World of WearableArt 2023

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World of WearableArt 2023     The annual World of WearableArt international design competition took place in Wellington, New Zealand, over the weekend. Designers with backgrounds in fashion, art, architecture, design, and more were invited to showcase their creative and inventive garments. Gathered below are of some of the amazing works shown this year in Wellington. "Tears Unseen" by Carena West, New Zealand, is modeled in the Open Section, after winning the Sustainability Award during the 2023 World of WearableArt Awards Night at TSB Bank Arena, in Wellington, New Zealand, on September 22, 2023. # Continued here

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The Weirdos Living Inside Our Phones     Brian Jordan Alvarez’s ode to sitting makes him the latest comedian to wring ineffable joy out of a very viral, very silly song.We’ve just lived through what Vulture has labeled “Silly Song Summer,” during which onomatopoeias (Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam”), farcical film ballads (Barbie’s “I’m Just Ken,” The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s “Peaches”), and a Eurodance satire (Kyle Gordon a.k.a. D.J. Crazy Times’s “Planet of the Bass”) went viral. Novelty songs—fluky, hummable jokes—are nothing new, but TikTok has accelerated their production, and broadly, the cultural mood is trending toward cheesiness and wit. Continued here

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Eight Ways to Banish Misery     The philosopher Bertrand Russell knew something about unhappiness. He also knew how to overcome it.Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. Continued here

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The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last     My daughter needs a purple wig for school, and she needs it by this Friday. When I got the news Monday night, I had just one reliable option—Amazon—and the rancid-tapioca feeling that comes with using it. The problem isn’t just the company’s rough track record with worker safety, or its devastating effect on brick-and-mortar stores, or knowing that I was about to toss more data into its insatiable maw. Despite all that, I’m still a Prime subscriber.Lately, though, shopping on Amazon has become an exercise in frustration. My purple-wig search started with sponsored listings from unfamiliar brands with just a small disclosure noting that they’re advertisements. The organic results eventually do show up, offering hairpieces from brands with names such as DAOTS, MorvallyDirect, and eNilecor. Scroll only a little deeper into the sea of indigo fibers, and the sponsored items resume. Continued here

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Group-Chat Culture Is Out of Control     Here’s just a sample of group chats that have been messaging me recently: college friends, housemates, camp friends, friends I met in adulthood, high-school friends, a subset of high-school friends who live in New York City, a subset of high-school friends who are single, a group of friends going to a birthday party, a smaller group of friends planning a gift for that person’s birthday, co-workers, book club, another book club, family, extended family, a Wordle chat with friends, a Wordle chat with family.I love a group text—a grext, if you’ll permit me—but lately, the sheer number of them competing for my attention has felt out of control. By the time I wake up, the notifications have already started rolling in; as I’m going to bed, they’re still coming. In between, I try to keep up, but all it takes is one 30-minute meeting before I’ve somehow gotten 100 new messages, half of them consisting of “lol” or “right!” I scroll up and up and up, trying to find where I left off, like I’ve lost my place in a book that keeps getting longer as I read. Continued here

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A Court Ruling That Targets Trump's Persona     A New York judge’s decision undermines the former president’s image as a “deals guy.”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. Continued here

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'Every Time I Hear You, I Feel a Little Bit Dumber'     This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.Suddenly, it just tumbled out: “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.” Continued here

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Conservatives Are More Open to Seemingly Inferior Products Than Liberals Are     Dartmouth College’s Nailya Ordabayeva and Arizona State University’s Monika Lisjak photographed the purchases of customers at a Boston farmers market and surveyed the shoppers about their political leanings. They rated each person’s items on aesthetics and mapped the results against the survey responses and found a correlation: Conservatives were more likely than liberals to have bought misshapen or blemished produce. Eight subsequent studies found a similar pattern with other goods. The conclusion: Conservatives are more open to seemingly inferior products than liberals are. Continued here

