The Time of Open Windows
RWL #394
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The spring flowers are beginning to fade as the leaves on the trees have snapped open out of their buds this past week. The LHH, after having been exposed to the road and to our neighbors for the winter, is disappearing behind a facade of green. It is the end of the beginning of the world reawakening.
Indeed, the docks are back at Jackson’s Landing, my favorite put-in, so my mind has turned to kayaking again.
In fact, and read this in a whisper, TLW and I slept with the window cracked last night. I know! The The Time of Open Windows has begun. We’ve been containerized since late fall, so it will be wonderful to feel the breeze blowing through the LHH again.
This Friday is our senior banquet, a joyous and sad occasion. I always enjoy getting a chance to meet the students’ parents. This is part of the ritual pattern of my life as a professor, and it is truly a privilege to have young people entrusted to us for a time to help them prepare for their future journey, and hopefully help equip them with knowledge and skills to successfully navigate toward a meaningful and worthy life. In a few months the cycle starts again, and we get to meet new young people who are the life of our department, even as the leaves fall, and the external world goes to sleep.
On to the links! As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: The FRED Blog, Women are the majority of the college-educated workforce
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2024/04/women-are-the-majority-of-the-college-educated-workforce/
Why: College-educated women now outnumber college-educated men in the workforce. Given that college attendance is now about 55% women to 45% men across the country, the gap between college-educated women and college-educated men in the workforce is likely to continue to grow.
Click through on the link to see the graphic. The labeling is a bit messy, so I want to point out that the college-educated lines are at the bottom. Or click this link https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1nXTA to see a larger, and longer-term view that shows women catching up and passing men over the last 20 years.
We’re at an inflection point socially. It’s taken a couple of generations, but once artificial constraints on women’s educational attainment was removed, women have come to dominate the educated workforce. What this means for men, and what this means for heterosexual mating is beginning to play out.
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What: Inc., It's Time to Make 'Hush Trips' a Fireable Offense
https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/its-time-to-make-hush-trips-a-fireable-offense.html
Why: No, it’s not another article about Donald Trump’s philandering. Hush trips are when a remote worker chooses to work from somewhere other than their home (or remote location registered with their employer). So if you are a remote worker and you normally work from, say, Seacoast New Hampshire, but you go ahead and go on a vacation to Paris for a week and don’t tell your boss because you keep on working while you are in Paris, that would be a hush trip. Evil HR Lady writes that, even if you continue to perform your work at exactly the same level while on your hush trip, this could put your employer at risk. It’s an interesting example of unexpected consequences (and more dumb labor and tax law).
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Watch
What: OpenAI's STUNNING OMNI MODEL | GPT-4o is being released into the wild… (50 min)
Why: OK, put your crazy pants on. Do yourself a favor and watch 10 minutes of this video. Skip around a bit - you don’t have to watch the whole thing or straight through. Just get a taste. The robots are here. They can now laugh and giggle (shockingly appropriately) as they comply with your every whim - as you give them commands verbally, and they look at you through their camera eyes.
OpenAI’s artificial intelligence has made the leap straight into science fiction. I can’t really say enough about this other than you really need to watch a bit of this video and then meditate on how it is going to change everything.
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Listen
What: The Good Fight, Eboo Patel on Pluralism (73 min)
Why: I believe in pluralism as a fundamental American ideal that actually works. Now I’m just going to copy from the description:
“Eboo Patel is the founder of Interfaith America and the author of We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy. Patel also served as an advisor on faith to President Barack Obama.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Eboo Patel discuss how the dominant diversity paradigm in many institutions divides individuals into oppressors and oppressed; how universities can draw from the intellectual tradition of pluralism to encourage mutual respect and cooperation; and how university leaders can alleviate the deeply polarized atmosphere that prevails at many institutions around the country.”
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What: Advisory Opinions, Originalism v. Common Law (79 min)
Why: A discussion with a federal judge about the difference between originalism (what the words of a law meant when written) vs. common law, the evolving accumulation of resolved cases. They also get into textualism (what the words of the law actually say), and how it differs from originalism. Let’s not forget living constitutionalism, which as I understand it is the Progressive, post-New Deal approach to law that has dominated most of the last century until the recent turning of the Supreme Court. Wonky? Yes. But really important for understanding what’s going on at the highest levels of legal reasoning. I really like AO - they do a great job explaining law in an interesting way.