North Korean hackers once again exploit Internet Explorer’s leftover bits Microsoft's Edge browser has replaced Internet Explorer in almost every regard, but some exceptions remain. One of those, deep inside Microsoft Word, was exploited by a North-Korean-backed group this fall, Google security researchers claim. Continued here |
Why 21 cm is the magic length for the Universe In our Universe, quantum transitions are the governing rule behind every nuclear, atomic, and molecular phenomenon. Unlike the planets in our Solar System, which could stably orbit the Sun at any distance if they possessed the right speed, the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up all the conventional matter we know of can only bind together in a specific set of configurations. These possibilities, although numerous, are finite in number, as the quantum rules that govern electromagnetism and the nuclear forces restrict how atomic nuclei and the electrons that orbit them can arrange themselves. In all the Universe, the most common atom of all is hydrogen, with just one proton and one electron. Wherever new stars form, hydrogen atoms become ionized, becoming neutral again if those free electrons can find their way back to a free proton. Although the electrons will typically cascade down the allowed energy levels into the ground state, that normally produces only a specific set of infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. But more importantly, a special transition occurs in hydrogen that produces light of about the size of your hand: 21 centimeters (about 8¼”) in wavelength. That’s a magic length, and it just might someday unlock the darkest secrets hiding out in the recesses of the Universe. Continued here |
�
What would a green World Cup look like? Humanity is deep in the throes of the World Cup. Billions of people are expected to tune in to at least one match of the 2022 Qatar tournament – a significant proportion of the global population. With reach like this comes scrutiny, including on the climate impact of such a massive event. Qatar has built seven new stadiums and refurbished an eighth for the World Cup finals. It has also built a new airport, a metro system, new roads and around 100 new hotels. Some 1.2 million visitors are expected, the vast majority arriving by air, with many staying in nearby cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, then taking shuttle flights to matches. Continued here |
How Growth-Stage Companies Are Thriving In A Down Economy Recent conferences show signs of promising growth and a future where entrepreneurs address real-world problems, putting others before their bottom line. Continued here |
�
Are Your Team Gatherings Inclusive for People with Food-Related Allergies? Not all disabilities or impairments are visible. Food intolerances are like any other impairment or disability in terms of their constraining effects, but can be even more insidious when hidden. While the prevalence of food allergies is rising, many workplaces need to do more to accommodate employees. Continued here |
To Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking, Stop Thinking About Yourself Even the most confident speakers find ways to distance themselves from their audience. It’s how our brains are programmed, so how can we overcome it? Human generosity. The key to calming the amygdala and disarming our panic button is to turn the focus away from ourselves — away from whether we will mess up or whether the audience will like us — and toward helping the audience. Showing kindness and generosity to others has been shown to activate the vagus nerve, which has the power to calm the fight-or-flight response. When we are kind to others, we tend to feel calmer and less stressed. The same principle applies in speaking. When we approach speaking with a spirit of generosity, we counteract the sensation of being under attack and we feel less nervous. Continued here |
�
Mozilla's Mark Surman: Let's make AI as trustworthy as seatbelts In a tech landscape that foments continual change, Mozilla’s approach has been unwaveringly constant: magnify the public benefits of the internet through fair and open access. That credo, outlined in the company’s Manifesto back in 2007, remains in place today. Long before he ever joined Mozilla, Mark Surman espoused those same beliefs. As president and executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, Surman is a leading advocate for trustworthy AI, digital privacy, and the open internet, and he has built the foundation into a major philanthropic and advocacy voice. Continued here |
Google’s cost-cutters come for Waze, will lose status as independent company Is Waze in trouble at Google? The Wall Street Journal broke the news last night that Google is merging the 500-person Waze team into Google's "Geo" division, aka Google Maps. Waze's current CEO, Neha Parikh—who has only been at the helm since 2021 after the long-term CEO, Noam Bardin, quit Google—will step down after a transition period. Under Maps, Waze won't have a CEO. Continued here |
�
Choose Courage Over Confidence Self-doubt is a pervasive and often paralyzing concern, and research has repeatedly shown that it impacts women more than men. So what makes high-achieving women power through their self-doubt? According to the author’s research, they focus on building up their courage, not their confidence. She offers three strategies to help women take bold actions in the face of self-doubt and fear: 1) Don’t underestimate the impact of small, yet significant, acts of courage; 2) Practice courageous acts in all areas of your life; and 3) Try again tomorrow. Continued here |
How Leaders Can Combat Burnout on Their Teams This Winter As seasonal depression creeps in, here's how employers can help their workers unwind and stay productive. Continued here |
�
