Lessons from Tesla's Approach to Innovation

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How Transparency at Banks Changes Deposit Flows Higher bank disclosures bring volatility to uninsured deposits, and also hurt bank funding costs and profitability, according to a paper co-authored by Wharton’s Itay Goldstein. Many bank depositors may not know if their bank is financially healthy or weak, or whether it has made too many risky loans that threaten its future. But contrary to popular perceptions, depositors do care about their bank’s financial health, and about whether federal deposit insurance will protect their savings. How transparent banks are about their finances will help depositors decide on where they want to park their savings, according to a recent paper by experts at Wharton and elsewhere. Continued here

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Could Climate Impact Labels Change the Way We Eat? Warnings on fast-food menus might make Americans think twice about choosing beef, a new study finds Labels describing the climate impact of dishes on fast-food menus could encourage Americans to eat more sustainably, a new study finds. Continued here

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Why Your Company Needs a Team of Leaders, Not Just One The best chance of learning comes from someone next to you. Continued here

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What to Know About the 'Most Transmissible' Covid-19 Variant XBB.1.5 is the fastest-spreading variant in the country, but it is not known to cause more severe illness than previous ones A few weeks ago, a new offshoot of the Covid-19 Omicron variant made up only a small portion of cases in the United States. Now, it’s the fastest-growing sub-variant, on track to become the most prevalent one circulating in the country. Continued here

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Why Jeremy Siegel Is Cautiously Optimistic About 2023 The worst of inflation is over, the Federal Reserve may begin to pare the funds rate, and equities are undervalued, says the Wharton professor emeritus of finance. Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel speaks with Wharton Business Daily on Sirius XM about his predictions for 2023. Continued here

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10 Red Flags to Watch Out for in a Job Interview While no one can perfectly predict how a new job will turn out, staying alert to potential red flags during the interview process can help weed out sub-optimal employment options. Being observant in your interviews as well as attuned to how the process is managed, asking good follow-up questions, and doing your due diligence can help mitigate the chances of making a bad decision. Here are 10 red flags to look out for. Continued here

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Why Beijing Wants Jimmy Lai Locked Up Tightening its grip on Hong Kong, China is determined to make an example of the prodemocracy media tycoon. HONG KONG—When Beijing imposed the national-security law on Hong Kong in 2020, its goal was not simply to stifle free expression and lock up dissenters. The idea was to subordinate every institution in the city, leaving the “one country, two systems” framework that granted autonomy to the Chinese territory an empty slogan. Henceforth Beijing would no longer tolerate criticism from Hong Kong, or protests on its streets. Continued here

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Don't Just Focus on Your Technical Skills. Focus On Your People Skills. Early in their careers, young professionals tend to focus on the technical skills that will help them get the next promotion. These skills are certainly useful, but they won’t help you get the promotions down the line. The author identifies three strategic interpersonal skills that young professionals should focus on to shape their future career development: Continued here

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What You Need to Know About Launching a Startup Right Out of College In the fall of 2020, when the world was in lockdown, Kris Christmon, a life sciences Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland, USA, was surprised to learn that entrepreneurship was a career option for her. When the university announced a competition to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture and environmental sustainability, Christmon decided to give it a shot. Her team pitched an idea around recycling plastics and won the first prize. Continued here

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The January 6 Attack Is Not Over This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. On the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden decorated Americans for courage during the unrest, while on Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives remained in limbo as many of the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election bickered over electing a speaker. Continued here

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Apple rolls out AI-narrated audiobooks, and it's probably the start of a trend Apple's digital storefronts now offer audiobooks recorded by artificial narrators instead of humans in a sound booth. The audiobooks are listed in the Books app as "Narrated by Apple Books." Continued here

