"Blackjack, a fast-paced card game, historically paid out a ratio of 3:2 when a player hit 21 on the first two cards. That means a gambler wins $15 for every $10 bet. Now, many blackjack tables on the Strip pay out at 6:5, which means that same $10 yields only $12." That's just one of the ways Vegas is working to squeeze more money out of its average visitor. WSJ: Why You’re Losing More to Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. I've been thinking about casinos ever since I watched a documentary called Inside The Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure. What's amazing about this look at professional Blackjack players who have figured out ways to win is that they're all banned from casinos from coast to coast. Consistent winning, even through skill, is simply not allowed in casinos. And in most states, winning is a perfectly acceptable reason to kick a player out of your casino. 3:2? 6:5? No matter how you do the math, you come up empty. 2Home Sick"At a time when home education was still a fringe phenomenon, the Bealls had grown up in the most powerful and ideologically committed faction of the modern home-schooling movement. That movement, led by deeply conservative Christians, saw home schooling as a way of life — a conscious rejection of contemporary ideas about biology, history, gender equality and the role of religion in American government." Peter Jamison with a very interesting (and pretty disturbing) story in WaPo (Gift Article): The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers. It's odd that we refer to these folks as deeply conservative, as if they fall neatly into some semi-reasonable portion of the political spectrum. This is something, but it sure isn't conservative. It's more like extremism, and it's also growing. "Across the country, interest in home schooling has never been greater. The Bealls could see the surge in Virginia, where nearly 57,000 children were being home-schooled in the fall of 2022 — a 28 percent jump from three years earlier. The rise of home education, initially unleashed by parents’ frustrations with pandemic-related campus closures and remote learning, has endured as one of the lasting social transformations wrought by covid-19. But if the coronavirus was a catalyst for the explosion in home schooling, the stage was set through decades of painstaking work by true believers like those who had raised Aaron and Christina." From SCOTUS to school boards, religion is at the forefront of this American political moment (and maybe all the other political moments, too.) 3Living on the Margin"The prices of oil, transportation, food ingredients and other raw materials have fallen in recent months as the shocks stemming from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have faded." So that means that consumer prices are finally dropping as well, right? Well, not exactly. It turns out that corporations are enjoying the larger margins and consumers are still buying even at higher prices. NYT (Gift Article): Companies Push Prices Higher, Protecting Profits but Adding to Inflation. (The people who could barely afford groceries before are the ones really getting hurt by this trend. They know the feeling.) 4Quite a Terms of Service Warning"Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war." I suppose I could be accused of linking to too many warnings from people who are opposed to AI. But this warning is coming from the people running AI, including Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Top AI researchers and CEOs warn against ‘risk of extinction’ in 22-word statement. (At least AI helped them to be concise.) 5Extra, ExtraAmerican Kevolution: "If passed by Congress, the deal to raise the debt ceiling would enact changes in environmental permitting, institute tighter work requirements for food stamps, and claw back some money from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to the 99-page legislative text." Here’s What’s in the Debt Ceiling Deal. (There's no doubt that America's biggest and growing problem is the historically massive economic divide. My guess is that making additional work requirements for those on food stamps and reducing funding for the IRS is not going to help the situation.) Meanwhile, the deal is far from done. Debt ceiling bill faces a tough path in the House as GOP opposition grows. (One of the questions is whether the deal too sane to enable Kevin McCarthy get it passed, or to even keep his job.) 6Bottom of the News"For decades, the word panel’s work has been a closely guarded secret. This year, Scripps — a Cincinnati-based media company — granted The Associated Press exclusive access to the panelists and their pre-bee meeting, with the stipulation that The AP would not reveal words unless they were cut from the list." Exclusive secrets of the National Spelling Bee. Get a copy of my 📕, Please Scream Inside Your Heart, or grab a 👕 in the Store.
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