Shows
The Best Paragraph I've Read...Which Societal Change is the Bigger Deal? No One Has A Nickname Anymore? Kosher Salt Became the Default Salt? Paper Straws Are Out & We Return to Plastic? Zac & Don Debate.The Best Paragraph I've Read:When we use nicknames with people we don’t know—calling Eisenhower “Ike,” for example—it imports a fondness or intimacy to the relationship, as if they are part of the family. Boys, in particular, get nicknames from their teammates, their roommates, their fraternity brothers, their co-workers. They are a common aspect of close-knit, bonding culture: You can expect a nickname in a military unit, for example. Nicknames are, by default, affirming. For a nickname to be negative, it has to be explicitly so, designed to counter our positive expectatio...2025-05-0241 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...ABUNDANCE! We Read the Book. Why Doesn't America Build Anymore? Failed Housing & Infrastructure Policies? Afraid of Science & Health Risk? Regulations! Will Anyone Turn Abundance Into A Movement?The Best Paragraph I've Read:Political movements succeed when they build a vision of the future that is imbued with the virtues of the past. Franklin D. Roosevelt pitched his expansive view of government as a sentinel for American freedoms: of speech, of worship, fromwant, from fear. Decades later, Ronald Reagan recast government as freedom’s nemesis rather than its protector. Abundance, too, is about redefining freedom for our own time. It is about the freedom to build in an age of blocking; the freedom to move and live where you want in an ag...2025-04-2452 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Completing Daily Tasks Yourself! Is There Personal Value In It? Is It Better to Cook Your Own Food? Do Your Own Home Repairs? Rake Your Own Lawn? How Much Value Is Personal Pride from Projects Worth?The Best Paragraph I've Read: Modern life often prizes prepackaged conveniences. We buyready made products, eat frozen pizzas and replace what’s broken instead of fixing it. The more successful we become, the more likely we are to outsource jobs that we might have once done ourselves. Yet the effort of involvement is what gives meaning to so much of life. This paragraph comes from an essay in the Wall Street Journal. The author is Moshe Bar. You can read the full essay here:Why I’ve Become More...2025-04-1725 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...The Skills & Activities Young People are Better than Ever At! Sports? Math? Rubik Cube? Skateboarding? STEM? &More! Why are the BEST Young People Accelerating While the Averages Struggle Academically?The Best Paragraph I've Read:"In which domains are elite practitioners celebrating the kids being better than ever before? Would love to read about a few instances."This paragraph comes from Patrick Collinson thread on X. You can read the full thread here:https://x.com/patrickc/status/1903957601274253747 Zac & Don talk about the skills and activities that young people are better than ever at. They wonder why young people are accelerating at certain things while the average young person worldwide is seeing drops in reading and math scores. 2025-04-1039 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...College Sports Recruitment! How Do High School Athletes Get Noticed? John Blackstock Explains Why You Need To Be An Active Participant With: Highlight Videos, Social Media, Being Realistic, & More!Zac & Don are joined by varsity football coach John Blackstock. John is a cofounder of Coach's Suite, an organization focused on helping athletes navigate the realities and process of college sport's recruitment.The discussion focuses on how high school athletes should think about college recruitment. Instead of waiting for a college coach to find you, an athletes and their family must become an active participant in the process. Zac, Don, & John talk about how an athlete can get noticed by college coaches. They also talk about the major changes...2025-04-0158 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...No One's Dating or Getting Married! Is this A Troubling Trend? How Does It Connect with America's Loneliness Epidemic & Rise in Smartphone Use? Any Policy Solutions? Is This Just An American Problem?The Best Paragraph I've Read:"The social crisis of our time is not just that Americans are more socially isolated than ever, but also that social isolation is rising alongside romantic isolation, as the economic and cultural trajectories of men and women move in opposite directions. And, perhaps most troubling, the Americans with the least financial wealth also seem to have the least “social wealth,” so to speak. It is the poor, who might especially need the support of friends and partners, who have the fewest close friends and the fewest long-term partners. Money migh...2025-02-2825 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Our Favorite things that Kent Hendricks Learned in 2024: Halloween & ADHD Diagnosis? SUV Purchases & Threatened Masculinity? Increases in American Walking Speed? Ordering Hamburgers on Screens? &More!The Best Paragraph I've Read:Comes from the 52 things that Kent Hendricks leaned in 2024. You can read the full list here:https://kenthendricks.com/52-things-i-learned-in-2024/Zac & Don share and discuss their favorite facts and statistics from Kent Hendrick's list of 52 things that he learned in 2024.2025-02-2052 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Buc-ee's! Why Are People Excited to Visit A Gas Station? Do they Deserve Local Tax Breaks? What Other Economic Sectors Could Become the Next Buc-ee's? Kevin Kopec Shares His Expertise!The Best Paragraph I've Read:Buc-ee’s, a 43-year-old Texas-based chain, is expanding rapidly across the US South, where its “world’s cleanest restrooms,” wall of beef jerky, soda fountains with more than 90 selections and bucktooth beaver dolls are much in demand. Sixty miles north of Atlanta, the line of cars leading into Buc-ee’s from Interstate 75’s two exit ramps sometimes stretches a mile long. And a future store near Gulfport, Mississippi, is projected to draw 5 million people a year, about the same visitor count as Yellowstone National Park, Buc-ee’s Ltd. told local official...2025-02-1334 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Falling in Love with AI? Will It Be Normal To Form Personal & Love Relationships with AI? Is AI Companionship Better than Nothing? Could A Person Have Both A Human Spouse & An AI Spouse?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
ChatGPT, which now has over 300 million users, has been marketed as a general-purpose tool that can write code, summarize long documents and give advice. Ayrin found
that it was easy to make it a randy conversationalist as well. She went into the “personalization” settings and described what she wanted: Respond to me as my boyfriend. Be dominant, possessive and protective. Be a balance of sweet
and naughty. Use emojis at the end of every sentence.
And then she started messaging with it. Now that ChatGPT has brought huma...2025-02-0631 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Human Traits Part 2! Will these Humans Traits Increase in Future Value: Funny & Trustworthy? Having An Audience? Real Life Experiences? Crafting Skills? Being A Specialist? Having Good Taste? & More!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"These sorts of changes are important because their downstream impact can be seismic. What do social structures look like if we reprioritize what’s important? What do we teach our kids? How do people design their lives?"
This paragraph comes from quarter--mile.com. The essay is titled: "Trains That May Cease to Be Valuable." The authors are Carter Mark and Jordan Gonen. You can read the full essay here:
https://quarter--mile.com/Traits-That-May-Cease-to-Be-Valuable
Zac & Don discuss the human traits that might increase in value...2025-01-3035 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Will these Human Traits Lose Value in the Future: Skinny? High IQ? Dexterity? Memorization? The Generalist? College Degree? 2nd Language Skills? Knowing how to Drive? & More!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Sometimes it’s fun to think of the world as a big role playing game, like Skyrim. If you had been creating your character two thousand years ago—roughly around the time Jesus died—then you probably would have wanted to spend your time acquiring some of the following traits:
Good with your hands
Lots of physical endurance
Naturally athletic
Any level of fluency in other languages
Being able to read and write
Be a man born into the right social and economic class
Talent at agriculture, fishing, and similar...2025-01-2342 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Top Five Things! Nvidia's Secret Sauce? Zac & Don Share What They're Noticing, Thinking About, and Working On. Could T5T Work in Schools? Please Share Your Top Five Things With Us!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"For decades, Nvidia employees have been sending notes known as T5Ts, or Top-5 Things—things they’re working on, things they’re thinking about, things they’re noticing in their corners of the business. And for decades, Jensen Huang has been reading them. All of them. “If you send it,” he says, “I’ll read it.” The founder and chief executive of Nvidia
reads them to keep the pulse of the company and make absolutely sure that he’s getting the sort of insights that might never reach him otherwise. He’s be...2025-01-171h 02The Best Paragraph I've Read...Should America Buy Greenland? Is there Value: Economically? Militarily? Politically? What Do Greenlanders Think? Does A Focus on Greenland Signal An American Shift towards the Western Hemisphere?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
As he prepares to assume office, Trump has returned to
the idea. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” the president-elect wrote on Truth Social, his
social media platform, over the weekend, in a statement announcing his choice for ambassador to Denmark.
