Podbit · This Week in Tech (Audio)
Salamanca, New York's school district is deploying an AI robot named Sally as a tutor, built by Realbotics — a company formerly known as Tokens.com that acquired hyper-realistic sex doll manufacturer RealDoll in 2024. The panel's reaction says everything.
A couple co-signed $135K in student loans for their daughter, who now refuses to pay. They've already paid $60K; $75K remains. George's advice: pay the stupid tax and preserve the relationship, because winning the financial argument and losing your grandkids isn't a win.
Continuing hobbies you already know slows decline, but randomized trials show that only genuinely novel cognitive challenges actually improve function. Crosswords have a meditative effect; learning a new language or dance has a plasticity effect.
Expert violinists practiced in two sessions of 60–90 minutes per day — that's about the sustainable limit for hard cognitive work. The brain can only genuinely focus for 20–30 minute chunks, which is why the Pomodoro technique accidentally got it roughly right.
People become so habituated to a pattern of constant interruption that when no distraction arrives, they reach for their phone anyway to create one. The good news: you can train yourself out of this pattern with sustained distraction-free periods.
Before her daughter's friends even had social media accounts, Jamie Sea ran 'social media prep school' — teaching her how her mind and body work, what projection means, and how to stay secure when strangers comment. The goal: make your own body the safest environment so outside noise can't destabilize you.
Charlie Munger's philosophy: you are not wise because you solve problems, you are wise because you avoid them. Find great work, surround yourself with great people, and stay in both for life — that eliminates the vast majority of problems that are within your control.
Yang Zhilin earned his PhD at Carnegie Mellon — one of the world's top CS programs — then founded Recurrent AI in China while still a student and went back to build Moonshot AI. Salim Ismail points out that 70% of elite AI researchers are not US citizens; stapling a green card to every STEM PhD is the highest-ROI immigration policy change America could make. Instead, we keep sending them home.
Books let you commune with people dead and alive at a deep personal level. The scroll has never once inspired him. Matt McCusker's prescription: books, walks, instruments, puzzles — anything that engages the brain rather than pacifying it.
Emotional intelligence isn't a personality trait — it's five learnable skills: Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate. Brackett's RULER framework, implemented in 5,000 schools, gives anyone a concrete map to stop being ruled by their feelings and start using them as tools.
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