David Lidsky's Blog, page 3098
December 12, 2014
Is Endaga's Telco-In-A-Box The Cell Phone Solution For The Next Billion?
The company brings communication to far-away villages, and also provides the locals a built-in business opportunity. Too bad it's illegal.
The UN's International Telecommunication Union estimates that while mobile subscriptions have grown to 7 billion globally, developed countries take a far larger share, with only 69 out of every 100 Africans subscribing to mobile services, leaving roughly 340 million Africans without mobile access. Though Asia and Pacifica has a higher 89-per-100 subscription rate, that still means that 440 million people from that region are without cell access—leading to nearly a billion people without cell access worldwide. And a lot of these people—isolated on islands, in deep jungles, or cut off by mountains—aren't going to get coverage anytime soon. It's too expensive for telecommunications companies to build the grid out to them.
The "Dark Side Of The Moon" Cover Designer On The Making Of Iconic Rock Album Art
Aubrey Powell of legendary design collective Hipgnosis dishes on the making of classic album covers, from "Houses of the Holy" to "Melt."
From 1972 to 1986, London-based photography and design studio Hipgnosis—made up of Aubrey "Po" Powell, Storm Thorgerson, and Peter Christopherson—created some of the most recognizable album covers in rock music history. Their rainbow-through-a-prism graphic for Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" became a logo of sorts for prog-heads, plastered on the T-shirts of Syd Barrett-worshipping teenagers to this day. From the gold-toned collage of children clamoring over the Giant's Causeway on Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" to Peter Gabriel's creepily disintegrating face on "Melt," Hipgnosis's hallucinatory imagery was the visual equivalent of these bands' maximalist riffs and psychedelic explorations.
Inside The Uplifting, Entertaining World Of The Whistle, YouTube's Biggest Sports Network
With over 1 billion views, the year-old network for "young millennials" is changing the business—and the tenor—of sports programming.
A high school senior is profiled for her perseverance as a soccer player, musician, and volunteer; two dudes compete in an increasingly difficult dart-throwing competition; NASCAR stars admit to peeing in their race cars. These are among the most recent short-form videos posted to The Whistle Sports Network, a content hub for young people that passed 1 billion views just eight months after launching on January 1, 2014. Whistle Sports' 9.3 million subscribers makes it the largest sports destination on YouTube, followed by the NBA's channel at just under 6 million.
A Creative New Way To Encourage Employees And Support Causes At The Same Time
Teaming with You Earned It and Donors Choose, Grey New York lets employees reward each other and support NYC schools simultaneously.
Think about the last time you gave one of your coworkers a shout-out for a job well done. It's been a while, right? Now think of the last time you donated to a charity. It's been even longer, most likely. Pats on the back and philanthropy may seem like two random bullet points on life's to-do list, but employing them in concert at your organization may be a worthwhile endeavor.
Free App Friday: 5 Ways To Make A Little Extra Money
Earn some dough on the go—or at least see how others are doing it—with these mobile tools.
Could you use a little extra spending money? Say yes. Even if you don't need it, say yes. It makes the rest of us feel better.
December 11, 2014
What Happens When You Give Some Penguins An iPad? Penguin Chicks
Turns out that chasing pixelated prey is great for penguins' health—and possibly their sex drives.
We know a little iPad time can be beneficial for children. Turns out the same is seemingly true for penguins.
Family-Friendly Policies Make Us More Productive--So Why Don't We Use Them?
New research shows that the barriers and benefits associated with family-friendly policies translate across cultures.
A new study from the University of Texas at Dallas examines South Korean gender equality at work, and whether family-friendly policies affect productivity and turnover.
South Korea's labor laws around parenthood are adjusting to the significant increase in the number of females in the workforce, with the Gender Equality Employment and Work-Family Balance Support Act.
This Barbershop Quartet's "Sexual Healing" Cover Will Make You Abstinent
We hope Marvin Gaye likes a joke: It's the least sexy version of his song ever sung, delivered by Jimmy Fallon and Steve Carell.
What does it take to desexualize one of the sexiest songs on record, sung by one of the sexiest men who ever lived? Five middle-aged white guys in candy-striped blazers, that's what.
This App Wants To Take Stock Trading Away From Fat Cats And Put It In Your Hands
Robinhood, a stock trading company, is a little different from the Charles Schwabs of the world.
Since the financial crisis, the credibility of Wall Street has taken a beating. These days MBA graduates are as likely to work at socially minded start-ups as mega-banks. And day trading isn't quite the popular sport it was in the helter-skelter days of the 1990s. Helping the planet is cool. Making unthinkingly large amounts of money is not.
Here's What Will Happen This Century If We Don't Do Anything About Climate Change
Basically, a lot of death, both human and otherwise.
In case you haven't had a chance to read through the UN's huge recent report on climate change—over 2,000 pages long, and based on 9,200 peer-reviewed studies—a new interactive site called Global Weirding helps summarize how the planet may change over the rest of the century.
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