David Lidsky's Blog, page 2714
May 27, 2016
Gary Numan Thinks The Music Industry's Collapse Is A Beautiful Thing
We talked to synth pop pioneer Gary Numan about Moog synthesizers and the state of the music industry.
Gary Numan was an accidental pioneer. While recording with his band Tubeway Army in 1978, the British musician stumbled across the Minimoog synthesizer and began using the machine to give his songs a more electronic flavor. Despite his record label's fierce skepticism, Numan would quickly score now-recognizable hits like "Cars" and "Are Friends Electric?"
How Airbnb Made Its Payments System More Accessible To Brazilians For The Rio Olympics
Rio is now Airbnb's fourth largest city. The company has updated its payments system there so that locals can more easily use the site.
In 2014, when Brazil hosted the World Cup, the number of Airbnb listings in Rio alone rocketed from about 800 to 17,000. But most Brazilians couldn't use their preferred payment methods to book a room on the homesharing site.
Inside A Growing Movement Of Coworking Spaces For Atypical Entrepreneurs
In places like Detroit and Cleveland a grassroots coworking movement is welcoming minority and low-income entrepreneurs and artists.
Long Beach, California-based WE Labs just opened its second coworking space in the historic Packard Building, a Spanish Baroque-styled car showroom from the 1920s. Behind it is an empty lot, next door is an auto body shop, down the street are swanky new apartments, and a block away is the light rail. It looks like a textbook gentrification setting, but WE Labs's clients differ from what you'd expect at mainstream, big-city coworking spaces like those in the WeWork empire. They include a bookkeeper, a mental health services nonprofit, painters, and a roller derby-themed fashion designer. Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. - 6p.m. access is $175 per month—on the low side for coworking space in the L.A. area.
You're Using Business Jargon To Avoid Solving Problems--Here's How To Stop
You can't "drill down" and "synergize" your way out of every work-related bind.
I'd been hired to help Ross with his new firm's rebranding, but I sensed problems that ran deeper than just a stale brand. Ross was under a lot of pressure from himself as well as the firm. He was just three months in as chief marketing officer (CMO) and had moved his family cross-country to take the position. So the pressure was personal.
From Training Your Brain To Giving Up Meat: May's Top Leadership Stories
This month's top stories may help you train your brain to learn faster, rethink your diet, and whip your interview game into gear.
This month, we learned how to harness our brain's capacity to delete old information, why going meatless might make you more productive, and which interview mistakes job candidates are still making.
May 26, 2016
Is America's Strongest Biometric Privacy Law About To Be Gutted?
Facebook could win a class action lawsuit over its facial recognition feature if this BIPA amendment passes in Illinois.
One way to avoid difficult legislation is to change the law altogether.
"Twilight Zone" Mastermind On Why Your Lying Child Is Destined For Genius (Or Jail)
PBS Digital Studios animated a 53-year-old interview with Rod Serling in which he talks about childhood creativity.
"Some liars go to prison, others write television shows," said Rod Serling. Luckily for TV history, Serling falls into the latter camp—he created the kooky science fiction series The Twilight Zone in 1959.
Verizon's Multi-Billion-Dollar Play To Take On Netflix, Amazon, Google & Facebook
The telecom giant, which is in talks to acquire Yahoo, wants a piece of the digital content revolution.
It's barely noon and the teenage girls at AOL's live studio in downtown Manhattan are already doing the giggle-scream, their excitement at the sight of Beau Mirchoff, star of MTV's Awkward, bubbling over into shrieks and Snapchats.
Three Weeks With Apple's iPhone SE, A Mostly Excellent Starter iPhone
Apple hits a new price point with the new SE, but doesn't sacrifice much quality or many features to get there.
Saying this might make Apple's marketing people wail and gnash their teeth, but here goes: The company's new iPhone SE is a value phone. And its $399 price tag might be the magic sub-$400 number that gets many would-be iPhone buyers in the door and buying Apple apps, services, and content for the first time.
This Startup Promises To Make Paperwork Less Of A Nightmare For Freelancers
For a monthly fee, AND CO takes care of financial paperwork and tracks projects, offering structured support for the self-employed.
The number of nontraditional careers, from traditional freelancing to multi-job juggling in the gig economy, has only grown since the Great Recession. But taking the reins of your own employment means handling a litany of invoices, payments, expenses, and tax forms yourself. The startup AND CO launched a little over a month ago to support the freelancer lifestyle.
David Lidsky's Blog
- David Lidsky's profile
- 3 followers
