Source: Fast Company, Nichola Groom, Reuters
Photo: Pixabay

Environmental groups have been pushing for U.S. protection of the winged pollinators for a decade.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species on Tuesday, citing a significant decline in the iconic black and orange insects that has pushed them toward extinction.

Why it’s important

Monarch butterflies, known for migrating thousands of miles (km) across North America, have experienced a decades-long U.S. population decline due to habitat loss caused by human activities such as farming and urban development, widespread use of pesticides and climate change.

Environmental groups have been pushing for U.S. protection of the winged pollinators for a decade.

Key quote

“The iconic monarch butterfly is cherished across North America, captivating children and adults throughout its fascinating lifecycle,” U.S. FWS Director Martha Williams said in a statement.

“Despite its fragility, it is remarkably resilient, like many things in nature when we just give them a chance. Science shows that the monarch needs that chance, and this proposed listing invites and builds on unprecedented public participation in shaping monarch conservation efforts,” she added

Context

Despite being recognized as needing federal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) four years ago, the monarch butterfly waited behind dozens of other species facing more immediate threats.

The ESA, signed into law in 1973, is credited with helping to save the bald eagle, California condor and numerous other animals and plants from extinction. ESA protection makes it illegal to kill or harm species classified as threatened or endangered without a special permit.

By the numbers

The eastern migratory monarch population has declined by about 80% since the 1980s, while the western migratory population has dropped by more than 95%. The declines put the western populations at greater than 99% chance of extinction by 2080, according to the FWS.

The agency is proposing to designate 4,395 acres (1,780 hectares) in California as “critical habitat” for the butterflies. Federal agencies are prohibited from destroying or modifying areas with that designation.

What’s next

The public will have until March 12, 2025, to comment on the proposal to list the monarch butterfly. The service will then evaluate the comments and any additional information on the species to determine whether to list the monarch butterfly.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91247028/monarch-butterfly-threatened-species-status-us

Source: Fast Company, Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
Photo: A food delivery rider waits for the traffic light to change Monday, March 30, 2020, in Lone Tree, Colo. (David Zalubowski, File/AP Photo)

DoorDash has been under pressure to ensure its drivers are operating legally.

DoorDash will require its drivers to verify their identities more often as part of a larger effort to crack down on unauthorized account sharing.

DoorDash has been under pressure to ensure its drivers are operating legally. Over the summer, for example, it pledged to do a better job identifying and removing dangerous drivers after a flood of complaints of dangerous driving from cities.

Officials in Boston, New York and other cities have said that in many cases, people with multiple traffic violations continue to make deliveries using accounts registered to others.

The San Francisco delivery company said Thursday it was requiring some drivers to complete real-time identity checks immediately after they complete a delivery. Previously, drivers were occasionally asked to re-verify their identities before or after a shift.

DoorDash has introduced the new system in Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle and other cities, and said it planned a wider rollout next year.

DoorDash said it also has developed an advanced machine learning system that can flag potential unauthorized account access, including login anomalies and suspicious activity. If the company detects a problem, it will require drivers to re-verify their identity before they can make more deliveries.

U.S. drivers must verify their identities with a driver’s license or other government-issued identification, and upload a selfie that matches their identification photo before they can do work for DoorDash. They also must submit to background checks, which require a Social Security number.

The company said it found that some drivers were getting around the requirements by sharing accounts with authorized users. In some cases, drivers who were not authorized to drive for DoorDash paid authorized users for access to their accounts.

Some federal lawmakers have demanded that DoorDash and other delivery apps do a better job of keeping people who are in the U.S. illegally off the platforms.

Republican U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana and Ted Budd of North Carolina sent letters to delivery companies in April asking them to crack down on account sharing.

“These illegal immigrants are delivering food directly to consumers’ doors without ever having undergone a background check and often without even using their real names,” the letter said. It added that working illegally can also be dangerous for migrants, creating the potential for exploitation and abuse.

The Associated Press left messages seeking comment Thursday with Gig Workers Rising and Justice for App Workers, which both represent delivery drivers.

DoorDash won’t estimate how many drivers are using shared accounts, but said its safeguards are effective. Last year, it began asking drivers to re-verify their identities monthly by submitting a selfie. The company said it is now asking more than 150,000 drivers to complete selfie checks each week, and it’s removing them from the platform if they don’t comply.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91246654/doordash-stepping-up-driver-id-checks-heres-why

Source: The Guardian, Isabel O’Brien
Photo: TikTok’s emissions are greater than that of the country that gave us democracy and gyros. (Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images)

Average user generates greenhouse gases equal to driving an extra 123 miles in gasoline-powered car a year, data shows

TikTok’s annual carbon footprint is probably larger than that of Greece, according to a new analysis of the social media platform’s environmental impact, with the average user generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 123 miles in a gasoline-powered car each year.

