The Curse Of America’s Illogical School-Day Schedule
The average start time for public high schools, 7:59, requires teens to get up earlier than is ideal for their biological clocks, meaning many teens disrupt their natural sleep patterns every school day. The world, apparently, does not revolve around parents either. Their lives also tend to be mismatched with school-day schedules.
Is Marriage Over?
Marriage is practiced in every society yet is in steep decline globally. Is marriage collapsing because empowered women have less need for pair-bonds? Many writers trace the decline of marriage to the growing ease of single parenthood.
The Lie That Helped Build Nintendo
In 1981, a young Swede called Owe Bergsten strolled through Singapore to pass the time before his flight home. Passing a camera shop, he spotted a two-button LCD game called ‘Fire RC-04’ in the window. The story of a man, a lie, a video game handheld, and a business empire.
The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of WeWork
In less than one year, WeWork went from having a $47 billion valuation and being the darling of the venture capital world to needing an $8 billion infusion to avoid running out of money. This is the story of Adam Neumann, Softbank’s risky investment, a failed IPO and how we got here.
In The Land Of Hope And Grief
An art therapy project in an Alaska Native village helps teens talk about suicide in their community. By offering helping hands to their peers, these young people are learning to believe in themselves and preparing to guide their communities and cultures into a new era.
Printing’s Not Dead: The $35 Billion Fight Over Ink Cartridges
HP’s printer supplies business garnered $12.9 billion in sales last year, and the printer division overall represented 63% of the company’s profits. Here in the year 2020, proprietary ink cartridges remain important enough to spark a fight worth at least $35 billion.
There’s More Than One Way To Age. How Are You Doing It?
Most of us think we know what aging looks and feels like. It announces itself with wrinkled skin and gray, thinning hair. But scientists are cataloging far subtler signs of biological aging, evident long before hair is lost and skin starts to crinkle.
The Completely Correct Guide To Reclining On An Airplane
One of the touchiest subjects in all of air travel is the seat recline. To some, leaning your seat back on a flight is a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t you take that precious spare space for relief? For others, the sight of the seat in front barreling toward them is a living nightmare.
What We Get Wrong About Time
“Time” is the most frequently used noun in the English language. Most of us tend to think of time as linear, absolute and constantly “running out” – but is that really true? And how can we change our perceptions to feel better about its passing?
The Future Of Airliners?
One that could shake up the duopoly of Boeing and Airbus to force competition and new designs? Take a look at the D8, nicknamed the Double Bubble, developed by Aurura, MIT and with the help of NASA.
The Madness Of Airline Élite Status
When you fly a lot for work, as I do, you check your frequent-flier mile balance often, to provide data for competitive commiseration. Frequent fliers sometimes go to great lengths to keep their airline élite status, and those efforts are often completely out of proportion to the perks.
When A Performance Expert Battles Mental Illness
Brad Stulberg literally wrote a book on peak performance, but he had to reconsider everything after an unexpected battle with mental illness: “I felt detached from my body, as if I was in a virtual-reality video game. Soon I was completely paralyzed by the sense that I was losing my mind.”
What Great Listeners Actually Do
Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks. To the contrary, people perceive the best listeners to be those who periodically ask questions that promote discovery and insight. These questions gently challenge old assumptions, but do so in a constructive way.
How Global Trade Runs On U.S. Dollars
Nearly 90% of international transactions in 2019 were in U.S. dollars, giving the U.S. extraordinary power over nearly every entity that imports or exports anything anywhere. Here’s how the global economy runs on the U.S. dollar — and why some countries are trying to chip away at its dominance.
How To Get Up To Speed On Any Subject Quickly
When you’re in over your head, how do you quickly figure out what’s important? Is there a way to go from incompetent to in control—really, really fast? There is. Here’s how it works.
How Vacation Became Just Another Thing We’re Working On
Something’s up with retreats. Isn’t this supposed to be the age of burnout? Don’t people deny themselves vacation days and spend all their leisure time working on their side-hustles? How are retreats so popular when regular, no-frills relaxation is elusive for so many people? Maybe retreats are the future of vacations.
The Dark Side Of Electronic Waste Recycling
Electronics can be hazardous when disposed of improperly, and the Basel Action Network, or BAN, investigates the underground world of the e-waste trade. The nonprofit group secretly embeds trackers in discarded devices, then hands them to recyclers to see where they end up, exposing bad practices in the process.
How Our Home Delivery Habit Reshaped The World
The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully.
The 8-Hour Workday Is A Counterproductive Lie
The eight-hour workday started its life as a socialist dream. “Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, and eight hours rest”. There’s just one problem: It’s all but impossible to actually work for eight hours a day in the jobs so many of us now have.
The Cab Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps
Were ride-hailing companies doing enough to protect passengers from negligent drivers? Maybe Grab’s growth and its perceived triumph over Uber the day before my accident had come at a cost. Was it possible that, for all the convenience ride-hailing services offered, they were making cities less safe?
Nine Trillion Dollars: Global Trade Hi-Jacked By Criminals
Global Financial Integrity (GFI) analysts have identified a global trade ‘value gap’ of $8.8 trillion between what states declare as the value of trades with other countries – and what their trade partners declare for the same deals.