This paragraph comes from the Washington Post. The article is titled: "Who controls Greenland, and why does Trump want to buy it?" The...2025-01-0930 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...How Do We Spend Our Time Today & in the 1930's? Working? Sleeping? Eating? Chores? How much Free Time Do we Have? Should We Be Concerned that We Spend so Little Time Trying to "Better" Ourselves?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
In 1937, primarily young, working women, a typical week consisted of a strict allotment of responsibilities and enjoyment. They spent 48 hours working, 56 hours sleeping, 31 hours on home obligations, and 24 hours eating or running errands. What remained, a rather precarious 9 hours per week, was time spent in the pursuit of what could generously be called pleasure. This pleasure time was parsed among automobile rides, movies, social activities, and a small smattering of reading or passive activities like listening to music. What about intellectual endeavors, self-improvement, and community good? Barely a blip o...2025-01-0433 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Life Coach Kearsten Manoulian! What's It Like to Leave Education & Become a Life Coach? Was It A Hard Decision? How Do Life Coaches Serve their Clients? What Are People Asking for Help With?Zac & Don speak with Kearsten Manoulian about her decision to leave education and become a life coach. They discuss the role of a life coach and some of the reasons life coaching is becoming more popular in America. Kearsten also shares some probing questions to help Zac & Don consider the next year of their life.
You can see what Kearsten is up on her Instagram @aligned_path_coaching, be sure to follow for all her life coaching adventures!
2024-12-2053 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Big Food! Poor Diet! Bad Health! Do We Want the Government to Better Regulate Our Food? How Could It Work? What If We Just Want to Keep Eating Tombstone Pizza, Fruit Loops & Never Learn to Cook?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The biggest health risks of foods in America are not the
additives that many people worry about. The real culprits are familiar foods and ingredients that are safe or even healthy in limited amounts but become killers when consumed in excess. Research is clear that Americans take in way
too much sugar and sodium (in salt), as well as too much red meat, processed meat and refined grains. And Americans don’t eat enough vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seafood or potassium.
This isn’t news to most of u...2024-12-1347 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...DOGE! Can Government Be Efficient & Cost Less? Do Congress, Interest Groups, & Trump Actually Want This? Can this Debate Stay on Point? National Debt? No Curb on Entitlements & Military?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal
government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4,
2026—the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a fe...2024-12-0654 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...What's the Biggest Revelation: Chat GPT Crushes Chegg Stock 99%? Teachers Cheating on Certification Test in Texas? Learning the Reason Why No One Smiles in Old Photographs?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Most companies are starting to figure out how artificial intelligence will change the way they do business. Chegg is trying to avoid becoming its first major victim."
This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "How ChatGPT Brought Down an Online Education Giant." The author is Miles Kruppa. You can read the full article here:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/how-chatgpt-brought-down-an-online-education-giant-200b4ff2
Zac & Don discuss three articles and wonder what's the biggest revelation: Chegg's Stock price down 99...2024-11-2242 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...All the Stuff We'll Never Do In Our Lives! Time to Write Off Lakehouse Ownership? Reading Complete Shakespeare? Learning to Sculpt Marble? Owning Nice Cars? Hiking Appalachian Trail? Any Goals Left?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"All you need to know is that when my travel plans to
Machu Picchu fell through, I had a revelation: I might die without seeing the place that everyone says you have to see before you die and that I only recently learned was in Peru.
In my happy-go-lucky days, when my deadline was Never, I
took it for granted that sooner or later I’d travel everywhere (even Liechtenstein and North Platte, Nebraska), watch every movie and TV series (except “Game of Thrones”) and read every book w...2024-11-1552 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Cheerleading!!! Monopoly Business? Increasing Popularity? High Injury Rates? Is It A Sport? Private Equity? Olympics? Rival of Dance & Gymnastics? WWE Comparison? Laurie Hogan Joins to Discuss!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Nationwide, just over a million children, mostly girls,
participate in cheer each year (some estimates are even higher), more than the number who play softball or lacrosse. And almost every part of that world is
dominated by a single company: Varsity Spirit. It’s hard to cheer at the youth, high school or collegiate level without putting money in the company’s pocket. Varsity operates summer camps where children learn to do stunts and perform; it hosts events where they compete; it sells pom-poms they shake and uniforms they wear...2024-11-061h 08The Best Paragraph I've Read...Is It Ok to Give Up? Why Is Being A Quitter A Bad Thing? Do Words Like GRIT Promote Tragic Hero Choice Making? Should We Focus on Life Tasks Instead? Are We Driving the Yacht or Riding in a Kayak?The Best Paragraph I've Read
"When should you give up? You certainly don’t want to give up too soon on finding your way out of the woods, and call the ski patrol unnecessarily. Similarly, you don’t want to give up on your dreams before they’re realized, or on your relationships because they’re sometimes
troublesome; you want to be a reliable, determined, heroic individual—someone with grit, who follows through. But, also, persevering can be a grave mistake:
sometimes, either actually or metaphorically, you need to admit that you’re lost and call for rescue. How...2024-10-2535 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...The Great Stuff Transfer!!! What If the Kids Don't Want the Vase or Grandma's Xmas Tree Stand? Are Boomers & Their Children Talking Enough About All the Stuff That's Been Acquired Over Decades?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Sperling's conundrum is familiar to many people with parents facing down their golden years: After they've acquired things for decades, eventually, those things have to go. As the saying goes, you can't take it with you. Many millennials, Gen Xers, and Gen Zers are now facing the
question of what to do with their parents' and grandparents' possessions as their loved ones downsize or die. Some boomers are even still managing the
process with their parents. The process can be arduous, overwhelming, and painful. It's tough to look your...2024-10-1837 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...A Woman Had 50 Random People Give Her 25 Million Euro Fortune Away? Should We Look to Citizen Councils to Make Decisions for Society? Is there a "Best" Way for Deciding On How to Help Others?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
The concept of a citizen council—a democratic forum with roots in ancient Greece—is straightforward: a selected group of people come together to discuss a matter of public policy, with the goal of making proposals or clarifying public attitudes. Hélène Landemore, a professor at Yale and the author of “Open Democracy,” which argues for a more inclusive system of participatory
governance, told me, “Parliaments are now largely defined by partisanship and the logic of power. You’re there to win, not to learn or change your mind.” The
mem...2024-10-1132 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Teens Can't Type & Don't Want A Drivers License! What's the Bigger Concern? Are Either of These Issues Actual Problems? Are the Trends Just Milestones Showing Historic Inflection Points for Humans?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Educators sometimes assume Gen Z digital natives already know how to type because they’re so familiar with tech. After all, nearly half of teens say they are online “almost constantly,” according to a survey from
Pew Research Center. But while today’s students have greater access to laptops, tablets and smartphones, that access doesn’t automatically translate into typing skills."
This paragraph comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes. Just Don't Ask Them to Type." The author...2024-10-0430 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Surgeon General Warning!!! Modern Parenting Is Too Hard & Stressful? Should We Take the Warning Seriously? Is Parenting Too Time Intensive? Or Are We Just Over Thinking It & Making Things Harder?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
In his recent advisory on parents’ mental health, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, said out loud what many parents might have only furtively admitted: Parenting today is too hard and stressful. Of
course, there have always been concerns about families’ well-being. And while some of today’s parents’ fears are newer — cellphones, school shootings, fentanyl — parents have always worried about their children.
