What's on Your Mind?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1, raising the stakes for families nationwide as the government shutdown drags on. The new notice comes after the The President administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democr…

President Donald The President responded to this weekend’s massive ‘No Kings’ protests with an AI-generated video of him in a fighter jet, dropping what appears to be sewage (or poop) on American protesters, and told reporters on Sunday that the nearly 7 million people who attended the nationwide rallies “are not representative of the people of our country.” “The regime can’t decide if this was a violent insurrection or if it was such a bust that it never happened, but regardless, The President is clearly pissed,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the protest’s organizing group, Indivisible, said in a statement emailed to Fast Company. In that 19-second video, …

I recently had an unsettling rideshare experience. Let me paint a visual picture. You have a Tesla doing its self-driving thing, a guy just sitting in the driver’s seat “supervising,” and a terrified human (me) in the backseat looking on in horror. Finally, I said, “Please keep your hands on the wheel when you’re driving me, OK?” Tesla’s autonomous functionality might be safe, but I don’t have enough trust yet to allow a Tesla to get me from Point A to Point B without a human steering it. There’s a parallel between self-driving cars and the current perceptions of AI and agents. You might be comfortable letting one of these automobiles make a simple right-hand …

“ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.” How many times have you seen that message? More importantly, how many times have you actually stopped to consider what it means? No doubt you’ve noticed it—along with millions of others who now rely on AI for everything from planning product launches and rewriting emails to turning their beloved pets into cartoons. The adoption speed has been remarkable. In just a few years, AI has gone from a buzzword to a daily fixture in countless workplaces. And for many, it’s already hard to remember what work looked like without it. Like anything that makes life easier, it’s easy to see why it caught on so quickl…

National Leadership Day, which takes place every Feb. 20, offers a chance to reflect on what truly defines leadership – not just strategy or decision-making, but the ability to build trust. In an era of rapid change, when teams look to leaders for stability and direction, trust is the invisible currency that fuels organizational success. As an economist, I know there’s a lot of research proving this point. I’ve conducted some myself, including work on how trust is essential for leaders in cross-cultural business environments. In an expansive study of China’s fast-paced restaurant industry, my colleagues and I found that leaders who cultivate trust can significantly re…

Your smartphone is only as good as the charge it holds. It doesn’t matter if you have the newest flagship iPhone or Android—when the device’s battery dies, all the bells and whistles don’t mean diddly. And manufacturers know it. For years, Apple and Google have managed to pack increasingly larger-capacity batteries into the phones they make. The larger the battery, the longer your phone can stay charged. But in recent years, both companies have also been turning to software features on their phones’ operating systems to help maximize battery life. Apple added several software-based battery maximization enhancements in iOS 26. Google has done the same with its popu…

No matter how flashy a smartphone might be, how many features it touts, it has a single piece of technology packed inside that is more important than any other: the battery. When it runs dry, your smartphone can no longer be the world’s best camera or the ultimate communication device. It is nothing more than a useless slab of glass and metal. Which is exactly why manufacturers do everything they can to prolong battery life. Over the past several years, Apple has been cramming higher-capacity batteries into its smartphones so that they last longer on a single charge. The company has also been optimizing its software to prolong the iPhone’s juice. In iOS 26, Apple…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. I like thinking on paper. That’s why I’ve got a box under my desk with 27 old idea notebooks. But when I’m looking for a specific note scrawled early in 2020, digital notes are helpfully searchable. Given that paper and digital have distinct advantages, I’ve been experimenting lately with hybrid approaches. Read on for what I’ve found to be most useful. My current notebook of choice: The reMarkable Paper Pro What it is: A specialized paper tablet originating from Oslo, Norway that feels like a cross between a Ki…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. When’s the last time you fielded a tech support call from a parent? You want your parents—or anyone you support—to benefit from email, photo sharing, and video calls. You also have to protect them from scams, malware, and unnecessary complexity. Or maybe you are that parent and want to stay safe online. Either way, today’s post aims to support you. I periodically help my parents make sense of confusing WebEx conferencing instructions or Microsoft Word settings. So when Wonder Tools reader and tech expert Pa…

Yesterday, Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) shareholders overwhelmingly approved the controversial and historic pay package deal for the electric vehicle maker’s CEO, Elon Musk. That package is worth up to nearly $1 trillion in compensation for Musk—provided the company reaches certain milestones. But if those milestones are met, it would make Musk, already the world’s richest man, the world’s first trillionaire. Here’s what you need to know about the historic pay package and how investors and Tesla’s shares are reacting to the news. What’s in Musk’s historic Tesla pay deal? At Tesla’s investor meeting yesterday, over three-quarters of shareholders voted to approve M…