Health

Tiny walks are quietly beating the long ones

The all-or-nothing crowd finally has a third option.

For a certain kind of person*, the worst part of working out isn't the workout. It's the calendar negotiation, the changing clothes, the shower afterward, the entire production around the production. Skip any of that, and somehow nothing counts.

Mark Wales has been tracking a quietly catching-on alternative: the "micro walk." A loop around the block in the morning. A lap between meetings. A few minutes after dinner. Nothing that requires a sports bra, a playlist, or a clean towel.

The research isn't just saying these short walks count. It's suggesting they might be doing more than the longer sessions you keep skipping. Studies in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and Nature have looked at what these tiny bursts actually do to your body and your brain, and the findings make a surprisingly strong case for the laziest-sounding workout there is.

* - I feel very targeted by this story, Mark!

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Previous Results

Friday, we grouped the 80% or so of people who go to farmers’ markets into tribes. From the true believers to the begrudging tagalongs. Where do GOOD readers fall on that spectrum? Almost half of you show up for the vibes, and if you lump together all the positive responses, over 80% of you are fans! Love it.

• I'm only here because someone made me come (16.0%)

• I show up for the vibes and a $12 jar of jam (46.8%)

• Saturday ritual, full tote, strong fennel opinions (33.0%)

• I'm not shopping, I'm working the booth (4.3%)

Melinda Mixer spoke for the majority this time. “I always find something I don’t need to buy and then I get lunch! Sitting in the sun, listening to the music and the good vibes.”

Everyday Economics

A roommate could save you $20,000 a year in one US city

100 cities ranked by what sharing a place actually saves you.

I had to read this study twice to get it. This isn't about how much you'd save by adding a roommate to your current place. That'd be a pretty clean 50%. It's about the difference between sharing a two-bedroom and renting a one-bedroom alone. And woof, in some cities, the math is anything but ambiguous.

Take Cleveland. As Jaclyn DeJohn lays out, the average one-bedroom there runs $1,150 a month. The average two-bedroom runs $1,200. Yes, fifty bucks more. Split it with a roommate and you're paying $600 each. Live alone and you're paying nearly double.

Across all 100 cities, the average renter pockets about $541 a month, or nearly $6,500 a year, by sharing a two-bedroom instead of flying solo. But Cleveland's the outlier. In one Pacific Northwest favorite that lands on every "best places to live" list, the savings barely budge. No word on whether any of this is worth the fights over what to watch in the living room.

Public Good

The straight-A blind spot

Grades are up. Scores are down. Parents have picked a side.

You scan the report card. Mostly A's. Solid. The standardized test score landed somewhere south of where you'd hoped, but the grades say everything's fine, so everything's fine. Right?

In a new experiment covered by Jill Barshay, researchers at the University of Chicago and Oregon State handed more than 2,000 parents a pair of fictional fifth graders, a hypothetical $100 a week to provide them whatever help they thought they’d need, and a stack of mismatched grades-and-scores scenarios. The split was lopsided: more than 70% of parents said they trust grades more than tests when deciding what their own kid actually needs. Fewer than 9% said the opposite.

There's a behavioral name for what's going on, and the researchers think it's quietly shaping a generation of students who look fine on paper and slip in practice. The cost, they argue, is bigger than any one straight-A kid.

On May 18, 1953, Jackie Cochran climbed into a borrowed Canadian fighter jet over the Mojave Desert and became the first woman to break the sound barrier. She was 47, had been flying for more than two decades, and was about to leave a sonic boom in the dust.

Cochran was born into Florida poverty as Bessie Pittman, escaped a mill town for a New York salon, parlayed hairdressing into a cosmetics empire, and only learned to fly in her late twenties because her future husband suggested it might help her sell lipstick. Three weeks later, she had her pilot's license.

By 1953, she had her eye on the speed record. The US Air Force wouldn't lend her an F-86 Sabre, so the Royal Canadian Air Force did, complete with a 16-man support crew. Chuck Yeager himself, the first person to break Mach 1, flew chase. Cochran averaged 652 mph and punched through.

The control tower missed the sonic boom. So she went up that afternoon and did it again. Legend.

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💬 From the group text…

I am delighted these two took the time out of what I presume is an important and epic quest to destroy some malicious ancient artifact. What a magical-looking critter!

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