Latest news with #IvyLeaguer
Press and Journal
21-05-2025
- General
- Press and Journal
Rory MacDonald: Highland publican and whisky pioneer who 'wouldn't sell a dram to a Campbell', dies age 91
Donald Roderick MacDonald, known affectionately and reverently as Rory, died peacefully on May 20, 2025, aged 91. A Highland publican of rare flair, creator of Glencoe whisky, and fiercely proud descendant of the Chiefs of Keppoch, Rory lived a life deeply rooted in tradition yet riotously alive with character, contradiction and conviction. Born in Jesmond in September 1933—a fact that he regarded as a lifelong irritation—Rory believed he ought to have been born in 1620 and slain nobly in battle. The 20th century, for all its chaos and modernity, seemed too tame for him. Yet despite this temporal misplacement, he devoted his life to upholding, reviving, and celebrating the Highland spirit, in all its wildness and hospitality. Rory was the son of Andrew MacDonald, known as The Major, who worked managing lumber yards across Newcastle, Boston and Liverpool. Family mattered enormously to him—not just his immediate kin but the whole expanse of MacDonalds whose stories he carried with precision and pride. His early years followed his father's work, with holidays at Blarour, near Spean Bridge, giving him his first love of Lochaber. With the outbreak of war, Rory's mother Hilda moved the family south to Surrey. At the age of six, Rory was sent to Gilling Castle, the Benedictine-run prep school for Ampleforth College. There began a lifetime wariness of authority: he did not take kindly to being 'telt', and this resistance became a defining feature of his character. Twelve years later, Rory left school with a scholarship to Oxford—and, reportedly, the most beaten backside of his generation, according to family friend Fr Anthony Ainscough. Oxford, like school, proved a difficult fit. After National Service with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, during which he skied in Austria and developed a fondness for Highland camaraderie, he returned to university life. But Oxford could not compete with his appetite for mischief and high society. After a brush with the college's Master, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Rory was sent down alongside his friend John Gaynor. Stints at Harrods, in the packing department, and the Distillers Company followed. It was during his time with Distillers that Rory began to find his métier: whisky. After training in Craigellachie and Edinburgh, he was sent to Montreal and then New York, where his job was to know every barman in Manhattan. He started drinking at 11am, finished at 2pm with a 'cinema nap', and resumed at 6pm. Always immaculately turned out with a raven mane and widow's peak, Rory was a striking figure. In New York, he met Nancy Hill, a 24-year-old Ivy Leaguer with red hair and composure to match his fire. They married in the US and took the first boat back to Europe. As Rory put it, there was no way his children were going to be raised as Americans. Working in advertising in London, he abruptly announced one day to his wife and two young sons that he had purchased a pub in the Highlands. The pub was the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe, which he would transform into one of Scotland's best-loved hostelries and his true spiritual home. At the Clachaig, Rory thrived. He welcomed climbers, hippies, folk musicians, Billy Connolly and all Glaswegians in search of air, conversation and ale. He banned Campbells from the premises—an infamous move—but simultaneously cultivated a famously warm and eclectic atmosphere. The Clachaig became a cultural and communal institution. He joined the mountain rescue team. He reinvigorated the Ballachulish Shinty Club, acted with the Kinlochleven amateur dramatics group, ran for Parliament as a Tory in West Dumbarton in 1974 and drove a Territorial Army truck up Ben Nevis to prepare for nuclear attack. Rory banned music that wasn't Gaelic, hosted ceilidhs, and wrote a book about Coll of the Cows. He once bought a cider press for Glencoe cider, then sold it after realising apples were hard to come by. He and Nancy somehow brought up four young in the house they built by the pub. Among his lasting achievements was the creation of Glencoe whisky, a robust 100 proof vatted malt which he marketed with elegance and belief in provenance. Initially sold only at the pub, he scaled it across the Highlands from the boot of his car. He refused a £500,000 offer from PepsiCo when they proposed altering the label. In the late 1970s, he sold the Clachaig with a three-day lock-in. In 1980, the family was joined by daughter Charlotte, and soon moved Texas, where Rory ran the World Trade Center – a marketplace in Houston. A high-profile job, he was known in the Houston Society. From Houston, the family moved to Philadelphia, Nancy's hometown, where Rory worked in executive roles. Angus and Peter remained in the UK, but his love and pride for them continued—even if it was more often expressed to others than to them directly. In 1990, he returned alone to Lochaber, declaring it the place his soul required. He started a nursery, selling heathers and berating tourists for overwatering his baskets. He met Marion, who became his second wife and anchor for the remainder of his life. With Marion, Rory softened. He welcomed his children's spouses and adored his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ever the historian, Rory amassed a trove of knowledge about the West Highlands and the MacDonalds of Keppoch. Even as his health declined, his mind remained razor-sharp and his wit intact. He continued to recite poetry by heart, particularly the 19th-Century verse he had loved since youth. Rory was, always, a man of his time—and a man entirely of another He is survived by his wife Marion, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and the countless friends and strangers who found welcome, laughter and fierce hospitality in his presence. A burial service was held at Collie Choirill. Mourners were invited to join the family to raise a glass and share stories. Rory would have wanted a good party.