David Lidsky's Blog, page 4774

Apple iPad's Launch Day Attracts Goofballs and Celebrities, Sells Estimated 700,000 Units

The entire internet exploded with the word iPad today. Nine out of ten tweets in my Twitter feed are iPad-related, from such varied sources as cookbook writer extraordinaire Michael Ruhlman, comedians like Paul Scheer, Steve Agee, and Conan O'Brien, and Greatest American Roger Ebert. (Andrew WK, for the record, spent the day tweeting about bananas, and opined that "when you eat bananas, you're partying hard.") Here are the various first-day shenanigans you should know about.

Piper Jaffray...

Will a McDonald's April Fools Joke Become a Wake-Up Call for Its Sustainability Plans? [Updated]

Update: On April 3, McDonald's spokesperson Ashlee Yingling sent us this
statement: "We read
this story as a fun April Fools Day joke. Many readers got a laugh out
of it, as did we. As much as we appreciate humor, McDonald's is serious
about Corporate
Responsibility. We have a long track record of industry leadership in
community involvement, environmental protection, animal welfare,
diversity and opportunity, and we work with our suppliers to help
improve their practices. Each year...

iPad vs. a 5-Year-Old [Video]

A few months ago, I dropped my iPhone and cracked the screen. After replacing it, I put a screen guard on the old one and gave it to my son, Cash, who's five. Within days, he had mastered almost
everything but the volume button. Occasionally, long after he was
supposed to be asleep, I'd hear 30-second blasts of Rob Thomas, Justin Bieber, or
Lady Gaga coming from his bedroom--he'd figured out how to go to the
iTunes store and was playing samples of top hits. If he knew my iTunes password...

Will a McDonald's April Fools Joke Become a Wake-Up Call for Its Sustainability Plans?

"McDonald's announced
this morning that it would discontinue plans for a worldwide
composting initiative after scientists confirmed that no
item on the McDonald's menu is compostable," read environmental Web site Grist's top story on April 1, 2010. "McDonald's halted the plan after scientists at the University of
California-Berkeley discovered that none
of the items on the McDonald's menu would compost in the next 500
years."

Out of the over-abundance of April Fools stories posted...

What Do Obama's New Fuel Economy and Emissions Standards Mean for Automakers?

After decades of hemming and hawing, the U.S. government has finally hashed out concrete fuel economy and emissions standards for cars and trucks. The new rules, generated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Environmental
Protection Agency, are contentious, to say the least. Here's why.

Beginning with 2012 model vehicles, automakers have to improve the fuel economy of their fleets and cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 5% each year through 2016. That means 2016...

TerraCycle Pop-Up Shop Arrives at NYC's Port Authority

We're big fans of TerraCycle, the upcycling company that turns trash into trash cans, Frito-Lay bags into speakers, and snack bags into totes. The company's wares can be purchased online and in select stores (i.e. Walmart) but up until now, there hasn't been a one stop shop for TerraCycle goods. Enter TerraCycle's pop-up Green Up Shop, now located in NYC's Port Authority until May 1.

The shop, set up in honor of Earth Month, offers everything TerraCycle sells, including cereal box notebooks...

Survey Reveals Bloggers Think They're Journos, Journos Don't do Real Time

The writing is on the wall for the future of journalism, with new research scoring the words more deeply into the plasterwork: 52% of bloggers surveyed by PRNewswire refer to themselves as journalists. The Web and e-publishing is only going to make this more relevant.

I've written about this topic previously, and we discuss matters like it a lot here at FastCompany.com, so it's fascinating to see so many hard figures in this survey underlining the points we make. PRNewswire surveyed over...

FashionStake Funds Designers as Well as Your Wardrobe

My wardrobe, like those of many of my girlfriends, is always in need of a feed. Such consumption habits are manna to the ears of up-and-coming fashion designers. But the cost of retail overheads often nixes their profits into nothingness, forcing them to rely on awards in order to keep their companies afloat. So they must be licking their chops to hear about a venture called FashionStake that is on the cusp of going live.

Headed by a Harvard Business School grad, FashionStake aims to sell...

Oil Companies--Some Run by Former Bush Officials--Make a Risky Move Into Kurdistan

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Photograph by Dan Winters

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An Iraqi Kurdish soldier stands guard at the Tawke oil field in the Dohuk province of Iraqi Kurdistan. | Photograph by Muhannad Fala'ah/Getty Images

In their haste to tap Kurdish reserves, dozens of oil companies -- several fronted by former Bush officials -- have undercut U.S. policy and fanned sectarian tensions in Iraq. They may also lose a fortune.

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Map by Mike Reagan

Infographic: Combustible 

The Tawke oil field, just south of Iraq's mountainous border with...

How to Prevent and Treat Student Loan Debt

Thinking about going back to school for a new career? It's a tempting option during tough economic times. But if your career path doesn't work out as planned, your resulting debts may end up limiting your options instead of widening them. The "national student debt"--the total outstanding student loan balance
in the United States--is approximately $730 billion, and growing. Debt like this prevents people from taking risks, being entrepreneurial, or moving to a new city in search of...