Dear Sundar Pichai, Here Is How You Lay off Employees

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Dear Sundar Pichai, Here Is How You Lay off Employees Hey, Google, if you can hire one by one, you can fire one by one. Continued here

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The Power of Putting Purpose Before Profit Why purpose-driven companies outperform, and the importance of meaning at work. Continued here

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Dennis Hong: 7 new species of robot that dance, jump – and walk on water More than a decade ago, roboticist Dennis Hong debuted a new generation of cutting-edge robots. Now he's back to reveal how his lab at UCLA has eclipsed its own achievements with a fleet of wildly advanced and delightful humanoid robots. Part demo, part time capsule, part glance into the future, Hong brings you into the excitement and potential of the next evolution in robotics engineering. Continued here

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Are we too worried about misinformation? “Resist trying to make things better”: A conversation with internet security expert Alex Stamos. I’m old enough to remember when the internet was going to be great news for everyone. Things have gotten more complex since then: We all still agree that there are lots of good things we can get from a broadband connection. But we’re also likely to blame the internet — and specifically the big tech companies that dominate it — for all kinds of problems. Continued here

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The Earth Is Begging You to Accept Smaller EV Batteries Humanity may not exactly be winning its battle to avert climate change, but the electrification of cars has begun to look like a success story. Ten percent of new passenger vehicles sold around the world last year were electric, powered by batteries instead of gasoline—the extraction of which costs the world not only in noxious carbon emissions, but in local environmental damage to the communities on the front lines.  Still, that revolution has its own dirty side. If the goal is to electrify everything we have now, ASAP—including millions of new trucks and SUVs with ranges similar to gas-powered models—there will be a massive increase in demand for minerals used in batteries like lithium, nickel, and cobalt. That means a lot more holes in the ground—nearly 400 new mines by 2035, according to one estimate from Benchmark Minerals—and a lot more pollution and ecological destruction along with them. It’s why a new study published today by researchers associated with UC Davis tries to map out a different path, one where decarbonization can be achieved with less harm, and perhaps faster. It starts with fewer cars. Continued here

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Can India become China's rival in iPhone manufacturing? Despite iPhone’s marginal share in the world’s second-largest smartphone market — just about 4% in 2022, according to technology market research firm Counterpoint — Apple is expected to ramp up production of the device in the country as it looks to reduce dependence on China. A forecast by DigiTimes Research earlier this month said India’s share of global iPhone production could match China’s by 2027. That prediction is far more aggressive than JP Morgan’s earlier forecast that 25% of all iPhones will be assembled in India by 2025. Indian tech experts aren’t surprised by this optimism. Continued here

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Digital Scans Reveal Secrets of 'Golden Boy' Mummy The 2,300-year-old mummified teen was buried with 49 protective amulets, several made of gold New digital scans of a mummified teenager have revealed secrets that remained hidden for millennia. Buried some 2,300 years ago, the mummy was uncovered in 1916 at a southern Egypt cemetery and stored, undisturbed, in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo ever since. Continued here

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Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes | Quanta Magazine If we were to discover black holes with nonspherical shapes, it would be a sign that our universe has more than three dimensions of space. The cosmos seems to have a preference for things that are round. Planets and stars tend to be spheres because gravity pulls clouds of gas and dust toward the center of mass. The same holds for black holes — or, to be more precise, the event horizons of black holes — which must, according to theory, be spherically shaped in a universe with three dimensions of space and one of time. Continued here

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6 Simple Questions to Assess Whether Your Leadership Has What It Takes Leaders must drastically evolve with the times. Continued here

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The Doomsday Clock Is Now Closer Than Ever to Midnight How close is humanity to destruction? Not very far, according to the Doomsday Clock, which has been metaphorically ticking since 1947. Its hands now sit at 90 seconds to midnight—closer than they’ve ever been.  This morning, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the clock based on how close it believes the world is to disaster, with midnight symbolizing doomsday. The group takes into account factors ranging from nuclear weapons to climate change. Continued here

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5 Rules to Improve Your Email Marketing Results in 2023 Ready to give your email strategy a refresh? Follow these rules for better email deliverability, higher engagement, and more sales. Continued here