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Should You Launch Products During a Recession?     Economic downturns are frightening. Consumers curb spending, companies cut costs, and we all wait anxiously for the economy to recover. In such a climate, launching a product—an expensive and uncertain endeavor in the best of times—would seem to make little sense. But a new study finds that products launched during recessions outperform on several important measures. Continued here

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Change Management Requires a Change Mindset     Every organization of every size struggles with change in some way. While midsize companies are no exception, their size offers a competitive advantage. Unlike small companies with limited resources, or large companies saddled by bureaucracy or “this is how we do it” norms, midsize companies are in the sweet spot for rethinking how to relate to change and uncertainty effectively. Helping your team develop and strengthen their change mindset should be a priority. Team discussions about one’s orientation to change could unlock hidden superpowers and create new pathways for internal mobility. This article discusses how to integrate scenario mapping into your strategic planning process to boost your “flux capacity” (your tolerance for change) and contribute to the kinds of futures you’d like to see. Continued here

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Marketing When Budgets Are Down     The general rule of enterprise finance is that marketing budgets drop like a stone at the first sign of trouble and rise like a feather once the environment is more settled. In mid-2023 we’re far from a settled state — projected GDP growth in western markets is depressingly flat, inflation is proving to be rather stubborn, and those disruptions just keep on coming. It’s tough to see a significant increase in marketing budgets in the near term. Gartner’s annual survey of hundreds of CMOs charts the evolution of marketing spending over recent history, offering guidance for how enterprise leaders can deliver results and build the capabilities to fuel growth in a time of less. Continued here

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Why Today's Leaders Need to Be Perpetual Learners     Andrew Liveris likes to defy expectations. Born to immigrant parents in the Australian outback, he would eventually rise to the top of the corporate world, taking over in 2004 as CEO of Dow Chemical. In that job, which he held for 14 years, he won widespread credit for pushing an ambitious sustainability agenda, no easy task at one of the world’s biggest chemical producers. In this episode of “The New World of Work”, he offers his thoughts on leadership in tough times. He says executives need to be far more proactive, to find ways to discern relevant facts in a society that increasingly offers competing narratives of the truth. To do this, he says, leaders need to get out to the front lines, to travel, to perpetually reinvent themselves. Continued here

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A New Approach to Strategic Innovation     Companies typically treat their innovation projects as a portfolio, aiming for a mix of projects that collectively meet their strategic objectives. The problem, say the authors, is that portfolio objectives have become standardized, and innovation projects are often only weakly related to a company’s distinctive strategy. Continued here

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10 Signs Your Company Is Resistant to Change     In their new book, Move Fast and Fix Things, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss outline five strategies to help leaders tackle their hardest problems and quickly make change. The first step is to identify the real problem you need to solve. Often that’s not clear to everyone – because people have developed a number of effective ways to tolerate the problem instead of fix it. Continued here

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How to Develop a 5-Year Career Plan     Turns out, having a long-term plan for your career can be beneficial. Taking time to actively think about your path can reduce career-related stress, increase your perceived employability, and help you connect more deeply to your purpose. Yet, a Gartner survey conducted in March 2022 found that fewer than one in three employees knows how to develop their career over the next five years. Continued here

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Getting Out of a Creative Slump: Our Favorite Reads     I know that this feeling is neither new nor permanent. Over the years, I’ve learned that a creative slump is just a phase — one that eventually passes. We all experience moments in which seemingly effortless things are a struggle. Getting up on time. Finishing that one simple task. Staying motivated enough to just make it through the day. None of this makes us unproductive. It makes us human. Continued here

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How Deep Tech Can Drive Sustainability and Profitability in Manufacturing     Companies are facing more pressure to become more sustainable while remaining profitable — and deep tech can help. Deep tech, which combines physical technologies and digital technologies, is moving out of the lab and into real-world supply chains. Younger firms, working alone or in collaboration with large companies, are doing much of the work to commercialize it. Continued here

