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 S69How to Write a Thank You Email After an Interview   You’ve updated your resume, written your cover letter, and prepared for your interview. Now it’s time for your thank you note to seal the deal. In this piece, the author outlines what to say — and not to say — in your thank you email to interviewers and answers common questions like: How much detail should you include? When should you send it? And why is it important to do? He also includes three sample emails to use as a guide.
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S1Understanding Leadership  The would-be analyst of leadership usually studies popularity, power, showmanship, or wisdom in long-range planning. But none of these qualities is the essence of leadership. Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants—a human and social achievement that stems from the leader’s understanding of his or her fellow workers and the relationship of their individual goals to the group’s aim.
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S2Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives  In 2022, the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes — such as a restructure to achieve efficiencies, a culture transformation to unlock new ways of working, or the replacement of a legacy tech system — up from two in 2016. While more change is coming, the workforce has hit a wall: A Gartner survey revealed that employees’ willingness to support enterprise change collapsed to just 43% in 2022, compared to 74% in 2016. Navigating the pandemic asked a lot of employees — and while they delivered, it came at a cost. Relentless sprinting means many employees are running on fumes. To create more sustainable change efforts, leaders must prioritize change initiatives, showing employees where to invest their energies. They also must manage change fatigue by building in periods of proactive rest, involving employees in change plans, and challenging managers to help build team resilience.
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S3Are businesses ready for another wave of Covid-19 cases?  As students return to school and employers call their workers back to offices, Covid-19 cases are once again rising globally. Two new variants of note – BA.2.86 (Pirola) and EG.5 (Eris) – have already shown up around the world, including in the US and UK.Even as we head into cool-weather months, experts aren't yet predicting new lockdowns. Still, the rise in cases reopens the question: what happens if we're once again faced with an overwhelming global health crisis?
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S4Sancocho: A Panamanian chicken and vegetable soup  Sancocho may be ubiquitous across Latin America, but no two recipes are the same. That's because the primary ingredients of this hearty soup – meat, vegetables and tubers – are as broad and as varied as Latin America itself.Perhaps that's why the name of the dish is so generic; sancocho is derived from the Spanish verb sancochar, meaning to cook in liquid. Nevertheless, when you look at the different countries where the dish is made, you'll find sancocho recipes vary based on regional ingredients, seasoned to comfort local palates.
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S5Hip-hop's rise to the top of fashion  In February it was announced that Pharrell Williams would be the new men's creative director of Louis Vuitton – a role that became vacant after the unexpected death of the US fashion designer Virgil Abloh in November 2021. Four months later, the revered musician and producer showcased his first collection at Paris Fashion Week. It included vibrant faux-fur jackets, the brand's logo in bright colours across garments, and various camouflage pieces created by modifying Louis Vuitton's signature Damier print. While this is not Williams's first foray into the fashion world – he has collaborated with Louis Vuitton twice before, and with Chanel, Moncler and Adidas Originals – his role at Vuitton is his most significant fashion moment yet. And, with it, Pharrell joins a line of famous black musicians who have dived head-first into the fashion industry, including Rihanna with the luxury brand Fenty and the lingerie brand Savage X Fenty; Kanye West with Yeezy; Beyonce with Ivy Park; and Tyler the Creator's Golf le Fleur. Williams also continues a 50-year-long tradition of hip hop significantly influencing the fashion world.
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S6Hear stunning music recorded inside Mississippi's infamous Parchman prison  "Oh listen you men, I don't mean no harm / Oh listen you men, I don't mean no harm / If you wanna do good, you better stay off ol' Parchman farm." – Bukka White, Parchman Farm BluesOn the morning of 5 February 2023, Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan arrived at the gates of the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm. He had come to record the prison's most gifted singers at a specially convened chapel service, and had taken two flights and driven a further three hours to get there. Yet Brennan had no idea who or what he was about to hear.
