The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The power line starts in a remote desert in northwestChina, where vast arrays of solar panels and wind turbines generate electricity on a monumental scale. It snakes southeast, following an ancient river betweenmountain ranges before reaching Anhui Province near Shanghai, home to 61 million people and some of China’s most successful electric car and robot manufacturers.

That’s a single power line. China has 41 others. Each iscapable of carrying more electricity than any utility transmission line in the United States. That’s partly because China is using technology that makes its lines far more efficient than almost anywhere else in the world. The feat isowed to China’s ambitious national energy policies and the fact that few residents along the path of these lines dare object — even though the lines cause small electric shocks that local people said they could feel when holding a metal fishing pole."

This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled "How China Powers Its Electric Cars and High-Speed Trains." The author is Keith Bradsher. You can read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/business/china-electric-grid.html

Zac & Don discuss China and some of its latest engineering achievements. At the same time they discuss some of its potential problems such as 200 million gig workers. They then make connections to the Abundance movement in America and wonder what the future holds for both nations.

Zac & Don also reference the following articles:

China has a surplus of electric cars and is cutting prices.

China has 200 million gig workers.

China is the nation of engineers while America is a nation of lawyers.

The Best Paragraph I've Read

If civilization is accelerating down a freeway that’s taking us away from our shared humanity—not to mention destroying the ecosystems we depend on—at whatexit do we get off? Artificial intelligence, new medical interventions, and other modern marvels allow us some choice about which natural limits we accept, and which we decide to blow past. According to Kingsnorth, each person must make individual decisions about where to begin “drawing a line, and saying ‘no further.’”

Will you watch television shows written by large language models? Will you let the machines craft your emails, your college essays, obituaries for your loved ones? Will you get an AI-enabled virtual girlfriend? Will you let AI into your life knowing that data centers are metastasizing, while already-parched deserts are drained dry to cool them, while contentmoderators in Africa labor in quasi-slave conditions, sorting through images of beheadings and child abuse? Will you draw the line at letting algorithms design your baby? When the time comes, will you get your chip? Your brain-computer interface? Will you upload your consciousness to the cloud?"

This paragraph comes from the Atlantic. The article is titled: "What A Cranky New Book About Progress Gets Right." The author is Tyler Austin Harper. You can read the full article here.

Zac & Don discuss whether we are living in a limitless society and culture. They wonder if humans without limits is a problem or if it's as it has always been.

The Best Paragraph I've Read comes from an article in The Athletic. The article is titled: "Looking for the world's biggest stadiums? Why American College Football has most of them." The author is Seth Emerson. You can read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6736868/2025/10/23/college-football-biggest-stadiums-world/

Zac & Don are joined by their good friend Kevin Kopec. The three discuss why college football happens to claim most of the largest football stadiums in the world. They discuss some of their favorite stadiums and wonder why no other college has tried to build anything larger than Michigan Stadium.

The Best Paragraph I've Read comes from the Washington Post. The article is titled: "An investor called $140,000 the new poverty line. Experts disagreed but said he had a point." The article is written by Julie Zauzmer Weil. You can read the full article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/11/29/poverty-line-green/

Zac & Don discuss whether America's new poverty line is $140,000 or why such a number can trigger such debate. They discuss what the poverty line is but also wonder why so many people can "feel" a number four times bigger is accurate.

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"With investors that include venture capitalist PeterThiel and Donald Trump Jr., Enhanced is attempting to push sports into a world of logical and physical extremes, unencumbered by the rules, regulations or doping controls of traditional competition. They plan to host their ownOlympic-style competition in Las Vegas next year with a roster that already includes the British swimmer Ben Proud, who won silver at Paris 2024, and U.S. sprinter Fred Kerley, a multiple world champion. T he World Anti-Doping Agency has called it a “dangerous and irresponsible” undertaking. Seb Coe, the president of World Athletics, dismissed any participants as “moronic.” But organizers argue that they aresimply more transparent than the regular Olympics—and finally paying athletes what they deserve."

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Faster, Higher, Stronger-and Full of Drugs. The Billionare Quest to Hack Sports." The article is written by Joshua Robinson. You can read the full article here.

Zac & Don discuss The Enhanced Games and their desire to be transparent about which athletes are taking drugs to improve their performance. They wonder if this approach is honest, sad, or still just cheating.

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Skipper Robert Hanson’s lines have been hit by lots ofthe killer whales that dwell in the Bering Sea. He has found the Unalaska pod to be the most savvy, skilled and aggressive — leaving just traces of halibut, the largest of which could have netted Hanson hundreds of dollars apiece.

“Most of the time, you get nothing. Sometimes a lip, or ahalf a fish, if they get full,” Hanson said. “They are particularly good at what they do.”'