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Eliminating Algorithmic Bias Is Just the Beginning of Equitable AI     When it comes to artificial intelligence and inequality, algorithmic bias rightly receives a lot of attention. But it’s just one way that AI can lead to inequitable outcomes. To truly create equitable AI, we need to consider three forces through which it might make society more or less equal: technological forces, supply-side forces, and demand-side forces. The last of these is particularly underemphasized. The use of AI in a product can change how much customers value it — for example, patients who put less stock in an algorithmic diagnosis — which in turn can affect how that product is used and how those working alongside it are compensated. Continued here

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Creating a Cohesive Team for Corporate Transformation Projects     Hollywood films have long been made by teams of independent contractors and employees of different production companies brought together for short-term projects. Companies have embraced this model for transformations, with data showing that 45% of the people on these projects are not regular employees. Managing a disparate group like this can be a challenge, but team leaders can overcome that by working to create one culture, making work personal, and empowering the team leader. Continued here

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Research: In Recessions, Employees Avoid Jobs with Startups     Startups typically have a tougher time raising money during recessions. But that’s not the only reason they struggle during downturns, according to new research — they also have a tougher time hiring. That’s because job seekers prefer safer options and so are more likely to apply for jobs at incumbent firms. This, alongside the difficulty fundraising, makes growth even tougher for startups during recessions. Continued here

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The Next Supply-Chain Challenge Isn't a Shortage -- It's Inventory Glut     Inventory challenges aren’t new. Electronics littered shelves in 2001 after the dot-com bubble burst. In 2009, the financial crash left manufacturers with excess inventory when consumer buying power suddenly dropped. And now, the high-tech industry is feeling the weight of a volatile market that has led to excess component inventory. Measuring inventory momentum can help leaders address the problem. It’s a forward-looking metric based on the classic momentum equation: current inventory x rate of inventory change. Once leaders understand their inventory momentum, they can take actions to reduce excess inventory, stem the rate of inventory change, and prevent the situation from happening in the future. Continued here

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Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel on the Challenges and Opportunities of Following a Visionary Leader     In the final episode of the season, HBR editor Adi Ignatius interviews Jason Buechel, the CEO of Whole Foods. Buechel discusses the challenges of succeeding a larger-than-life executive, the role of Whole Foods as a subsidiary of Amazon, and how the company is addressing changes in the business environment, such as climate change and hybrid work. Buechel emphasizes the importance of understanding the voice of team members during a leadership transition and being authentic as a leader. He also highlights Whole Foods’ focus on growth opportunities for employees and its commitment to sustainability. Buechel believes that AI will fundamentally change the retail and grocery shopping experience in the next decade. The episode concludes with Buechel sharing his favorite products from Whole Foods. Continued here

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The ancient Sri Lankan 'tank cascades' tackling drought     Each April, in the village of Maeliya in northwest Sri Lanka, Pinchal Weldurelage Siriwardene gathers his community under the shade of a large banyan tree. The tree overlooks a human-made body of water called a wewa – meaning reservoir or "tank" in Sinhala. The wewa stretches out besides the village's rice paddies for 175-acres (708,200 sq m) and is filled with the rainwater of preceding months.    Siriwardene, the 76-year-old secretary of the village's agrarian committee, has a tightly-guarded ritual to perform. By boiling coconut milk on an open hearth beside the tank, he will seek blessings for a prosperous harvest from the deities residing in the tree. "It's only after that we open the sluice gate to water the rice fields," he told me when I visited on a scorching mid-April afternoon. Continued here

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A far-off asteroid brought to life in 3D     On Sunday (24 September) a small capsule crashed down onto the Utah desert, in the US, after travelling billions of miles across our Solar System. Inside were tiny fragments from a rocky asteroid some 525m (1,722ft) across called "101955 Bennu". It is only the third time in history that material from an asteroid has been gathered and returned to Earth.The capsule – filled with an estimated 250g (9oz) worth of rocks and dust – was released into the atmosphere and parachuted to the ground from Nasa’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft. The craft's multi-year trip to the asteroid was the US's first sample-return mission of its kind, and scientists hope its results will shed light on the mysterious origins of life – as well as on the threat posed by Bennu's potential collision-course with our planet. Continued here