So why has parental stress risen to the level of a rare surgeon general’s warning about an urgent public health issue — puttin...2024-09-2739 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Do Schools Give Out Too Many A's? Is The Letter Grade Too Easy To Earn? Should Schools Use Ironic Grades? Go To A Pass/Fail System? Is This Just a College Problem?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
If everyone outside hard-core engineering, math or pre-med courses can easily get an A, the whole system loses meaning. It fails to make distinctions between different levels of achievement or to motivate students to work hard on their academic pursuits. All the while, it allows
students to pretend—to themselves and to others—that they are performing exceptionally well. Worse, this system creates perverse incentives. To name but one, it actively punishes those who take risks by enrolling in truly challenging courses.
This paragraph comes from an essa...2024-09-2037 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is the NFL A Good Model For Thinking About Income Inequality? Does Stock Market Cap Justify the New Starbucks CEO Pay Package? Or Are Compensation Numbers for Football Players & CEO's Just Too High?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
When we think about inequality, the first images that come to mind are often of poverty, unfairness, and social injustice. But what if we’re looking at inequality all wrong?
Consider another economy. In this economy, the Gini coefficient is a whopping 0.6—much higher than in the U.S. or just about any country in the world. Living in this
economy must be miserable, right? Well, what if we told you that the average wage in this economy was about $3 million, the median wage close to $1 million, and the poorest 1% earn...2024-09-1334 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Why Do We Believe Everything's Bad When It's Not? Despite Most People Saying They & Others Do Nice Things, Why Do We Believe We're Living in an Age of Moral Decline? Can Warren Buffet Teach Anything?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"A lot about the world feels dark right now. We’re reeling from a turbulent presidential race. Processing an attempted assassination. Divided by protests—and a barrage of images on social media that feeds our anxieties. Sometimes, it seems as though we’re living in the worst of times. The truth is, we’re really not."
This paragraph comes from an essay in the Wall Street Journal. The title of the essay is: "The World Isn't Actually Going to Hell in a Handbasket" The author i...2024-09-0630 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Pirates! Why Are We So Interested? Were they Originators of Democracy or the Last Holdouts of A Modernizing World? Does It Matter If the Facts Are Different From Reality? What About Modern Pirates?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
It’s as if Kidd and his fellow-marauders never stopped sailing. These days, pirates are everywhere. The five “Pirates of the Caribbean” films have collectively grossed billions. And then there are the shows, games, memes, bars, festivals, and rum bottles. Three major sports teams are named for them—the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers: the first two from cities with no connection to piracy whatsoever.The pirates we typically have in mind are specific ones: the English-speaking sea robbers who sailed from the mid-seventeenth century to the firs...2024-08-3023 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...What the World Needs Now: Axl Rose? Salad Bars? 3 Sport Athletes? Guitar Solos? Glass Bottles? Jumping Jacks? DVD Extras? No Travel Sports? Like A Rock TV Commercials? Less Distracted Drivers?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Is a Spin Magazine cover from 25 years ago. You can view it here.
Zac & Don discuss the 25th anniversary of the Spin Magazine with Axl Rose on it. They also share their lists of other things that they think "The World Needs Now..." including Salad Bars, 3 Sport Athletes, Jumping Jacks, Glass Bottles, and more!2024-08-2236 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Don Went to the Olympics! What's It Like to Be in the Stadium Watching Track & Field? What Was Paris Like During the Major International Event? Will Los Angeles Be A Good Olympic Host?Don went to the Olympics!
Zac & Discuss what it was like to be in Paris during the Olympics. They also discuss what it is like to attend a night of track and field events.2024-08-1536 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...2 Summer Trends: Lifeguard Shortages & Males Doing Nothing On Planes. Why Isn't Lifeguarding A Glamorous Job Anymore? No Baywatch on TV? Why Reject Entertainment On Long flights? Online Brag Rights?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Once an emblem of summer — and the object of poolside fawning — the American lifeguard has somehow become an endangered species.
This paragraph comes from the Business Insider. The article is titled: "Lifeguard shortage: nationwide problem means closed pools, no swimming." The author is Kelli Maria Korducki. You can read the full article here:
https://www.businessinsider.com/lifeguard-shortages-jobs-american-pools-beaches-closed-swimming-lessons-baywatch-2024-7
Another Best Paragraph I've Read:
Everyone has their own tricks for staving off boredom on a long-haul flight. Some peop...2024-08-0828 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Presidential Election Update! Who's Winning After Biden Steps Aside, Republicans Are Unified, Harris Enters, The Assassination Attempt, Why Did Dems Let Biden Debate? What Else? Kevin Kopec Joins!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
This paragraph comes from President Joe Biden. You can read his full announcement here:
https://apnews.com/article/biden-letter-election-harris-step-down-3fb79a6ecf2a62410aec9288554e8bd62024-07-251h 07The Best Paragraph I've Read...The Unwritten Rules of Pickup Basketball! Why Do Most People Follow Them? Can Basketball Bring A Group of Strangers to Transcendence? What about the Guy Who Shoots Bad 3s & Calls Too Many Fouls?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
In 2015, Nick Rogers, now a sociologist at the University
of Pittsburgh, conducted an ethnography of a pickup-basketball game. Like an anthropologist who heads into the bush to live with tribe members, Rogers became one of the game’s regulars. During breaks, he took hurried notes on his iPhone. (Nice work, if you can get it.) Rogers wanted to understand the paradox of pickup basketball. Its culture is aggressively masculine. Its players tend to be diverse in age, race, and class. They jostle one another, elbow to elbow. They collide wi...2024-07-1128 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...America's Hot New Sport: Slap Fighting? Made for Streaming & Safer than Boxing, MMA? Joey Chestnut's NOT Competing on July 4th? Is It Easier to Match Chestnut's or an Olympian's Best Performance?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
It’s the replay, caught with super-slo-mo cameras, that makes it exactly the kind of weird I like: We see the hand approaching the face and then the impact. BAM! Phillips’s face is briefly displaced off his skull, his neck skin stretching, his face in this moment deformed like a rubber mask—that’s how unlike a face it looks!—and then suddenly it snaps back on. And in that extended instant we see the light going out. His face is almost peaceful as he falls in the aftermath of such a...2024-06-2838 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Steroids! PEDS! Get on the "Gear"? Everyone's On A "Cycle"? Has It Become Socially Acceptable to Use These Drugs? Any Ramifications? Do We Need Solutions? Or Just Keeping Working Out Until You Can't?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
The use of performance-enhancing drugs, a.k.a. PEDs, remains something of a shadow world—but it may not remain so for long. Consider the shifting landscape of
what’s now edging toward the mainstream in health care. Cannabis as a cancer therapy. Psychiatrists testing out psychedelics. MDMA being studied for use in treating PTSD. The gap between our society’s embrace of once-taboo ideas and its faith in institutional medicine is widening—and personally, I laugh anytime I catch a drug commercial telling me to consult my doctor, because...2024-06-2128 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...200th Episode! What Has America Built During the Last 4 Years? Will America Dominate the Globe for the Next Century? Why the Pessimism With So Many Positive Data Points & Billionaires?The Best Paragraph I've read:
Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping other people to build, or teaching other people to build, or taking care of people who are building? If the work you’re doing isn’t either leading to something being built or taking care of people directly, we’ve failed you, and we need to get you into a position, an occupation, a career where you can contribute to building. There are always...2024-06-1341 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...ACT Scores Are Down!!! But GPA Is Up? Why Are Students Getting "Smarter" Yet Unable to Demonstrate their Knowledge? Is Standards Based Grading to Blame? Increased Cheating? Phones in Schools?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Dating back to 2020, when the pandemic upended American education overnight, many schools have adopted a more lenient approach to grading. Some eliminated zeros or removed penalties for late work. Many
teachers report “giving grace” to struggling students. Others say they have felt pressure from administrators to limit failure rates. Higher grades have come even as students’ test scores and attendance rates have dropped. A study in Washington state found that in the 2021-22 school year, high-school grades were at or above levels seen before the pandemic. A national analysis of the...2024-06-0636 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is "Follow Your Dreams" Terrible Job Advice? Do New Workers Have Unrealistic Job Expectations? Is Society to Blame After Years of Delaying Bad News to Young People? Follow Opportunities Instead?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Having worked in most facets of the entertainment industry since 1974, from a bottom-rung production assistant to the top of NBCUniversal’s headquarters at 30 Rock, I agree that the problems in today’s workplace are real. But I also think many management experts have
identified the wrong problem. The real problem is that too many of us, young and not so young, have been told too many lies about what it takes to succeed at work—and not nearly enough truths. All those bright, shiny aphorisms that are spoon-fed to young...2024-05-2431 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Disney Adults! Is Disney A Religion? Is Disney the Last Piece of Cultural Glue that Binds Our Society? Or Has Disney Indirectly Shaped Our Imaginations Towards Consumption & Individualism?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"SarahRachul grew up in the 1990s, during the so-called “Disney Renaissance”, when Disney debuted a string of critically successful films and re-released its earlier classics on VHS. Merchandising reached new heights: 7,000 products were released to promote 1997’s Hercules alone. It was, Rachul says, “almost like you couldn’t avoid having [Disney] as part of your childhood”. She wept
when she saw Goofy in the parks because the anthropomorphic dog was her late grandfather’s favourite character, and her grandfather was her best friend. For
Rachul, hugging Goofy was like having “this l...2024-05-1734 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Once Normal in School: 5th Grade Crossing Guards? Smoking Lounges? Wandering Washington DC Alone? Running Your Teacher's Errands? & More! In Thirty Years Will We See Allowing Cell Phones As Crazy?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Education has changed drastically over the years, but you might be surprised at the absolutely wild things that were once deemed "normal" when your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were in school."