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Damar Hamlin's Collapse Highlights the Violence Black Men Experience in Football The “terrifyingly ordinary” nature of football’s violence disproportionately affects Black men Millions of people watched as Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old player in the National Football League (NFL), executed a seemingly routine tackle during a highly anticipated Monday Night Football game. Immediately after, Hamlin rose to his feet and then collapsed. Players from his team, the Buffalo Bills, and the opposing team, the Cincinnati Bengals, created a tight huddle around him on the field as medical personnel tried to revive him. We learned the next day that Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest; his heart had suddenly stopped working. Continued here

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What to Do When You Become Your Friend's Boss How many hours will you spend with your coworkers over the course of your lifetime? If your job is a typical 9 to 5, that means you’ll spend around eight hours a day, five days a week, for roughly 40 years, with the various people you work with. That equates to almost 90,000 hours total. So, a very long time. Continued here

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I’m Sorry, but This COVID Policy Is Ridiculous Cases have surged in China since it dropped its zero-COVID policy in December, and the latest models now suggest that at least 1 million people may die as a result. Many countries have responded by policing their borders: Last week, the CDC announced that anyone entering the United States from China would be required to test negative within two days of departure; the U.K., Canada, and Australia quickly followed suit; and the European Union has urged its member states to do the same. (Taking a more extreme tack, Morocco has said it will ban travelers from China from entering altogether.) At a media briefing on Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “It is understandable that some countries are taking steps they believe will protect their own citizens.” On Tuesday, a Chinese official denounced some of the new restrictions as having “no scientific basis.” She wasn’t wrong. If the goal is to “slow the spread of COVID” from overseas, as the CDC has stated, there is little evidence to suggest that the restrictions will be effective. More important, it wouldn’t matter if they were: COVID is already spreading unchecked in the U.S. and many of the other countries that have new rules in place, so imported cases wouldn’t make much of a difference. The risk is particularly low given the fact that 95 percent of China’s locally acquired cases are being caused by two Omicron lineages—BA.5.2 and BF.7—that are old news elsewhere. “The most dangerous new variant at the moment is from New York—XBB.1.5—which the U.S. is now busy exporting to the rest of the world,” Christina Pagel, a mathematician who studies health care at University College London, told me. “I’m sorry, but this is fucking ridiculous.” Continued here

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A New Map Tracks the World's Largest Glaciers Scientists recently created the first systematic ranking of Earth’s largest glaciers. They started by comparing inconsistent databases to select the forms that best fit the definition of a glacier—a long-lasting, flowing mass of ice. Determining the borders of individual glaciers, however, is challenging. Ice caps, for example, move in multiple directions, so more than one glacier may be part of a single source. “Flow divides can be difficult to calculate,” says co-author Bruce Raup of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). At lower elevations, glaciers can converge, making it unclear whether they count as one or more bodies. Despite the challenges, the results tabulate more than 200,000 glaciers and glacier complexes (glaciers that share a common border). Seller Glacier and the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Body top the list, respectively. “The more accurately we can map glacier outlines, the better we can track their melting due to climate change,” says lead author Ann Windnagel of the NSIDC. Continued here

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We Asked ChatGPT and Sophia the Robot to Predict the Impact of A.I. on the Business World. Here's What They Said More businesses are expected to integrate artificial intelligence technology into their operations and decision-making processes in 2023. Continued here

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How to Move Past an Embarrassing Moment at Work You’re going to feel embarrassed at some point in your career. The worst thing to do afterwards is tear yourself down. It’s not productive to invalidate your feelings or use your mistakes as an indication of your worth. You did something that drew unwanted attention, and it’s perfectly reasonable that you’d want to hide for awhile. But do come out of hiding. Here are a few ways to move past an embarrassing moment at work: Continued here

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How to Manage Your Time: Our Favorite Reads I was recently asked by a friend (let’s call her Alex) if I’d rather have more money or time. “What am I going to do with all the money if I don’t have time to spend it on things that bring me joy, like doing this pottery class with you?” I said. My answer didn’t seem to surprise her. Continued here

