- “College is just how well I can use ChatGPT at this point.”
- “I think we are years — or months, probably — away from a world where nobody thinks using AI for homework is considered cheating.”
- “It isn’t as if cheating is new. But now, as one student put it, ‘the ceiling has been blown off.’ Who could resist a tool that makes every assignment easier with seemingly no consequences?”
- “Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate.”
- “The humanities, and writing in particular, are quickly becoming an anachronistic art elective like basket-weaving.”
- “Many teachers now seem to be in a state of despair.”
- “Every time I talk to a colleague about this, the same thing comes up: retirement. When can I retire? When can I get out of this? That’s what we’re all thinking now.”
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The High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers. Companies with shortages of skilled workers are looking to high school shop classes to recruit future hires.
- Employers are increasingly recruiting high-schoolers in skilled trades due to worker shortages as baby boomers retire.
- High schools are revitalizing shop classes and teaming up with businesses that offer students opportunities for part-time work and academic credit.
- Welding students are getting job offers paying $50,000 and above, with no college debt.
- More businesses are teaming up with high schools to enable students to work part-time, earning money as well as academic credit.
- Employers say that as the skilled trades become more tech-infused, they anticipate doing even more recruitment at an early age, because they need workers who are comfortable programming and running computer diagnostics.
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“The hardest thing to teach a student—and the hardest thing to believe consistently—is that there is nothing ‘out there’ to go and get. There is no part, no career, no opportunity for which you should be searching and scrounging and coveting. All of the preparation is within, and you keep yourself mentally and physically fit; you remain generous with yourself and others; you stay deeply in study about your craft. Whatever is yours will then arrive.” — Marian Seldes
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AQR released an excellent paper this week discussing U.S. vs. foreign stock markets.
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- Universal healthcare and education
- 320 days of paid parental leave, split equally between mothers and fathers
- Freedom of the press, trust in institutions, and a culture of low corruption
- Prioritization of community engagement, including frequently dining in groups, participating in civic life, and trusting the government to mostly take care of its people.
- And a national character trait they call sisu—roughly translating to grit, resilience, or quiet inner strength
But it also has two others that are less widely discussed:
- There are 3.3 million saunas in Finland—roughly one for every 1.67 people. Finns drop by the sauna after work to relax, catch up with friends, or just sit in silence and sweat out the stress of modern life. There are even rules to encourage peaceful conversations – like no discussions about politics.
- Finland also scores high on the “lost wallet test.” This is a study from 2019 in which Stanford researchers dropped almost 19000 wallets in 355 cities/40 countries, to get a measure for whether people are generally honest. Scandinavia scored at the top of the lost wallet test: the Finns, for example, returned 90% of the wallets. And that’s not even the number that’s important. The report suggests that a strong predictor of the happiness of a country is whether the majority of people believe others would return their wallet. Finns trust their fellow Finns to do the right thing.
What can we learn from them to be happier?
- Find people to break bread with
- Go outside.
- Aim for “satisfied,” not euphoric.
- Cultivate a belief that most people are basically kind and trustworthy.
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Humans still haven’t seen 99.999% of the deep sea floor. Bizarre creatures like vampire squid and blobfish make their home in the dark, cold, depths of the deep sea, but most of this watery realm remains a complete mystery. Maps created with tools like sonar can show the shape of the seafloor, but it’s much harder to send cameras down beyond 200 meters, or more than 656 feet, where sunlight begins to fade rapidly and the waters turn cold and dark. This is the region of the ocean that’s considered “deep.”
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The 18 Degrees That Turned Aaron Judge Into the Next Babe Ruth. On May 5 of last season, Judge was mired in one of the worst slumps of his career. So when he stepped to the plate for the first time, he decided to try something different. Up to that point, Judge had always used an open batting stance, which angled his left foot toward the third baseman. Against Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal that afternoon, Judge moved the placement of his front leg ever so slightly back toward the pitcher. He promptly blasted a home run into the right-center field bleachers, followed by a booming double a few innings later. The change to Judge’s setup was almost imperceptible at first, but it had an unimaginable impact: In the year since, he has put together one of the greatest stretches of hitting that baseball has ever seen.
Tuna Thoughts 