You may track your incoming packages pretty closely. But most of us ignore the much longer, more circuitous trip that begins when we return something. What happens after you drop off your package might surprise you. Amanda Mull in The Atlantic (Gift Article): This Is What Happens to All the Stuff You Don’t Want. "When you order a pair of sweatpants online and don’t want to keep them, a colossal, mostly opaque system of labor and machinery creaks into motion to find them a new place in the world. From the outside, you see fairly little of it—the software interface that lets you tick some boxes and print out your prepaid shipping label; maybe the UPS clerk who scans it when you drop the package off. Beyond that, whole systems of infrastructure—transporters, warehousers, liquidators, recyclers, resellers—work to shuffle and reshuffle the hundreds of millions of products a year that consumers have tried and found wanting. And deep within that system, in a processing facility in the Lehigh Valley, a guy named Michael has to sniff the sweatpants." 2CheatGPT?"There was a panic that these A.I. models will allow a whole new way of doing something that could be construed as cheating ... [But] we’re just not seeing the change in the data." According to a pair of Stanford researchers, concerns about a mass increase in cheating with ChatGPT hasn't necessarily happened, as the overall level of cheating has remained pretty static. NYT (Gift Article): Cheating Fears Over Chatbots Were Overblown, New Research Suggests. That said, the amount of cheating students do is, well, significant. "In surveys this year of more than 40 U.S. high schools, some 60 to 70 percent of students said they had recently engaged in cheating — about the same percent as in previous years." At the time of the survey, about two-thirds of students said they only knew a little or nothing at all about ChatGPT. So they still have time to learn to cheat more (or at least better). 3Pill Cutters"Conservative groups filed lawsuits targeting mifepristone, which is the only drug approved specifically for abortion, seeking to reverse its approval or rollback policies that have made it easier to obtain. The Supreme Court will hear a case in the spring that could block mail-order access to mifepristone and impose restrictions on its use, even in states where abortion remains legal." The judicial war on choice is likely to continue as the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could limit access to the most common abortion pill. 4The Nord of Damocles"The four underwater explosions on September 26 made any debate over Nord Stream moot. The attack on the pipeline—without loss of life, as far as we know—was one of the most dramatic and consequential acts of sabotage in modern times. It was also an unprecedented attack on a major element of global infrastructure—the network of cables, pipes, and satellites that underpin commerce and communication. Because it serves everyone, global infrastructure had enjoyed tacit immunity in regional conflicts—not total but nearly so." Mark Bowden in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Most Consequential Act of Sabotage in Modern Times. 5Extra, ExtraJustice Delayed? "The Supreme Court’s ultimate ruling, which may not arrive until June, is likely to address the viability of two of the main counts against Mr. Trump. It could severely limit efforts by the special counsel, Jack Smith, to hold the former president accountable for the violence of his supporters at the Capitol. The court’s eventual decision could also invalidate convictions that have already been secured against scores of Mr. Trump’s followers who took part in the assault. That would be an enormous blow to the government’s prosecutions of the Jan. 6 riot cases." NYT (Gift Article): Justices to Decide Scope of Obstruction Charge Central to Trump’s Jan. 6 Case. 6Bottom of the News"First of all, this workout is a behemoth. Even ultra legend Courtney Dauwalter usually caps her long runs at three hours. But not T-Swift. To prepare for a career-spanning show with ten costume changes (depending on the acoustic set, give or take an additional costume) and upwards of three guest appearances and bonus tracks, Taylor dropped miles like they were scarves at Jake Gyllenhaal’s house. Not only did she likely log as many miles as many marathoners (I propose we now measure time in 'Eras,' or 3.5 hours. As in, 'I’d like to run a sub-Eras marathon this year.'), but she did so while singing. Well." I’m an Ultrarunner. Taylor Swift’s Treadmill Workout Wrecked Me. Get a copy of my 📕, Please Scream Inside Your Heart, or grab a 👕 in the Store.
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