Estimates from Greenly, a carbon accounting consultancy based in Paris, place TikTok’s 2023 emissions in the US, UK and France at about 7.6m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) – higher than those associated with Twitter/X and Snapchat in the same region.

TikTok has 1 billion users worldwide and Greenly’s findings placed its carbon footprint just above Instagram’s – even though Instagram has nearly double TikTok’s user base.

The reason behind this lies in the unique addictiveness of TikTok’s platform. The average Instagram user spends 30.6 minutes on the app a day. Meanwhile, the average TikTok user spends 45.5 minutes scrolling.

“The whole algorithm is built around the massification of videos,” explained Alexis Normand, the chief executive of Greenly. “Addictiveness also has consequences in terms of incentivizing people to generate more and more [of a carbon] footprint on an individual basis.”

Given that the US, UK and France make up just under 15% of TikTok’s global user base, the platform’s overall carbon footprint is likely around 50m metric tonnes of CO2e. And since these data center calculations do not include other smaller sources of TikTok’s emissions, such as the emissions associated with office spaces and employee commuting, this is likely an underestimation.

For context, Greece’s annual carbon emissions for 2023 were 51.67m metric tonnes of CO2e.

TikTok’s users also have the second-highest emissions per minute of use on social media according to Greenly’s analysis, just after YouTube. One minute on TikTok will burn 2.921 grams of CO2e, on average, while one minute on YouTube will burn 2.923 grams. One minute on Instagram burns 2.912 grams.

The small differences add up. Due to the sheer amount of content on the platform, as well as longer average scroll times, TikTok users have the highest yearly emissions. The average TikTok user will burn 48.49kg of CO2e on the app in one year, according to Greenly’s analysis. In second place comes YouTube, with an average user burning 40.17kg of CO2e. Instagram users will burn just 32.52kg of CO2e.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that’s the difference between driving a gas car driving 123 miles (TikTok), 102 miles (YouTube) and 82.8 miles (Instagram).

The study examined the carbon footprint associated with each user per minute by incorporating the emissions associated with data centers, which made up about 99% of the footprint, and the emissions associated with charging devices after using the platforms.

TikTok’s emissions are the most opaque of the social media platforms. Tech giants such as Meta and Google release detailed reports to the Carbon Disclosure Project every year, even posting their findings to their respective websites. TikTok has no publicly available emissions data.

Other social media companies, while also reporting sky-high emissions, have made commitments to power their data centers with clean energy. The quality of these commitments varies widely. An investigation by the Guardian showed that four of the five top tech companies were using offset-like renewable energy credits (Recs) to underreport their emissions data by approximately 662%.

TikTok has made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030. The company has a plan called “Project Clover”, implemented in 2023, that is tasked with meeting this goal while enhancing overall data security. However, only one renewable data center has been built to date: a €12bn facility in Norway that runs on 100% renewable energy.

It is unclear whether or not these reporting practices and commitments will persist under new ownership – a US appeals court has upheld a law that will require Chinese firm ByteDance to sell the platform to a non-Chinese entity by 19 January 2025, though the firm is trying to delay this until a recently friendlier Trump administration is inaugurated.

If the platform is bought by a US company, rules passed this year would require the firm to publicly disclose its emissions if they are “material” to investors, though Trump will probably reverse this.

TikTok did not respond to request for comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/12/tiktok-carbon-footprint

Source: ZDNet, David Gewirtz, Senior Contributing Editor
Photo: oxygen/Getty Images

AI can help you maximize your holiday cheer and minimize the chaos. Use these 30 AI prompts to tackle everything from meal planning to travel stress, all while staying on budget and organized.

Happy Holidays! May your coffee be strong and your Wi-Fi signal stronger this season! But the holiday season isn’t just about getting the best wireless signal and loading up on go juice; it’s about family, friends, food, fun, and finances.

And, frankly, holidays can be a lot of work. There’s a lot to organize, a ton of spending, careful relationship management that would give a UN ambassador pause, and plenty of planning.

Today, we’ll look at how we can get our friendly neighborhood AI chatbots to help. I’ve put together 30 helpful chatbot prompts organized into 10 categories. Feel free to use any of them, modify them, or add your own.

Because each of you is different, I’ve listed the parameters of the prompts (the stuff that changes from person to person) in square brackets. You can substitute what works for you as the contents of the square brackets. Also, you can paste the prompt as it is into an AI. Most AIs will interpret the square brackets as parameters and will prompt you back for details.