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Archaeologists Unearth Viking Hall in Denmark Archaeologists in Denmark have discovered the remains of a large structure that likely dates to the late Viking Age. They say it may have once functioned as a community hall, hosting political gatherings and other events between the late 9th and early 11th centuries. “This is the largest Viking Age find of this nature in more than ten years, and we have not seen anything like it before here in North Jutland,” says Thomas Rune Knudsen, the excavation leader and an archaeologist with North Jutland Museums, in a statement, per Google Translate. Continued here

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Cofounders Need to Learn How to (Productively) Disagree While there are many factors to consider on the road to success, one lies directly within your control. Sixty-five percent of startups fail due to founder conflict, according to Noam Wasserman, author of The Founder’s Dilemmas. That means, if you want your new venture to beat the odds, you need to learn how to productively collaborate, and more importantly, disagree with your business partner. Continued here

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Why Business Owners Should Focus on Personalization in 2023 At CES in Las Vegas, executives from a variety of industries spoke about the importance of brands getting personalization right. Continued here

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Ancient Roman concrete could self-heal thanks to "hot mixing" with quicklime The famous Pantheon in Rome boasts the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome—an architectural marvel that has endured for millennia, thanks to the incredible durability of ancient Roman concrete. For decades, scientists have been trying to determine precisely what makes the material so durable. A new analysis of samples taken from the concrete walls of the Privernum archaeological site near Rome has yielded insights into those elusive manufacturing secrets. It seems the Romans employed "hot mixing" with quicklime, among other strategies, that gave the material self-healing functionality, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. Continued here

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Critical Soft Skills for Executive Success Soft skills are an important aspect of any hire and executives are no exception. Continued here

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To Be Consistently Successful, You Must Find Value in the Ordinary Thinking that success only comes from being extraordinary couldnegatively impact you;instead,focus on makingthe biggest impact with what you already have. Continued here

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How I Became a Morning Workout Person In theory, I’ve always been a “morning workout” person: I’ve listened to inspiring TED Talks on the benefits of exercise, read articles about why moving before work is better for your brain, and spent countless evenings with my eyes glued to morning workout routine YouTube videos, vowing to go running as the sun comes up just like the vloggers. Continued here

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Harvard professor argues for rationality There is no force in the Universe called progress. But there are plenty of natural forces that only seem to make it harder for us to make progress as a species, such as disease, the laws of entropy, and the dark sides of human nature. So, what pushes humanity forward in the face of all these obstacles? To psychologist Steven Pinker, the answer is rationality. When people use their reasoning skills and other cognitive abilities to help improve the lives of others, the result is progress. Continued here

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‘Women Talking’ and How a Single Conversation Can Mean Life or Death Sarah Polley’s new film, Women Talking, is about “ending a world and creating a new one”—all in the space of a single debate. In a hayloft overlooking the soy fields, dirt roads, and rustic houses that make up their isolated religious colony, eight women gather for a discussion. The eldest ones lead. The youngest two braid each other’s hair. They talk and talk and talk for hours, trying to reach a decision before the men who hurt them return the next day. Often, the women nitpick one another’s words—why they’re chosen, how they’re used, and what they mean. Is “fleeing” their community the same as “leaving” it? Would forcing themselves to forgive their violators equal true forgiveness? Continued here

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How Do Customers Feel About Algorithms? Many managers worry that algorithms alienate those who would rather deal with a real person than a robot. New research from Wharton’s Stefano Puntoni looks at how the attitudes of customers are influenced by algorithmic versus human decision-making. Wharton’s Stefano Puntoni speaks with Wharton Business Daily on Sirius XM about his research on customers’ attitudes toward algorithms. Continued here

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Why not all comfort food is the same Instant ramen, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese – if someone asks you to name your comfort foods, you probably don't have to think twice. The phrase, which has been drifting around the food lexicon for decades, seems to evoke indulgences, familiar flavours, and solace in times of sadness. According to at least one writer, Liza Minnelli helped popularise the phrase in a 1970 interview with a newspaper columnist. For her, comfort food was a sumptuous hamburger. A list of comfort foods in the UK includes a full English breakfast and scrambled eggs on toast. The name seems to say it all: food you eat to comfort yourself. But is that really what we are getting from these usually high-calorie foods? As psychologists and other researchers have worked to define comfort food, they've uncovered some surprising contradictions. Continued here