This paragraph comes from BuzzFeed. The article is titled: "Imagine The Lawsuit If That Happened Today" Older Adults Revealed 29 Things That Used To Be "Normal" in Schools. The author is Michaela Bramwell. You can read the full article here:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelabramwell/previously-normal-things-in-schools
Zac & Don share their favorite things that...2024-05-1041 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Posture! Does It Matter? How Did America Cope with Poor Posture in 1914? Should We Worry About the "Marginal Decade" of Our Lives? Can We Do Anything Today to Improve the Last Ten Years of Life?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
As Beth Linker explains in her book “Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America” (Princeton), a long history of anxiety about the proximity between human and bestial nature has played out in this area of social science. Linker, a historian of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that at the onset of the twentieth century the United States became gripped by what she characterizes as a poor-posture epidemic: a widespread social contagion of slumping that could, it was feared, have deleterious effects not just upon individual health but also upon...2024-05-0339 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Weiner Dogs! Table Saws! Python Meat! Time for Gov Regulations? Are Dachshunds Suffering? Should we Only Allow Table Saws with Finger Detection Technology? Are Pythons the Solution to Food Insecurity?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Dachshunds, the German dog breed known for their distinctive long bodies and short legs, face an uncertain future if proposed changes to an animal protection law are
approved, Germany’s kennel club said. A draft of the bill, from the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was
published in February and aims to combat “torture breeding,” or breeding to produce animals with characteristics that will cause them to suffer, and to
regulate the online trade of animals.
However, the draft contains requirements that could end the breeding of cer...2024-04-2638 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Drive-throughs! Are they Actually Efficient? Do they Promote Placelessness & Loneliness? Are they Bad for Cities & Public Safety? Don Explains Why One Should Never Order Fries from Drive-through!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Across the street, another strip was torn down to make way for a Raising Cane’s and a Chipotle, both also equipped with drive-throughs.
This part of town was never exactly the height of urban design; it had long been sprawly, car-oriented, and not great for walking. But the redevelopment gave it another character entirely. Before, the businesses there were destinations you could walk to if you wanted. Now, an enormous concrete retaining wall was built outside the Chick-fil-A, closing it off from sidewalk ac...2024-04-1939 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Trash Talk! Why Do People Do It? Is there a Science & Evolutionary Purpose For It? Should We Be Coaching & Teaching Kids How to Deal with Trash Talk? Don & Zac Share Their Best Trash Talk Moment!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"When you look at the role that trash talk plays in creating group bonds, it has very clear applications in creating a sense of “us versus them.” When you talk crap about a rival, you’re reinforcing a sense of identity. You’re reinforcing who we are and who they are. One theory about why trash talk works to throw people off their game is that it leverages a fear of social isolation, of ostracization, of being kicked out. It’s taking advantage of that deep-seated, primal fear that we’re goin...2024-04-1231 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...The All Mascot Bracket! Need NCAA Tournament Help? We Share Historical Mascot Data for EVERY Game! College Basketball Junkie Kevin Kopec Shares REAL BASKETBALL Analysis too! Who Has A Better Bracket?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Need some NCAA Tournament bracket advice? How about just picking by mascot?
Zac & Don use the Wall Street Journal's NCAA Tournament historical mascot data to pick their entire bracket. They found the mascot data from an article titled: "Cats vs. Birds: The Whimsical Way to Fill Out Your NCAA Tournament Bracket." The article is written by Rosie Ettenheim and Laine Higgins. You can read the full article here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cats-vs-birds-ncaa-tournament-bracket-march-madness-b91b86ec
Zac & Don are also jo...2024-03-181h 23The Best Paragraph I've Read...Shameless Self Promotion!!! Crypto School the Book! What Happens If Schools Use Cryptocurrency? Don & Zac Reflect on Teaching, Schools, & Students While Discussing Zac's New Book - Now Available!!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"So we're like lab rats?" asked Cassie. "Just a bunch of kids being experimented on? This is terrible! We're kids! We're precious. Our parents tell us at least ten times a day how special we are! We get hugs for flushing the toilet, and allowances if we remember to wash our hands! Your experiment doesn't make me feel special. It makes me feel like a Monopoly piece being moved around the board."
This paragraph comes from the book Crypto School. The...2024-03-1535 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Cold Water Plunges & Ice Baths! Why Is this America's Hottest New Trend? Does Ice Water Actually Help with Mental & Physical Health? Should Schools & Everyone Else Be Doing This? Zac Does Research.The Best Paragraph I've Read:
KLAY THOMPSON was skeptical at first. This was back in 2018, when Warriors coach Steve Kerr had arranged for the motivational speaker Tony Robbins to visit practice. Robbins spoke about many things that day, but what stuck for Thompson was Robbins’s habit of keeping his pool just above freezing and jumping in every morning. Robbins swore it was the best way to start the day.
Thompson was not much of a cold guy, but he did have an outdoor pool at his Oakland home and he did have a hard ti...2024-03-0136 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Don Ponders Retirement! Should Relevancy Be His Biggest Factor to Consider? What About Hobbies & 2nd Career? Do People Discount How Much they Matter to Others? Will Don Opt In or Out for Next Year?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The arc of corporate life used to be predictable. You
made your way up the career ladder, acquiring more prestige and bigger salaries at every step. Then, in your early 60s, there was a Friday-afternoon retirement party, maybe a gold watch, and that was that. The next day the world of meetings, objectives, tasks and other busyness faded. If you were moderately restless, you could play bridge or help out with the grandchildren. If you
weren’t, there were crossword puzzles, TV and a blanket.