Keep in mind that AIs are fallible. They make stuff up, they fib, and they get things wrong. So, use AIs for help and inspiration, but rely on your own common sense when making decisions. Be sure to double-check anything important with another source or two.

And with that, let’s get prompting!

1. Event hosting

If you want to organize a holiday event, AI chatbots can help. These prompts can help you brainstorm ideas for themes, decorations, games, and even invitations.

Suggest five [theme category, like cozy winter] themes for a small holiday party.

What are some fun icebreaker games for a [age group, say “mixed-age” if you want it to include a wide range of people] holiday gathering?

Write a formal invitation for my annual [holiday] dinner party. Be sure to include the following details: [detail list].

You can also have fun with these by asking ChatGPT and some other chatbots to create images. Keep in mind that AIs have a really hard time with text in images, so you might need to tell them to leave out any text, or limit the text to a few specific words.

2. Holiday planning and organization

AI chatbots can help you create personalized task lists and timelines. Having these to work from can not only keep you on track but also reduce your stress because you have a plan and can work from it.

Create a holiday preparation checklist for a family of [size]. When planning the checklist, be sure to include [features and elements you want to consider].

Help me organize a timeline for [holiday] dinner preparations. Be sure to include foods like [list] and avoid these foods: [list]. Also consider other aspects of preparation including: [things you want to include in your plans].

Suggest ideas for a holiday party and provide a checklist of tasks to plan and execute on by [date]. Summarize what I need to do by number of days before [date] for each task.

3. Meal planning and recipes

Here’s a more in-depth set of prompts to help you get the most out of an AI for meal prep. I’ve used ChatGPT a number of times to help me figure out what I can make with ingredients I have in the fridge and freezer.

You can expand on that for planning menus, getting recipes, and figuring out buying and cooking schedules.

Plan a fun holiday menu for [count] people. Be sure to include [dietary needs like vegetarian]. Please take into account that [person] has a [food type] allergy and avoid any ingredients that could cause an allergic reaction.

List five holiday desserts with the following characteristics: [list of characteristics].

Create a timeline for the following entrées and sides so that they are all ready together: [list of entrées and sides].

4. Gift ideas and shopping

Gift giving can be a challenging task. While the AIs can’t help you navigate the individual personalities of your intended recipients, they can give you a starting point or work with you to explore ideas.

Suggest gift ideas for a [age] year old who likes [subject, like science and crafts]. Recommend categories, specific products, and search strings I can type into [online store] to search for gifts.

What are some [category, like Secret Santa] gifts under $20 that are appropriate for fellow [worker category, like office workers]?

Help me brainstorm ideas for holiday gifts I can make from dollar store supplies. When brainstorming, ask questions, give me replies, and guide me to various suggestions. Keep up the dialog until I say “thank you” or “done”.

5. Holiday cards and letters

You can use the AI to write holiday cards and letters for family and friends. I have a friend who writes an annual summary of his family’s year, which I always look forward to reading. While you’d have to feed a well-considered list of accomplishments and events to the AI, you could have the AI turn that into a holiday family newsletter or regular letter.

Write a cheerful holiday message for a family [holiday] card.

Help me write a holiday newsletter summarizing our family’s year. Include the following events, accomplishments, and notable thoughts: [your list here]. Order the newsletter [chronologically, or by person, or by subject].

I need to give cards to [count] coworkers. Write me [count] short holiday greetings I can put into those cards. Keep the tone of the greetings [warm or heartfelt or funny or cheerful or professional].

You can also use DALL-E 3 inside ChatGPT or some other image generator to create images for your cards and letters.
Just keep in mind my previous warning that AIs tend to really botch up the use of words in images.

6. Holiday crafts and activities

Do you have the family home for a week or more? Do you have friends and relatives over and want to keep them occupied beyond just staring at the TV all day? How about getting together to make DIY projects, crafts, and decorations? The AIs can help.

Provide me a list of [count] possible homemade ornaments I can create with [materials, like recycled, or a list]. Then, when I choose one or two that I like, provide me detailed instructions on how to complete the craft. Include links to websites or videos that provide in-depth tutorials if you can find them.

Suggest holiday crafts for kids under [age] years old.

What are [count] easy DIY decorations I can make in [time period] using [material list, or let the AI suggest materials] for a [theme type, like winter, or fireplace, or holiday name] theme?

7. Travel assistance

An AI can help you plan your trips, give you ideas about places to go and things to see, and help you plan your packing.

Plan a [count]-day itinerary for a family of [describe family and ages] visiting [location] during the holiday season.