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How Businesses Should (and Shouldn't) Respond to Union Organizing In 2022, workers in the United States voted to form more unions than they have in nearly 20 years, and labor has recently organized at companies in almost every industry. But most business leaders have responded in an outdated way, by embracing union busting at all costs. This ignores business risks of the modern era — and often encourages companies to break the law. In this article the authors, building on their academic and practical expertise, explain how leaders can respond much more constructively to the new wave of labor organizing.  Continued here

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The U.S. Could Help Solve Its Poverty Problem with a Universal Basic Income A universal basic income wouldn't lead to adults leaving their jobs and could lift millions of children into brighter futures When the child tax credit, first established in 1997, was expanded for a year in 2021, it was a major political and social win for the country. At a time when the pandemic had worsened many families’ financial distress, the Biden administration’s decision not only added to the amount of the tax credit and converted the payment from a year-end lump sum to monthly payments; it also abandoned the work requirement for parents. This immediately affected one third of all children in the U.S., including 52 percent of Black children and 41 percent of Hispanic children, whose families were formerly excluded because the parents earned too little to qualify for the tax credit. The tax credit expansion lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty by December 2021 without significantly reducing parents’ work participation. Continued here

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You Are Not Your Anxiety Anxiety is something I’ve lived with my entire life — from worrying about homework assignments in grade school to overthinking my college major to catastrophizing my decision to quit my first job. I didn’t always know the name for what I was experiencing, which made it even more difficult to address. Continued here

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5 Ways to Talk About Salary During a Job Interview The most nerve-wracking question of all might just be: What are your salary expectations? To gain more insight into how to answer this question in a smart way, I reached out to a few of my colleagues — across job titles, departments, industries, and levels of experience — for advice. Here’s what they had to say: Continued here

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Colin Averill: How to harness the ancient partnership between forests and fungi If we want to better understand the environment and combat climate change, we need to look deep underground, where diverse microscopic fungal networks mingle with tree roots to form symbiotic partnerships, says microbiologist Colin Averill. As we learn more about which of these fungi are most beneficial to forest health, we can reintroduce them into the soil -- potentially enhancing the growth and resilience of carbon-trapping trees and plants. Hear more about the emerging science aiming to supercharge forest ecosystems, one handful of soil at a time. Continued here

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The GOP Is a Battering Ram Against Truth Those are the words of Hope Hicks, one of Donald Trump’s most loyal aides, in a text she sent to Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff on January 6, 2021. They are a fitting epitaph for the Trump presidency. Two years ago today, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Seven people died as a result of that attempt. More than 140 police officers reported suffering injuries. One was pulled down the steps of the Capitol and then stomped on and beaten with a pole flying an American flag as the crowd chanted “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” A makeshift gallows with a noose was built outside the Capitol, not as a generalized threat but to cow one man. “Hang Mike Pence!” the mob shouted. If the insurrectionists had had the opportunity, they would have. Most stunning of all, the president of the United States encouraged the bloodlust. According to one witness, Trump’s chief of staff said at the time that the president “thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think [the mob is] doing anything wrong.” Continued here

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Aging Is Linked to More Activity in Short Genes Than in Long Genes A detailed examination of gene activity in various organisms, including humans, reveals a new hallmark of the aging process Our DNA is made up of genes that vary drastically in size. In humans, genes can be as short as a few hundred molecules known as bases or as long as two million bases. These genes carry instructions for constructing proteins and other information crucial to keeping the body running. Now a new study suggests that longer genes become less active than shorter genes as we grow older. And understanding this phenomenon could reveal new ways of countering the aging process. Continued here

