The Entrepreneur's Guide to Better Vacation Habits in the New Year

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The Entrepreneur's Guide to Better Vacation Habits in the New Year     Essential strategies for entrepreneurs to recharge and rejuvenate while on vacation. Continued here

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'True Detective' Is About to Revive a 10-Year-Old Mystery     True Detective is back, and now it’s ice cold. The hit detective series is returning after five years for a female-led mystery set in Alaska. Season 4, known as True Detective: Night Country, stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as Detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro, who investigate a disappearance far more complicated than it seems.True Detective: Night Country has already teased connections to the show’s infamous first season, as both have prominently featured a mysterious spiral pattern. Night Country is sure to have more twists and reveals, so here’s everything you need to know to catch every minute of it. Continued here

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60 Weird-Ass Things That Amazon Reviewers Say Are So Good, They Deserve 6 Stars     Embracing your inner rebel can be liberating. Don’t check with that voice in your head that says, “Don’t be weird!” Who is that voice, anyway? A high-school clique? The marketing team at a multinational company? Your big sister? Ditching that need to conform can also be financially liberating because there is always a premium price on the goods everyone knows about and approves of. Embrace the strange! Discover these 60 weird-ass things that Amazon reviewers say are so good, they deserve six stars. Create one orderly place to keep all your cleaning supplies and you won’t waste time looking for tools when you have the time to clean up. This broom holder mounts to a wall or the inside of a door and holds five long-handled brooms and dusters in snap-in clips. Five foldout hooks keep dusters, brushes, and gloves ready, too. This is a strategy that works well in the garage, for garden tools, too. Continued here

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What's the Best Way To Pet Your Cat? Squish Them, Says Science     We have the “zoomies,” “blep,” and “chonk” to describe the myriad behaviors and looks of our feline friends. But we need a word for the act of lovingly, tenderly, ever so gently crushing your cat. “Smoosh,” maybe? Veterinarian wisdom and research suggest that a squeeze can do a cat some good, but there’s a right way to do it. Continued here

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Keep Forgetting Things? Neuroscience Says This Sleep Habit 'Matters Most'     'Quality rather than the quantity ...' Continued here

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With 1 Short Post on Instagram, Tom Brady Just Taught a Leadership Masterclass     You don't have to be loved as a leader. But it helps to be gracious. Continued here

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What Boredom Actually Means     This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.In 1933, the writer James Norman Hall had a bone to pick with the concise nature of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It defined boredom as “being bored; ennui.” “To define [boredom] merely as ‘being bored,’ appallingly true though this may be, is only to aggravate the misery of the sufferer who, as a last desperate resource, has gone to the dictionary for enlightenment as to the nature of his complaint,” Hall wrote in The Atlantic. Continued here

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In 4 Words, GMA Co-Host and NFL Star Michael Strahan Told His Daughter Isabella Something We All Need to Hear     Most parents never say it. Continued here

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This CEO Made Fun of His Remote Employees to Get them to Return to Office. It's the 1 Thing No Leader Should Ever Do     If you're trying to convince people to come back to the office, this isn't how you do that. Continued here

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Mr Bates vs The Post Office: How a TV drama shook up Britain - in just a week     The impact of a hit TV show has always been difficult to define. Should it be judged on viewership? The critics' response to it, or how many awards it wins? What about how often it's been memed, or the themes that resonated with social media users? This month, a UK TV show went far beyond all of this, when a dramatisation of a real-life British scandal was so effective in portraying a lesser-known miscarriage of justice to the public, that in just a week it moved more than a million people to sign a petition calling for justice for the accused, and prompted the British government to announce a new law.That TV show is Mr Bates vs The Post Office, a four-part drama that was broadcast for four consecutive nights from 1 January. As the BBC's political editor Chris Mason put it on Wednesday, "Just a week ago the ITV drama … was still on. Here we are, seven days later, and the prime minister stands in front of a packed House of Commons, and says the government will put forward a new law… How extraordinary. The power of drama. The momentum it has generated, the public opinion it has shifted, the government it has galvanised." Continued here

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Tools and Strategies for the Most Productive Tech Teams     These resources can save your company time and money. Continued here

