Akhil, partner since 2021 (Toronto, ON)
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Americans Are Losing Faith in College Education, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
“These findings are indeed sobering for all of us in higher education, and in some ways, a wake-up call,” said Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, which counts more than 1,700 institutions of higher education as members. “We need to do a better job at storytelling, but we need to improve our practice, that seems to me to be the only recipe I know of regaining public confidence.”
Dr. Mitchell cited student debt, which has reached $1.7 trillion, and the 60% graduation rate at four-year colleges as two of the biggest problems undermining confidence in the sector.
Public skepticism toward higher education began to rise after the 2008 recession and compounded during the pandemic. Enrollment in U.S. colleges declined by about 15% over the last decade while the growth in alternative credentials, including apprenticeships, increased sharply.
Women and older Americans are driving the decline in confidence. People over the age of 65 with faith in college declined to 44% from 56% in 2017. Confidence among women fell to 44% from 54%, according to the poll.
Retailers Reaping Big Savings on Ocean Transport Costs
The average price for Asia-to-U.S. container trade has “fallen as dramatically as we’ve ever seen it fall,” said Jon Cargill, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.
Importers and container lines typically conclude agreements for the fall shipping season, when retailers stock up on consumer goods, by mid-April for contracts that take effect May 1. Companies say they are negotiating in a far different environment from last year, when retailers looking to replenish depleted inventories rushed to sign deals and paid record amounts to secure scarce space on container ships.
Ocean carriers are struggling to fill space on ships after a steep drop-off in cargo that began in the fall and that has continued into 2023. Retailers ended up overstocked in the second half of last year as consumer spending shifted, and many are still coping with excess inventories.
Spot market rates have crashed more than 90% from pandemic-era highs as shipping demand has declined. The average spot rate to ship a container from Asia to the U.S. West Coast as of Thursday was $1,289, according to Norway-based transportation data specialist Xeneta, about $668 lower than the contract price.
Netflix Restructures Film Group as It Scales Back Movie Output
Film chief Scott Stuber is attempting to scale back the company’s output so that he can ensure more of the titles are of high quality. The streaming service has released more original movies than any other company in Hollywood recently, producing upwards of 50 projects a year.
A handful of those earn Oscars, like All Quiet on the Western Front, which won best international film this year, or are viewed by tens of millions of people, like Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. But many of them come and go with little fanfare.
Netflix increased its output in part because it knew other studios would stop licensing it as many titles as they focused on their own streaming services. The company added staff to boost production, creating multiple divisions responsible for movies at different price points. The independent film group makes movies with a smaller budget (typically $30 million or less), while another group makes ones in the mid-budget range (between around $30 million to $80 million). Yet another unit makes bigger-budget films.
The job cuts are much smaller in scale than the ones Netflix instituted a year ago. The company, which closed 2022 with about 12,800 employees, eliminated hundreds of positions last year in an effort to reduce costs after its subscriber growth slowed.
This week’s fun finds
MIT Researchers Twisted Apart Hundreds of Oreos to Find the Perfect Method
In 2022, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) unveiled their cookie-centric findings in a study titled, "On Oreology, the fracture and flow of 'milk's favorite cookie.'" The research, which has recently resurfaced on social media, focused on if and how people could evenly split the crème inside an Oreo when twisting it open.
To find out if, and how, the crème could be evenly split, the team created the "Oreometer," a 3D-printed apparatus, which employs both rubber bands and weighted coins to represent the force of twisting apart the cookies. The team even open-sourced the design, so anyone with a 3D printer can make their own at home.
Of course, this entire study is much deeper than just finding the perfect cookie twist. It's also a look at rheology, which Nature describes as "the science of measurement of deformation. Virtually all materials deform in response to an imposed stress ('everything breaks if you hit it hard enough') and the materials present in the eye range from liquid-like to soft-solid behavior."
So, what did the team conclude? That despite their best efforts and original hypothesis, it's actually almost impossible to have evenly distributed crème on both sides of an Oreo after twisting.
You Don't Need to Do a Cleanse Diet
Otherwise known as detoxification diets, the extremely restrictive temporary regimens, often hawked by nutrition influencers, claim to carry meaningful health benefits: weight loss, clearer skin, mental acuity. A sense of pureness.
These diets come in many different forms. Drinking only liquid or specialty mixed smoothies is probably what comes to mind when someone hears the word “cleanse,” but eating certain foods, taking certain herbs, and popping certain supplements all fall under the detoxification rubric.
The fact is that our bodies do the heavy lifting for us. And if that’s the case, why the emphasis on detox diets? “It kind of implies a shorter-term solution, and quick results,” said Brigitte Zeitlin, a registered dietitian.
There is a good reason why detox diets help people lose weight, for example, in the short-term. Consider the fact that on a detox diet you’re eating less sugar, fewer processed foods, and more whole foods (if you’re eating at all). You’re eating fewer calories overall, which is exactly what the limited number of papers on detox diets spells out. For some people, that can be great for a short-term boost; for others, it saps them of energy. In either case, you might be missing out on key nutrients you get from foods on the plate.