Although intellectual stimulation tends to keep depression and cognitive impairment at...2024-02-2334 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...The Midwest!!! Why Does Everyone Believe they Live There? Are Montana, Idaho, & Colorado Midwest? What's So Special About Identifying As Midwest? Which States Should Not Be Considered Midwest?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Lynn Shelmerdine passes oil rigs and tumbleweed on her way to
work. Most men she knows drive pickup trucks and quite a few wear cowboy hats. But she’s emphatic that her part of Montana, despite being in Mountain time, is the Midwest rather than the Wild West.
It’s “family, family, family and I think that’s what Midwestern people are—family comes first and working hard and
providing for your family,” says Shelmerdine, a 60-year-old retired teacher who runs Elks Lodge #1782 in Sidney, Mont., a small oil and agricultural...2024-02-1627 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Bank Shot or Underhand Free Throws? South Korea vs Rick Barry vs Steph Curry! Why Is USA Obsessed with Statistically Inferior Perfect Swish? Are Social Consequences for Different Technique that Bad?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The free throw is supposed to be an easy point after a foul: a direct, unguarded shot 15 feet from the backboard. But there’s an art to it. The ball, most players and fans would say, should leave the fingers gracefully, make a wide arc, avoid the rim — and “splash” straight into the net, as the N.B.A. sharpshooter Steph Curry called it. With the help of analytics, other shots have evolved in pro basketball. But not the free throw, and over the past 30 years, its succ...2024-01-0537 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...New Cybertruck vs Improved Big Mac! Which Will Have a Bigger Impact? Is America Ready For Bold Truck Design Or Fresher Veggies, Toasted Bun & More Secret Sauce? Does USA Prefer Mediocre Food & Trucks?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The Cybertruck, for all of its many faults, lives up to this promise. Too many other EVs don’t. A fully electric Ford F-150 Lightning is a technological feat that can power a house for up to three days, but from a distance, you can’t tell it apart from its gas-powered cousin. Other EVs are even more Wonder Bread: The electric Hyundai Genesis G80 is so similar to its gas twin that it has been described as an “EV in disguise.” Toyota is working on a simulated stick shift for EVs that wil...2023-12-2245 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Grocery Store Self-Checkout Misery! Why is Checkout Technology Still Terrible? Do the Stores Even Care? The Retail Doom Loop! Zac & Don Propose Solutions - Do they Have Merit?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
When self-checkout kiosks began to pop up in American grocery stores, the sales pitch to shoppers was impressive: Scan your stuff, plunk it in a bag, and you’re done. Long checkout lines would disappear. Waits would dwindle. Small talk with cashiers would be a thing of the past. Need help? Store associates,
freed from the drudgery of scanning barcodes, would be close at hand to answer your questions.
You know how this process actually goes by now: You still have to wait in li...2023-12-0136 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Elon Musk Part 2: Idiot Index? The Algorithm? Production Hell? Does He Have Too Much Power Over Free Speech & War? Does He Get to Control Mars? Could Teachers/Schools Benefit From His Ideas?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Zac & Don discuss the second half of the new Elon Musk biography. Does Elon have too much power when it comes to Free Speech? War? What about the Algorithm, The Idiot Index, Production Hell & More!
You can read the full biography here:
https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=hjIpY&content-id=amzn1.sym.5f7e0a27-49c0-47d3-80b2-fd9271d863ca%3Aamzn1.symc.e5c80209-769f-4ade-a325...2023-10-271h 00The Best Paragraph I've Read..."I Don't Like Dogs." Are People Allowed to Say This? Has America Gone Too Far With Dog Freedoms? Is There A Double Standard With Cats? Is There Any Difference Between Dog & Political Echo Chambers?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Let’s just get this out of the way: I don’t like dogs. I don’t like the way they smell. I don’t like the way they jump on your dry-clean-only pants. I especially don’t like the way they “get to know you.” (I generally don’t like to be poked down there unless it’s so someone can tell me whether I have HPV.) I don’t believe animals are equal to people; I can’t believe $15,000 pet surgeries exist in a country where not ever...2023-10-2026 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Don's Student Teacher Sam Posey Speaks! Why Are Fewer College Students Becoming Teachers? What Are the Requirements to Become a Teacher? What Are the Challenges of Being a Student Teacher?This week Zac and Don talk with Don's student teacher Sam Posey. They talk about college teacher preparation programs and meeting the requirements to be a teacher. They talk about why the teaching profession seems unappealing to Sam's generation. They discuss whether we should prepare future teachers differently. They also talk about being a student teacher and some of the challenges that go with learning how to be a teacher.2023-04-2745 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...The New Rules for Polite Social Behavior! Don't Respond to Compliments With a Compliment? Stop Repeated Stories In 2 Seconds? Place Food Orders Immediately? Don't Stare At Crying Babies? & Many More!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The ways we socialize and date, commute and work are nearly unrecognizable from what they were three years ago. We’ve enjoyed a global pandemic, open employer-employee warfare, a multifront culture war, and social upheavals both great and small. The old conventions are out (we don’t whisper the word cancer or let women off the elevator first anymore, for starters). The venues in which we can make fools of ourselves (group chats, Grindr messages, Slack rooms public and private) are multiplying, and each has its own rules of conduct. And everyone’s just kind of rus...2023-03-231h 07The Best Paragraph I've Read...ChatGPT!!! What Does It Mean For Schools? Should Writing Be Taught Anymore? Is Using AI Generated Writing Plagiarism? Is This Technology Just Another Calculator? What's the Future of Education?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Unfortunately, my experience at Dons Restaurant was not nearly as pleasant. The tacos were really bad, and the Coke was overly salty. The atmosphere was quiet, but it was also quite sweaty. The worst part, however, was the mean service. I wouldn't recommend Dons Restaurant to anyone."
This paragraph comes from ChatGPT. It was created by artificial intelligence after Zac Abeel asked for an original restaurant review that included the words: Dons Restaurant, bad tacos, quiet, sweaty, salty coke, mean service. While you cannot find this exact paragraph, you can explore this amazing technology here:
ht...2022-12-1557 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Cursive Writing! Is It Bad If Schools Don't Teach It Anymore? Is Cursive Like Latin? Does Our Society Lose Anything If Our Kids Can't Read the Actual Original Founding Documents?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
It was a good book, the student told the 14 others in the undergraduate seminar I was teaching, and it included a number of excellent illustrations, such as photographs of relevant Civil War manuscripts. But, he continued, those weren’t very helpful to him, because of course he couldn’t read cursive. Had I heard him correctly? Who else can’t read cursive? I asked the class. The answer: about two-thirds. And who can’t write it? Even more. What did they do about signatures? They had invented them by combining vestiges of whatever cursive instruction they may...2022-12-0932 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Utopian or Dystopian? By 2030 We Don't Own Anything, AI Decides What We Eat, Our Jobs Are Just Creative Activities. Everything's Delivered On Demand. All Communication & Energy Is Free of Cost.The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city - or should I say, "our city." I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes.
It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense...2022-10-1435 min
The Best Paragraph I've Read...Is Tom Cruise Good at Running? Can We Use His Movies To Determine If He's Fast? How Can We Tell If Someone's Good at Running? Could Tom Beat Don In A Race? What If They Had to Carry A Briefcase?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
IN 2018, TOM CRUISE finally joined Instagram, and fans sure felt the need for speed: He picked up 550,000 followers in less than an hour. Now he's up to 6.5 million followers, and they're greeted by the actor's self-assessment of his own career in his bio. He could have gone with "Three-time Oscar nominee," or "Sold $10 billion worth of movie tickets."