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How Salary Transparency Can Help You (and Your Workplace) Did that question make you nervous? Uncomfortable? Or, maybe, excited? Historically speaking, talking about your salary (especially at work) was off limits. But things are changing — “salary transparency” is becoming the new norm, and for good reason. When people are aware of how much those around them make, everyone gets paid more fairly, which makes workplaces more equitable. Continued here

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How war destroys the childhood sense-scape we call ‘home’ | Psyche Ideas is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Warburg Institute in London. She is the co-author of Dancing Is the Best Medicine (2021). Among my first memories is piano music, echoing in a room with no furniture, large windows, a ballet barre and the smell of Marseille soap. I’m swirling around in unison with a large group of girls, all dressed in the same outfit, arms held like crowns overhead. On the final note of the piano tune, we stop in that specific pose, tendu-arabesque. When I hear that music and do those movements, I feel home. Continued here

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Is Quiet Quitting the Right Move? It depends on your career aspirations. Continued here

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Are A.I. Image Generators Violating Copyright Laws? Two new lawsuits argue that tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are infringing on artists’ rights Type in a prompt like “a chocolate bar riding a bicycle in the style of Picasso,” and artificial intelligence tools including DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion can conjure an image for you in seconds. They do so by incorporating elements from the vast libraries of digitally available images and artwork from across the internet that they have been trained on. Continued here

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How Our Careers Affect Our Children What working parent hasn’t felt guilty about missing soccer games and piano recitals? Almost two decades ago, though, researchers surveyed nearly 900 professionals about their relationships with their work and their children, and found that parents’ working, even for long hours, did not hurt children. What they did find was that parents who were distracted by, or obsessed with, their work, did see an impact on their children. This is likely only more problematic today when digital devices are omnipresent. The lesson: don’t worry about whether you attend every soccer game. But when you do show up, put your phone down and be there for your kid. Continued here

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The FDA Could Change Its Vaccine Strategy. That's Good News for Businesses The FDA may start treating Covid-19 vaccines like annual flu shots, which could lead to more convenience and compliance for companies and workers. Continued here

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Researchers Find Rare 17-Pound Meteorite in Antarctic Ice The polar desert is a prime zone for preserving space rocks dating back to our early solar system A team of researchers has discovered five new meteorites in Antarctica—one of which weighs a whopping 16.7 pounds. Continued here

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Stepping Up Workforce Planning Strategy by Closing the HR-Finance Gap - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM WORKDAY With close collaboration between finance and human resources (HR) functions, organizations can access the shared real-time insights they need to simplify complex challenges, respond to change in the moment, make the best strategic moves for the workforce, and share a mission that supports strategic growth. Continued here

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This Startup Is Using AI to Unearth New Smells Alex Wiltschko opens a black plastic suitcase and pulls out about 60 glass vials. Each contains a different scent. One smells starchy with soft floral notes, like jasmine rice cooking. Another brings to mind ocean air and the white rind of a watermelon. One is like saffron with hints of leather and black tea. The next is the pungent aroma of fig leaves, boxwood, and basil. The most surprising one has the tang of a Thai chili pepper without the nostril-burning heat.  The molecules wafting into my nose are nothing like I’ve ever smelled before. In fact, I’m one of only a handful of people who have ever smelled them. And yet, before any person had sniffed them, a computer model predicted how they’d smell to us.  Continued here

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Our Favorite Clothing Made From Recycled Materials If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED You may have noticed we're having a bit of a climate crisis, but we're having a trash crisis as well. Trash is polluting our oceans, lining both city and rural streets, and harming animals that are just trying to go about their day. We can reduce our own plastic usage, especially single-use plastics. But thankfully, some companies have figured out how to turn some of that trash—mostly plastic bottles and old clothes—into new clothes and accessories. Continued here

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7 Ways Managers Can Help Their Team Focus We know that in our hyper-stimulated world, people struggle to focus. The authors’ recent survey of 1,600 employees and managers revealed findings that should be particularly alarming for people leaders: 60.6% of employees admit that they rarely to never do even an hour or two of deep, focused work each day without distraction. As people leaders, what can you do to encourage your team to limit distractions and find focus? For the last several decades, the authors have studied and coached leaders in the skills to stay productive in a hyper-stimulated world. They present seven ideas for helping your people focus. Continued here