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Where Is Tech Going in 2023? A group of McKinsey’s technology practice leaders have taken a look at what 2023 might hold, and offer a few new year’s tech resolutions to consider: 1) Look for combinatorial trends, in which the sum impact of new technologies create new opportunities. 2) Prep boards for tipping point technologies. 3) Relieve the bureaucratic burden on your engineers to increase their productivity. 4) Look for new opportunities in the cloud. 5) Take advantage of how the cloud is changing security. 6) Take advantage of decentralized AI capabilities — and what this technology might mean for your business model. Continued here

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Don't Underestimate Your Influence at Work The tendency towards underconfidence can also lead us to needlessly (and endlessly) search for ways to gain influence when what we really need is to get better at recognizing the influence we already have — but may not be wielding effectively. In this piece, the author offers three suggestions, not for gaining influence, but for becoming more mindful of the influence you have already but don’t always see, so you can begin to use your latent influence more wisely. Continued here

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The case for dark matter has strengthened The history of science is full of debates between opposing factions. Even today, astronomers debate big ideas — such as different models describing the motion of stars and galaxies, ranging from unseen dark matter to the claim that our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong. Each side points to different evidence that supports their position. Now, a new paper published in Nature Astronomy claims to debunk a key observation and, in so doing, strengthens the case that the Universe is full of unseen matter. Modern astronomy makes an extraordinary claim. While powerful observatories, like the Hubble Space Telescope and the newer James Webb Space Telescope, can see billions of stars and galaxies, those breathtaking pictures are just a small fraction of the matter in the Universe. In addition to the glowing stars and invisible clouds of gas that exist in the space between them, most astrophysicists believe that the cosmos is filled with a substance called dark matter that neither emits, nor absorbs, light. Continued here

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How Hisense Uses Sports Marketing to Build Brand Recognition - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM HISENSE International events efficiently connect brands to new consumers in new markets. Even before Hisense became an Official Sponsor of the FIFA World CupTM, millions of fans knew the brand, especially those who own its TVs, refrigerators, dishwashers, or air conditioners. And for millions more consumers in new markets, the brand is now familiar, and even top-of-mind, carrying positive associations with the sport they’re passionate about. Continued here

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What You Should Know About Layoffs (Before, During, and After) On the morning of September 14, 2011, I received an Outlook invite to a meeting with my manager and HR. They informed me that my position was being terminated. “You have five minutes to write the last email before you leave your laptop in this room. Your account will be disabled. We will escort you to the exit,” the HR representative said. Continued here

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Microsoft admits it should not have argued the FTC is unconstitutional Microsoft has amended its response to the Federal Trade Commission's suit trying to halt a $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, no longer claiming the FTC is unconstitutional by nature and denying the company its 5th Amendment rights. Continued here

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5 ways to set yourself up for success Most people want to be successful. It’s a powerful psychological driver, not only because we find self-worth in our achievements but also of the value society places on them. We’re infatuated by the concept, and no CEO, movie star, entrepreneur, or vaguely successful YouTuber can seem to have a conversation without someone asking, “What’s the secret to your success?” But for my money, American editor and journalist Herbert Bayard Swope gets credit for the best answer to that question. As he (allegedly) put it: “I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” Continued here

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Photos of the Week: Snow Cannons, Ski Jumping, Light Pillars New-year celebrations around the world, the 2023 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia, heavy rain and flooding in California, an ice festival in China, a traditional Epiphany parade in Spain, an inflatable dinosaur in Chile, a tiny toad at the London Zoo, and much more A reveler wearing a bearskin costume poses during the Bearskin Parade in Comanesti, Romania, on December 30, 2022. More than 200 "bears" and dozens of musicians, surrounded by police and tourists, took part in the year-end event. Young men and women dressed in real bearskin and traditional costumes paraded to chase away the evil spirits of the coming year. # Continued here

