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The $20,000 American-Made Electric Pickup With No Paint, No Stereo, and No Touchscreen Transpo /Cars /Electric Cars

The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

Is the market ready for a four-wheeled digital detox?

by Tim Stevens

Apr 25, 2025, 2:20 AM UTCLinkFacebookThreadsThe Slate Truck is an electric two-seater with 150 miles of range and no stereo. | Image: Slate AutoTranspo /Cars /Electric Cars

The $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

Is the market ready for a four-wheeled digital detox?

by Tim Stevens

Apr 25, 2025, 2:20 AM UTCLinkFacebookThreads

Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that new cars are too expensive. Changing that overly spendy status quo is going to take something radical, and it’s hard to get more radical than what Slate Auto has planned.

Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. In the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that situation isn’t looking to get better soon, especially for anyone wanting something battery-powered. Read more about it here.

The Nikola Jokić problem: Why we will never fully explain his brilliance This article discusses nikola joki problem. Read more about it here.

The history and renaissance of the Wisconsin supper club This article discusses history renaissance wisconsin. Read more about it here.

Are Em Dashes Really a Sign of AI Writing?

Are Em Dashes Really a Sign of AI Writing?

By Miles Klee

Miles Klee

Contact Miles Klee on X Contact Miles Klee by Email View all posts by Miles Klee April 11, 2025 The em dash has been a staple of literary writing for centuries. ChatGPT itself, which if nothing else should know about the history of its own training, will inform you that em dashes “by themselves are not a reliable sign that a text was AI-generated,” and that the popular misconception to the contrary may be a vestige of earlier, less sophisticated models.

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“Some early AI-generated content (especially before 2023) used em dashes more frequently than the average human writer,” the bot says. “It was part of mimicking formal or stylized writing.” Now that ChatGPT and similar tools can fine-tune their cadence and tone based on descriptive prompts, it adds, punctuation will vary based on the writing style requested. 

On the one hand, the received opinion that the long dash is a product of generative AI that basically didn’t exist in years past is a worrying sign about public literacy: Celebrated poets and philosophers from Emily Dickinson to Friedrich Nietzsche have been known to flaunt them in expressive ways, and many people serious about the craft of writing find them useful. Getty Images

And in a recent viral Instagram clip from LuxeGen, a lifestyle podcast aimed at a Gen Z audience, one co-host referred to the em dash as “the ChatGPT hyphen.” She said that a fashion company that announced a rebrand with a short statement on social media was facing criticism in the comments from readers who saw two em dashes in the text and immediately assumed they had let ChatGPT write the ad copy. “It’s a longer hyphen, I don’t know if you’ve noticed it,” she added. Read more about it here.

The rise of the remote husband United States | Marriage

The rise of the remote husband

She goes out to work, he stays at home (and logs on)

Feminist iconPhotograph: Getty ImagesShare

In costa mesa, a city in California’s wealthy, beachy Orange County, she is working her way up to becoming a partner in the local office of a major law firm; he is an executive at a tech startup based in the Bay Area, more than 400 miles away. When the wives head out in the morning, to their offices, classrooms or hospitals, they are waving goodbye to their husbands, who remain at home.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The rise of the remote husband”

→The Biden campaign in Michigan has a tremendous ground-game advantage→An abortion ruling has Democrats hoping Florida is in play→The rise of the remote husband→Joe Biden’s assault on the $900 child-eczema cream→California is gripped by economic problems, with no easy fix→Are American progressives making themselves sad?

From the April 6th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

⇒Explore the editionShareReuse this content

Donald Trump wants to deport foreign students merely for what they say

He says his power over immigration overrides the First Amendment

With tariffs paused, Republicans dodge a fight with Trump

Many are reluctant to challenge the president absent deep economic pain

The unbearable lightness of being Donald Trump

His trade war will test his trademark indifference to charges of incompetence and sowing chaos

DOGE is coming for American officials’ magnetic tape

But more modern methods of data storage are not necessarily better

How Alex Ovechkin topped Wayne Gretzky’s once-unbreakable record

As our charts show, the Russian machine defies both his age and his era

Texas looks set to pass America’s biggest school-voucher scheme

Evidence from other states suggests pupils will do worse as a result

She is an obstetrician, he works remotely for a tech company; she is an academic at an Ivy League university, he works for a crypto company. Read more about it here.

