David Lidsky's Blog, page 224

Housing market shift: Where home prices are starting to fall

The Freddie Mac House Price Index tracks 384 metro-area housing markets. Here’s what the latest data shows.

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How Lorne Michaels manages creative people after 50 years of ‘Saturday Night Live’

Susan Morrison, author of a new biography on Michaels, reveals management lessons from the ‘SNL’ creator.

When he first gathered his newly assembled team to write the 1975 premiere episode of Saturday Night Live (then called, NBC’s Saturday Night), creator Lorne Michaels started with a simple credo: “Let’s make each other laugh, and if we do, we’ll put it on television and maybe other people will find it funny.”

Why good design remains a luxury for U.S. childcare

Children spend the majority of their waking hours in daycare. But in a woefully underfunded system, there’s rarely budget to build inspiring spaces.

Getting a preschool-age child, let alone dozens of them, to wash their hands can be an exhausting chore. At Family Connections preschool in the Portola neighborhood of San Francisco, that used to be a constant challenge and frustration for educators. Without an outdoor sink, students’ outdoor activities were interrupted anytime a hand got dirty, as the whole group had to take a trip back inside, says executive director Yensing Sihapanya, noting how that would eat up precious minutes that could have been spent playing and learning.

But in 2021, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), a community development financial institution (CDFI), poured grant money into San Francisco early learning centers to make needed repairs and upgrades. At Family Connections, which received $183,000 total, that meant swapping out old Ikea cabinets for better wood furniture, knocking a hole in the wall for more outdoor access, spending $17,000 for indoor lights that didn’t flicker and interrupt circle time, and $23,000 for the outdoor sink, which was finally installed this past January. 

Budgeting is easy if you approach it like you’re doing laundry

The process of budgeting may be simple, but it’s far from easy. If you’ve struggled to create and maintain a working budget, these guidelines can help you get a handle on your money.

Years ago, I asked my born-organized sister how she managed to keep her place looking so nice all the time. She gave me an odd look and replied, “I put things away when I’m done with them.” I’m reminded of this infuriating conversation whenever I read most introductory budgeting advice.

Tesla showrooms are being hit by a wave of anti-DOGE protests

On TeslaTakedown.com, citizens are planning protests at Tesla locations across the country (and world) in hopes of tying negative sentiment about CEO Elon Musk’s DOGE activities to the company’s stock price.

Last Monday, inspired by reading about a small protest of Elon Musk and DOGE that happened at a Tesla charging station in Maine, Joan Donovan decided to make a digital flyer inviting people to join her at a protest this weekend at a Tesla showroom in Boston. Days later, the idea has grown organically into more than three dozen protests at Tesla showrooms across the country.

This audio erotica app is seducing listeners with women-centric stories—read by ‘hot priest’ Andrew Scott and others

Hundreds of thousands of listeners are smitten with audio platform Quinn and its growing library of creator-driven erotica.

Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy novel Onyx Storm stormed the book charts in January, becoming the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years. Indeed, demand for romance content—in books, on screens, and on TikTok—has grown exponentially in recent years. Enter audio erotica company Quinn. Founded by 27-year-old Caroline Spiegel, the 6-year-old platform publishes dozens of creator-driven, female-centric erotic audio stories each week.

These are the legal risks of bringing workers back to the office

Legal experts say that as RTO policies become more stringent, employers could open themselves up to many more discrimination claims.

Leading up to 2025, major companies like Amazon and JPMorgan did away with remote work altogether, requiring employees to return to the office five days a week—a departure from the more flexible policies that had been popularized after the pandemic. Even as they contend with a lack of workspace and complaints from workers, employers have pushed forward with the return to office.

Apple finally lets you merge two Apple IDs—kinda. Here’s how

Anyone with more than one Apple ID knows how frustrating things can get. Now you can do something about it.

A few years ago, I chronicled the journey I went on to manually merge two Apple ID accounts into one.

Americans still believe they live in a compassionate country, report shows

The desire to help others still animates many Americans despite the nation’s current polarization and divisive politics.

Compassion comes easily to me.

A ‘true crime’ YouTube channel’s videos got millions of views. It turns out the stories were AI-generated

The channel’s creator claimed he was trying to make viewers reflect on their obsession with lurid true crime.

A popular “true crime” YouTube channel has been pulling in millions of views with videos about gruesome murders. As it turns out, none of them are real.