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Meet the Earth's Lawyers In March 2017, a violent storm hit the Torres Strait Islands, a scattered archipelago off Australia's northern coast. On Masig Island, a low-lying coral cay that's home to some 270 people, the wind ripped down trees, and huge tidal surges flooded houses and an old cemetery. The next day, Yessie Mosby—a power station engineer, musician, and craftsman—was walking on the beach with his children when he found the skeletal remains of his grandmother, exhumed by the storm. Her bones were lying on the sand just meters from the shore. Continued here

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We need boredom to live better lives. But social media is destroying it It’s never been easier to distract ourselves. With social media providing a constant stream of news, entertainment, and chatter, boredom can be held at bay. But in a study published November in the journal Marketing Theory, researchers from the University of Bath and Trinity College Dublin question whether this is really a good thing. Boredom, referring to a “mental state of weariness, restlessness and lack of interest in something to which one is subjected,” is generally thought of as universally bad. Essentially the opposite of a “flow state,” in which we are intensely focused on and fulfilled by an activity, boredom is to be avoided at all costs. Continued here

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The Cancellation of '1899' Marks the End of Netflix's Weird Era The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter. Earlier this week, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, the creators behind Netflix's cult smash Dark, hit Instagram with sad news: Their new series, 1899, would not be renewed for a second season, despite debuting at the end of 2022 to positive reviews and a place on the streamer's top 10 list. "We would have loved to finish this incredible journey with a 2nd and 3rd season as we did with Dark," the pair wrote. "But sometimes things don't turn out the way you planned."  Continued here

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The One Skill that Helped Me Grow in My Career You’ve bagged two job offers. They have roughly equivalent salary and benefits. The first one is that of a marketing assistant. You’ve done this before, and you have the requisite skills to do it well. The second is a similar position but comes with additional responsibilities of managing a few social media channels, which you know less about. You’ll need to invest time and energy into learning something you may not be comfortable with and push yourself out of your comfort zone.  Continued here

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Twitter Promised Them Severance. They Got Nothing Shortly after taking over Twitter, Elon Musk laid off around 50 percent of the company’s staff. On the same day, he tweeted that all those laid off would receive three months of severance pay. But, after two months of waiting for the company to say what kind of severance and benefits will be available, several former Twitter employees say they’ve heard nothing. As weeks of waiting turn into months, former staffers in the US are filing arbitration suits, while some in the UK are trying to negotiate terms. In other countries where Twitter laid off staff, people have heard nothing. Continued here

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Man's eyes turn bloody, yellow after plunge into pee-filled canal It was his yellow, bloody eyes that gave his illness away. The previously healthy 18-year-old showed up at an emergency department in the Netherlands after two days of fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. His heart was beating rapidly and his abdomen was a bit tender. Continued here

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Dealing with Guilt: Our Favorite Reads I know that my own anxiety is likely the root cause of all this guilt. I know that it paints an unrealistic picture of what’s actually happening around me. And I know that I’m being harder on myself than my (I swear, incredibly nice and supportive) boss and coworkers ever would be. But it can be hard to break free of these feelings of guilt, especially after years of fighting perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and other insecurities. Continued here

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No One Will Escape the FTX Fallout Genesis Global Trading, one of crypto’s oldest and most storied institutions, is in dire straits. In November, in the wake of the implosion of the crypto exchange FTX, the company’s lending unit was forced to freeze customer withdrawals—never a good sign. Almost two months later, Genesis is reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy. Although Genesis has not said publicly that bankruptcy is imminent (Derar Islim, interim CEO, says he remains “focused on finding a solution”), the firm is reported to have laid off 30 percent of its workforce this week—the latest sign of its financial ill-health. Continued here

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What's the Best Way to Communicate on a Global Team? Language is complex and ever-evolving. It comes with slang, idioms, and jargon — all of which are culturally-specific and may be interpreted in various ways by various people. Accurately representing our thoughts, feelings, and ideas through words is a challenge that every one of us, in every industry, faces. Continued here