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The Deadly Challenges of War Coverage in Gaza     On December 12th, the CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward became the first Western reporter to enter Gaza without an I.D.F. escort since the war began. Crammed into the back seat of a car, she and her crew captured images of the bombed-out buildings and streets of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza which shares a border with Egypt. According to one recent U.N. estimate, eighty-five per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents had fled there. Crowds milled outside a bakery, and parents walked hand in hand with their children past mountains of rubble. “The Israeli military says it has hit Gaza with more than twenty-two thousand strikes,” Ward said during the ride. “That by far surpasses anything we’ve seen in modern warfare in terms of intensity and ferocity, and we really, honestly, are just getting a glimpse of it here.”Since the start of the Israeli invasion, it has been largely Arab media that have provided the world with on-the-ground reporting from Gaza, where the death toll has surpassed an estimated twenty-three thousand in just three months. The coverage is often harrowing and raw. A recent live report from Rafah by the Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud captured what sounded like the whine of a plane overhead and several missiles hitting a group of buildings, one after the other, sending plumes of dense black smoke into the air. “Oh, my God,” Mahmoud can be heard saying after ducking out of the frame to take cover. “That’s the hospital!” According to a later Al Jazeera report, the strike did not hit the hospital but nearby residential buildings, killing at least ten people. Continued here

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Trump on Trial--And on the Trail     Just days before the Republican caucuses in Iowa officially kick off the presidential nominating process, the GOP field narrowed after former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie exited the race. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the former president and current front-runner for the Republican nomination, spent the week campaigning in Iowa and appearing in courts in Washington, D.C., and New York City.Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic and moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg, this week to discuss this and more are Josh Gerstein, a senior legal-affairs reporter at Politico; Steve Inskeep, the host of Morning Edition on NPR; Nikole Killion, a congressional correspondent for CBS News; and Adrienne LaFrance, the executive editor of The Atlantic. Continued here

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We tested the most advanced haptic gloves in the world     For all the incredible advances in virtual reality devices, the worlds they generate still feel more virtual than real. That’s because much of the current development has focused on how those worlds look and sound. But humans experience the real world through many other senses — importantly touch.“What if you want to realistically simulate something like cracking an egg?” Linda Jacobson, director of marketing at HaptX, asked Freethink. “It’s one thing to do it visually and to create a sound. But it’s a whole other thing if you want to simulate the rigidity of the eggshell and then couple that with the collapse of the breaking shell and the liquidy yolk spilling out. How do you do that in a way that doesn’t break the suspension of disbelief?” Continued here

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The Painful Wait for Jonathan Franzen     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.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Eleanor Barkhorn, a senior editor at The Atlantic who has edited stories about the value of sleepovers and why so many Americans have stopped going to church. Continued here

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Biden stops by Pennsylvania stores to talk up his record on small business creation     In campaign mode, President touts the 16 million new business applications filed in his term. Continued here

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Don't Fire People for Making Pornography in Their Free Time     Eight years ago, a middle-aged husband and wife in Wisconsin published their first book, Monogamy With Benefits, under pseudonyms. “We couldn’t be more entrenched in the local establishment,” they wrote, noting their jobs as executives at respected organizations and their nonprofit work and appearances on the local news. “So we’re not exactly the kind of couple you’d expect to be engaged in adventurous sex with others. But we have a highly erotic collection of video files on our home computers that proves otherwise.”Just imagine what would happen, they speculated, if they were to post their videos of “the full carnal process” online. “We think our sex is beautiful and have no qualms at all about other people watching us make love,” they wrote. “But our establishment colleagues likely would be shocked … and we’re fairly certain we’d be shunned in our community. Our careers likely would be ruined.” Continued here

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Beware of 1 Red-Flag Personality Trait When Interviewing Job Candidates     There is another personality trait hiring managers should look for instead. Continued here

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What Conversations About DEI Are Missing     Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.What is a belief or position you hold that you feel to be misunderstood or misrepresented by many people who disagree with you? Continued here

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Why Change Is So Hard and What Really Stops You From Taking Action     'Meatloaf syndrome' could be holding you back from making a much needed change. Continued here

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A Mountain of Used Clothes Appeared in Chile's Desert. Then It Went Up in Flames     This story originally appeared on Grist and was copublished with El País. It's reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A Spanish-language version can be read here. Reporting was supported by the Joan Konner Program in the Journalism of Ideas.On the morning of June 12, 2022, Ángela Astudillo, then a law student in her mid-twenties, grabbed her water bottle and hopped into her red Nissan Juke. The cofounder of Dress Desert, or Desierto Vestido, a textile recycling advocacy nonprofit, and the daughter of tree farmers, Astudillo lives in a gated apartment complex in Alto Hospicio, a dusty city at the edge of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, with her husband, daughter, bunny, and three aquatic turtles. Continued here

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What the 'future histories' of the 1920s can teach us about hope     From Hunger Games to Squid Games, from Black Mirror to Blade Runner, the appetite for dystopia seems higher than ever. Perhaps this is because the cliches of the genre are seeping beyond fiction. Both Elon Musk's Neuralink and Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse seem lifted straight from cautionary tales. Meanwhile, AI poises unprecedented challenges, and human-made climate change threatens to destabilise our fragile world order.Dystopian fiction can be vitally important. It can contain important warnings: raising alarms on social issues through extrapolating troubling trajectories. But in relentlessly imagining the future as already lost to dystopia in our fiction, it's possible we risk giving up on it in reality too. Continued here