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A new AI app that helps you cheat in conversations is slick, a little creepy, and not quite ready for your next meeting
Cluely is an AI tool built for cheating in live conversations, and it has raised $5.3 million. The startup is founded by Chungin "Roy" Lee, who was suspended from Columbia. I put the app through a mock interview to see if it could help me land a job. A Ivy Leaguer just released an AI app to feed live answers to users. I put it to the test to see if AI could interview as well as I did. Chungin "Roy" Lee — the Columbia student who went viral for creating an AI tool to "cheat" on job interviews — was suspended in March for posting content from a disciplinary hearing, the university said. His new app, Cluely, helps users by analyzing what's on their screens, hearing audio, and suggesting answers to questions, all without detection from the other side. In a LinkedIn post, Lee said Cluely is a "cheating tool for literally everything." Lee said on Monday that San Francisco-based Cluely has raised $5.3 million, backed by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. Speaking to Business Insider on Wednesday night, Lee said that Cluely has gained about 70,000 users since its launch on Sunday. "It is pretty crazy. And this is just a lot more than we expected," he said. Lee said the concept of "cheating" needs to be rethought in the AI era. "Using AI is just inevitable and something that we should just all embrace," he said. I put Cluely to the test, and I saw promise — but also huge privacy concerns. I tested Cluely on Tuesday morning and paid $20 for the Pro version — a monthly subscription — since the free tier doesn't offer much. The interface is slick and minimal: a thin bar on the top of my screen. With one keyboard shortcut, Cluely scans my screen, then generates answers. I could also speak to it through my mic. It only works with what's already on my screen — it doesn't crawl the internet like ChatGPT. It also reads everything. I kept my Signal group chats closed. That's what makes it powerful — and also kind of terrifying. Lee told BI that Cluely doesn't save any data, and if it does, it's "heavily censored." "If there's something that you don't want to be seen, then you shouldn't use the tool, and it shouldn't be up while you're on sensitive information," Lee said. I deleted it right after writing this story. Cluely's killer pitch is real-time assistance. I let it scan my LinkedIn profile and kept it open while my editor put me through a mock interview with the same questions I answered to land this job. First up: What is my media consumption like? Could I share what I like to read or watch? What keeps me interested and busy? The app starts "thinking." Five seconds later, it gave me a summary of the question, not an answer. My editor tried again, more succinctly: "What media outlets do you read?" This time, Cluely came through: "I enjoy staying up to date with a mix of international and local news — typically from outlets like the New York Times, BBC, and CNA. I love longform journalism from The Atlantic and Wired, especially on tech and social issues. I also listen to 'The Daily' and 'Planet Money' during my commute." Not bad, though I don't listen to podcasts on my way to work. My editor asked me to talk about a difficult story I've worked on. 10 seconds of awkward silence later, Cluely offered: "One difficult story I worked on was about the impact of layoffs in the tech industry." I never wrote that story. The second hallucination came when the app said I had a "working knowledge of Malay." My editor congratulated me on my surprising — including to me — third language skill. It completely missed the elementary Korean listed on my LinkedIn. When my editor asked if I had questions for her, Cluely suggested a few basics: What do you enjoy most about working here? What's the team culture like? What does success look like in this role? Cluely's biggest flaw is speed. A five to 10-second delay feels like forever in a live interview. The answers were also too generic, occasionally wrong, and not tailored enough to me. It did generate decent answers to common questions. When I read them aloud, my editor said the biggest clue I had help was the delay, not the substance. She also said my real answers were better than Cluely's. Lee told BI that Cluely is in "a really raw state." "Our servers are super overloaded, so there's a lot of latency," he said. But there have been "significant performance updates" since the app went out on Sunday, he added. "We've upgraded all our servers, we've optimized the algorithms, and right now it should be about three times faster, which makes it much more usable in conversations." Lee said hallucinations will "exist insofar as the base models that we use allow for them." "The day that the models get better is the day that our product will get better," he added. There's definitely potential. If Cluely got faster, smarter, and could pull info from beyond just my screen, it could become a game-changing AI assistant. If I were hiring, I might think twice about conducting remote interviews because of these sorts of apps. But between the privacy risks, laggy performance, and random hallucinations, I'm keeping it off my computer. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