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Is winter as miserable for animals as it is for us? While the weather outside may indeed get frightful this winter, a parka, knit hat, wool socks, insulated boots and maybe a roaring fire make things bearable for people who live in cold climates. But what about all the wildlife out there? Won’t they be freezing? Anyone who’s walked their dog when temperatures are frigid knows that canines will shiver and favor a cold paw – which partly explains the boom in the pet clothing industry. But chipmunks and cardinals don’t get fashionable coats or booties.  Continued here

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Will Global Emissions Plateau in 2023? Four Trends to Watch A slow economy, clean energy spending, electric vehicles and heat pumps could offset coal combustion to level carbon emissions The world’s emissions have seesawed in recent years, plunging in 2020 amid pandemic-induced lockdowns only to rebound in 2021 and likely edge even higher in 2022. Continued here

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Tipping Is Weird Now Last month, I was kind of a pain at my grocery store’s deli counter. I didn’t mean to be, but my cold-cut order was more complicated than I’d imagined. The employee had to dig around in the back to find more pepper-crusted turkey breast for me. But the service was genuinely excellent. They came back smiling and weighed it perfectly on the first try. As they handed me my payload of wrapped sandwich meat, I felt a nagging awkwardness: I wanted to tip but had no option to do so. I haltingly asked if there was a jar to drop some cash into, and they politely thanked me but said they couldn’t accept gratuity. Walking around the store, I couldn’t shake a feeling of discomfort. Why? I’d never previously felt compelled to tip at the deli counter, even when service was great. Gradually, I realized that my tipping expectations have shifted in recent years. I’m often less sure when and where and how much to tip for certain services—because it’s suddenly very normal to be asked for a tip everywhere, for a new range of goods and services. Point-of-sale machines from the likes of Toast, Square, and Clover are a convenient, flexible alternative-payment method for small and pop-up businesses. And they’ve created an inescapable tipping culture centered on quick button taps rather than loose change. Late last year, even Starbucks got on board and introduced touch-screen credit-card tipping in many of its 15,000-plus stores across the country. Continued here

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ChatGPT is enabling script kiddies to write functional malware Since its beta launch in November, AI chatbot ChatGPT has been used for a wide range of tasks, including writing poetry, technical papers, novels, and essays, planning parties, and learning about new topics. Now we can add malware development and the pursuit of other types of cybercrime to the list. Continued here

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Some details have emerged about Blue Origin's "Blue Ring" project On Wednesday, the Washington-based space company Blue Origin posted a job opening for a position titled "Blue Ring Senior Program Manager." However, the posting to the company's Workday "Careers" page was taken down less than 24 hours later—perhaps because it contained details about an advanced program the company does not yet want to discuss publicly. Continued here

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A New Year Doesn’t Call for a New You New year, new you: January is sold as the perfect time to jettison the husk of your old self and emerge from the cocoon of the holidays as a new and better person. But, as that mindset reveals, many New Year’s resolutions suffer from “a heavy dose of perfectionism,” Oliver Burkeman told my colleague Caroline Mimbs Nyce this week—an attitude that isn’t especially helpful. “I don’t think fresh starts like that are actually possible, and I don’t think aiming to make them is the healthiest way to change,” he explained. Still, the allure of a new beginning can be irresistible. For example, in Kevin Wilson’s novel Now Is Not the Time to Panic, the protagonist convinces herself that by moving away and burying her past, she can leave behind the famous catastrophe she caused in her hometown decades ago. (The incident inevitably catches up with her, and she’s forced to reckon with—and maybe even forgive—her teenage self.) But you can also try to make a change while respecting the past, instead of obliterating it. In her memoir Home/Land, the author Rebecca Mead writes about returning to the U.K. after decades away. It’s not starting over, but it is something new: Her move is inspired by a desire to give her son the same “sense of displacement” that she counterintuitively counts as one of her blessings. Continued here