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Get Used to Expensive Eggs Over the past week, my breakfast routine has been scrambled. I have had overnight oats, beans on sourdough, corned-beef hash and fried rice, and, on a particularly weird morning, leftover cream-of-broccoli soup. Under normal circumstances, I would be eating eggs. But right now, I’m in hoarding mode, jealously guarding the four that remain from a carton purchased indignantly for six dollars. For that price—50 damn cents each!—my daily sunny-side-up eggs will have to wait. The perfect moment beckons: Maybe a toasted slab of brioche will call for a luxurious soft scramble, or maybe I will cave to a powerful craving for an egg-salad sandwich. Eggs, that quintessential cheap food, have gotten very, very expensive in the United States. In December, the average price for a dozen eggs in U.S. cities hit an all-time high of $4.25, up from $1.78 a year earlier. Although the worst now seems to be behind us, there’s still a ways to go before consumer prices hit reasonable levels—and Americans are starting to crack. Online, the shortage has recently hatched endless memes: In some posts, people pretend to portion out eggs in plastic baggies, like drug dealers (Pablo Eggscobar, anyone?); another recurring bit suggests painting potatoes to hunt at Easter. The high prices have even led to egg smuggling and raised the profile of “rent-a-chicken” services, where customers can borrow hens, chicken feed, and a coop for a couple hundred bucks. Continued here

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Leprosy: the ancient disease scientists can't solve In the wild, the only known carrier of Mycobacterium leprae, the bacteria that causes leprosy, is a mammal that looks rather like a large rat with a long snout dressed in leathery armour – the nine-banded armadillo. Endemic to the Southern and Central United States, this insect-eating animal is also native to the three countries where most of the world’s 200,000 fresh leprosy cases are detected every year – India, Brazil and Indonesia.       Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease, attacking the skin, nerves and mucous membranes. This eventually leads to white patches, numbness, muscular weakness and paralysis. But despite its devastating consequences and recorded cases possibly stretching back as early as 1400 BC, to this day much about this ancient malady remains mysterious. No one knows how leprosy originated, nor why some parts of the world are more affected than others. Scientists still don't even know for sure how it spreads – and there still isn't an easy way to check if someone has it.  Continued here

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How to Affordably Support Employee Mental Health Improve the health of your employees and your business with these methods. Continued here

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The 10 Best Shows on Apple TV+ Right Now Slowly but surely Apple TV+ is finding its feet. The streaming service, which at launch we called “odd, angsty, and horny as hell,” has evolved into a diverse library of dramas, documentaries, and comedies. It’s also fairly cheap compared to services like Netflix—and Apple often throws in three free months when you buy a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. Curious but don’t know where to get started? Below are our picks for the best shows on the service. When you’re done, head over to our guides to the best Netflix shows, Amazon Prime series, and Disney+ shows, because you can never have too much telly. Continued here

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Google’s CEO Said He Takes ‘Full Responsibility’ For Laying off 12,000 People. Why That’s Mostly Meaningless Responsibility without accountability doesn't mean what you think it does. Continued here

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The Best Coffee Subscriptions We've Savored A cup of coffee in the morning is not just about the caffeine (though that's certainly important). It's the ritual that starts the day. There's the sound of beans grinding, the toasted smell of brewing coffee—even waiting for your brew to finish is a part of the fun. It's a way to let yourself know that it's time to start creeping toward wakefulness, like the sun peeking over the horizon in an old-timey Folgers commercial—all fuzzy and warm and full of promise. Unless, that is, you're out of coffee. Then it's dull, gray, and cold. One way to protect yourself from this desolation is to pick up a coffee subscription. We've tested several coffee subscription services over the past couple of years, and they're a great way to keep yourself stocked up. Like the Netflix of old that sent DVDs, these companies mail you coffee beans at regular intervals. Some specialize in highlighting small roasters, while others source and roast their own beans. Below, we've listed what we like and dislike about each. Continued here

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How to Talk with Your Team About the Elephant in the Room If your team feels “stuck,” the problem might involve issues that are difficult to discuss — conflict between two team members, for example, or an underperforming employee. To address these issues head-on, leaders must learn the art of framing a conversation so people can organize their thoughts, feelings, and experiences to come to a solution. This article offers a five-step process around framing, and two examples of how it can help bring “undiscussables” into the light. Continued here

