π Good morning. Just FYI, the Tootsie Roll you swiped from the front desk this morning might be 130 years old. Well, kinda. The candy is made using a “graining process” that mixes in part of the previous day’s batch — sort of like sourdough starter — meaning that remnants of the original 1896 recipe could be present in the 64m Tootsie Rolls produced each day. In other Tootsie stats, a reminder that important research out of Purdue University confirmed it takes 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
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π§ Absolutely no goblin mode allowed: OpenAI’s Codex system prompts include repeated warnings to “never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query.” The weird rule, spotted in open source code, comes alongside instructions that ask Codex to “have a vivid inner life” and be “intelligent, playful, curious, and deeply present.” Hard to do all that without the ability to talk about goblins…
π Yikes: Emergency first responders told federal regulators that self-driving cars have become an issue, tying up firefighters, law enforcement, and other departments. Waymos, in particular, are accused of “freezing up" and some, per San Francisco’s fire chief, have blocked access to fire stations. Meanwhile, an Austin City Council meeting addressed how a stuck Waymo blocked an ambulance from responding to a shooting for two minutes. In a statement, Waymo said first responders’ feedback has been “instrumental” in improving the service.
π€ But why? Possibly “one of the funniest, closest endpoints to human civilization” is what Business Insider’s Katie Notopoulos called Amazon’s new podcast in which AI hosts discuss product reviews, pulling from both Amazon customers and other online sources. While boring, it could potentially be useful if you don’t prefer reading and enjoy audio info presented as anything other than straightforward. However, Notopoulos found many of the products she searched lacked the feature or that the bots couldn’t answer her questions.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Will packing finally get easier? Google Photos announced a new AI-powered feature that can turn photos of clothing into a digital closet where users can plan outfits and try them on virtually.
Certified bangers: Spotify will roll out "Verified by Spotify” badges to help listeners discern between authentic human artists and AI-generated personas.
Merch madness: Hasbro unveiled a $600, ~15-inch-tall animatronic “Ultimate Grogu,” AKA baby Yoda complete with soft skin, fake hair, and 250+ sounds and animations.
Nice: Instagram aggregators — accounts that just post other people’s content — will no longer be eligible for recommendations. This hopefully means actual creators get credit and we’re all less annoyed.
BOOST YOUR INCOME
Ways to build wealth beyond your paycheck
Marina Mogilko wasn’t always Silicon Valley Girl (1.3m+ subscribers on YouTube). She was once an Avon rep, souvenir seller, education vlogger, and UGC creator.
Today, she’s clearing a cool $100k per month from 10+ different streams of income. Read on for her top five side hustle suggestions, plus seven principles for lasting success.
For many people, drinking coffee is the thing you do to help you get through the workday. But for an elite team of lesser-known Wall Street workers, drinking coffee is the whole job.
The Intercontinental Exchange’s coffee graders are licensed professionals who drink, smell, and rate coffee for a living, to help determine the US futures-market prices for arabica beans, perThe Wall Street Journal.
Sip happens…
… on the eighth floor of the New York Stock Exchange building, where 38 graders station themselves around tables covered in cups of brews and beans.
Using spoons, they race through evaluating them, sniffing, slurping, spitting (into spittoons) so loudly that they have to blast music to cover all the gross bodily noises.
Many graders have been on the job for decades and most are now in or approaching their golden years, meaning the team is in need of a fresh crop of pros. Which, on top of the volatility of the coffee market in recent years (due to tariffs, climate change, etc.), has become another pain point for the industry.
According to WSJ, young people are opting for more glamorous finance work, like in private equity. But we imagine many of them probably just aren’t aware that “elite coffee taste-tester” is even a career option.
Fortunately, this year has seen a high volume of applicants.
Ready for a career pivot?
Start studying up — as easy as it may sound, when your caffeine addiction directly influences a $250B global industry, sitting around drinking coffee becomes a tough job to score.
To qualify, you’ll need to pass a three-part exam that spans four days and has a pass rate of just 5%-8%.
By comparison, the pass rate for the California bar exam, arguably the hardest in the country, was 55% last July. You might even have a slightly easier time becoming a Master Sommelier, the exam for which has a pass rate of ~10%.
It’s also offered just once every five years, with the latest one having taken place in April.
Plus, you’ll need at least five years of experience in the industry just to be considered for testing. And no — sadly, senior grader Stacy Moeller told WSJ, your stint as a barista does not count.
You know what AI can’t do? Have taste. Here’s how to become irreplaceable in the age of AI.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
The median cost of a beer in New York City, making it the most expensive US city to imbibe in and the only one to crack the $9 threshold, according to data from Toast. If you’re planning on having more than a couple cold ones this month, you’re not alone — May sees the most beer orders of any month, peaking 10% above the monthly average — but might we also suggest taking a jaunt down to San Antonio, Texas? The city offers the nation’s cheapest brews, at a median price of $5.99.
AROUND THE WEB
π On this day: In 1926, the Ford Motor Co. became one of the first in the US to adopt a 40-hour workweek.