We gave ChatGPT a college-level microbiology quiz. It blew the quiz away. You wouldn’t know it from interacting with Siri or those technical-support, call-center robots, but artificial intelligence has made some incredible advances in a short amount of time. Earlier this year, the tech world was abuzz with various generative AI programs that could, on command, create entirely new, never-before-existing images or works of art. Today, the tech world is abuzz again over ChatGPT, a chat bot that is said to be the most advanced ever made. Just how advanced is ChatGPT? It can create poems, songs, and even computer code. On Twitter, Thomas Ptacek showed that it could convincingly construct a passage of text on how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR, in the voice of the King James Bible. Continued here |
Playing offense with green tech to achieve net-zero emissions Technology holds the key to unlocking decarbonization by identifying emission hot spots and pinpointing the areas of biggest impact. The pressure is mounting for companies to deliver on their ambitious carbon reduction goals, and technology has a critical role to play in helping them get there. Continued here |
�
A quick look at AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which is smaller than an RTX 4080 AMD's next-generation Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT graphics cards launch next week on December 13. Powered by the chiplet-based RDNA3 architecture, these $999 and $899 GPUs will compete with Nvidia's $1,200-and-up RTX 4000-series and will attempt to address some of the shortcomings of the outgoing RX 6000-series (lackluster real-time raytracing performance, for one). Continued here |
Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the November–December 1974 issue of HBR and has been one of the publication’s two best-selling reprints ever. For its reissue as a Classic, HBR asked Stephen R. Covey to provide a commentary (see the sidebar “Making Time for Gorillas”). Continued here |
�
Information is the frontier for the study of life Life is really weird. From the vantage point of a physicist, it is even stranger. Life is unlike any other phenomenon in physics. Stars, electrons, and black holes are all amazing in their own ways. But only life invents, and the first thing life invents is itself. Life is creative in a way that no other physical system can be, and its unique use of information may be the key to understanding what makes it different from other physical systems. Now, thanks to a new grant my colleagues and I have received from the Templeton Foundation, we are going to be exploring exactly how information allows life to work its magic. I’m very excited about the project, and this essay is my first report from the frontier as we plunge into terra incognita. Continued here |
Uruguay is plotting to poach Argentina’s tech sector Across the world, the arrival of digital nomads is a sign of issues to come — with “gentrification” being the watchword for a myriad of tensions between locals and new arrivals. But, Uruguay is trying to do tech migration differently: not by opening its doors to temporary remote workers but, rather, by rolling out the red carpet for tech workers to settle down permanently. It helps that the vast majority come from neighboring Argentina, which is just a small geographic and cultural leap away. “[Argentines] are culturally very easy to integrate, at least work-wise,” Juan Ignacio Batto Dupré, a software engineer at Oort, an international digital security startup, told Rest of World. “I’ve never felt a cultural difference between Uruguayans and Argentines. … We have a shared language, traditions, and customs.” But it’s what makes Uruguay and Argentina different in terms of economic and social stability, which is driving tech employers and employees to move their operations across the River Plate. Continued here |
Mark Zuckerberg's Message to Laid Off Meta Employees Is a Masterclass in Good Leadership Contrary to Elon Musk's handling of Twitter's mass exodus, this is a breath of fresh air. Continued here |
4 Reasons to Apply for Inc.'s Best Workplaces 2023Â Awards The most entrepreneurial companies are those putting employees' needs first. Now's your chance to tell your story and prove that your company is a great place to work. Continued here |
Are You Too Emotionally Invested in Your Job? Being emotionally invested in your work is like a double-edged sword. Your drive and passion propel you to perform. But being too emotionally tied to your work can become a huge drain and weight to carry. So how can you tell if you’re too emotionally invested in your work? The author outlines four signs to watch out for — 1) You take criticism personally; 2) Work follows you home; 3) You’re a people-pleaser; 4) Your identity is your job title — and offers strategies to regain your confidence and perspective. Continued here |
This Sad Story is Pretty Embarrassing, But I Want to Tell It Anyway I don't think she's embarrassed anymore. Continued here |
Don't Pause Your Job Search Just Because It's the Holidays Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Lunar New Year, and New Year’s Eve are holidays where people tend to gather. This means that it’s a great time to reconnect with people and catch up — say your alumni network, past recruiters, or ex-colleagues. Use the holidays as an “in” to update people on how you’re doing, ask about their lives, and share your goals, including career changes you want to make. Continued here |
Storytelling That Moves People Persuasion is the centerpiece of business activity. Customers must be convinced to buy your company’s products or services, employees and colleagues to go along with a new strategic plan or reorganization, investors to buy (or not to sell) your stock, and partners to sign the next deal. But despite the critical importance of persuasion, most executives struggle to communicate, let alone inspire. Too often, they get lost in the accoutrements of companyspeak: PowerPoint slides, dry memos, and hyperbolic missives from the corporate communications department. Even the most carefully researched and considered efforts are routinely greeted with cynicism, lassitude, or outright dismissal. Continued here |