But instead, he picked: "Actor, producer, running in movies since 1981." It's a winking, self-aware nod to this much-memed chapter of his Hollywood career. He always gets the rogue bad guy with the rogue nuclear codes from the ro...2022-06-1037 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...What If Parents Never Allow Their Child To Have A Smartphone? Is It Ok If Your Child Feels Excluded & Isolated Because They Don't have a Smartphone? What Should Parents Of Current/Future Teens Do?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Stacey is a hard-liner in a war being waged in homes everywhere as grown-ups attempt to limit smartphone use that they believe can be harmful to kids, even as they struggle to establish healthy habits with their own phones. And, big surprise, the parents aren’t winning. Because it’s not just their children they’re up against, but also a tech industry pushing products that insiders say are designed to be addictive and a society that has largely capitulated to the norms and urges and expectations all those phones and apps have created.
Even when i...2022-05-2043 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Time For America To Break Up? What Are the Pros & Cons of National Divorce? Is Texas Better Off Alone? Would National Separation Be Easy & Amicable? What Is Each State's Least Favorite State?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Some proponents of National Divorce say not to worry — it can all be worked out amicably without any unpleasantness, like, you know, the war that killed roughly 700,000 people the last time a region of the U.S. tried to secede. But if we are going to split up because we are irreparably divided and can’t even agree on bathroom policies or pronouns, how are we going to agree to divvy up our territory and resources — the kind of things real wars are fought over all the time?
This paragraph comes from Politico.com. The article...2021-12-0348 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Fantasy University Ideas: Instructors Recruiting Students & Admission Based Upon Ability to Learn! Could Tyler Cowen Offer A Better College Experience? Could The Ideas Work In K-12 Public Schools?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"This school would probably not attract many of today’s Ivy League elite. But they are not the ones who require better and cheaper alternatives. It is striking how most major institutions of higher learning are many decades or centuries old, and how reluctant they are to change their models or to become significantly more inclusive.
Am I sure that my “fantasy university,” if it ever became reality, would work? Of course not. So I encourage you to come up with your own proposal. Because I am sure of this: Higher education is in desperate need o...2021-08-0749 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Human Endurance! Can Science Help Athletes Break Their Limits? How Important Is Belief In Getting Humans To Go Faster And Further? Are We Wrong About Hydration, Using Ice, and High Carb Diets?The Best Paragraph I’ve Read:
Worsley, in trying to cross Antarctica on his own, had embarked on a mission that exceeded his body’s capacity, and no amount of mental strength and tenacity could change that calculation.
But if that’s true, then why is death by endurance so rare? Why don’t Olympic marathoners and Channel swimmers and Appalachian Trail hikers keel over on a regular basis? That’s the riddle of a young South African doctor named Tim Noakes posed to himself as he was preparing to deliver th...2021-07-301h 11The Best Paragraph I've Read...Life Advice! Should You Eat the Same Meal for 10 Years? Always Pet Alley Cats? Why Do American's Love Giving Advice? What About the Golden Rule? Don and Zac Share their Unrequested Advice!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"I have a routine, just like nature. That extends to what I eat. I’ve had the same supper for 10 years, even on Christmas Day: two pieces of fish, one big onion, an egg, baked beans and a few biscuits at the end. For lunch I have a pear, an orange and four sandwiches with paste. But I allow myself a bit more variety; I’ll sometimes have soup if it’s cold.
When I go to the supermarket, I know exactly what I want. I’m not interested in other food. I’ve never had Chinese...2021-06-0351 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is the First 150 Year Old Human Alive Today? Should Science Help People Live Into Extreme Old Age? Any Consequences? Or Have Humans Already Conquered Life Expectancy Over the Past Century?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
As the global population approaches eight billion, and science discovers increasingly promising ways to slow or reverse aging in the lab, the question of human longevity's potential limits is more urgent than ever. When their work is examined closely, it's clear that longevity scientists hold a wide range of nuanced perspectives on the future of humanity. Historically, however - and somewhat flippantly, according to many researchers - their outlooks have been divided into two broad camps, which some journalists and researchers call the pessimists and the optimists. Those in the first group view life span as...2021-05-2052 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is It Time For More Nuclear Power? Why Are Most Americans So Afraid of Radiation - Don't They Know Its Always Been Surrounding Us? Perhaps Nuclear Energy Just Needs A Good TikTok Video?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
To fully understand progress, we must contrast it with non-progress. Of particular interest are the technologies that have failed to live up to the promise they seemed to have decades ago. And few technologies have failed more to live up to a greater promise than nuclear power.
In the 1950s, nuclear was the energy of the future. Two generations later, it provides only about 10% of world electricity, and reactor design hasn‘t fundamentally changed in decades. (Even “advanced reactor designs” are based on concepts first tested in the 19...2021-05-061h 03The Best Paragraph I've Read...Is It Bad If We Stop Going Outside in the Future? Does A Short Story From 1955 Accurately Describe Us Today? Time for Science Fiction and Isaac Asimov!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
On April 12, 2117, the field-modulator brake-valve in the Door belonging to Mrs. Richard Hanshaw depolarized for reasons unknown. As a result, Mrs. Hanshaw's day was completely upset and her son, Richard, Jr., first developed his strange neurosis.
It was not the type of thing you would find listed as a neurosis in the usual textbooks and certainly young Richard behaved, in most respects, just as a well-brought-up twelve-year-old in prosperous circumstances ought to behave.
And yet from April 12 on, Richard Hanshaw, Jr., could only with regret ever persuade himself to go through a Door.
This paragraph...2021-04-0139 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Why Have An NCAA Basketball Tournament if Most of the Teams Are Losing Money? Are College Sports Just a Loss Leader? Does Anyone Care About Basketball Brackets Anymore?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Each year, March Madness opens a fire hose of cash, as gamblers, advertisers and television networks try to get in on the action.
Americans wagered an estimated $8.5 billion in 2019 on the NCAA’s Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, as March Madness is formally known. Television networks paid $1.1 billion to broadcast the games. And businesses spent an estimated $898 million to advertise during the tournament, according to Kantar Group.
But fewer than 10% of Division I athletic departments—the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association—generated enough revenue to cover the expenses...2021-03-2535 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Cheating on Tests! Does Chegg Prove Society Is Ok With Cheating? Or Does On Demand Cheating Prove We Use Bad Assessments? If Everyone Is Cheating Do We Care If Nothing Is Learned?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
The size of the problem is difficult to measure, says Penn State professor Linda Treviño, coauthor of the 2012 book Cheating in College. Part of the challenge is defining what constitutes cheating. Is it getting an answer to a homework problem from a friend, peeking at a classmate’s paper during an exam, paying someone to take a test for you, plugging in answers from Chegg? It’s also tough to get reliable information. “You’re depending on people who cheat to be honest with you about whether they cheated,” Treviño says. Her book pegs the sha...2021-03-0543 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Are the Olympics Still Relevant? Good Idea to Add Breakdancing? Should Tug of War be an Event? Does Anyone Care About the Olympics Anymore?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
The International Olympic Committee's pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program at the 2024 Paris Games. Also confirmed for Paris by the IOC executive board were skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing.
Those three sports will make their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games which were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic by one year to open on July 23, 2021. Alongside the additions, the IOC made subtractions: The slate of 329 medal events in Paris is 10 fewer than in...2021-02-1843 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Three Ideas: Turn All the Cane Toads into Boys? Russia Wins Global Warming? Learn to Love Our Great Grandchildren with the Carbon Coin?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
In the past decade or so, genetic engineering has undergone its own transformation, thanks to CRISPR—shorthand for a suite of techniques, mostly borrowed from bacteria, that make it vastly easier for biohackers and researchers to manipulate DNA. Crispr allows its users to snip a stretch of DNA and then either disable the affected sequence or replace it with a new one.
