It’s time again—time to get up to date on some recent lesson topics
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff, JR is the producer, and you are listening to Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with stories about current events and trending topics. And twice a year, we revisit some recent episode topics to get the very latest.
This is lesson number 618, so you can find the transcript at PlainEnglish.com/618. These are always long episodes, so let’s get going.
Updates from October 2023
Threads
In Lesson 594, we talk about Threads, the Instagram-adjacent app released by Meta. The idea was to challenge the site formerly known as Twitter (more on that in a minute). Threads rocketed to popularity, earning over 100 million downloads in the first few days.
But users got in there and found that it was a lot like Twitter—only with fewer features. Although users were quick to download the app, they were not quick to return and use it regularly. Meta hasn’t rolled out promised features like hashtags and search, scheduled posts, things like that—and we’re now several months in . It looks like they didn’t take advantage of their early momentum. And their inaction makes me wonder whether they really do want this project to succeed.
ChatGPT
Speaking of apps that rocketed to success, the initial hype over ChatGPT is settling down . We talked about ChatGPT in Lesson 574 and 575 , and we even did a free mini-course about it . When it first came out , people got in there, used it a lot, asked it a lot of fun stuff, and started to think about how to use it in their daily lives.
The answer, for a lot of people, is that ChatGPT is a fun tool, but not an essential one. But ChatGPT is just a simplified window into the artificial intelligence engine called GPT. Businesses, on the other hand , are diving into the GPT engine to improve their own internal processes.
And this is where the biggest impact will be felt. The consumer-driven hype is dying down , but the business impact will be real: saving time and effort and improving quality. Even if it’s not grabbing headlines like it once was, ChatGPT and the engine behind it are changing business.
Twitter
The social media site formerly known as Twitter, which you heard about in Lesson 468 , has stabilized itself. After laying off almost half the staff, and making arbitrary policy and product changes, new owner Elon Musk has hired an outside CEO. The company’s new name is “X.” Musk’s vision is to turn Twitter—sorry, X—into an “everything app” that combines shopping, payments, messaging, video calls, even investing and banking, all in one app. Such apps are common in Asia—“WeChat” is the most popular. But it’s not clear if western consumers will take to a WeChat-style everything app.
Wagner Group
In Lesson 590, you heard about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group , a private army in Russia. He led a mutiny against Russia’s army in June. At the last minute , he agreed to stop the mutiny and leave the country.
Prigozhin was killed in August, in dramatic fashion. His private plane fell out of the sky and crashed in a fiery ball, halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Most analysts have concluded that this was ordered by the Russian government—and the Russian government hasn’t done anything to contradict the rumors. The only wonder is why it took so long. After being exiled in Belarus, Prigozhin was quickly back into his jet-setting routine, bouncing around Africa and Russia. This was perplexing: he was asking for trouble . And he got it.
Guyana
What’s the fastest-growing economy in the world? If you listened to Lesson 247 back in 2020, you might have correctly guessed Guyana. Guyana is a small South American country that discovered a massive oil deposit off its northern coast .
The country signed a contract with ExxonMobil to bring the oil to market. The Guyanese government, through two consecutive administrations, appears to be respecting contracts and preparing to manage the country’s newfound wealth responsibly. Just 800,000 people live in Guyana. Their fortunes may be about to change for the better.
GameStop
In Lesson 338, you heard about the bizarre rollercoaster that was the stock of GameStop , a videogame retailer in America. It turned out to be the first of many so-called “meme stocks,” where social media frenzy would drive up the price of a stock. A movie about GameStop was released in September. It’s called “Dumb Money.”
Trump
In Lesson 566, you learned that Donald Trump was indicted for falsifying business records . It was the first time a former American president was indicted. At the time , I said that was the weakest of all the potential criminal cases against him. I still think that—but those “potential” cases have become real cases. He was subsequently indicted in a federal court for trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and in a Georgia state court for similar crimes.
His calendar is quickly filling up with trial dates, as judges try to slot their trials without interfering with others. If he wins the Republican Party’s nomination, as seems likely, he’ll be running for president even as he stands trial in at least two jurisdictions.
That’s not all the legal trouble he’s in. To take just one example: New York State recently revoked the business license of his real estate empire, putting his marquee buildings in jeopardy. Oddly, none of this appears to be hurting his popularity with his supporters.
In case you’re wondering, an American president has the power to pardon anyone convicted of federal, or national, crimes, but none has ever pardoned himself. But the president’s pardon is not valid for state crimes. So Trump couldn’t pardon himself if convicted on the state charges in Georgia or New York.
The Morning Show
In 586, I told you about “The Morning Show” on Apple TV . Season three is out now.
Password Sharing
Speaking of streaming, Netflix’s policy on password sharing appears to be working. We talked about that in Lesson 548. In the months after they cracked down on people sharing passwords, they saw a spike in active users. Disney+ was so impressed, they’ve started doing the same thing.
I love these update episodes—the only problem is I can’t put all the updates I want in the episodes. So when there’s news about a topic we’ve talked about here, I’ll put the update in the e-mails that JR sends out on Mondays and Thursdays.
If you’re not getting those, make sure to sign up at PlainEnglish.com/mail .
Quote of the Week
It’s Monday, so I have a quote of the week for you. “Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.” That’s from Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian writer. “Cease” means “stop.” So Naguib Mahfouz says that home is that place you stop trying to escape from. Here’s the full quote one more time: “Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”
Great stories make learning English fun
