What's on Your Mind?

For NFL teams’ social media departments, May 14 is the Super Bowl. NFL Schedule Release Day has become an unofficial holiday on the league calendar. All 32 teams unveil their season schedules in the most creative and entertaining ways possible—chasing quote tweets and marketing impressions before the internet crowns a winner. This year, the Los Angeles Chargers dropped a Minecraft-inspired video, complete with a nod to a viral Starbucks altercation between NFL reporters Ian Rapoport and Jordan Schultz during the combine. “Give the Chargers every award,” ProFootballTalk posted on X. The Washington Commanders put their own spin on the classic game RollerCo…

After a record-breaking 2024 and exciting offseason, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is primed to keep the ball dribbling in 2025. The season kicks off tonight (Friday, May 16, 2025) with three exciting matchups. Here are some fun facts, history, and everything you need to know to get up to speed about the new season, including how to stream the games live. A brief history of the WNBA The WNBA was not the first professional women’s basketball league. That honor fell to the American Basketball League, which operated from 1996-1998. But it is the only one to have the support of the NBA. The WNBA was founded in 1996 and began balling in 1…

OpenAI launched a research preview on Friday of what it’s calling its most capable AI coding agent yet. Codex, a cloud-based software engineering agent, can write features, answer questions about a codebase, fix bugs, and propose pull requests for review. Several tasks can run simultaneously, and users retain full access to their computers while the agent takes anywhere from one to 30 minutes to complete a task. Since it’s still in research preview, the tool remains in early development. The company said in a blog post that it “currently lacks features like image inputs for frontend work, and the ability to course-correct the agent while it’s working. Additionally…

Adults with grown children are often still helping support them financially. And sometimes, those contributions take away from the funds they would otherwise be saving for retirement. According to a recent Savings.com survey of 1,000 U.S. adults with grown children, half regularly assist them financially. Those numbers are going up in recent years. On average, parents are shelling $1,474 monthly to help their adult children, which is about 6% more than they provided the previous year. More than 80% said they helped pay for groceries; 65% said they foot their grown child’s cellphone bill; and nearly half (46%) even fund their adult children’s vacations. Those m…

An environment conference opened in Nepal on Friday to discuss global climate change, including the impact on the highest Himalayan peaks where snow and ice are melting. The three-day conference in Kathmandu titled, “Climate Change, Mountains and the Future of Humanity,” is expected to include discussions of critical climate issues. “From the lap of Sagarmatha (Everest), the world’s highest peak, we send this message loud and clear that to protect the mountains is to protect the planet. To protect the mountains is to protect our seas. To protect the mountains is to protect humanity itself,” Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli told participants at the opening meeting.…

On Friday, cable companies Charter Communications and Cox Communications announced that they’ve agreed to merge. Charter will acquire Cox in a deal valued at $34.5 billion. This is one of the biggest deals of the year. Charter, known more widely by its brand Spectrum, is one of the largest television communications operators in the country. The proposed transaction will result in Charter acquiring Cox’s commercial fiber and managed IT and cloud businesses, and Cox will contribute its residential cable business to Charter. The joint press release noted that the merger will “create an industry leader in mobile and broadband communications services, seamless v…

Midway while sailing across the Pacific with just his cat named Phoenix, Oliver Widger reflected on why he thinks his many followers—more than a million on TikTok and Instagram—are drawn to his story of quitting his 9-to-5 job and embarking on a journey from Oregon to Hawaii. “The world kind of sucks and, like, I don’t think I’m alone in how I felt with my work,” Widger, 29, told The Associated Press on Wednesday via Zoom. “You can be making $150,000 a year and you still feel like you’re just making ends meet, you know what I mean? And I think people are just tired of that and working really hard for nothing and want a way out.” People are inspired by someone who found …

The internet wouldn’t be the same without the Like button, the thumbs-up icon that Facebook and other online services turned into digital catnip. Like it or not, the button has served as a creative catalyst, a dopamine delivery system, and an emotional battering ram. It also became an international tourist attraction after Facebook plastered the symbol on a giant sign that stood outside its Silicon Valley headquarters until the company rebranded itself as Meta Platforms in 2021. A new book, Like: The Button That Changed The World, delves into the convoluted story behind a symbol that’s become both the manna and bane of a digitally driven society. It’s a tale that trace…

Switch, PS5, and XBox might be the biggest names in video games, but David Lee and a group of entrepreneurial alums from companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta are carving out a niche market with Nex, a new alternative. The company’s Nex Playground device has sold more than 200,000 units. Instead of buying individual games, families buy a subscription-based collection of 40-plus titles. Like the old Nintendo Wii, Nex focuses on family-friendly, movement-based games. The Nex device plugs into TVs for motion-controlled experiences. Instead of controllers, the device uses a built-in camera that enables you to play games by moving your hands and feet. …