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A Surprising Success Story for Humpback Whales     In November 1904, the Norwegian explorer Carl Anton Larsen landed in South Georgia. It was his second visit to the remote island, roughly 1,800 kilometers east of the tip of South America, where the waters of the South Atlantic Ocean were home to huge numbers of whales—and he’d returned with a whaling ship and crew to catch them.Just a few weeks after establishing a camp in Cumberland Bay, a deep, two-pronged fjord in the rugged island, Larsen’s men killed their first humpback. So many whales foraged in the bay that the mariners didn’t need to venture to the open ocean. By mid-April 1905, they’d killed 91 whales—67 of them humpbacks. Continued here

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45 Genius, Cheap Things That Make You Look & Feel 10X Better     For every inconvenient situation life might present, you can rest assured there’s something clever out there that can resolve the issue. No time to wash your hair? Worked out hard and are feeling some muscle soreness? There are things to help — and these things are often easy to use, inexpensive, and readily available. You just have to know about them. These genius finds on Amazon can help you look and feel 10 times better, from head to toe, inside and out.A good manicure always includes a cuticle cream because ratty cuticles mar the look of your hands. This Onsen cuticle cream deeply nourishes your nail bed with a powerful blend of Japanese seaweed, minerals, aloe, bran oil, shea butter, and vitamin E. All you do is apply it. It’s designed to stay put without dripping or making a mess. Continued here

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Ethiopia's deal with Somaliland upends regional dynamics, risking strife across the Horn of Africa     The Horn of Africa ushered in the new year with news of a deal that would ensure that diplomatic relations in the region got off to a bumpy start in 2024. Ethiopia, it was announced on Jan. 1, had signed a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway region of Somaliland, opening the door to an agreement to exchange a stake in flagship carrier Ethiopian Airlines for access to the Gulf of Aden.Such transactions of economic reciprocity are generally routine, as scholars of international relations and law like myself are aware. Continued here

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Why olive oil prices are soaring and what to do about it     The image of a celebrity chef dousing their Caprese salad, gazpacho or dolmas with extra-virgin olive oil is incredibly ambitious at the moment, with most Europeans facing record prices in the supermarket aisle. But why have olive oil prices risen so sharply?For the past decade, the oldest cultivated trees on Earth have been showing their vulnerability with many of the Mediterranean's olive groves drying up due to increasingly difficult weather conditions such as droughts and severe hailstorms leading to floods. And in 2023, the region – as well as the whole planet – experienced the hottest summer on record. Continued here

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The 8 Biggest EV Innovations Announced at CES 2024     CES is, by definition, future-forward. It’s the world’s largest gathering of gadget geeks, and carmakers have used the show for well over a decade to peacock about their own tech wares and creativity, partnerships, and design acumen.And if CES 2024 is defined by any single tech component, it’s not the motors and batteries that are moving the latest and greatest EV concepts, it’s the sheer computational “horsepower” allowing these vehicles to become four-wheeled gaming computers, AI assistants, and mixed reality machines. Continued here

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Would Luddites find the gig economy familiar?     The term Luddite is usually used as an insult. It suggests someone who is backward-looking, averse to progress, afraid of new technology, and frankly, not that bright. But Brian Merchant claims that that is not who the Luddites were at all. They were organized, articulate in their demands, very much understood how factory owners were using machinery to supplant them, and highly targeted in their destruction of that machinery. Continued here

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A Mystery Involving How Plants Grow Could Revolutionize Farming If Solved     Plant roots pulsate, and we don’t know why, but the answer could transform the way we grow things. You probably don’t think about plant roots all that much — they’re hidden underground, after all. Yet they’re continually changing the shape of the world. This process happens in your garden, where plants use invisible mechanisms for their never-ending growth. Continued here

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A Bloody Pig Mask Is Just Part of a Wild New Criminal Charge Against eBay     After the security firm Mandiant had its X account compromised earlier this month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission dealt with a similar intrusion this week. Attackers wrested control of the agency’s account for more than half an hour and posted false information during that time about a highly anticipated SEC regulatory decision on a Bitcoin financial product. The incident was concerning, given that it indicated a lack of adequate security protections on the SEC’s account, but also because attackers may have intended to manipulate markets, and their fake post led to fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin.If you want to avoid these shenanigans on your own X account, we’ve got tips for locking everything down as much as possible. Continued here