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What does spending more than a year in space do to the human body?     With a few handshakes, a brief photoshoot and a wave, Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio bid farewell to the American-football-field-sized collection of modules and solar panels that has been his home for the past 371 days. His departure from the International Space Station (ISS) and return to Earth marks the end of the longest single spaceflight by an American to date.His time in orbit – which surpassed the previous US record of 355 consecutive days – was extended in March after the spacecraft he and his crewmates had been due to fly home in developed a coolant leak. The extra months in space allowed Rubio to clock up a total of 5,963 orbits around the Earth, travelling 157.4 million miles (253.3 million km). But it still means he is around two months short of the record for the longest ever spaceflight by a human – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov spent 437 days onboard the Mir Space Station in the mid 1990s. Continued here

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The latest maps of the world's eighth continent     In 1820, a Russian ship packed with sailors and, oddly, penguins – destined for the men's dinner – spotted a towering shore of ice on the horizon. This was the first ever sighting of the Fimbul Ice Shelf, and it marked the official discovery of a new continent: Antarctica. It also cemented the modern idea, upheld by most maps across the English-speaking world, that there are seven major landmasses.Today, schoolchildren, explorers and politicians generally accept the neat division of the world's ground into these simple units, which include Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica. Continued here

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Upwork in South Africa: The copywriter working 20 hours per day     For the past seven years, 47-year-old Busani Moyo has spent his working hours from his home in Johannesburg, eyes glued to the computer as he attempts to keep up with a relentless stream of writing gigs. He tries to write up to 1,000 words per hour, avoiding any distractions. He often works 20 hours per day.“That is how l have managed to sustain some of the best companies [as clients] on Upwork,” Moyo told Rest of World. “Over the years, I have turned into an Upwork expert.” Continued here

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The new AI assistants may not speak your language     We want to hear from you! Is there something you’d like to see me cover in Exporter? You can use this form to let me know — the more detail you can give, the better.Microsoft is betting the future of Windows on its new AI assistant, called Copilot. In a rare keynote event last week (complete with a Satya Nadella appearance), the company announced a new update to Windows 11 that ties Copilot into the operating system at the deepest level. On Tuesday, that update became available to Windows 11 users everywhere. Crucially, the assistant will be able to draw on data from workplace tools like Outlook, Teams, and Calendar, giving it an inside view of your working life. Continued here

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The job listing app where you can slide into a recruiter's DMs     Boss Zhipin is China’s largest online recruitment platform, its name translating to “Boss directly hiring” in Chinese. Since its launch in 2014, the app has firmly established itself as the preferred job-seeking portal for individuals in their 20s and 30s. Its recommendation algorithm is powered by artificial intelligence, matching users’ work experience and qualifications with job listings. It also connects job seekers with employers through its signature “direct chat” feature.To use Boss Zhipin, a job seeker first needs to create a profile and complete their digital resume. The homepage then displays a personalized feed of jobs matching the seeker’s experience. The app’s design is simple, but densely packed with information. Besides essential details including job title, company name, and salary, each listing contains tags indicating the years of experience required, benefits, and commute time from the address in the user’s profile. Continued here

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Song of the Stars, Part 3:     An astronomy festival in Italy opted to make all of its events and workshops multisensory. They wanted to see whether sound, touch and smell can, like sight, transmit the wonders of the cosmos.Timmy Broderick: So I’m sitting inside this stone clock tower in the small town of Castellaro Lagusello in Italy. It’s pretty old, like 800 years old. I had found a nook in this tower where I could sit and record this ethereal music coming from the speaker in front of me. And through the slit of a window behind me, I could watch Italians mill about below. Continued here

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EPA's Critics Recycle Nonsense about Cost to Cut Pollution     For decades industry has claimed that curbing pollution costs too much, but the reality has proven otherwise. Here we go again, this time on power plant carbon emissionsAs young lawyers, working out of the dusty attic in an aging townhouse, a few of us were given a simple but monumental task: figure out how to make a new law—the Clean Air Act—work. Continued here