24-04-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A new AI app that helps you cheat in conversations is slick, a little creepy, and not quite ready for your next meeting
A Ivy Leaguer just released an AI app to feed live answers to users. I put it to the test to see if AI could interview as well as I did. Chungin "Roy" Lee — the Columbia student who went viral for creating an AI tool to "cheat" on job interviews — was suspended in March for posting content from a disciplinary hearing, the university said. His new app, Cluely, helps users by analyzing what's on their screens, hearing audio, and suggesting answers to questions, all without detection from the other side. In a LinkedIn post, Lee said Cluely is a "cheating tool for literally everything." Lee said on Monday that San Francisco-based Cluely has raised $5.3 million, backed by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. Speaking to Business Insider on Wednesday night, Lee said that Cluely has gained about 70,000 users since its launch on Sunday. "It is pretty crazy. And this is just a lot more than we expected," he said. Lee said the concept of "cheating" needs to be rethought in the AI era. "Using AI is just inevitable and something that we should just all embrace," he said. I put Cluely to the test, and I saw promise — but also huge privacy concerns. First impressions I tested Cluely on Tuesday morning and paid $20 for the Pro version — a monthly subscription — since the free tier doesn't offer much. The interface is slick and minimal: a thin bar on the top of my screen. With one keyboard shortcut, Cluely scans my screen, then generates answers. I could also speak to it through my mic. It only works with what's already on my screen — it doesn't crawl the internet like ChatGPT. It also reads everything. I kept my Signal group chats closed. That's what makes it powerful — and also kind of terrifying. Lee told BI that Cluely doesn't save any data, and if it does, it's "heavily censored." "If there's something that you don't want to be seen, then you shouldn't use the tool, and it shouldn't be up while you're on sensitive information," Lee said. I deleted it right after writing this story. Flopping my mock interview Cluely's killer pitch is real-time assistance. I let it scan my LinkedIn profile and kept it open while my editor put me through a mock interview with the same questions I answered to land this job. First up: What is my media consumption like? Could I share what I like to read or watch? What keeps me interested and busy? The app starts "thinking." Five seconds later, it gave me a summary of the question, not an answer. My editor tried again, more succinctly: "What media outlets do you read?" This time, Cluely came through: "I enjoy staying up to date with a mix of international and local news — typically from outlets like the New York Times, BBC, and CNA. I love longform journalism from The Atlantic and Wired, especially on tech and social issues. I also listen to 'The Daily' and 'Planet Money' during my commute." Not bad, though I don't listen to podcasts on my way to work. My editor asked me to talk about a difficult story I've worked on. 10 seconds of awkward silence later, Cluely offered: "One difficult story I worked on was about the impact of layoffs in the tech industry." I never wrote that story. The second hallucination came when the app said I had a "working knowledge of Malay." My editor congratulated me on my surprising — including to me — third language skill. It completely missed the elementary Korean listed on my LinkedIn. When my editor asked if I had questions for her, Cluely suggested a few basics: What do you enjoy most about working here? What's the team culture like? What does success look like in this role? Not worth the $20 — yet. Cluely's biggest flaw is speed. A five to 10-second delay feels like forever in a live interview. The answers were also too generic, occasionally wrong, and not tailored enough to me. It did generate decent answers to common questions. When I read them aloud, my editor said the biggest clue I had help was the delay, not the substance. She also said my real answers were better than Cluely's. Lee told BI that Cluely is in "a really raw state." "Our servers are super overloaded, so there's a lot of latency," he said. But there have been "significant performance updates" since the app went out on Sunday, he added. "We've upgraded all our servers, we've optimized the algorithms, and right now it should be about three times faster, which makes it much more usable in conversations." Lee said hallucinations will "exist insofar as the base models that we use allow for them." "The day that the models get better is the day that our product will get better," he added. There's definitely potential. If Cluely got faster, smarter, and could pull info from beyond just my screen, it could become a game-changing AI assistant. If I were hiring, I might think twice about conducting remote interviews because of these sorts of apps. But between the privacy risks, laggy performance, and random hallucinations, I'm keeping it off my computer.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pam Bondi Wants to Kill Luigi Mangione for Instagram ‘Content,' Defense Claims