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A Rejected Job Applicant Keeps Asking For Another Chance And three other tricky workplace dilemmas. Continued here

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This shockingly simple battery could store energy forever Back in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, humanity had a golden window to revolutionize how we handled energy all across the globe. The dangers of global warming and global climate change — directly resulting from our burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — became well-known during this time, while simultaneously, the secrets to nuclear fission power had been uncovered. The fact that we haven’t transitioned away from fossil fuels while our energy needs have grown and grown has put humanity into a difficult situation: our environmental and ecological problems continue to worsen, while our energy consumption continues to rise. Yes, we have reasons to be hopeful for the future. Nuclear fission plants could still be built on a large scale, safer and more effectively than ever before. Nuclear fusion’s vaunted breakeven point has been achieved, meaning a fusion-powered future is within reach by century’s end. And while renewables like solar, wind, and hydro power are currently expanding in their energy production worldwide, the energy from them isn’t available on-demand, but must be stored during the lulls, so the energy is sufficiently available during peak times. Continued here

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Don't Underestimate the Value of Employee Tenure People are living and working longer and the implications for areas such as health care and government entitlement programs are profound. But what about employers? Is there value to companies if they engage an aging workforce? It depends on how you define experience. Employee age has no impact on business performance, whether performance is measured by financial, operational, or customer outcomes. Tenure, however, has a significant positive and sometimes very sizeable impact on financial performance and operational excellence.  This suggests that there is no place for ageism at work. It also suggests that gig or temporary workers should not replace tenured staff. Continued here

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This Speechwriter Reacts to Jeb Bush's Public Speaking 'Fail' Expert speechwriter Victoria Wellman sat down with Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk to talk best and worst practices for public speaking. Continued here

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Expand Your Pricing Paradigm With inflation high, a global recession possible, and consumers spending carefully, many companies are concerned about preserving profit margins. In this article, pricing consultant Rafi Mohammed argues that instead of simply adjusting prices, firms should consider adding new ways to charge customers. He outlines 18 different pricing tactics that can be used for various purposes: to accommodate buyers with different usage needs, to appeal to people on a tight budget, to spur purchases by customers who love a good deal, to achieve favorable prices when the value of an offering is uncertain, and to increase business efficiency. Continued here

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In 1 Brilliant Sentence, Microsoft Execs Prove Once Again They're Building the Right Future Where technology meets employee experience. Continued here

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The most controversial painting in Russian history In 19th century Russia, writers spoke loud and clear. Instead of hiding their personal beliefs behind dense layers of symbolism, they wrote unambiguously about the social, political, and economic problems of their time. This made them somewhat unique in the literary world. Indeed, where the true meaning of books like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness continues to be debated to this day, there has never been any doubt that Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done? is, at its core, an answer to the question of what is to be done about the socialist revolution heralded by Karl Marx. Likewise, nobody can argue that, to Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov was about anything other than Christian values, specifically about the search for a benevolent God in a seemingly godless world. Continued here

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6 Tips for U.S. Entrepreneurs Expanding Their Business to Southeast Asia An experienced international entrepreneur shares best practices. Continued here

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What Makes a Great Leader? Tomorrow’s leaders master three key roles — architect, bridger, and catalyst, or ABCs — to access the talent and tools they need to drive innovation and impact. As architects, they build the culture and capabilities for co-creation. As bridgers, they curate and enable networks of talent inside and outside their organizations to co-create. And as catalysts, they lead beyond their organizational boundaries to energize and activate co-creation across entire ecosystems. These ABCs require leaders to stop relying on formal authority as their source of power and shift to a style that enables diverse talent to collaborate, experiment, and learn together — a challenging yet essential personal transformation. Continued here

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Finding Our Balance: It's Like Riding a Bike Leaders are expected to be all things, to all people, at all times. To find our balance we have to practice. Continued here

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How Business Owners Can Protect Their Intellectual Property Without Noncompete Agreements A partial or full ban could prompt companies to use alternative methods to keep trade secrets safe after employees leave. Continued here

