The Christmas Eve Confessions of Chuck Todd
The Whistleblowers Next Door ; Americans Are Retiring to Vietnam ; and More Picks
Where Rent is $13,500, She Lives Off What’s Left at the Curb (Russ)
From the New York Times: “No one knows how many people in the city make a living returning deposit containers, but this year an environmental consulting firm, Eunomia, estimated the number at 4,000 to 8,000. And the operators of half a dozen of the city’s 40-odd redemption centers said the ranks of canners were growing.”
The Whistleblowers Next Door (Russ)
The author writes, “Yuliya Stepanova and her husband, Vitaly, fled Russia with their son and a secret. Now they live a quiet life in America while the doping scandal they disclosed rages on.”
Amazon Exec Was Killed After Colliding With an Amazon Delivery Vehicle (Chris)
The author writes, “[Joy] Covey was Amazon’s first chief financial officer. She was riding her bike in San Francisco’s South Bay suburbs in 2013 when a delivery van turned left into her path.”
These Fake Images Tell a Scary Story of How Far AI Has Come (Mili)
From Vox: “In the past five years, machine learning has come a long way. You might have noticed that Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are way better than they used to be, or that automatic translation on websites, while still fairly spotty, is hugely improved from where it was a few years ago. But many still don’t quite grasp how far we’ve come, and how fast. Recently, two images made the rounds that underscore the huge advances machine learning has made — and show why we’re in for a new age of mischief and online fakery.”
Americans Are Retiring to Vietnam (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “Rapid growth in Vietnam and its Southeast Asian neighbors has created a situation that would have been unthinkable in the past: Aging American boomers are living a lifestyle reminiscent of Florida, Nevada and Arizona, but in Vietnam. Monthly expenses here rarely exceed $2,000.”