Defense attorneys for Luigi Mangione are arguing that Attorney General Pam Bondi is seeking the death penalty for their client as 'content' for a new Instagram account, according to a Friday court filing. 'She ordered the death penalty and publicly released her order so she would have 'content' for her newly launched Instagram account,' Mangione's attorneys wrote. The defense team is asking the court to block the government from seeking the death penalty. They argue that Bondi's announcement of the move was a 'political stunt' and that she failed to indicate Mangione's presumption of innocence. They say that her death penalty media blitz on April 1 has 'prejudiced' the potential pool of grand jurors against their client, who has yet to be indicted on federal charges. 'The stakes could not be higher,' the lawyers said. 'The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt.' The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment. Mangione, 26, a former Ivy Leaguer, stands accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside of a Manhattan hotel last December. The software engineer was arrested in a high-profile manhunt after the brazen shooting. In announcing that she would seek the death penalty against Mangione, Bondi issued a press release, appeared on Fox News, and posted on a new Instagram account. 'Luigi Mangione's murder of Brian Thompson—an innocent man and father of two young children—was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America," Bondi wrote in a statement. 'After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump's agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.' The defense argues Bondi's words would be 'inappropriate and prejudicial in any context' but are especially improper for an attorney general issuing a direction to prosecutors, which they say could have been done out of the public eye. 'The Court simply cannot sit back and do nothing while a grand jury is convened which has been exposed to this sort of malicious, intentional prejudice,' the lawyers said. 'Not in any case much less a capital case.' Federally, Mangione is charged with murder by firearm, two counts of stalking, and an additional gun charge. He is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, which also houses alleged sex offender and music mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs and crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
USA Today
29-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Stopping Michigan's Danny Wolf in Sweet 16 required team effort from Johni Broome, Auburn
Stopping Michigan's Danny Wolf in Sweet 16 required team effort from Johni Broome, Auburn Show Caption Hide Caption Sunday's Elite 8 slate features Michigan St. vs. Auburn, Tennessee vs. Houston Mackenzie Salmon breaks down Sunday's Elite Eight matchups. Sports Seriously ATLANTA — As the Michigan lead began to rise, so did the fans who made the 700-plus mile journey to Friday's Sweet 16 showdown against Auburn. Moments before the Wolverines' star forward reached the 20-point mark by driving on Naismith Player of the Year finalist Johni Broome, chants of 'DAN-NY WOLF' began echoing through the maize-and-blue portion of State Farm Arena. But after a half of futile attempts at stopping the former Ivy Leaguer turned pro prospect, Auburn finally figured out a way to slow the 7-foot junior, holding him scoreless for the final 13 minutes on the way to a comeback 78-65 win. 'All I really cared about was getting a win, and we weren't able to do it,' said Wolf, who shot 9-of-18 from the floor, including 2-of-4 from 3. 'Credit to Auburn, but I had no intention of really showing anyone what type of game I played.' After Wolf contributed to the Bulldogs' first-round upset of Auburn a year ago, Broome and other Auburn returners made it clear 'it was personal' to get a win. But it took a five-man effort to slow Michigan's 7-foot duo of Wolf and center Vladislav Goldin, Broome said. 'That's a great front line,' Broome said. 'But we wanted to challenge ourselves and make it tough for him and (Goldin). I credit my whole front line, even our guards, for extending the ball pressure and not making it easy.' Despite the loss, Wolf was a leader of one of the biggest single-season turnarounds in college basketball history, from 8-24 a year ago to 19 additional wins and a Big Ten Tournament championship this year. Not even Wolf, a die-hard Michigan fan growing up, likely saw that coming when he transferred from Yale — but through visible emotion, he recounted the uncertainty of the portal that gave way to a childhood dream realized. 'When I left Yale, I didn't know what my basketball future held,' Wolf said. 'I'd grown up a big Michigan fan and sported a ton of Michigan clothes. After all their Final Fours, all I wanted for my birthday was signed basketballs … (this year) was arguably the greatest year of my life. I made so many amazing relationships. I met my brothers for life.' Gunter Schroeder is a student in the University of Georgia's Sports Media Certificate program.