Commuters in the New York City and New Jersey area are in for what is likely to be a weekend of increased congestion and more limited transit options after the engineers who run the New Jersey Transit rail system voted to go on strike. That strike is now in effect and could continue throughout the weekend—and potentially even longer. Here’s what you need to know about the NJ Transit strike. What’s happened? On Thursday, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) announced that its members who run the trains in the New Jersey Transit Corporation, better known as NJ Transit, were officially on strike. The strike came after the BLET and NJ Transit…

It has been an odd few weeks for generative AI systems, with ChatGPT suddenly turning sycophantic, and Grok, xAI’s chatbot, becoming obsessed with South Africa. Fast Company spoke to Steven Adler, a former research scientist for OpenAI who until November 2024 led safety-related research and programs for first-time product launches and more-speculative long-term AI systems about both—and what he thinks might have gone wrong. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. What do you make of these two incidents in recent weeks—ChatGPT’s sudden sycophancy and Grok’s South Africa obsession—of AI models going haywire? The high-level thing I make of it …

When Nicholas Bloom, the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University in California, started studying working from home in 2004, “it was hard to get anyone engaged,” he says. Even in 2018, “no one had any interest whatsoever.” In 2025, that’s hard to fathom. Between the pandemic and technological advancements, WFH has become a norm among white collar workers. Not only has it normalized; it’s also destigmatized. The act that used to generate memes of Homer Simpson on the couch, prodding a distant computer with a stick has gained “positive connotations,” says Bloom. Working from home is seen as a privilege. It’s also here to stay. For their latest study,…

On weekdays, you could easily walk right past Knockdown Center, housed on an industrial stretch of road in Maspeth, Queens. The only thing that sets it apart from the neighboring auto body shops and wholesale warehouses is a rust-colored fence and a beat-up marquee that looks like it’s announcing a church rummage sale. But when Knockdown Center opens its gates at night and on summer weekends when its outdoor stage is set, the crowds of clubgoers streaming through its gate and pouring out of taxis, rideshares, and city buses is impossible to miss. The three-acre venue can accommodate up to 3,200 people inside and another 1,200 in its outdoor space, called the Ruins. …

Like most humans, I generally prefer to surround myself with people who like, value, and respect me. You know, it’s quite a nice and simple way to boost my self-esteem. And yet, after studying human behavior for many years, I am fully aware that the tendency to indulge in this self-enhancing habit is intellectually debilitating: while it feels nice to hang out with people who appreciate you, it is also a way to develop blind spots and ignore opportunities to get better, improve, and develop new skills and ideas. Montaigne warned of this in his Essays, cautioning against surrounding oneself with flattering mirrors that reflect only our vanity, not our flaws. Shakespeare…

In recent years, brands have changed their entire marketing approach in order to attract the new breed of so-called eco-conscious consumers. This is unsurprising considering the mountain of research showing the majority of people saying they care about sustainability when it comes to their purchasing decisions. But the notion of an eco-conscious mass consumer who is willing to sacrifice their own personal comfort for the planet is largely a myth. This is because, while people might “say” they support sustainable practices, their actions tell a different story. Our own research reveals that almost six in 10 (57%) American consumers say sustainability shouldn’t come…

On Running has hit 2025 at full speed, reporting Q1 earnings on Tuesday that saw the company grow sales by 43% year-over-year. It’s a reflection of the overall growth trajectory the Zurich-based athletic lifestyle brand has been on since it launched in 2010. With a healthy direct-to-consumer business, growing retail footprint (with 53 stores around the world), and cutting edge product innovation, On has built its brand around its product quality and sleek, simple design. But cofounder and executive cochairman Caspar Coppetti says that despite the healthy numbers, the brand still has plenty of room to grow, and it’s using its own unique combination of culture and…

America’s fast casual restaurants are almost universally struggling. But a few chains are betting on one universally beloved fried finger food to draw customers back into booths: the humble mozzarella stick. Over the past year or so, the fast casual sector has faced a chilling effect as inflation and rising menu prices continue to drive consumers away. Last year, chains including Red Lobster, Tijuana Flats, Buca di Beppo, and BurgerFi all sought bankruptcy protection. Others, like Dine Brands (the owner of Applebee’s and IHOP) and Darden (the owner of Olive Garden) have recently reported lackluster financial results. Amidst this dreary environment, Chili’s, the f…

Steel has long anchored modern construction, but its environmental toll is staggering: producing a single ton emits nearly two tons of CO2. Steel is also complex to manage in construction processes, which prevents smaller contractors and projects from using it. A material invented at the University of Maryland will soon offer a radical alternative. Called Superwood, it has a 50% greater tensile strength than steel and a strength-to-weight ratio that’s 10 times better. It’s lighter, tougher, and also locks away carbon. After seven years of development, the startup commercializing the technology will begin mass production this summer. “We’ve spent years perfecting o…