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S7How grisly thriller Dead Man's Shoes captured British small-town violence  With its seething menace and bleak realism, punctuated by the occasional dose of the surreal, Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes (2004) is a uniquely British story of small-town cruelty and revenge. Made on a shoestring budget with a cast of actors who would later go on to major work in Hollywood, the film, now just shy of 20 years old, has long been difficult to see, and is mercifully receiving a restoration and UK theatrical re-release today.Meadows' film is narratively straightforward: it stars Paddy Considine as Richard, a soldier returning to his small Derbyshire town after seven years' absence, who wants to confront the sleazy thugs that viciously bullied his learning-disabled brother Anthony, played by Toby Kebbell.
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S8S9Anxiety can often be a drag on creativity, upending the trope of the tortured artist  In the U.S., anxiety disorders affect about one-third of the population. So it’s no surprise that a good number of artists and writers also suffer from anxiety and depression.But whereas some critics see Vincent Van Gogh’s striking paintings and Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry as the direct result of their psychosis and depression, I tend to be less romantic about this subject. I see their brilliant output as having happened in spite of – rather than because of – their mental anguish.
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S10S11S12Ransom or realism? A closer look at Biden's prisoner swap deal with Iran  The Biden administration’s agreement with Iran for a planned swap of prisoners could be seen as a simple business transaction to free five Iranians from imprisonment in the U.S. and five Americans, some with dual citizenship, from detention in Iran. But the agreement has broader implications for U.S.-Iranian relations, the future of Iran’s nuclear program and for the tense relationship between Iran and Israel, which is largely defined by the status of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
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S13Alzheimer's disease is partly genetic -  Steven T. DeKosky consults for Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics and Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals; is the Editor for Dementia for Up-To-Date, a point of care electronic textbook of medicine and is Associate Editor of Neurotherapeutics-The Journal of the American Society for Experimental Therapeutics (ASENT); chairs Drug Monitoring Safety Boards for Biogen, Prevail Pharmaceuticals, and Vaccinex Pharmaceuticals; and chairs Scientific Advisory Boards for Acumen Pharmaceuticals and Cognition Therapeutics.Diseases that run in families usually have genetic causes. Some are genetic mutations that directly cause the disease if inherited. Others are risk genes that affect the body in a way that increases the chance someone will develop the disease. In Alzheimer’s disease, genetic mutations in any of three specific genes can cause the disease, and other risk genes either increase or decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
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S14US autoworkers launch historic strike: 3 questions answered  The United Auto Workers union, or UAW, has told workers at three factories to go on strike after failing to agree on new contracts with each of Detroit’s major automakers. The contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023. By midnight, the union posted a strike declaration on its website. The strike will force General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the global company that builds Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and Dodge vehicles in North America – to halt some of their operations. “Tonight for the first time in our history we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,” UAW President Shawn Fain announced about two hours before the negotiation deadline passed without a contract. The union is seeking higher pay, better benefits and assurances that large numbers of its members will work in the automakers’ growing number of electric-vehicle factories.
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S15S16An X-Files expert on the show's enduring appeal - 30 years on  On September 10 1993 the pilot episode of The X-Files aired. Thirty years later to the day, I was at a convention centre in Minneapolis with 500 other fans and the show’s creator, Chris Carter, celebrating its legacy. Ostensibly a show about aliens, The X-Files swiftly became part of the cultural lexicon and remains there to this day. In part its success was down to the chemistry of its two leads – David Duchovny, who played FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson, who played FBI Special Agent Dana Scully. After all, it was the X-Files fandom that invented the term “shipping” (rooting for characters to get together romantically).
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S17Scotland's legal go-ahead for safer drug consumption rooms is a gamechanger  On the basis of the information I have been provided, I would be prepared to publish a prosecution policy that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute drug users for simple possession offences committed within a pilot safer drugs consumption facility.Scotland’s most senior law officer, the Lord Advocate, has released a statement that would enable NHS Glasgow and Clyde to open a safer drug consumption facility (SDCF) in the city.
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S18S19Libya floods: why cash is the best way to help get humanitarian aid to people affected by disasters  The heavy rainfall that hit Libya during Storm Daniel caused two dams and four bridges to collapse in the coastal city of Derna, submerging most of the city in floodwater and claiming thousands of lives. As you watch the disturbing scenes of this disaster on the news, you might wonder about the best way to help. Sending that blanket in the closet you have never used or those painkillers in the cabinet you overbought last time you had a headache might seem helpful.
