David Lidsky's Blog, page 301

Who is Jared Isaacman? Trump pick for NASA administrator is a billionaire who paid for 2 SpaceX flights

Isaacman, founder of credit card payments company Shift4 Payments, is closely connected to Elon Musk, posing a potential conflict of interest.

President-elect Donald Trump announced today that his nominee for NASA administrator is Jared Isaacman. This is a position that requires confirmation by the Senate, which the Republicans control in a 53-to-47 majority. The incoming president made the announcement on Truth Social, which he partially owns.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is ‘not that worried’ about Musk’s influence in the Trump administration

Altman told a ‘New York Times’ conference that he ‘may turn out to be wrong,’ but he strongly believes that Musk will do the right thing.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who is in a legal dispute with rival Elon Musk, said he is “not that worried” about Musk’s influence in the incoming Trump administration.

Turn off your away message. A24’s Y2K microsite just brought back AIM

Time to fire up your modem.

If you’re nostalgic for the internet of the 1990s, there’s a microsite for that.

Raw milk recall in California expands after more bird flu virus is found

The move followed recalls for two lots of Raw Farm products after bird flu was first detected in retail milk on Nov. 21.

A California farm expanded a recall of raw milk sold in stores and halted production after state health and agriculture officials found bird flu virus in more milk samples.

A major space sector trade group is getting a brand refresh

The newly named Commercial Space Federation has a fresh mandate and a heightened focus on political action.

The trade association formerly known as the Commercial Spaceflight Federation is getting a new name, a concise mandate, and a way to support the politicians who support space. 

Cargill is laying off thousands of workers

The food production company said that the cuts were part of a long-term strategy ‘to strengthen Cargill’s impact,’ which includes realigning resources.

Agribusiness giant Cargill is laying off thousands of its employees.

Trump vows to block Japan’s Nippon Steel from buying U.S. Steel. Here’s how

Trump is pledging to use tax incentives and tariffs to strengthen the iconic American steelmaker.

President-elect Donald Trump is underscoring his intention to block the purchase of U.S. Steel by Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel Corp., and he’s pledging to use tax incentives and tariffs to strengthen the iconic American steelmaker.

Amazon’s AWS unveils new supercomputer with its AI chips in a challenge to Nvidia

Apple is coming aboard as a customer to use them.

Amazon.com’s cloud unit on Tuesday showed new data center servers packed with its own AI chips that will challenge Nvidia, with Apple coming aboard as a customer to use them.

Job market had more openings and fewer layoffs in October

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the Labor Department also showed employers hesitant to hire more workers.

U.S. job openings increased solidly in October while layoffs dropped by the most in 1-1/2 years, suggesting the labor market continued to slow in an orderly fashion.

Could Elon Musk get rid of daylight saving time?

The first thing on the chopping block for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s DOGE might be changing the clocks.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have announced plenty of controversial proposals for their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but there are some that are managing to gather bipartisan support. Case in point? The fate of daylight saving time.