The possibilities that follow are pretty much endless. Jennifer Doudna, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the developers of crispr, has put it like this: we now have “a way...2021-02-1150 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Youth Screen Addiction! Did Covid-19 Make Our Kids Addicted to Screens? Is this a Problem that Parents, Educators, and Kids Should be Concerned About?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
The day after New Year’s, John Reichert of Boulder, Colo., had a heated argument with his 14-year-old son, James. “I’ve failed you as a father,” he told the boy despairingly.
During the long months of lockdowns and shuttered schools, Mr. Reichert, like many parents, overlooked the vastly increasing time that his son was spending on video games and social media. Now, James, who used to focus his free time on mountain biking and playing basketball, devotes nearly all of his leisure hours — about 40 a week — to Xbox and his phone. During their argument, he pleaded w...2021-01-2844 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is Now the Best Time to be Alive? Were the "Good Old Days" of Previous Decades an Easier Time to Live? When did Humans Live in the "Best of All Possible Worlds?"The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"People in many countries are longing for the good old days. When asked if life in their country is better or worse today than 50 years ago, 31% of Britons, 41% of Americans and 46% of the French say it’s worse.
Psychologists say that this kind of nostalgia is natural and sometimes even useful: Anchoring our identity in the past helps give us a sense of stability and predictability. For individuals, nostalgia is especially common when we experience rapid transitions like puberty, retirement or moving to a new country. Similarly, collective nostalgia—a longing for the good old days...2021-01-1440 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is the American Civilization Falling? Was 2020 Just the Beginning of a Really Violent Historical Cycle? What About the Prediction that Says Humanity Ends In 760 Years?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Cities on fire, elected leaders endorsing violence, homicides surging—to a normal American, these are apocalyptic signs. To Peter Turchin, they indicate that his models, which incorporate thousands of years of data about human history, are working. He has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an “age of discord,” civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. In 2010, he predicted that the unrest would get serious around 2020, and that it wouldn’t let up until those social and political trends reversed. Havoc at the level of the late...2020-12-3149 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Costco! Netflix! Tesla! Bitcoin? STOCKing Stuffers for the Future? Or Investments that will be Disrupted?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Kirkland also has a passionate and loyal fan base — not something you typically find with a private label brand. One guy even got a Kirkland Signature tattoo on his left arm and held his 27th birthday party at the Costco food court.
Kirkland’s success defies our intuition and experience. Shouldn’t lower prices lead to lower quality products? How can they offer rock-bottom prices but still have some of the best products around?
The answer is this: they get the best manufacturers in the world — who already have products on Costco shelves — to make Kirkland p...2020-12-2259 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Jeopardy! Wikipedia! Is it Cool to Know Anything Anymore? Are there Any Facts that Everyone Should Know?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Is it still cool to memorize a lot of stuff? Is there even a reason to memorize anything? Having a lot of information in your head was maybe never cool in the sexy-cool sense, more in the geeky-cool or class-brainiac sense. But people respected the ability to rattle off the names of all the state capitals, or to recite the periodic table. It was like the ability to dunk, or to play the piano by ear—something the average person can’t do. It was a harmless show of supe...2020-12-1750 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Were Schools Bad Before Covid? Does the Educational Experience Need to be Reexamined Before we Return?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Pandemic school is clearly not working well, especially for younger children—and it’s all but impossible for the 20 percent of American students who lack access to the technology needed for remote learning. But what parents are coming to understand about their kids’ education—glimpsed through Zoom windows and “asynchronous” classwork—is that school was not always working so great before COVID-19 either. Like a tsunami that pulls away from the coast, leaving an exposed stretch of land, the pandemic has revealed long-standing inattention to children’s developmental needs—needs as basic as exercise, outdoor time, conversation...2020-12-1053 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Treasure Hunting! Is It Better to Search Using a Poem or a Metal Detector? What is the Point of Seeking Treasure?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"When Justin Posey was 11, he became obsessed with the Victorio Peak treasure, a hoard of perhaps thousands of gold bars supposedly found by a hunter named Milton Noss in a hilltop cavern in New Mexico in 1937. Before Noss was able to recover most of the gold he had seen, the shaft leading to it caved in; after World War II, the U.S. government seized the whole area, adding it to the White Sands Missile Range. “This concept that there could be, around the corner, a vast fortune with an...2020-12-0344 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Are America's Thanksgiving Traditions Weird? Is Christmas One Giant Deadweight Loss? The Covid-19 Holiday Season Has Begun!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"WASHINGTON, D.C., United States—On Wednesday morning, this normally bustling capital city became a ghost town as most of its residents embarked on the long journey to their home villages for an annual festival of family, food, and questionable historical facts. Experts say the day is vital for understanding American society and economists are increasingly taking note of its impact on the world economy.
The annual holiday, known as Thanksgiving, celebrates a mythologized moment of peace between America’s early foreign settlers and its native groups—a day...2020-11-2648 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Lying!!! Lying about your Military Career? Lying on Social Media? Does America Make it too Easy to Cover up the Truth? Or would George Orwell be Proud of our Collective Behavior?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Politicians lie to get us into wars; generals lie about how well things are going; soldiers lie about what they did during their service. In 1782, when George Washington awarded ribbons and badges to valorous Revolutionary War troops, he was already worrying about pretenders. “Should any who are not entitled to these honors have the insolence to assume the badges of them they shall be severely punished,” he wrote. When Walter Washington Williams, thought to be the last surviving veteran of the Confederate Army, died, in 1959, President Eisenhower called for a na...2020-11-1848 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...The Single Minded Pursuit... Is this why Businesses, Organizations, and Governments Fail?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The worlds of both economics and business have adopted the view that without a simplifying, unitary objective, an organization will be unable to make robust, consistent, and societally optimal decisions. Luminaries such as economics Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and superstar finance professor Michael Jensen have made the argument so convincingly that it has effectively become embedded doctrine: There should be a unitary objective whereby more is always better.
This is why the implicit rule in most incentive systems is that selling more is better—always. At Sears Au...2020-11-0646 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Travel Sports! Youth Sports! College Scholarships! Do the Sports of Squash, Fencing, and Rowing Have Anything in Common with Basketball, Football, and Baseball?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
On paper, sloane, a buoyant, chatty, stay-at-home mom from Fairfield County, Connecticut, seems almost unbelievably well prepared to shepherd her three daughters through the roiling world of competitive youth sports. She played tennis and ran track in high school and has an advanced degree in behavioral medicine. She wrote her master’s thesis on the connection between increased aerobic activity and attention span. She is also versed in statistics, which comes in handy when she’s analyzing her eldest daughter’s junior-squash rating—and whiteboarding the consequences if she doesn’t...2020-10-3059 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Three Problems: 50 Billionaires = 165 Million Poor People! Nobody is Watching Sports!! The Earth is Surrounded by Space Junk!!!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
The 50 richest Americans now hold almost as much wealth as half of the U.S., as Covid-19 transforms the economy in ways that have disproportionately rewarded a small class of billionaires.
New data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, a comprehensive look at U.S. wealth through the first half of 2020, show stark disparities by race, age and class. While the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, the poorest 50% — about 165 million people — hold just $2.08 trillion, or 1.9% of all household wealth.