What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs Research has long shown that layoffs have a detrimental effect on individuals and on corporate performance. The short-term cost savings provided by a layoff are often overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover, and lower innovation — all of which hurt profits in the long run. To make intelligent and humane staffing decisions in the current economic turmoil, leaders must understand what’s different about today’s larger social landscape. The authors also share strategies for a smarter approach to workforce change. Continued here |
The Tax Implications CFOs Should Consider When Divesting a Business Unit - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM DELOITTE When a business splits from its parent company, the move can be exhilarating, with fast timelines, massive challenges, and big opportunities. But the complexities and the risks of planning and executing such a “corporate carve-out”—a corporate reorganization method in which a parent company divests a business unit—can be tremendous, and nobody wants to destroy value in the process. Continued here |
How to Stop Saying "Um," "Ah," and "You Know" When you get rattled while speaking — whether you’re nervous, distracted, or at a loss for what comes next — it’s easy to lean on filler words, such as “um,” “ah,” or “you know.” These words can become crutches that diminish our credibility and distract from our message. To eliminate such words from your speech, replace them with pauses. To train yourself to do this, take these three steps. First, identify your crutch words and pair them with an action. Every time you catch yourself saying “like,” for example, tap your leg. Once you’ve become aware of your filler words as they try to escape your lips, begin forcing yourself to be silent. Finally, practice more than you think you should. The optimal ratio of preparation to performance is one hour of practice for every minute of presentation. Continued here |
Myth, busted: Apatosaurus didn’t produce sonic booms when whipping its tail Back in 1997, Microsoft's then-chief technical officer, Nathan Myhrvold, made headlines when his computer simulations suggested that the enormous tails of sauropods—specifically Apatosaurus—could crack like a bullwhip and break the sound barrier, producing a sonic boom. Paleontologists deemed it an intriguing possibility, although several were skeptical. Now a fresh team of scientists has tackled the issue and built its own simulated model of an Apatosaurus tail. They found no evidence of a sonic boom, according to a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. In fact, the maximum speed possible in the new simulations was 10 times slower than the speed of sound in standard air. Continued here |
How to Ask for a Promotion First, reflect on what you want. Is there a job you covet or do you wish to create a new role? Do you want to move up — or might a lateral move interest you? Answering these questions helps you position your request. Second, build a case. Prepare a memo that outlines your strengths, recent successes, and impact. Next, talk to your boss and make your intentions clear. Beware that asking for a promotion is rarely a “one and done” discussion; rather, it’s a series of ongoing conversations. Your objective is to plant the seed and then nurture that seed over time. Finally, don’t get discouraged if you don’t get what you want right away. Continue to do good work and look for ways to elevate the level at which you operate. Continued here |
PPP Fraud: Some Lenders Were Bank Robbers, Congressional Investigators Say The SBA will cease working with fintechs Womply and Blueacorn, as it also investigates a handful of other firms implicated in widespread PPP fraud. Continued here |
What Does It Really Take to Build a New Habit? Our habits govern our lives, literally. Research shows that around half of our daily actions are driven by repetition. This is probably why behavioral scientists and psychologists have spent so much time writing about how to establish and keep positive habits. Regular sleep and exercise, a healthy diet, an organized schedule, and mindfulness are just a few examples of practices that — if done regularly — can improve our work, relationships, and mental health. Continued here |
Just a few short bursts of physical activity each day might yield huge health benefits You might not think that a two-minute bout of speed-walking to make your flight on time or climbing four flights of stairs in the parking garage actually boosts your health, but according to a new study, brief bursts of physical activity like these are linked to large reductions in the risk of dying. The international team of scientists behind the new research, which is published in Nature Medicine, termed these active bouts “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” (VILPA). Using data on 25,241 people from the UK Biobank who reported not exercising or playing sports in their leisure time, the researchers sought to see if VILPA was associated with changes in all-cause mortality or mortality due to cardiovascular disease and cancer in these non-exercisers. Continued here |
What Great Listeners Actually Do
What makes a good listener? Most people think is comes down to three components: not interrupting the speaker, following along with facial expressions, and being able to repeat back almost verbatim what the speaker has just said. According to research from Zenger and Folkman, however, we’re doing it all wrong. Instead of thinking of a good listener as a sponge —absorbing everything but providing little feedback — a skilled listener should be thought of as a trampoline who amplifies and supports a speaker’s thoughts by providing constructive feedback. Engaging in a two-way conversation is essential, according to data, and Zenger and Folkman define six levels of listening, all meant to help listeners develop this skill. Continued here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment