely wrong answer: zero points. The entire testing system literally punishes honesty and rewards guessing.

So the AI learned the optimal strategy: always guess. Never admit uncertainty. Sound confident even when you're making it up.

OpenAI's proposed fix? Have ChatGPT say "I don't know" when it's unsure. Their own math shows this would mean roughly 30% of your questions get no answer. Imagine asking ChatGPT something three times out of ten and getting "I'm not confident enough to respond." Users would leave overnight. So the fix exists, but it would kill the product.

This isn't just OpenAI's problem. DeepMind and Tsinghua University independently reached the same conclusion. Three of the world's top AI labs, working separately, all agree: this is permanent.

Your own ability to comprehend ideas, text, and figure things out will always do a better job.

Satogou wallpapers 🥳💕💕💕

and since it's valentines day now this is my satogou valentines day gift to all of you 😝

"ill find a place nearby—"

"hold on... i think i smell something yummy"

"his senses perk up when theres food on the line" 🥰

(sorry I had to include that because the way he stares at him and that fond laugh and his blush... come on 🥺) ANYWAY

"a present from the shopkeeper. and I managed to get us some milk tea too."

✨ ' Y O U A R E A G E N I U S ' ✨

"Goh what's wrong? Don't you wanna eat? You don't have a stomach ache do you?" (his concern still crumbles me to this day 🥲)

" so what meal is this? "

"it's lunch ash." 😐 (I know this was when it was night all day in that town so ash couldn't tell what meal it was but I loved Goh's concerned deadpan response 😭)

"Here, have some tea..." (that strained silly smile) 😆🥰 I can't with ashs face 💀

"Thanksa lott..."

"Come on ash, don't you love breakfast more than you love dinner?"

"its right here!" (and yes. I'm sure those cereal bars were brought for goh too 🥺 I love how the animators felt the need to put this random wholesome scene in 🫶)

😭🫶 HIS SMILE. HE LOVES ASH SM

goh knows him too well that cute little smile

The callbacks 🥺

Interviewer: The theme of this issue of quarterly S’s special feature is 'the supernatural'. Iro-san, you’ve mentioned in a previous interview that you enjoyed both Japanese and western horror, folklore, and nursery rhymes. What made you take a liking to them? As for Aida-san, you saw something that had “Hanako-san of the Toilet” as its focus. We’d love to know what other works or images left an impression on you both.

Iro (writer): Fear is something universal and familiar to us. Even in daily life dark places somehow scare us, it makes you feel as if something might be there. If you take that sense of fear and put it together with stories of ‘monsters lurking in the dark’, it strengthens your imagination. It makes you think, “The things written here might be true.” I like how it gives a realistic feel to things in fiction. Also, part of me considers horror entertaining, like riding a roller coaster.

Aida (artist): There was an anime segment called ‘The Scary School Rumor Hanako-san’s Appeared!’ in a TV show I watched called “Ponkickies”*. The Hanako-san in the show was someone that helped the characters so I probably thought “Hanako-san’s a good guy!”. The episodes ‘Sacchan’s Rumor’ and ‘The Monster Tonkaraton’ were particularly scary.

Iro: Mine was the song called ‘The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf’ on NHK’s “Kids’ Doll Theater”*. They were just silhouettes but she really sank in that puddle didn’t she…

Interviewer: There are lessons to be learned from ‘The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf’, but the storytelling and how things unfold are quite harsh so I understand that it might be traumatic to see it as a child. As for ‘Sacchan’s Rumor’ and ‘The Monster Tonkaraton’ they seem to lean more to being urban legends, did the two of you know of any strange rumors at your schools?

Aida: The horror boom happened during my student years, so when we could buy photos during school trips and days out everyone would frantically start looking for ghosts in theirs. But obviously, there wouldn’t be any ghost photos from a professional’s work.  Iro: At the school I went to there weren’t any ghost stories or anything like that at all. I tried and looked around but sadly my search came to nothing…

Interviewer: They frequently featured ghost photography on TV during that time, didn’t they? Now we’d also like to ask about settings and motifs you liked.

Aida: I prefer older things to brand new stuff. Like those illustrated commercial posters that came out in the 1910s with actors striking poses, I think those are cool. From the furniture to the clothes, there are plenty I find cute even today. I also like the retro future concept that people thought up about the near-future during the 60s. Iro: Whether it’s reading or writing it I enjoy fantasy settings. Like those in children's books...recently I've been reading the third book in Howl's Moving Castle, the "House of Many Ways".* I like horror and mystery too, but I think I prefer watching those.

Interviewer: I see, the time period you’re interested in is pretty close to the setting of “Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun”, Aida-san. On that note, there’s something about manga that we’d like to ask, what got the two of you start working on manga together?

Iro: Initially I was writing short stories on my own, I wrote scripts for plays as a student, and the experience of working together on something with a handful of people made me want to create more projects with others. I liked manga so when I met Aida-san in college and saw their work, I fell for their art at first sight and just asked them, “Would you draw for me?” Aida: When I read Iro-san’s work I thought “It seems like it’d be fun to work together.” and agreed right away. But then after that I worried over how it’d be to actually do that (lol). Ultimately, the manga “BAKUMAN.” had a large influence in how Iro-san and I work. That was the first time I truly understood how it was for a writer and artist to work on a comic together… It was the thing that pushed me to work when I was wondering how I should go about things while just starting out. Another reason is that I didn’t want to be the only reader to the worlds Iro-san wrote about, I wanted more people to read them and have that same experience too.

Interviewer: That’s a wonderful story. Have there been any changes to how you work on things from between early on and now?

Iro: We used to meet up a lot, but nowadays we tend to talk on the phone more. I live within a stone’s throw* from Aida-san so when there’s something going on nearby we head there together. When we see each other we just naturally start talking about work, so I guess that's a sign that we're pretty close.

Interviewer: Thank you for telling us. We also wanted to wind things back and ask about your debut work, “Dear My Living Dead” (seen in “Toilet-bound Hanako-kun Vol. 0”). Lilia’s irreversible fate and the choice Cult decided to make were truly crushing.

Iro: I just like stuff with zombies in it. Aida: Lilia’s character design was made to be soft and filled with happiness and Cult's design was, simply put, made to look totally exhausted. When I’d draw the important scenes, I wouldn’t rest until the weight of the lines and the adjustments on the angles on their faces were just right that I’d spent 5 hours just on one panel. This isn’t limited to Cult or Lilia but I keep the movements of their lower eyelids in mind when I draw.

Interviewer: Five hours…that’s amazing! Your focus on their lower eyelids is also quite interesting. You also had another work published in the magazine even before “Dear My Living Dead” called “The Delinquent, the Nerd, Love, and War” (seen in Volume 5 of "Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun") that was rather comedic while still fitting the purpose of the project. Akane-kun and Yamabuki-kun who are both in “Toilet-bound Hanako-kun” also make an appearance in it.

Iro: The both of them were actually made before Hanako-kun. They were pretty popular then so rather than set them aside I had them appear in “Toilet-bound Hanako-kun”.

Interviewer: So that’s why! Then after that the pilot run (seen in Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun Vol. 0) was released, and made way for “Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun” to begin publication. With a familiar theme like the “Seven School Mysteries”, that unique touch of Hanako-san of the Toilet being a boy as well as the retro-style setting really pull you in. We’d also like to know your process in making a story that explores both comedic and dark ideas. Iro: Initially, it was supposed to be a manga adaptation of a short story I’d written for an assignment. It was a story about Hanako-kun’s living counterpart, Yugi Amane, and the eventual No. 4 of the mysteries, Shijima Mei. There were no ghost story or romcom elements in the story at all, it was just about Amane and Mei living their lives as high schoolers and showing their interactions with each other. When the seven school mysteries idea got added into that, “Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun” was born. The ghost story and retro style came later, the darker central theme of the story was made first. Aida: There’s times we’d brainstorm ideas over a meal, but you’d hardly make solid decisions on the spot right? It's either Iro-san would get an idea, or sometimes I think up something based on a character I’d designed; Tsuchigomori and No. 6 of the Seven Mysteries had their designs set in advance for example. As for the seasonal events we have on social media, Iro-san creates the story based on the character’s costumes and the setting they’re in from illustrations I drew prior.

Interviewer: I see, so your approach is not being too rigid with your creation process. I was quite impressed with the way the ‘Picture Perfect Arc’—where Shijima Mei and Yugi Amane make their appearance—started not with the usual rumors of one of the Mysteries but with blending the normal with the abnormal, where they don’t even realize they’d already been captured by a supernatural.