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The Trillion-Dollar Coin Might Be the Least Bad Option Later this year, for no good reason at all, the United States might enter a chaotic period of financial default. Once again, the country has hit its statutory debt limit, because Congress continues to spend more than the government receives in tax revenue. The Treasury has no more legal authority to issue new debt and is currently using a series of “extraordinary measures” to keep the government’s bills paid. Those extraordinary measures will last for only six months or so. At that point, either Congress will raise the debt ceiling or the full faith and credit of the country will be at risk. Rohan Grey is a law professor at Willamette University, in Oregon, and a leading promoter of an arcane idea that could save the country from all that drama: The Biden administration could exercise its unilateral legal authority over U.S. currency to mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin and use it to pay the government’s bills. The idea seems peculiar—it first surfaced in 2010 in the comments section of a niche blog devoted to unconventional monetary policy—but Grey and others believe it would be less disruptive than many alternative scenarios. Continued here

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The Coffee Alternative Americans Just Can’t Get Behind It shouldn’t be hard to persuade people to take a sip of yerba mate. It’s completely natural. It makes you feel simultaneously energized and relaxed. You can drink it all day without feeling like your stomach acid is burning through your esophagus. It’s the preferred caffeine source of Lionel Messi, Zoe Saldaña, and the pope. I’m drinking yerba mate with my Argentinian mother-in-law as I write this, and I’ll probably be drinking it with her or my husband when you read it. And yet, my track record for tempting friends into tasting it is abysmal. The average Argentinian or Uruguayan drinks more than 26 gallons of the green infusion each year, but as far as I can tell, the average North American has never even tried South America’s most consumed beverage—at least not in its traditional form. After more than 100 years, plenty of added sugar, and growing consumer desire for “clean caffeine,” something companies are calling yerba mate is finally on shelves near you. But in this land of individualism and germophobia, the real thing will simply never catch on. Continued here