What should I pack for a [duration] trip to a [characteristic of or location of] destination? Please note that I need to include [anything special you must pack]. Give me the list in checklist form.
I find traveling with my kids to be stressful. Give me some ideas about how I can stay calm and have a good time amidst the inevitable chaos.

With ChatGPT Plus and some of the other AIs, you can feed them PDF documents to read. If you have reservations or confirmations for travel, you may be tempted to share those documents with the AI, but I would recommend against it. Don’t upload personally identifying information or other personal details to the AI. You never know what it will do with it.

8. Budget management

Holidays are expensive. According to US News, “Americans spent roughly $10.8 billion online on Black Friday this year, up 10.2% from the previous year, then followed that up by spending $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday, 7.3% more compared to Cyber Monday in 2023.”

So, it’s more important than ever before to set a budget, manage your finances, and have cost-saving strategies in place.

Create a holiday budget plan for gifts, meals, and [type of travel, local, distance, vehicle, etc] travel with a [currency amount] limit.

Give me a set of affordable gift ideas for a family of [size]. Include ideas for [count] adults and [count] children aged [ages]. Favorite topics and interests include [list of topics or interests to gift].

Suggest [count] money saving ideas for holiday decorations. Suggest [count] money saving ideas that can help me keep my holiday spending down, yet provide a good experience for my family.

9. Stress reduction

I don’t know about you, but my holiday experiences have been insanely stressful. Yes, I cherish seeing family members, but there are so many dynamics between family members, not to mention the whole money issue and, now, politics, that the holiday period is one giant stress bomb for some of us. Let’s find ways to make that more livable.

What are some mindfulness techniques to stay calm during the holidays?

Give me ten phrases I can use to politely change the subject when [family member] gets all heavy handed about politics?

How can I simplify holiday preparations without losing the festive spirit? Suggest tasks I can delegate during holiday planning and how I can present them to my family members so they feel constructively included.

10. Post-holiday wind down

Congrats! You survived another holiday season. Now, it’s time to clean up. Work with the AI for tips and plans for cleaning, organizing, and even reflecting back on your holiday season experiences.

Suggest [count] ways I can store [type of] holiday decorations to save space?

Draft [count] unique thank you messages I can use to acknowledge gifts received during the holidays.

Suggest a post-holiday reset routine, including tips for resetting my diet, budget, and home organization.

What are you planning?

So there you go. Those 30 prompts should get you started on your holiday preparations. I hope they will inspire you to create prompts of your own.

What are your plans this holiday season? Are there any prompts you recommend other ZDNET readers try out? Are you looking forward to the holidays or to when the holidays are over? Is there anything specific you’re really looking forward to? Any tips and suggestions for holiday ideas you want to share? Let us know in the comments below.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/10-ways-ai-chatbots-can-help-you-with-holiday-tasks-and-30-sample-prompts

Source: Fast Company, Henry Chandonnet
Photo: Unkas Photo/Adobe Stock; Artenex/Adobe Stock

Artificial intelligence is pushing the publishing world toward volume. That could drown out the good work.

AI has the power to pump out words in record speed. And already, that’s substantially inflating the book publishing market.

Lovers of LLMs are pushing into the traditional publishing system, building their own book-publishing entities. They’re jump-starting their own publishing imprints, and self-publishing books (often slop) on digital marketplaces. The goal here is very often speed: Just how many books can these companies publish, and how quickly can they do it? But that push for volume could threaten the foundation of the book market, making it harder for everyday readers to find quality works.

How AI inflated book publishing

The new publisher Spines wants to distribute 8,000 books in 2025. (For reference, legacy publisher Simon & Schuster publishes around 2,000 titles annually.) To hit this goal, they’ll use AI to tighten the editing and distribution process. For a writer with $5,000 on hand, Spines could publish your book in under three weeks. And, like so many AI companies, they’ve scored a bulky seed round of $16 million.

They’re not the only tech-focused imprint opening shop. Microsoft launched its own publisher 8080 Books to publish science and technology-focused books. While the imprint is not specifically AI-focused, it maintains a similar goal of speed. Per a company statement, 8080 Books will “accelerate the publishing process, shortening the lag between the final manuscript and the book’s arrival in the marketplace.” ByteDance, which owns TikTok, is also opening an imprint to respond to swelling BookTok trends.

AI could also bring more foreign-language books into the English-speaking market. Veen Bosch & Keuning, the biggest publisher in the Netherlands, which was recently acquired by Simon & Schuster, will use AI to translate books from Dutch to English. Stockholm-based Nuanxed is also expanding their translation service to books. CEO Robert Casten Carlberg explained to Publishers Weekly that AI can accelerate translation for book series, as the model learns from the previous books.

