NASA’s Curiosity rover snaps extremely detailed ‘postcard’ of Martian landscape after waking up from a ‘brain-boosting nap | Live Science

June 19, 2023June 18, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently snapped a stunningly detailed “postcard” of the Martian landscape, showing the sunlight shifting between morning and afternoon. The wandering robot beamed the picturesque scene back to Earth shortly after waking up from a “brain boosting nap.”

The rover captured the memento April 8, or Sol 3,794 (Martian days) of its mission, shortly before leaving the Marker Band Valley, a region where it discovered signs of an ancient lake in 2022. The photoshoot was one of the first actions Curiosity completed after hibernating for a software update between April 3 and April 7, which included 180 individual upgrades — the most important of which will allow the rover to process images of its surroundings faster and reduce wear on its tires, which will help it to move much quicker across the Martian landscape, Live Science’s sister site Space.com reported.

Is Africa splitting into two continents? | Live Science

June 19, 2023June 18, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A giant rift is slowly tearing Africa, the second-largest continent, apart. This depression — known as the East African Rift — is a network of valleys that stretches about 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) long, from the Red Sea to Mozambique, according to the Geological Society of London.

So will Africa rip apart completely, and if so, when will it split? To answer this question, let’s look at the region’s tectonic plates, the outer parts of the planet’s surface that can collide with each other, making mountains, or pull apart, creating vast basins.

How to Manage Millennials in the Workplace | Businessnewsdaily

June 16, 2023June 15, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Learn how millennials have influenced the workplace, their current role in today’s workforce, and the best ways to manage them so they stay productive and engaged.

Millennials comprise over one-third of the workforce and play a crucial role in the U.S. economy.
Managing millennials in the workplace requires business owners to be transparent, flexible, and willing to embrace technology.
Millennials can be fickle; they’re willing to job-hop if they aren’t satisfied in their current role.
This article is for business owners who want to understand all aspects of hiring and managing millennial workers.

Tips for Productivity in a Noisy Office | businessnewsdaily.com

June 16, 2023June 15, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Are you easily distracted by noise? Here’s how to stay focused in a loud work environment.

The most common type of noise distraction for employees is a co-worker conversation happening near them.
Wearing a pair of noise-canceling headphones is one of the best coping techniques for a loud office.
When nothing else works, be honest with management about your difficulties working in a loud office.
This article is for anyone back in the office who is having a hard time dealing with the loud background noise.

Why You Feel Unproductive And What To Do | LifeHack

June 15, 2023June 13, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Did you know the average office worker is only productive for two hours and 23 minutes per day? Assuming an eight-hour workday, office workers waste an average of five hours and 37 minutes per day, which is more than half of the working hour. This represents a significant daily loss of time!

Feeling unproductive can leave you feeling frustrated and guilty. It’s as if you’re stuck in quicksand—the more you try to get out, the deeper you sink. As a busy day comes to an end, you wonder where all the time went and why you weren’t able to accomplish more.

But it’s not just about feeling unproductive. The true danger of unproductivity is the cycle of time poverty it creates. When you’re unproductive, you’re in a state of constant overwhelm. With seemingly too many things to do in too little time, you’re left with a sense of urgency that never quite goes away.

7 Best Exercises to Lose Weight and Burn Calories | LifeHack

June 15, 2023June 13, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Whether you’ve just begun or you’re months into your weight loss journey, chances are you’ve found yourself wondering what the best exercises to lose weight are. Spoiler it’s not endless cardio.

Before we dig into the details, let’s do a bit of myth busting first:

Despite what you may have seen in advertisements for the latest fitness gadget, it is not possible to spot-reduce fat with any exercise. When we begin to burn fat through exercise, it comes from all areas of the body at the same time, with more recently stored fat burning faster than older fat stores.

An online gambling site is taking bets on the future of Reddit | Fast Company

June 14, 2023June 13, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

With more than 8,400 subreddits going dark to protest Reddit’s decision to start charging some third-party apps for access to the company’s application programming interface (API), the “front page of the internet” is looking pretty threadbare this week.

That may improve, in some cases, late Tuesday and early Wednesday as the 48-hour protest draws to a close, but many popular subreddits—including r/music, with over 30 million subscribers—say they will stop operating “indefinitely” until the situation is resolved, noting that their moderators are unable to do their work with the tools on Reddit’s official app.

So now, an online gambling site is laying odds and taking wagers about what happens next. And according to the oddsmakers, at least, it doesn’t look good for Reddit.

How Phoenix’s water crisis could slash development | Fast Company

June 14, 2023June 13, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Phoenix is facing not one but two water crises. Around a third of the desert city’s water comes from the beleaguered Colorado River. Thanks to a decades-long mega-drought fueled by climate change, the city stands to lose much of that supply in coming years as the river dries up and the state faces water cuts.

Another third of the metro’s water comes from underground aquifers—and that water is running out too. Earlier this month, Arizona’s water department published a new report assessing how much water remains in the aquifers below Phoenix. The data was alarming: The state found that it has allocated more groundwater to cities and farms over the next 100 years than is actually present in the aquifers. If the Phoenix area keeps pumping water at its current rate, those aquifers will tap out over the next century, according to the department. The total shortfall amounts to almost 5 million acre-feet, or around 1.6 trillion gallons, that were permitted for use over the next 100 years but may not exist at all.

8 Ways I’ve Learned to Maintain My Remote Team’s Productivity | AllBusiness.com

June 13, 2023June 12, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When I started my first remote company in 2017, there was no playbook for remote work. We often heard that remote work would kill our productivity and culture. However, what I learned instead is that remote work works.

And while I have made my share of mistakes, I scaled my second remote company, Halborn, to over 100 remote engineers by intentionally building a remote work culture, including integrating the Japanese life and work philosophies of ikigai and kaizen.

Maintaining a remote work culture where employees feel connected to the business and their life purpose—the essence of ikigai—requires creativity and experimentation. Here’s how I did it.