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The Writer’s Most Sacred Relationship Creative partnerships can be a challenge for fragile egos—but they also provide a lifeline in difficult times. Making a living as a writer has always been an elusive pursuit. The competition is fierce. The measures of success are subjective. Even many people at the top of the profession can’t wholeheartedly recommend it. The critic Elizabeth Hardwick, Darryl Pinckney recalls in his evocative new memoir, “told us that there were really only two reasons to write: desperation or revenge. She told us that if we couldn’t take rejection, if we couldn’t be told no, then we could not be writers.” Continued here

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FDA approves new Alzheimer's treatment despite risks, unclear benefits The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted a fast-tracked approval for a new Alzheimer's disease treatment, which may slightly slow the progression of cognitive decline in the disease's early stages, but also raises risks of brain bleeds and swelling. Continued here

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Damar Hamlin’s Tragedy, Anti-vaxxers’ Gold On Monday, the Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed from cardiac arrest during an NFL game. Nearly right away—with little information about Hamlin’s condition publicly available—vaccine-disinformation purveyors hopped onto Twitter to promote the myth that athletes are dying because of the coronavirus shot. By Tuesday, according to data from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that studies disinformation and online hate, tweets containing the phrase “died suddenly” (which the group labels an “anti-vaxx trope”) had quadrupled, numbering almost 17,000—four times the daily average of about 4,000. Continued here

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Germany reminds Musk that removing disinformation from Twitter is a must Twitter CEO Elon Musk continues to deal with intense scrutiny of how his social media platform will fight disinformation with its reduced staff. Early in 2023, Musk met with Germany's digital minister, Volker Wissing, in California to discuss whether Twitter would “voluntarily comply” with an agreement Twitter previously made with the European Commission to combat disinformation. Continued here

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Google's split-screen Android Auto revamp is rolling out now After a big delay, Google's big revamp of Android Auto is finally here. This new version of Android Auto puts a big focus on a new split-screen interface, which is a lot more flexible than the old, rigid Android Auto display. This update was first shown off at Google I/O and promised in the summer of 2022, but somehow that got pushed back to CES 2023. Car apps have a lot of safety regulations to go through. Continued here

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The Best of CES 2023 If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED After a couple of years away from the madness of CES in Las Vegas, the WIRED team returned to tech's big show to see all of the latest innovations. Of all the gadgets, apps, and concepts on display, these are the products that exhibited the strongest vision of what tomorrow may look like. These products achieved this through groundbreaking industrial design, innovative engineering, and simply seeing the future and realizing it in a product you can touch, hold, ride, or wear. We're back for one final day of coverage today; follow along on our liveblog. Continued here

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Ask Ethan: Is the Universe's expansion accelerating or not? One of the biggest surprises in all of science history came at the very end of the 20th century. For the prior ~70 years, astronomers strived to measure the expansion rate of the Universe, hoping to discover what made up our Universe and to determine its ultimate fate. Quite unexpectedly, they discovered that the Universe wasn’t made up solely of matter and radiation, but was actually dominated by a novel, unexpected, and still poorly-understood form of energy: dark energy. Making up around 70% of the total energy density of the Universe today, it quickly became synonymous with a somewhat different phrase: the accelerated expansion of the Universe. But it turns out that the Universe’s expansion rate, which we measure as the Hubble constant (or, more accurately, as the Hubble parameter), isn’t accelerating or even increasing at all; it’s actually dropping. What’s the deal? That’s what Frank Kaszubowski wants to know, writing in to ask: Continued here

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The Pixel 7 is the latest smartphone with spontaneously shattering cameras The Pixel 7's biggest design change over last year was in the camera bar, which switched from a single big sheet of glass covering every camera to a solid aluminum block with smaller glass cutouts over each camera lens. The thought at the time was that less glass would lead to fewer light streaks in the camera and maybe even slightly better durability thanks to a smaller glass area. Ironically this smaller glass seems to be more prone to breaking. Tons of reports have started to pop up on Reddit, the Google support forums, and Twitter claiming the camera glass just shattered one day. Besides the hundreds of responses on Reddit and the support forums, hitting up #pixel7brokencamera on Twitter will give you an endless stream of gruesome pictures. Continued here