While these publishing companies are using AI to expand their offerings an arguably better service readers, another subset of AI slop specialists are already invading digital bookshops. Kindle users may notice AI books advertised on their home screens, and AI-generated book “summaries” flooded Amazon. One public library cataloguer told New York that AI-written books regularly crossed his desk—including a diet book that recommended readers “eat straight marinara sauce for lunch.”

How will the big publishers react?

In their founding statement, Microsoft’s 8080 Books took aim at the big publishing houses: “Technology has quickened the pace of almost every industry except publishing.” Hyperbole aside, the major imprints have indeed been largely resistant to AI. Penguin Random House’s AI approach prioritizes human creativity and intellectual property before a third clause to “innovate responsibly.” Hachette UK specifically opposes “machine creativity,” but encourages responsible operational uses.

Much of this weariness dates back to the IP debate, as writers remain anxious that their works will be fed to LLMs for training. But recently, these publishing houses have started opening up to deals with AI companies. HarperCollins announced an agreement last week to sell “select nonfiction backlist titles” for AI training, with author consent. MIT Press also emailed their authors to ask for input on a possible training deal.

As AI-powered publishing balloons, the sheer market volume may make it difficult for these publishers to stand out. They’ll have to adapt.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91236515/how-ai-is-accelerating-and-devaluing-book-publishing

Source: CNBC, Melissa Repko
Photo: The exterior of a Dollar General convenience store on August 30, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Dollar General stock fell 32% after cutting its full-year outlook. The drop is the company’s largest on record. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Key Points

Dollar General said it is testing same-day delivery from about 75 of its stores.

On an earnings call, CEO Todd Vasos said the company ultimately expects it will expand the offering to “thousands of stores.”

The discounter has felt pressure as Walmart, Amazon, Temu and others offer convenient digital ways to shop, along with low prices.

Dollar General is testing same-day delivery to customers’ homes as the deep discounter tries to fend off fiercer competition with Walmart

On an earnings call Thursday, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said the retailer “soft launched” the delivery program in September. Now it offers same-day delivery at about 75 stores, he said. It is offered through a third-party company, which he did not name.

“We’ve always said here, ‘We’re going to do delivery our way when it’s time,’” Vasos said. “We believe it’s time.”

He said the company expects it will ultimately expand the offering to “thousands of stores.”

With same-day delivery, the Tennessee-based dollar store is acknowledging the pressure from other retailers like Walmart, Amazon and Temu that offer convenience along with low prices. Walmart, for instance, has significantly grown its online business, posting 10 quarters in a row of double-digit e-commerce gains in the U.S., as it offers curbside pickup and speedier home deliveries.

Dollar General, on the other hand, typically does not share updates or specific figures about its e-commerce business in quarterly earnings reports because of its heavy reliance on brick-and-mortar sales.

Yet over the past year, Dollar General has felt the pinch from both economic challenges and its own strategy. Consumers, particularly low-income households, have pulled back on discretionary purchases because of the cumulative effect of high inflation. Dollar General also has paid millions of dollars of fines for sloppy stores and blocked fire exits that became both workplace safety hazards and potential turnoffs for its shoppers.

In recent months, Dollar General’s CEO has spoken about losing market share to Walmart. Vasos said at a Goldman Sachs retail conference in September that “the guys in Bentonville [the Arkansas home of Walmart’s headquarters] took a little bit larger piece” of the retailer’s middle-income customer base.

Vasos said the company launched its own program after learning from its DoorDash deliveries, which are available at about 16,000 of its stores.

The new offering, DG Delivery, is available for customers at select stores, according to Dollar General’s website. Customers place orders through Dollar General’s app and can get the same store prices and delivery in as little as an hour. The program also accepts digital coupons and offers cash back rewards.

DG Delivery does not appear to charge a fee or have a minimum order requirement, according to the website.

On Dollar General’s earnings call on Thursday, Vasos said Dollar General is still working on its business model for the online offering, but said it relies on labor from a third party rather than using store employees or company-employed delivery people. He said same-day delivery is an opportunity to grow the retailer’s advertising business, too, since customers would engage with the app more frequently when placing orders.

But the option is still available at only a tiny fraction of Dollar General’s stores. It has more than 20,000 stores across the country, including many in rural parts of the U.S.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/05/dollar-general-tests-same-day-delivery-as-discounter-chases-walmart

Source: CNBC, Celia Fernandez and Mickey Todiwala
Photo: The train car features a sitting area, kitchenette, gas potbelly stove, bathroom and king-sized bed in the bedroom. (CNBC Make It)

When Deary, Idaho native Isaac French’s dad saw an abandoned train car on a neighbor’s farm, he knew there was potential for something great.

The car, built in the 1900s, had been sitting in the same spot for decades. The wood was rotting, algae was growing and there were about 20 cats living inside, French, 27, tells CNBC Make It.

Train car number 306 originally ran on the Washington Idaho & Montana Railway from 1909 until the 1950s.

It took several years, but in 2020 the family purchased the train car for just $3,000.

″[My dad] had the faith and the vision for it and I’m so glad he did,” French says. “There’s something so rewarding about taking an old structure that was so lovingly built, and breathing life back into it.”

It also took quite a bit of time for the family to find someone willing to move the 61-feet-long structure to their 145-acre piece of land.

“It’s just a beautiful, secluded place in nature,” French says. “We chose the highest point on our property so that we could capture these epic views.”

The move cost around $10,000.

The family then spent $137,000 and six months renovating the structure that they intended to use as an Airbnb. Expenses included building a platform, refurbishing the floors, adding a bathroom, landscaping, and furniture.

French, his parents and his siblings did most of the work themselves, restoring the train car to mimic the original design. They hired subcontractor friends for the HVAC and electrical work.

French hand-painted the lettering on the exterior of the car based on an old photo they found. The train car even has its original windows.

“In the summer, we open these up, let the breeze blow through the car. It’s just beautiful. In hay season, you smell the rye grass wafting through the car,” French says.

To make the train car livable, French and his family converted the passenger room into a sitting area, added a kitchenette, and a gas potbelly stove.

They built a bathroom with a barn door and outfitted the train car’s former mailroom into a bedroom with a king-sized bed.

“Our guests absolutely love it. They wake up in the morning and look straight out onto these beautiful panoramic views of the countryside. It’s a really epic place to sleep,” French says.

“The idea is to reflect the nature surroundings. Since we had these beautiful pine trees and this spectacular view, we thought it would be a cool juxtaposition of new and old,” French says.

Finding success on Airbnb

Despite being in the middle of nowhere, the train car was an instant hit on Airbnb. The listing became one of the most successful Airbnb locations in the country, according to Fast Company.

It costs between $325 and $350 a night to stay in the Restored 1909 Train Carriage.

“What I love about it the most is that there is a sense of history and a story that’s already built in,” French says.

In the first year, the train car had 90% occupancy and $14,179 in revenue. Since then, revenue has increased to between $75,000 and $90,000 a year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. This year, French says it’s projected to bring in $105,000.

In 2023, the train car was booked for 231 nights on Airbnb. It has about a 65% profit margin, with 30 to 35% of overall revenue going towards cleaning costs, ongoing small maintenance and repairs, property taxes, and insurance.

The family knows they could raise the price per night of the train car’s stay, but French says they don’t plan on doing that because they find it fulfilling to play hosts to people from all over who want to experience a piece of history.

“How many old buildings and old stories and old train cars are just sitting out there waiting to be discovered and loved,” French says. “And I think that’s the key. You have to have some love and some inspiration to participate in a project like this and breathe new life into it.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/05/idaho-train-car-airbnb

Source: Smithsonian Magazine, Ella Feldman
Photo: Known as the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius, the violin was once owned by the renowned Hungarian musician Joseph Joachim. (Sotheby’s)

This 300-Year-Old Stradivarius Violin Could Become the Most Expensive Musical Instrument Ever Sold at Auction
Crafted by the renowned violin maker Antonio Stradivari in 1714, the rare instrument is expected to sell for between $12 and $18 million

A valuable violin with a storied past will be sold at Sotheby’s in February—and it could become the most expensive musical instrument ever auctioned.

Known as the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius, the instrument was crafted in 1714 by Antonio Stradivari, the famous Italian violin maker, during his “golden period” of craftsmanship. The instrument is still in working condition, and it could sell for between $12 and $18 million, Sotheby’s announced this week.

The current record-holder for the most expensive musical instrument sold at auction is another Stradivari violin: the 1721 Lady Blunt Stradivarius, named for the granddaughter of the British Romantic poet Lord Byron, which went for $15.9 million in 2011, according to Bloomberg’s Ed Stapley.

That might change when the Joachim-Ma goes up for auction during Sotheby’s Masters Week, a series of auctions featuring paintings, sculptures and other valuable artworks.

The violin was once owned by the renowned Hungarian musician Joseph Joachim, who most likely performed with it during the 1879 premiere of Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, which Brahms conducted himself, according to the auction house.

“The first time we actually saw the instrument, we were really, truly blown away just by its presence,” Mari-Claudia Jiménez, Sotheby’s chairman and head of business development, tells ARTnews’ Karen K. Ho.

