David Lidsky's Blog, page 358

October 9, 2024

Why Bradley Tusk believes mobile voting is key the health of our democracy

The political strategist talks about how to diffuse our divisive politics on the latest episode of the “Rapid Response” podcast.

As Election Day approaches, concerns about voter accuracy and the upholding of Democracy are mounting. Bradley Tusk, a political strategist and former Uber adviser, proposes a solution: mobile voting. Just as Uber revolutionized how we catch a ride home, Tusk argues that mobile voting could eliminate friction from the basic civil right to vote, and in the process, diffuse the nation’s divisive political reality. 

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Published on October 09, 2024 00:08

October 8, 2024

Hennessy’s LeBron James bottle collab is the booze brand’s latest culture move

The cognac brand is 259 years old, and still relevant.

When LeBron James picks up the bottle of Hennessy, you’re not quite sure what he’s going to do with it—until he pops it on his index finger and starts spinning it like a basketball. The fact that this simple Instagram reel quickly hit 20 million views tells you how significant a collaboration between these two mega-brands this is.

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Published on October 08, 2024 20:43

An egg recall linked to deadly salmonella in multiple states is growing: Check your cartons right now

The recall has been upgraded to the highest level by the FDA over potentially fatal health consequences. At least 65 people in nine states have been infected.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has upgraded its current egg recall from Milo’s Poultry Farms to its highest level, Class I, meaning the eggs may cause “serious adverse health consequences or death” if contaminated with salmonella.

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Published on October 08, 2024 20:07

AI pioneers win Nobel Prize in physics

Hinton, 76, helped develop a technique in the 1980s known as backpropagation, instrumental in training machines how to ‘learn’ by fine-tuning errors until they disappear.

Two pioneers of artificial intelligence — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for helping create the building blocks of machine learning that is revolutionizing the way we work and live but also creates new threats for humanity.

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Published on October 08, 2024 19:30

Here’s what the Google Play lawsuit ruling means for Android users

The final ruling in the ‘Fortnite’-maker’s court battle against Google could lead to changes in the Google Play store for Android users. Here’s what to know.

Epic Games scored a massive victory against Google Monday, when the judge overseeing the case issued his final ruling, ordering the company to largely open up its Google Play app store to competition for the next three years.

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Published on October 08, 2024 19:15

Amid hurricanes, a small business disaster loan program could run out of funds within weeks

As is typical after a disaster, the government is offering aid to small businesses that were in Hurricane Helene’s path.

The Small Business Administration could run out of money to fund disaster loans in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastation.

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Published on October 08, 2024 19:00

How a climate disaster in North Carolina is causing IV fluid shortages across the country

The nation’s largest producer of IV fluid is in North Carolina. Hurricane Helene caused it to shutter—and no one knows when it will reopen.

Hurricane Helene is now one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes since 1950, killing at least 235 people as of Tuesday. An unknown number, likely hundreds, are still missing, and more than 250,000 households from Florida to Virginia still don’t have power nearly two weeks after landfall. Recovery efforts could take months, even years, in remote parts of southern Appalachia where the destruction from historic rains and flooding was nearly total.

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Published on October 08, 2024 18:35

Roblox stock falls after Hindenburg blasts the social gaming platform over bots and pedophiles

The research firm, which has taken a short position in Roblox’s stock, released a report arguing the company does not do enough to keep children safe.

On Tuesday, Roblox—the gaming platform popular with Gen Z and Gen Alpha—saw its stock take a dive. Roblox stock fell 9.4% in early trading, even as it’s already dropped by 15% this year. As of midday trading, it’s down by around 3% today.

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Published on October 08, 2024 18:30

Why Spotify is still all-in on remote work

‘You can’t spend a lot of time hiring grown-ups and then treat them like children,’ Spotify HR chief Katarina Berg said in a recent interview.

In September, Amazon announced that it was making a drastic change to its hybrid work policy, requiring almost all employees to return to the office five days a week as of next year. Months earlier, Dell told its employees that anyone who was fully remote would no longer be eligible for promotions, effectively forcing them to return to the office or forego career advancement.

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Published on October 08, 2024 18:30

Burundi farmers unite to get fair prices for avocados

The government ramped up its efforts to organize avocado exports earlier this year as dollar shortages fueled sporadic shortages of sugar and other goods.

Farmers in a remote part of Burundi know to look for a truck parked by a highway when it is time to sell their avocados. They materialize from villages and form a crowd around the vehicle, watching closely as crews weigh and load the crated fruits.

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Published on October 08, 2024 18:00

David Lidsky's Blog

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