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23 Years Later, Star Trek's Most Polarizing Show Didn't Break Canon As Much as Fans Think     John Billingsley is serious about the positive impact of Star Trek on the real world. But don’t get bogged down by the details.For four years, John Billingsley played Dr. Phlox, the resident physician and the first doctor on a Starfleet starship named “Enterprise.” From 2001 to 2005, the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise took a long road, getting from there to here, and ultimately (and unfairly) became known as the last Trek series for a very long time. Continued here

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Back to Black: Why the controversial Amy Winehouse biopic is angering fans     Just over a decade since the death of acclaimed singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, a biopic promising to chart her "intense journey to fame" is already due for release. A new trailer for Back to Black released by StudioCanal and Monumental Pictures yesterday showed Industry breakout star Marisa Abela donning the singer's instantly recognisable 1960s-inspired beehive hairdo, heavy, winged eyeliner and swirling shoulder tattoos. But the reactions from Winehouse fans were far from positive: critics were quick to decry Winehouse's lack of autonomy over her representation in the film, accuse the film's producers of turning a profit from the singer's turbulent later years, and claim that the biopic comes too soon.More like this:-       Back to Black: The millennial I Will Survive-       The no.1 song that promoted safe sex-       The extraordinary influence of Madonna Continued here

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Netflix Just Quietly Added the Most Important Action Thriller of the Century     There’s a new John Wick knockoff in theaters, but the original is still your best bet for a good time.Some movies are so good, they become a genre all their own. Take Diehard, which launched countless imitators in the mold of everyman hero John McClane (even as its sequels forgot he wasn’t actually a superhero). Or Sharknado, which inspired a wave of bizarre movie mashups. But when it comes to inspiring endless copycats that never quite measure up to the original, one movie stands alone — and it’s streaming now on Netflix. Continued here

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Sentimentality and Being Mortal: Poet Mark Doty on the Passionate Fragility of Our Attachments     How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that this particular chance-constellation of atoms has never before existed and will never again … Continued here

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Texas Pulls an Ugly Stunt on the Border     National leaders left an immigration-policy vacuum that the Lone Star State is eager to fill.The Texas National Guard has taken hostage a 2.5-mile stretch of the U.S. border with Mexico. According to a shocking Supreme Court filing by the Justice Department early yesterday morning, armed soldiers and vehicles deployed by the state have repeatedly denied U.S. Border Patrol agents access to the Shelby Park area in Eagle Pass, Texas. The state did not immediately deny this; a spokesperson for Governor Greg Abbott said the state will keep “utilizing every tool and strategy to respond to President Biden’s ongoing border crisis.” Continued here

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Aaron Rodgers Is Lighting His Football Legacy on Fire     One of Aaron Rodgers’s biggest strengths as a Hall of Fame–caliber player is his awareness. At his best, the New York Jets quarterback can anticipate the movements of aggressive defenders and use his legs to create breathtaking plays down the field.If only Rodgers possessed such sharp awareness away from the football field, where he seems to have a knack for creating unnecessary drama and exposing himself as a fake intellectual who can’t seem to stop showcasing his rampant narcissism. He isn’t in danger of jeopardizing his inevitable entrance into the Hall of Fame, but the more he digs into these conspiracies and attempts to moonlight as an infectious-disease expert, the more his moves will overshadow his brilliant career. Continued here

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The Cryptic Crossword: Sunday, January 14, 2024     By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.© 2024 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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40 Years Ago, Francis Ford Coppola Exposed the Problem With Chasing Success. It's a Remarkable Lesson in Leadership     The paradox of caring what others think and being true to yourself -- no matter what. Continued here

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This Rare Jaw Bone Could Upend Our Understanding of the World's Largest Animals      A baleen whale estimated to be around nine meters in length makes it the new record holder from its time.Baleen whales are the titans of the ocean, the largest animals to have ever lived. The record holder is the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), which can reach lengths of up to 30 meters. That’s longer than a basketball court. Continued here

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60 Things for Your Home Under $25 That Are Legitimately Amazing     There’s nothing quite like uncovering a hidden gem, and with so many items available, Amazon is absolutely chock-full of them. These clever problem-solving buys are easy on your wallet — each product included below costs less than $25 — but will make a huge difference in organizing and upgrading your home. Whether you need to tidy up your countertops, free up space in your drawers, or make your closet easier to navigate, scroll on to check out these reviewer-beloved items that will upgrade your home and make life better.The tiny deer that’s placed in the middle of this toothpick holder will add subtle but fun character to your dining table. The container is made of hard plastic and has a single hole at the top to prevent toothpicks from spilling out or getting dirty. One reviewer wrote, “Looks just like the pictures and [...] made of thick durable plastic and is very well made. Best toothpick holder we've ever had.” Continued here