Iro: It was a part of the story I started out of a desire to create something that could be read standalone, something you'd want to see as a movie. With a movie adaptation you'd think of a story with a grand scale and a dramatic ending, so I kept that in mind while writing. Shijima-san already made an appearance during the pilot chapters and during then she had feelings for Honorable No.7 (Hanako-kun), but this was something that got lost in the serial publication version. When you make stories about school ghosts, spirits in the art room are pretty common so I wanted to include them.

Interviewer: I was drawn in by how dramatic it turned out to be. The scope of No.6’s (Hakubo’s) arc was also quite significant, wasn’t it? The bone mask he wears also has a lasting visual impact.

Aida: We decided on having someone covered with bones from the early stages… Then from there thought up that No.6 would be a god of death and later on had him be an oni. He might have the fresh look of a baseball player, but his personality is a far cry from that of a sportsman. We were able to delve more into Aoi during this arc too so that was really fun. Iro: The Picture Perfect arc had a refreshing story to it, so in contrast I wanted to write the No.6 arc as something more murky and unpleasant when I started it. With things like the selfish traditions that they used to have and misunderstandings between the characters. The emotional developments for some of the characters was nice, but I had a hard time writing the scenes for it.

Interviewer: Seeing a side of Aoi-chan that she’s never shown to Aoi-kun, as well as seeing her grow worse was painful. You can really feel that the changes in the characters is one of the series’ highlights. I also felt that Kou and Mitsuba had a good relationship from how they were shown in the ‘Nightlife’ arc. Iro: It’s fun writing what happens between them, though the whole aquarium scene was quite difficult to plot out… Aida: We came up with that while we were at karaoke, while looking at the monitor there were clownfish and coral reefs on the screen so it went like, “Should we go with the aquarium?” “That sounds nice.” and that was that. Iro: After that I went to an actual aquarium with Aida-san too, we had a great time.

Interviewer: So that’s how things were decided! We also had a question about the spin-off “After School Hanako-kun”, the amusing chapters and unexpected plot lines are super enjoyable! So we’d like to know which chapters were written thanks to it being in "After School Hanako-kun" and which scenes you enjoyed creating most.

Iro: We try to keep the character appearances balanced so that everyone is able to show up, but there are some that do appear more than the rest at times. I was able to write the chapter where Nene turned into a mokke since it was for ‘After School’, that chapter (Day 9: Truth of Mokke) is my favorite.

Interviewer: “Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun”, a series that's been filled with activity from the anime to the in-person events, is soon celebrating its tenth anniversary, congratulations! We’re all super excited for the commemorative event that’s starting soon. Aida: Thank you so much! As the theme is ‘celebration’, there’s quite a lot of festive merch so please look forward to them!

Interviewer: By January 2025 “Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun 2” is also starting soon! Please tell us what you’re looking forward to seeing on the show. Iro: There’s so much happening that it’s hard to choose… I’m also excited for the opening and ending themes. Interviewer: You’re keeping an eye out for the things that’ll try to condense everything about the series in a short clip then, I see. Now lastly, and not limited to "Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun", we’d like to know what things the two of you have been thinking about, things you've gotten hooked on, or even things you’d like to challenge yourself to do in the future. Iro: I love escape rooms so I’d like to have a collaboration with SCRAP* one day, I also enjoy haunted houses so a collab with one would be nice too. I also want a mokke alarm clock. And I’d like to make a horror game for Hanako-kun, I'm a game lover so the want to make my own game will always be there. I feel like my list could just keep going. Aida: I love rail transport so I’d like to ride the Jungfrau railway in Switzerland, there are a lot of local railway lines that I want to try too. Interviewer: Thank you for taking the time to answer all our questions!

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Notes: - Ponkickies (originally called Super Kids Show Ponkickies) was a children’s TV program that was a rebrand of the earlier “Hirake! Ponkikki” (1973-1993) that ran in three seasons on Fuji TV from October 1993 to March 2018. The segment Aida talks about is a short form anime that aired during the first season of the show in the late 90s. - Kids’ Doll Theater was a children’s program shown in a puppet show format that ran on NHK’s educational content focused channel NHK Education (currently known as E-TV) from 1990 to 2011. - The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf is a story by Hans Christian Andersen about a beautiful, yet prideful and arrogant girl who, in her vanity, used a loaf of bread that was meant as a gift to her mother as a step to avoid soiling her shoes. - This particular volume's title is localized to 'Charmain and the Witch's House' in japanese. - The actual term used was "a distance where miso soup won't get cold", some sites have roughly estimated this to be about 30 minutes.