As usual, the bookmarks folder is burgeoning. Bursting. Busting…
Sorry, I’m bloviating. But I feel I must keep the intertunnel tidy. If I don’t pick up after myself, the oncoming train of ill-informed opinions and unfunny memes might derail on the awful offal I keep meaning to read. So here goes:
Match also said first-quarter revenue declined 3% to $831.2 million from a year earlier due to a 5% drop in the number of users who paid for a service or subscription. Net profit declined 4.6% year-on-year to $117.6 million.
Oh, well. I guess the only actual woman featured on their dating app finally got married.
China Makes High-Speed Laser Links in Orbit
Laser Starcom, a commercial aerospace firm established in Beijing in 2020, announced in March that it had achieved a 400-gigabit-per-second communications link between satellites. Its two satellites, Guangchuan 01 and 02, launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) in November last year on a commercial Zhuque-2 rocket developed by the Beijing-based Landspace company. The pair of Guangchuan spacecraft completed their optical transmission test on 18 March, according to a Laser Starcom statement, across a separation between satellites of 640 kilometers.
Hmm. They started the company five years ago and already have two satellites in orbit shooting data back and forth using lasers. In the US, they’d still be having meetings on what state to incorporate in, and whether or not to put a man in a dress on their Instagram page.
Eldercare robot helps people sit and stand, and catches them if they fall
E-BAR acts as a set of robotic handlebars that follows a person from behind. A user can walk independently or lean on the robot’s arms for support. The robot can support the person’s full weight, lifting them from sitting to standing and vice versa along a natural trajectory. And the arms of the robot can them by rapidly inflating side airbags if they begin to fall.
One more thing to trip on, looks like.
Research: Gen AI Makes People More Productive—and Less Motivated
Generative AI (gen AI) has revolutionized workplaces, allowing professionals to produce high-quality work in less time. Whether it’s drafting a performance review, brainstorming ideas, or crafting a marketing email, humans collaborating with gen AI achieve results that are both more efficient and often superior in quality. However, our research reveals a hidden trade-off: While gen AI collaboration boosts immediate task performance, it can undermine workers’ intrinsic motivation and increase feelings of boredom when they turn to tasks in which they don’t have this technological assistance.
It’s amusing that performance reviews, brainstorming, or writing a marketing email is considered any kind of top-level work, especially when a glorified calculator can do the work better than you can. You’re not bored. You’re kinda useless.
Suzy Weiss: Bill Belichick’s Very, Very Young Girlfriend
What’s upsetting here, I think, isn’t that Belichick was born before there was color TV or that his girlfriend can’t yet rent a car without a surcharge. It’s that Belichick won six Super Bowls, but now seems feeble. It’s unclear how much control he has over the situation—and he’s Bill freaking Belichick; he ran a football team like the Navy SEALS. Meanwhile, Hudson couldn’t win Miss Maine USA (she got first runner-up) but is treating everyone around her like she’s the big boss. She’s confident, but shouldn’t be; he’s insecure but shouldn’t be. It’s off-putting and needles our own fears around whether we’ve been the victim or the villain in relationships.
Oldie, but a goodie:
Chegg to lay off 22% of workforce as AI tools shake up edtech industry
Chegg said Monday it would lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees, to cut costs and streamline its operations as students increasingly turn to AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT over traditional edtech platforms. The company, an online education firm that offers textbook rentals, homework help and tutoring, has been grappling with a decline in web traffic for months and warned that the trend would likely worsen before improving.
So students are cheating using cheaper AI instead of Chegg services. Who says our children isn’t learning?
China Just Made the World’s Fastest Transistor and It Is Not Made of Silicon
With a slender sheet of lab-grown bismuth and an architecture unlike anything inside today’s silicon chips, they’ve built what they call the world’s fastest and most efficient transistor. Not only does it outperform the best processors made by Intel and TSMC, but it also uses less energy doing so. And most important of all, there’s no trace of silicon involved.
How people who eat lunch with two miniature pool cues accomplish anything technical is a mystery to me.
Universe Set to Decay 10^22 Times Sooner Than Previously Estimated
In a surprising revision to our understanding of cosmic longevity, Dutch scientists have discovered that the universe will decay much faster than previously thought, though still on an almost incomprehensible timescale. Their innovative calculations show the final stellar remnants will persist for about 1078 years—a dramatic reduction from earlier estimates of 101100 years. This finding expands the concept of Hawking radiation beyond black holes to all matter in the universe, setting a fundamental limit on how long anything can exist.
We went from The Temptations to Vanilla Ice in twenty years. Those Dutch scientists are still way too optimistic about the timetable for the end of the universe.
My solution to Trump’s tariffs: I’m starting a U.S. factory to save my small business
So, what does it really take to produce here in the USA, and can it be cost-effective? Well, I found something interesting about China’s factories. Most of them, like my own overseas supplier, are small satellite shops with just enough machines to mold the orders they receive. Small, efficient, low overhead, high output, and mostly rudimentary tech. iPhones are a different story, but for the silicone, rubber, and plastic items that fill our shelves, the machinery is super simple to operate. Very automated, very efficient, and low-cost—now this I can do. Decision made. Plan in action. My new manufacturing startup and its facility (to be located in Riverside County, California) will be copying this Chinese model—essentially replacing the cost, MOQs, and customer experience of working with overseas factories and instead doing it all right here in the USA, with additional benefits unavailable for companies using overseas suppliers.
I’ve been assured by the media that this is impossible, so I’ll file it under Science Fiction.
Google updating its ‘G’ icon for the first time in 10 years
On September 1, 2015, Google significantly updated its logo (‘Google’) to a modern typeface called Product Sans. As part of that, the ‘G’ icon changed from the lowercase white ‘g’ on a blue background to the circular design we’ve now had for the past 10 years. Google is now updating the icon so that there are no longer four solid color sections. Instead, red bleeds into yellow, yellow into green, and green into blue. It looks more vibrant and colorful. This modernization feels inline with the Gemini gradient, while AI Mode in Search uses something similar for a shortcut.
Once your business is worth, say, a trillion dollars or so, maybe you should stop projecting the image of children in daycare.
OK, that’s it for this Tuesday. Other than that, Let’s Party.