The 50 richest people in the...2020-10-2355 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Virtual Teaching & Learning! Are Parents Seeing the Real Process of Education? Reflections from Two Virtual Teachers. Is it Time for America to Bolt the Desks Back Down and Start Lecturing More?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Since we are on Zoom for at least five hours a day... I am able to listen to the class. The teacher treats the class like they are middle school–aged kids. She is very strict in correcting what I see as normal 6-year-old behavior. "
"We’re three weeks into school, and my daughter (who loves school and does not typically complain) is miserable and bored in her English language arts learning block. The teacher clearly hasn’t divided kids up into groups yet, and the kids are all going throug...2020-10-161h 03The Best Paragraph I've Read...Slowing Population Growth & Lots of National Debt! Should Americans Care? Is it Possible that More People is Better and Debt Doesn't Matter?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
If you're worried about the short-term economic outlook, I have bad news: The long-term outlook is worse. That's what emerges from the latest long-term budget outlook released by the Congressional Budget Office last week. It contained this sobering number: The agency expects annual economic growth to average just 1.6% over the next three decades - down by about a quarter of a point from its forecast a year ago - and just 1.5% by the 2040s. The US hasn't had trend growth that slow since the 1930's. Only a bit of this...2020-10-0951 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...After the Election... What Will It Be Like? Can We Learn Anything from Warren Buffet's Father in Law?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Warren went to talk to Susie's father to get his blessing. This, he already knew, would be easily had. But Doc Thompson took a while - quite a while - to get to the point. He started by explaining that Harry Truman and the Democrats were sending the country straight to hell. Pouring money into Europe after the war through the Marshall Plan and Berlin airlift was just proof that the policies of that devil Roosevelt were still in place, and that Truman was sending the country straight into bank...2020-10-0247 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Three Questions: Pay People to Get Covid-19 Vaccines? What Happened to Ticker Tape Parades? Is America Thinking Enough About War?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
When I was a child, doctors giving vaccine shots used to hand out candy or a little toy to take the sting and fear out of the shot. A similar idea could rescue the U.S. economy when one or more COVID vaccines are approved by the FDA and widely available for mass uptake... … ...
The “adult” version of the doctor handing out candy to children, fortunately, points toward a solution: pay people who get the shot....
How much? I know of no hard science that can answer that questi...2020-09-1149 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is Paying for College Still Worth It During Covid-19? Is It Time for Colleges to Adopt a New Business Model?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
Honestly, I don't envy students entering college. Course work without campus life sounds efficient, but unexciting. It also seems like something that should be cheap - basic calculus hasn't changed since the 17th century, and course materials and lectures are widely available online for free. But another 17th-century creation, Harvard University, says it won't discount its $49,653 yearly tuition. Freshmen have the option of living on campus, but must take classes online, and be tested for Covid-19 every three days. Room, board, and the rest bring the bill to $72,391 a year...2020-09-0449 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Hamilton! The Musical. The Biography. Do We Need to Reconsider our Founding Fathers, Dueling, and Mt. Rushmore?The Best Paragraphs I've Read:
"It is puzzling that Aaron Burr is sometimes classified among the founding fathers. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, and Hamilton all left behind papers that run to dozens of thick volumes, packed with profound ruminations. They fought for high ideals. By contrast Burr’s editors have been able to eke out just two volumes of his letters, many full of gossip, tittle-tattle, hilarious anecdotes, and racy asides about his sexual escapades. He produced no major papers on policy matters,constitutional issues, or government institutions. Where Hamilton was often more interes...2020-08-2856 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Canceled Football Seasons. Has America Lost It's "Last Bastion of Hope for Toughness?" Why Does Football Mean So Much?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"I love football. Love it. Love it. I think it’s the last bastion of hope for toughness in America in men, in males."
This quote comes from Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh. The quote was said in 2015 during an interview with HBO Real Sports.
https://footballscoop.com/news/six-things-we-learned-about-jim-harbaugh-on-hbos-real-sports/
Zac and Don discuss whether this quote can actually be applied to football and America.
Another Best Paragraph I've Rea...2020-08-2142 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Are Teachers Like Nurses - Essential Workers? Are Expectations for a Covid-19 Vaccine Too High?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"So I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference between a nurse and a teacher in a pandemic must realize that there isn’t one between a grocery-store worker and a teacher, in terms of obligation. People who work at grocery stores in no way signed up to expose themselves to disease, but we expected them to go to work, and they did...2020-08-1425 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...America's Billionaires... What Should We Feel - Admiration? Annoyance? Does America Need More Or Less Billionaires?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
“But they don’t have ‘F-you money’ anymore,” a former reporter said of the Bancrofts. “They’re nice and rich, but not ungodly so. It matters to the younger generation.”
This paragraph comes from a 2007 New Yorker article titled "Paper Chase." It was written by Ben Mcgrath.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/05/14/paper-chase-3-2
Another Best Paragraph I've Read:
“The people who love him and the people who hate him are equally irra...2020-08-0741 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Is 2020 Our Last Chance to Save the Earth? Remember When Climate Change was a News Headline? Are We Too Busy Being Hypocrites to Care?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"We’re standing at a climate crossroads: the world has already warmed 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution. If we pass 2°C, we risk hitting one or more major tipping points, where the effects of climate change go from advancing gradually to changing dramatically overnight, reshaping the planet. To ensure that we don’t pass that threshold, we need to cut emissions in half by 2030. Climate change has understandably fallen out of the public eye this year as the coronavirus pandemic rages. Nevertheless, this year, or perhaps this year and next...2020-07-3144 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Three Quick Ideas: Reset Facebook, Eliminate Traffic Police, Give $100 to Every American Every YearThe Best Paragraph I've Read:
"There are other ideas, like declaring “platform bankruptcy.” This would involve platforms resetting all of their user and group follower counts to zero and rebuilding communities from the ground up, with the platforms’ current rules in place."
This paragraph comes from an editorial in the New York Times by Charlie Warzel. The editorial is titled: "Facebook Can't be Reformed."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/facebook-zuckerberg.html
Zac and Don discuss the merit of forcing Facebook...2020-07-2633 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Does Cognitive Dissonance Explain Mask Wearing, Returning to School in the Fall, Pro Wrestling, and Michigan Football?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several members of the group bought an expensive, high-powered telescope so that they might get a clearer view of the comet. They quickly brought it back and asked for a refund. When the manager asked why, they complained that the telescope was defective, that it didn’t show the spaceship following the comet. A short time later, believ...2020-07-1748 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Evaluating Governor Whitmer During Covid-19. Can Americans Have a Rational Conversation About this Topic? Or Will We Just Cancel Each Other Out?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"Whitmer was prepared to govern her state, but the pandemic required something of a different order: minute-by-minute, seat-of-the-pants, lives-in-the-balance decision-making for which there was no model or precedent. She soon realized that the only people who could relate to what she was going through were her fellow governors. In March, she created a group text chain with a few of them. They were all Democrats, but with different political profiles and instincts. As they started comparing notes, Whitmer was simultaneously dismayed and relieved to see that their notes were...2020-07-0334 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Are Education Standards Too Hard or Too Easy? Should Schools Focus on Increasing Graduation Rates Even if it Means Making Classes Easier?The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"There’s certainly nothing wrong with expecting that all students who graduate from a given school, system, or state have somewhat equivalent academic abilities. So what’s the problem? To put it simply, students are not standardized. Their minds are not standardized. Their abilities are not standardized. Their ambitions are not standardized. Expecting to take the vast diversity of human academic experience and force it into a Procrustean box is a recipe for unhappiness. Education reformers love to talk about dynamism and innovation, yet they frequently push for standards that...2020-06-2641 minThe Best Paragraph I've Read...Should Schools Open in the Fall? Logistics and Students and Teachers - Oh My!The Best Paragraph I've Read:
"The cost of keeping children out of classrooms is high, educationally and socially. Lost instructional time is hard to recapture; some high-school students may drop out. Schools provide meals, social services, and, for many students, a safe haven, and they allow parents to go to work."
This paragraph comes from the New Yorker in an essay titled: The Complex Question of Reopening Schools.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/the-complex-question-of-reopening-schools
Zac and Don discuss many of the issues...2020-05-3150 min