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What Humans Lose When AI Writes for Us     In Who Wrote This? linguist Naomi S. Baron discusses how artificial intelligence threatens our ability to express ourselvesArtificial intelligence has pervaded much of our daily life, whether it’s in the form of scarily believable deepfakes, online news containing “written by AI” taglines or novel tools that could diagnose health conditions. It can feel like everything we do is run through some sort of software, interpreted by some mysterious program and kept on a server who knows where. When will the robots take over already? Have they already taken over? Continued here

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Stop Trying to 'Find' Your Passion - There's a Better Way to Love What You Do     Recognizing that interests are malleable and can be developed can make us more resilient, open and creative“Find your passion!” Whether we hear it from our parents, teachers, bosses or college commencement speakers, this injunction is woven into the fabric of American culture. It is well-intended and meant to inspire. But is it good advice? Continued here

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Eaten, Crushed or Starved; Male Tarantulas Trade Their Life to Impregnate a Mate     After eight years maturing in a burrow, male tarantulas venture out to mate, then die a cruel deathOn an early evening in September, 16 dark, hairy legs were kicking up dust on the prairie floor in La Junta, Colo. A male Oklahoma brown tarantula was locked in a heated mating match with a female twice his age. Although weary, he plunged a set of hooks that had recently grown on his front legs into his mate’s mouth, just below her glossy fangs, to prevent her from chewing him up. Continued here

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Controversy Surrounds Blockbuster Superconductivity Claim     Will a possible breakthrough for room-temperature superconducting materials hold up to scrutiny?Editor’s Note (9/29/23): This article from March 10 reported on a study claiming the discovery of room-temperature superconducting material that was published in Nature. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal reported that nearly three quarters of that paper’s co-authors had contacted the publisher to ask that the study be retracted because it had flaws. Nature confirmed that it is in contact with this group and plans to take action. Continued here

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Government Shutdown Could Delay Climate Action     EPA rules on clean cars, power plants and methane could face delays if there is a federal government shutdown because of budget turmoil in CongressCLIMATEWIRE | EPA was already facing a mad dash to complete climate rules in the next six months. A government shutdown could make that harder. Continued here

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Government Shutdown Looms over Scientists     A government shutdown would disrupt biomedical research and clinical trials as federal experimental facilities shutteredFuelled by infighting among Republicans in the House of Representatives over spending cuts, the United States is barreling towards a government shutdown. Lawmakers in the US Congress have until 30 September (the end of the fiscal year) to reach an agreement over how to keep money flowing to federal agencies, or the government will have to close many of its doors and furlough staff — including tens of thousands of scientists — without pay. Depending on how long the shutdown lasts, work at science agencies will stop, interrupting experiments, delaying the approval of research grants and halting travel to scientific conferences. Continued here

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New York City's Floods and Torrential Rainfall Explained     Record-breaking rains caused major flash flooding in New York City, reminiscent of Hurricane Ida and a sign of what climate change will increasingly bringPhotographs and videos of New York City have shown rainwater spurting from between subway station tiles, cars bobbing in floodwaters that turned Brooklyn intersections into lakes and parts of LaGuardia Airport inundated as the city and surrounding areas have been deluged by heavy downpours on Friday. Continued here

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In War-Torn Ukraine, a Doctor Evacuates Children with Cancer     A pediatric oncologist is racing against time to send scores of sick children out of Ukraine for medical aid.Roman Kizyma The first months of war, we didn't have the weekdays, so we just worked seven days, 24 hours. Continued here

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Why I gave my teenage daughter a vibrator     "Why does a vibrator make us uncomfortable, but Viagra does not?" asks cognitive-behavioral coach Robin Buckley. Sharing her own personal story of empowering her teenage daughter to explore the power of pleasure, Buckley encourages parents to talk to their teens about healthy sexual development -- and shares why the awkward conversations are worth it. Continued here