What was Quartz?

What was Quartz?

2012–2025

Zach Seward April 07, 2025

“It’s impossible to kill a media brand,” Jim Spanfeller told me on my first day working for him, as we sat in his corner office. Jim and his private-equity-backed digital-media conglomerate G/O Media had already destroyed several of their properties, some all at once (Deadspin), most of the others by sapping resources, antagonizing their staff, and undermining the editorial visions that once made them great (Jezebel, The Root). It would take him three years to do the same to Quartz.

The end came on Friday, when G/O fired the few remaining writers at Quartz and sold the carcass to a Canadian firm that appears mostly interested in the email list. Read more about it here.

A brain drain would impoverish the United States and diminish world science

Europe has been a source of researchers for the United States for much of the past 100 years Credit: Samuel Corum/Getty

You have full access to this article via your institution.

For decades, one country more than any other has been a magnet for global research talent. USA 21, e2321322120; 2023), it would be surprising if the United States didn’t win science Nobels in any given year.

Many countries have tried to emulate this model of science-led growth, and to stop the ‘brain drain’ of talent to better-resourced laboratories in the United States. The United States became the world’s science and technology power by funding students and researchers not only from inside its borders, but from around the world, to study, experiment, innovate, found companies and scale them up. Read more about it here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/dining/steak-fries.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Steak fries, once widespread, have fallen out of favor with diners in recent years.Credit…Jimena Peck for The New York Times

Steak Fries: Deservedly Reviled or Underappreciated Edible Spoons?

They may be America’s least popular fry, but some chefs are still devoted to them.

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By David Segal

David Segal ate a lot of French fries for this story.

Published March 31, 2025Updated April 1, 2025

Steak fries. Steak fries are rarely spotted these days at upscale venues, and Park Ave Kitchen has a considered, of-the-moment menu, with entrees like bison short ribs and black sea bass tikka masala.

“I noticed them two weeks ago,” said the owner David Burke, on the phone one recent afternoon. “I was at the restaurant and I said, ‘What’s with the steak fries?’”

ImageAt Park Avenue Kitchen by David Burke, the chef William Lustberg put steak fries with copious trimmings on the menu.Credit…Heather Willensky for The New York Times

He had originally posed the question to Park Ave Kitchen’s chef, William Lustberg, but rather than paraphrase his answer, Mr. So totally have they lost the war for the American palate that every encounter with a steak fry is like meeting a Visigoth.

One gapes and wonders, how are you still here?

That question sprang to mind during a recent visit to Park Ave Kitchen by David Burke, a Midtown restaurant that, despite the name, is on Lexington Avenue. Read more about it here.

After a Slow Start, High-Speed Rail Might Finally Arrive in America

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After a Slow Start, High-Speed Rail Might Finally Arrive in America

True high-speed rail has not yet made it to the U.S., but that will change soon. Johnson signed a law — the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act — that seemed to pave the way for a national high-speed rail system in the United States. “An astronaut can orbit the earth faster than a man on the ground can get from New York to Washington,” he lamented at the time. Sixty years later, it still takes about three hours to travel between the two cities — a period about twice as long as a single orbit of the International Space Station.

High-speed rail in the United States is still years away. Read more about it here.

The Experts’ Guide to Modern Money Etiquette

SouthWorks/Getty Images

Navigating a cost of living crisis in a world where we can tap and spend without a thought is changing the way we manage our personal finances. So how do we navigate this new money etiquette?

Who pays on a first date?

You might not be ready to share your credit score on your dating app profile, but don’t be afraid to set out your financial boundaries.

The cost of living has made people more understanding, according to Dr Caroline West, a sex and relationship expert for the dating app Bumble. “It’s totally normal to stress over the financial side of dating, like who pays for what, or whether to split things 50/50. These debates aren’t disappearing any time soon, but my advice is to always be upfront with yourself about your expectations and limits, and make sure to communicate them.”

According to Bumble’s stats, more people are choosing alcohol-free “dry dating” and low-cost, low-pressure first meetings. Read more about it here.