This paragraph comes from Northern Journal. The article is titled: "In Alaska, fishing skippers and hungry orcas vie for halibut pulled from the deep." The article is written by Hal Bernton. You can read the full article here:

https://www.northernjournal.com/in-alaska-fishing-skippers-and-hungry-orcas-vie-for-halibut-pulled-from-the-deep/

Zac & Don discuss Orcas! They wonder if this animal has had the best decade out of the animal kingdom in terms of news coverage. They also discuss Orcas attacking yachts and eating shark livers and the other ways the animal is impacting the oceans.

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Think of it this way. All college graduates enter acareer lottery for a chance at landing in the top 1% of earners. Recent research has found that graduates of top-ranked schools like Harvard or Stanford are 60% more likely to hit that jackpot. Essentially, they get two tickets in the lottery while graduates of public flagship universities get one. But even with that extra ticket, the vast majority of elite-college graduates aren’t winning the lottery either. Attending an IvyLeague university does open doors, but it’s not the guarantee of extraordinary success that parents seem to think. Nor does attending a different school preclude you from achieving great things."

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "The Elite College Myth." The author is Jeffrey Selingo. You can read the full article here.

Zac & Don discuss the merits of the Elite College Myth argument. They discuss the data that shows most college grads can end up the same when it comes to long term earnings. They discuss happiness when deciding upon a college and whether people will adjust how they see the high stakes admission process.

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"When Dariya Quenneville’s infant daughter was ready for solid food, she skipped the mushed up avocado and banana. On the menu instead? Raw egg yolk and puréed chicken liver.  The child, named Schizandra, then moved on to sardines, butter and ice pops made out of bone broth. She gnawed on leg of lamb. “She would just teethe on that and soothe herself,” said Quenneville, 31. Schizandra is what her mom calls a “carnivore baby.” Most of her diet is meat, along with other animal-sourced foods like eggs and butter. “She’s an easy baby,” said Quenneville of her daughter, now almost 2. “I believe that the food in the diet is a very, very big piece of that."

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Meet the Parents Raising 'Carnivore Babies,' Swapping Pureed Fruit for Rib Eye." The article is written by Andrea Petersen. You can read the full article here

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Carla Dillon tried lots of ways to discipline her rambunctious 13-year-old, including making him write the same contrite sentence 100 times. But when he sprayed her with a water gun at a campground after she asked him not to, she saw only one option: She threw him in the pond, clothes and all. “Some of the best lessons in life are the hard ones,” she said. The internet calls it “FAFO,” short for “F—Around and Find Out.” It’s a child-rearing style that elevates consequences over the “gentle parenting” methods that have helped shape Gen Z. FAFO (often pronounced “faff-oh”) is based on the idea that parents can ask andwarn, but if a child breaks the rules, mom and dad aren’t standing in the way of the repercussions. Won’t bring your raincoat? Walk home in the downpour. Didn’t feel like having lasagna for dinner? Survive until breakfast. Left your toy on the floor again? Go find it in the trash under the lasagna you didn’t eat." 

This paragraph also comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Goodbye Gentle Parenting, Hello 'F-Around and Find Out'" The article is written by Ellen Gamerman. You can read the full article here.

Zac & Don discuss two new trends in parenting: all meat baby diets and out feral the feral. They wonder if these are actually new trends. They discuss the positives and speculate which trend could last the longest.

Shameless Self Promotion this Week!

Zac & Don discuss the book Zac recently wrote, Crypto School 2: Privot to A.I.

While they discuss moments from the book, they also talk about AI in schools and wonder if education has fully considered what they should be doing with the technology. They also discuss unanswered questions, the role of principals, and if there is a good way to teach character education.

You can find Crypto School 2 on Amazon here.

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The name of this fall’s most obnoxious classmate: SixSeven. Math teacher Cara Bearden braces herself for any equation that yields the two numbers, knowing her students will immediately scream them right back at her. “SIX Sevennnnnn,” they squeal with a palms-up, seesaw handgesture that looks somewhere between juggling and melon handling. The meme is ripping across the internet and spilling into real life, especially at school. “If you’re like, ‘Hey, you need to do questions six, seven,’ they just immediately start yelling, ‘Six Seven!’” says Bearden, who teaches sixth- and eighth-graders at Austin Peace Academy in Austin, Texas.“It’s like throwing catnip at cats.” Now teachers avoid breaking kids into groups of six or seven, or asking them to turn to page 67, or instructing them to take six or seven minutes for a task. Six is a perfect number, and seven is a prime number, but only a glutton for punishment would put them together in front of a bunch of 13-year-olds."

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "The Numbers Six and Seven Are Making Life Hell for Math Teachers." The article is written by Ellen Gamerman." You can read the full article here.

Zac & Don discuss 6-7 and their experiences in the classroom. They also discuss the concept of brain rot and the word Bro.

Zac & Don also discuss the following articles:

Taco Bell Ultra Marathon

Historic MRE eaters