David Lidsky's Blog, page 3144
October 20, 2014
5 Ways To Upgrade Your Brain Before Lunch
Before you begin the second half of your day, and the drowsy post-lunch lull takes hold, try these simple tips for perking up.
For as long as I can remember, I have been in pursuit of optimal performance and health. Even in high school, somehow, I had enough sense to know that food is information, and though we may find within ourselves the most advanced operating system in the universe, there is still much room for optimization.
October 17, 2014
Grover And Kid President Campaign To Warm Up The Lives Of Homeless People
...Starting with this warm & fuzzy video.
An estimated 600,000 people live on the streets every night in the U.S. It's a dismal statistic that 10-year-old YouTuber Kid President and lovable Sesame Street monster Grover simply won't stand for.
William Ronan, Who Masterminded NYC's Transportation Network, Dies
Ronan, who passed away on Wednesday at 101 years old, was one of the most powerful officials in New York history.
William J. Ronan, one of greatest power brokers in the history of New York City transportation, died this week.
Google Improves Search Engine To Battle Copyright Piracy
Avast ye matey! Finding pirated content on Google is about to get more difficult.
Google is rolling out an update to its search engine next week that will downrank websites containing pirated content.
Don't Like Twitter's Recommended Tweets? Too Bad, They're Here To Stay
Twitter says the experiment yielded "user enjoyment," so they made it permanent.
A few months ago, Twitter started experimenting with inserting recommended tweets into users' timelines whether they follow the tweeter or not. Like it or not, Twitter announced this morning that the practice is now permanent.
Getting Lucky, Being Yourself, And Addressing The Big Questions: This Week's Most Popular Leadership Stories
From becoming luckier to not "trusting karma," this week we called out all kinds of misconceptions about work.
From luck to so-called "karma," this week we called out the misconceptions around women's career issues, and our own personal crises.
Ron Klain Is America's New Ebola Czar
The former Gore and Biden aide's backstory includes cameos from AOL and Solyndra.
The United States now has an official Ebola czar. Ron Klain, a former chief of staff for Al Gore and Joe Biden (portrayed by Kevin Spacey in the HBO film Recount), was 
6 Ways Autonomous Cars Could Change Everything
Autonomous cars could also have all sorts of unanticipated effects, like reversing urbanization and putting an end to parking.
Given how central driving is to our lives, there will be a big adjustment when computers do the work for us. Self-driving will bring more convenience, but it could mean something more: a fundamental shift in how we organize our days, how we get around cities, and where we live.
Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough? Don't Put Your Money On It
Despite what you may have heard, Lockheed Martin probably didn't find a way to create clean and renewable nuclear power.
There are a couple of science and technology challenges so difficult that anyone promising they've made a "breakthrough" should be met with more than a few raised eyebrows.
This Company Is Putting The Homeless To Work--As Tour Guides
Barcelona's Hidden City Tours is a social enterprise that is changing lives one tourist attraction at a time.
When Lisa Grace was on maternity leave from her marketing job in Barcelona, her employer fired her. The British expat could have returned home to take advantage of the more woman-friendly employment laws in the UK. But not only did she stay--she figured out a way to make her adopted city even better. Three hundred plus tours later, her Hidden City Tours has found success and made an impact in the lives of some of Barcelona's most marginalized citizens.
As opposed to typical tours, where large groups of people follow a hapless leader who continually counts off to make sure someone hasn't been lost, Hidden City Tours average just four people at a time, so the experience is more intimate.
And there is another marked differences. At Hidden City, which launched in 2013, the walk is led by a formerly or currently homeless person. They will show visitors the Gaudis, Las Ramblas, and the other sites that make Barcelona one of the most visited cities in the world. But beyond the attractions, they share real stories about real lives. They are human faces to the economic crisis that swept Europe and crippled Spain financially. "Our guides have much life experience, empathy, and I'd say almost a sixth sense from years of living on the street," says Grace, who currently employs five people.
Some may hasten to call her business a charity. After all, she is bringing money and opportunity to a population in need, as Barcelona currently has more than three thousand homeless. But Grace is adamant in pointing out that Hidden Tours is in no way a charity, it is a social enterprise. "A charity is a body that receives donations and grants. We are a company that offers a service, a quality service," she says about the business that was initially self-funded and now supports itself via tour profits. "We receive no funding or donations. A social enterprise must be economically viable, otherwise it just causes more problems for society."
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