The violin’s other namesake is Si-Hon Ma, a celebrated Chinese violinist and teacher who invented the Sihon mute, a device placed behind a violin’s bridge to dampen sound. It doesn’t need to be removed when not in use, making it “a great improvement over the older standard mute,” according to his New York Times obituary. Ma bought the Stradivarius violin with his profits from the Sihon mute and played it until his death in 2009, per Bloomberg.

After a stint at the Violin Museum in Cremona, Italy, the instrument was donated to the New England Conservatory, Ma’s alma mater. The violin came with the provision that it would eventually be sold to support student scholarships.

Over the past nine years, only a handful of senior students at the conservatory have been able to play the valuable violin, as Andrea Kalyn, president of the New England Conservatory, tells Bloomberg. “It has been an extraordinary experience for them,” she adds.

In a statement, Sotheby’s describes the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius as having an “exceptional sound—rich, complex and full of depth.”

“The tone is both sweet and rounded, with a richness that seems to grow with each note,” says the auction house. “There’s a warmth to the sound, with an underlying depth that gives it a unique character, making it far from ordinary.”

Although future generations of New England Conservatory students won’t necessarily be able to play the 300-year-old violin, they will still benefit from its sale. The proceeds will help establish some of the largest named scholarships in the conservatory’s history.

Who will provide that future scholarship money? Jiménez tells Bloomberg that the one-of-a-kind artifact may attract buyers from a variety of backgrounds.

“This isn’t just something that a violin or instrument aficionado would want,” she says, though she adds that it would be ideal if the buyer wanted to play it. “This is for anyone who wants to own something that is the best of the best, the most extraordinary, or the most special of their kind.”

In 2022, a different 1714 Stradivarius sold at auction for $15.34 million at Tarisio, an auction house that specializes in fine instruments.

Instrument enthusiasts and other members of the public will have an opportunity to see the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius for themselves. Ahead of its sale at Sotheby’s New York in February, the violin will go on display in London and Hong Kong, with additional exhibitions to be announced.

Ella Malena Feldman is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C. She examines art, culture and gender in her work, which has appeared in Washington City Paper, DCist and the Austin American-Statesman.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-300-year-old-stradivarius-violin-could-become-the-most-expensive-musical-instrument-ever-sold-at-auction

Source: Howard Lutnik, Reed Alexander and Emmalyse Brownstein
Photo: Howard Lutnick has served as President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team cochair. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP)

Donald Trump has tapped Wall Street CEO Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary.

Lutnick has spent over three decades running Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank in New York.

See his career highlights and who could take over at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, has been named the next US secretary of commerce for Donald Trump.

As the head of the Commerce Department, Lutnick would have sway over the economy through tariffs and trade. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be integral to Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on goods from China, a central promise of the president-elect’s bid for a second White House term.

The Wall Street veteran has spent his career at financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, where he has been president and CEO since 1991. In recent years, the billionaire banker has become a key advisor to and fundraiser for the 47th president. He is cochair of the Trump transition team.

Here’s a look at Lutnick’s rise from “middle-class Long Island” to Wall Street boss and what his new role could mean for the investment bank he heads.

Who is Howard Lutnick?

In an interview on a podcast hosted by the investor Anthony Pompliano, he said that he had a “classic middle-class Long Island” childhood, with his mother working as an art teacher and his father as a history professor. His mother passed away from breast cancer when Lutnick was in the 11th grade, and his father died from cancer shortly after he started college.

He was 18 and found himself caring for his younger brother, who was 15 at the time. He also had a 20-year-old sister. He recalled being unable to cook for his siblings, so they ate boxed macaroni and cheese night after night, he shared on the podcast.

Lutnick said in the podcast that he landed his first job at Cantor Fitzgerald with the help of a family connection. He took a semester off of his studies at Haverford College to start working but eventually earned his degree in economics.

What is Cantor Fitzgerald?

Cantor Fitzgerald offers a range of services, from investment banking to sales and trading to equity research.

The firm’s website said it has raised more than $45 billion for clients through 700 deals since 2016 and that it has more than 1,150 active institutional and corporate clients. The New York City-based firm counts more than 245 professionals on its sales and trading team and cites its “core expertise” as healthcare and technology.

The firm’s asset-management arm had some $13.2 billion in assets as of the end of 2023 with investments in real estate, private markets, infrastructure, equities, and fixed income, to name a few.

https://www.businessinsider.com/howard-lutnick-billionaire-donald-trumps-commerce-secretary-nominee-cantor-fitzgerald-2024

Source: ZDNet, Lance Whitney
Photo: Lance Whitney, ZDNet

The Vitals app can catch if your vitals are out of the norm. Here’s how to use it to stay ahead of flu season.