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"Lean In" Messages and the Illusion of Control When it comes to gender inequities at work, is it best to focus on structural issues or tactical strategies? To explore this question, the authors conducted six studies with approximately 2,000 American participants who were randomly assigned to two conditions: One group read sections of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In that emphasized the structural problems women face, such as discrimination. The second group read sections of the book that focused on individual, “DIY” solutions, such as acting more confidently or taking more risks. People exposed to the DIY messages were more likely to believe women have the power to solve the problem. However, they were also more likely to believe that women are responsible for the problem — both for causing it, and for fixing it. Continued here S24 Battery errors, software glitches: some VinFast EV customers are having a rough time Tom Peng would be thrilled to drive his brand-new VinFast electric vehicle, if only it held a charge.  In late December, Peng, a Taiwanese-Canadian YouTuber and entrepreneur, was out of town on business. But by the time he returned home to Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, his sleek, newly purchased VF8 wouldn’t start. The battery had plummeted to 1%, down from 82% when he’d left it four days earlier.  Continued here S50 A Recession Is Not Inevitable Everyone says they want a “soft landing,” but Jerome Powell’s 2 percent goal risks crashing the economy. For the past few months, one phrase has been on the mind of investors and policy makers alike: soft landing. With the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at a rapid pace since last spring in an attempt to bring down inflation, the fundamental question has been whether those hikes (and any future ones) will tip the economy into recession or instead slow it enough to cool inflation without sending the economy into reverse. Continued here S16 Engaging Remote Teams in 3 Simple Steps By identifying your team's personality style, catering to it, and collecting feedback, you can keep your team involved. Continued here S22 Why giant prehistoric animals got smaller From above the canopy comes a thundering sound, like the beating of 100 snare drums. The creatures hiding in the shadows between the trees, startled by the intruder, scatter across the forest floor. With the flash of an iridescent wing, the assailant dives for a wood-eating beetle, snatching it in its massive jaws before soaring away. This giant killer is a griffinfly called Meganeuropsis permiana, named after the Permian period, from 299-252 million years ago. It is possibly the largest insect to have ever lived (certainly the largest flying insect in the fossil records) with a wingspan of 71cm (28in), which is twice the size of the largest dragonflies today (and probably would have been about the same size and weight of a modern-day crow). Continued here S43 With Nvidia Eye Contact, you'll never look away from a camera again Nvidia recently released a beta version of Eye Contact, an AI-powered software video feature that automatically maintains eye contact for you while on-camera by estimating and aligning gaze. It ships with the 1.4 version of its Broadcast app, and the company is seeking feedback on how to improve it. In some ways, the tech may be too good because it never breaks eye contact, which appears unnatural and creepy at times. Continued here S41 SpaceX completes fueling test, will now work toward massive engine firing test SpaceX on Tuesday confirmed that it fully fueled its Starship launch system during a critical test on Monday and is now preparing to take the next step toward launch. Continued here S36 Why China’s shrinking population is a big deal Throughout much of recorded human history, China has boasted the largest population in the world – and until recently, by some margin. So news that the Chinese population is now in decline, and will sometime later this year be surpassed by that of India, is big news even if long predicted.  Continued here S19 Guy Raz on What Great Business Leaders Have in Common By hosting the podcasts How I Built This and Wisdom From The Top, Guy Raz has won an inside look at how visionary leaders build their own careers and incredible companies. While many leaders have unique qualities that help them succeed, he has identified three behaviors that consistently rise to the surface. These leaders create a culture of collaboration. They encourage risk-taking. And they allow for failure. Raz shares stories of leaders of everything from Starbucks to Proctor & Gamble. Continued here S51 Twitter Has No Answers for #DiedSuddenly The latest anti-vaccine conspiracy theory is taking off easily on platforms that have no interest in shutting it down. Lisa Marie Presley died unexpectedly earlier this month, and within hours, lacking any evidence, Twitter users were suggesting that her death had been caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. Continued here S48 As egg prices soar, the deadliest bird flu outbreak in US history drags on The ongoing bird flu outbreak in the US is now the longest and deadliest on record. More than 57 million birds have been killed by the virus or culled since a year ago, and the deadly disruption has helped propel skyrocketing egg prices and a spike in egg smuggling. Continued here S67 Can You Afford to Become a Digital Nomad? This New Online Calculator Will Tell You How much money do you have to make to qualify for various digital nomad visas? Continued here S46 The DOJ sues Google for ad dominance, wants to break company up It's been expected for some time, but today the Justice Department and eight states are suing Google over its purported domination of the online advertising market. The government has a problem with Google's position in "ad tech," or the tools used to automatically match advertisers with website publishers. To solve it, apparently, the DOJ has told Google it's considering breaking the company up. Continued here S54 The Tech-Layoff ‘Contagion’ Tens of thousands of people have been laid off from large tech and media companies in the past 12 months. The reasons for this are not obvious. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Continued here S53 The Oscar Nominations Are In, and a Few Big Trends Are Out For once, the Academy Award nominations seemingly arrived without too much existential panic about the entire enterprise. The latest slate of honorees, announced this morning by Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams, includes two of the most commercially successful films of the year, a bunch of crowd-pleasing word-of-mouth hits, and some genuine indie and foreign surprises. Plus, the Academy’s attention heavily tilted toward films that debuted and played in movie theaters rather than on streaming. This year’s Oscars, which will air March 12 on ABC, have been blessedly free of production squabbles. There are no internal battles over whether to cut certain categories from the broadcast; no anxiety-inducing, experimental host formats (Jimmy Kimmel has the job this year, for the third time); and less fuss over the ceremony’s “relevance.” The nominations largely struck a balance between populism and tonier awards-bait, with several truly exciting names highlighted for the first time, a few disappointing snubs, and a sense of real competition for a lot of the major categories. Continued here S38 Why the "Methuselah Star" does not disprove the Big Bang The vast majority of astronomers accept the Big Bang — the theory that the Universe began about 13.8 billion years ago in a fiery cataclysm. However, this idea is not accepted by everyone. Some Big Bang skeptics claim that the Universe is about 6,000 years old, while others claim that the Universe is eternal. Despite their disagreement with each other, they both agree that the theory of the Big Bang is wrong, and one observation they point to is the existence of stars with an estimated age that is older than the Universe itself. If such a star existed, indeed, it would be a death knell for the Big Bang. HD 140283, more colorfully called the “Methuselah Star,” is most certainly old and is generally accepted to be one of the oldest known stars. A paper published in 2013 estimated its age to be 14.45 billion years old, with an uncertainty of ±0.8 billion years.  This is older than the most precise estimate that we have for the age of the Universe, 13.797 ± 0.023 billion years. Continued here S39 Appliance makers sad that 50% of customers won't connect smart appliances Appliance makers like Whirlpool and LG just can't understand. They added Wi-Fi antennae to their latest dishwashers, ovens, and refrigerators and built apps for them—and yet only 50 percent or fewer of their owners have connected them. What gives? Continued here S40 PC peripheral makers are feeling tech's pandemic boom hangover too What goes up must come down, the tech industry is feeling that law right now. From historically low PC sales to depressing waves of layoffs hitting big names like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and HP, companies are having to readjust after getting used to business-fueling pandemic conditions like lockdowns and working from home. The latest is Logitech, one of the kings of the tech pandemic boom, which is painting us another picture of the downsides that come with those short-lived highs. Continued here S44 It's getting easier to buy bigger SSDs for the Steam Deck and Surface PCs Microsoft's Surface devices had a well-deserved reputation for being impossible to repair in their early years, but Microsoft has sought to change that more recently. Newer Surfaces feature detailed repair manuals and, at least in theory, easily upgradeable SSDs. Continued here S33 Change bad spending habits in 5 steps About 40% of the things you do each day are habits. Because we don’t maintain conscious control over our habits, bad ones can be hard to break. Habits are a way for our brain to utilize fewer resources to accomplish a task that we perform repetitively. Continued here S34 Ceramics, corn cobs, and other strange things we used before toilet paper Americans collectively use about 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper each year, an absolutely astronomical amount. But we’re the odd ones out with this infatuation: 70% of the world’s population doesn’t even wipe with toilet paper. (Many of them use bidet showers, more amusingly known as “bum guns.”) And for much of history, “two-ply” wasn’t even a thing. In this article, we examine a few of the odd things that humans have used to wipe their rears over the years — some odd, some ingenious, most not at all comfortable. Continued here S45 Blizzard studio halts union plans amid alleged management meddling In a statement provided to Ars Technica, a CWA spokesperson said Sivak "chose to follow Activision Blizzard's lead and responded to the workers' desire to form a union with confrontational tactics." Those tactics include "a series of meetings that demoralized and disempowered the group," according to the CWA. Continued here S37 How to change the subtle money habits that shape your daily spending Habits shape our lives without us even noticing—from brushing our teeth in the morning to scrolling through our phones before falling asleep.  “In the course of your day, about 40% of the things you do are habits,” says Dr. Moran Cerf, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University. “All of this happens behind the scenes without you being aware of it.” Financial habits come in all forms. Perhaps you buy lunch every day at work, browse online stores any time you’re bored, or spend exactly what you make every month.  Continued here S55 An Asian American Grief On Sunday, I had my first Lunar New Year celebration in New York City’s Chinatown. At one point, after I had released my confetti popper and my friend had left, I stood in a park, alone in the crowd. I dug the tips of my black boots into the piles of festive red and pink paper shreds, fake flower petals, and tiny imitation $100 bills on the ground. And then I inhaled, holding the breath in my lungs for a few extra seconds before releasing it back into the cold air. The festivities were a precious moment of joy in what has otherwise been a difficult few years for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. We needed this, I thought. Then, sitting on a bench adorned with purple silly string, I found out about the Saturday night mass shooting at a dance studio in Monterey Park, a majority Asian city in California. I knew that the popping sounds around me were firecrackers and not gunshots. But I couldn’t help thinking that Lunar New Year festivities would be an easy target, that no one would even register the first shot. I sealed the thought into the part of my brain where I store memories of violent attacks on Asian people in America—vivid enough to feel, numb enough to stay sane. My parents asked me, over a video call, if I had seen the news. Continued here S47 These scientists created jewelry out of the striking shapes of chaos theory A team of Italian scientists has figured out a way of turning the striking, complex twisting shapes of chaos theory into actual jewelry, according to a new paper published in the journal Chaos. These pieces aren't simply inspired by chaos theory; they were directly created from its mathematical principles. Continued here S42 Lawsuit: Twitter stopped paying rent at headquarters after Musk took over Twitter is being sued for alleged nonpayment of rent by the owner of its US headquarters building in San Francisco, the latest of several lawsuits saying Twitter stopped paying bills after Elon Musk bought the company. Continued here S65 How to Get Press for Your Company Yes, this is very meta. A press piece on getting in the press. Continued here Contributors Dharmendra Kumar Priya Ranjan Powered by Blogger.