Sometimes a cold, sore throat, or other illness can catch you by surprise. If only you could get a head’s up as to whether you’re about to come down with something. That’s where Apple’s Vitals app may be able to help.

Introduced for the Apple Watch with WatchOS 11, the Vitals app uses data recorded about your heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, sleep duration, and other metrics while you’re asleep. The app will then notify you if any metric seems out of whack compared with the usual levels. You can also manually check the app on both the watch and your iPhone (or iPad) to view the data yourself.

Before you get started, make sure you’ve updated your iPhone to iOS 18 or higher and your watch to WatchOS 11 or higher. On each device, go to Settings, select General, and tap Software Update. You’ll be told that the device is up to date or prompted to download and install the latest version.

How to use the Vitals app

For the Vitals measurements to work, you must be willing to wear your Apple Watch to bed. First, you’ll need to wear it for at least seven nights with a sleep schedule enabled. During that time, the Vitals app collects a typical baseline for each of the available health metrics.

To compare your nightly vitals against the baseline results, you should continually wear your watch when you go to sleep. Any notifications you receive will alert you to fluctuations in your baseline and may suggest certain contributing factors, such as new medications, changes in elevation, or an upcoming illness.

Depending on the type of band you use, wearing the watch to bed is more comfortable than you might think. The trick is to keep the watch tight enough on your wrist so that the readings will register but not so tight that it bothers you. My watch is outfitted with a sport loop that I can easily adjust through the velcro strap. I often wear it to bed and forget it’s even there. To make sure the watch has enough juice to last the night, I charge it for a couple of hours before going to sleep, and it’s good to go.

Be aware that any measurements offered by the Vitals app are not intended for medical use. As always, consult a doctor if you’re not feeling well or detect changes in your overall health. Normally, Vitals would be able to measure your blood oxygen level. But for legal reasons, Apple had to quash that feature on Apple Watch models sold in the US on or after January 18, 2024. However, there are still enough metrics to provide a good picture of your health.

Now, let’s see how this works.

1. Set up your sleep schedule

Your first task is to establish a sleep schedule, which you can do on your Apple Watch or your iPhone. On your watch, open the Sleep app. You can set a sleep schedule only for the next wake up time or for all future wake ups. Since you need to record at least seven days of sleep for the Vitals app to work, you’ll want to set up a schedule for all future wake ups.

Turn on the switch for “Sleep Schedule.” Swipe down the screen and tap the setting for “Set Your First Schedule.” By default, the schedule will go into effect every day. To change this, tap the setting for “Every Day” and uncheck any days on which you don’t want to follow your schedule.

Tap the setting for “Wake Up” to set your wake time. You can simply turn the Digital Crown to move from one hour or minute to another. After setting the time, tap the checkmark. You’re also able to turn on an alarm if you need help getting up. Under Sounds & Haptics, you can set a specific sound and sensation to wake you up. Next, choose the setting for Bedtime and set the time you normally go to sleep. When done, tap the checkmark.

2. Launch the Vitals app

The first time you launch the Vitals app, you’ll be told that you need to record seven sleep sessions. Wear your watch to bed each night.

3. Record your sleep sessions

The next morning, check the app and you’ll see that the count has gone down by one night with another oval image filled in.

At some point, the app will tell you if additional sessions are required for specific metrics, such as the respiratory rate or wrist temperature. Keep wearing your watch to bed until all the metrics have been recorded.

4. Check your vitals

After you’ve collected all the baseline readings, continue wearing your watch to bed. Open the Vitals app on your Apple Watch to check the latest readings. If everything looks good, the latest overnight vitals will register as typical.

If not, you should have already received a notification alerting you to a change in your measurements, and the app will indicate any outliers. Swipe up on the screen to view the result for each metric. Tap the calendar icon in the upper left to see the results for the past seven days.

5. Learn more about each metric

To learn the significance of each metric, tap the reading itself. The About screen will describe the metric, what it measures, and why it’s important. Tap the X to close the current About screen. Swipe up to the next metric and continue until you’ve covered each one.

If you do find an outlier for any metric, the app will list contributing factors and may suggest steps you can take. Depending on the metric and the reading, you might want to contact your doctor or local pharmacy to get further help.

6. Check your vitals on the iPhone

Beyond viewing your vitals on the Apple Watch, you can check them on the iPhone, where you’ll find more details. For this, open the Health app on the phone, tap the Browse icon at the bottom, and select Vitals from the Health Categories section. The screen will show the most recent vitals as well as older results. Tap a specific result to view the highlights, a chart, and historical information.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-your-apple-watch-to-predict-when-you-may-get-sick