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S20Surgery is facing its #MeToo moment - here's what needs to be done now  Harrowing accounts of female doctors being sexually harassed, assaulted and even raped by their colleagues, highlight an urgent issue that must be addressed.The study, published in the British Journal of Surgery, revealed that an astounding 63% of female surgeons have been sexually harassed, while 30% have been sexually assaulted by colleagues in the past five years. Even more disturbingly, 11% reported forced physical contact tied to career progression opportunities.
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S21How weather 'blocks' have triggered more extreme heatwaves and floods across Europe  On several occasions this summer, Europe’s weather seemed to get itself stuck, leading to prolonged heatwaves and floods. In the UK, a long hot and dry spell throughout May and June gave way to a similarly persistent cool and wet period. In September, Europe saw widespread flooding in southern Europe while the UK basked in its longest ever September heatwave. These were all the result of “blocked” weather patterns.
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S22S23Russian and North Korea artillery deal paves the way for dangerous cyberwar alliance  Russia is currently firing some 14 million shells a year in Ukraine. They are only manufacturing 2 million. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are firing around 2.5 million shells a year, but are also struggling to source them.A deal between North Korea and Russia for artillery rounds, which the respective leaders have said they are “actively advancing”, is a simple solution to Russia’s problem. But it is a deal that is fraught with dangers for global stability.
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S24Libya flood disaster: scale of the catastrophe must bring the two warring factions together  A century ago, the coastal city of Derna was well known for picture-perfect beaches, palm trees and whitewashed villas mainly inhabited by Libya’s Italian colonial occupiers. Today, in the aftermath of Storm Daniel, which brought 400mm of rain to the region, overwhelming two dams and sweeping millions of tons of water across the city, much of Derna has been flooded. Entire suburbs are reported to have been washed into the sea by the tsunami-like wave that barrelled down the normally dry river Wadi Dern through the heart of the city.The death toll from the catastrophe is estimated at more than 11,000 with another 10,000 missing and feared dead. Countless more people – perhaps one-third of Derna’s inhabitants, have been left homeless.
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S25How pubs could get drinkers to swallow a peak-time price rise  You may be used to paying more for a plane ticket or a train journey during peak times. But now a major British hospitality company has announced a similar approach to how much it costs to drink beer. Stonegate Group, which owns chains including the Slug & Lettuce, has announced plans to increase drinks prices by 20p when their pubs are at their busiest.
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S26Bidenomics: why it's more likely to win the 2024 election than many people think  Joe Biden has come out fighting against perceptions that he is handling the US economy badly. During an address in Maryland, the president contrasted Bidenomics with Trumpian “MAGAnomics” that would involve tax-cutting and spending reductions. He decried trickle-down policies that had, “shipped jobs overseas, hollowed out communities and produced soaring deficits”. Changing voters’ minds about the economy is one of Biden’s biggest challenges ahead of the 2024 election. Recent polling data suggested 63% of Americans are negative on the US economy, while 45% said their financial situation had deteriorated in the last two years.
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S27Sustainable use of natural resources: lessons from Pantanal communities  Rafael Chiaravalloti received support from the Science without Borders Programme, funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).“How can we use nature in a sustainable way?” That is a question I, together with colleagues from different parts of the world, have sought to answer for a decade. We are dedicated to studying issues related to the sustainable use of natural resources.
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S28NASA report finds no evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial  NASA’s independent study team released its highly anticipated report on UFOs on Sept. 14, 2023. In part to move beyond the stigma often attached to UFOs, where military pilots fear ridicule or job sanctions if they report them, UFOs are now characterized by the U.S. government as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.
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S29Libya dam collapse: engineering expert raises questions about management  Dams are usually built to withstand heavy rainfall or drought. The design and construction of a dam takes into consideration all possible effects. All factors, including the type of building materials, the design of the foundation and the stability of a dam, as well as expected floods and earthquakes and even military action, are taken into consideration when planning a dam.Aside from how the dam is constructed, there should be safety provisions in place. For instance, in cases of storms, the engineers should release the water to ensure that a dam’s maximum carrying capacity is not exceeded.
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S30Why So Many Migrants Are Coming to New York  Last week, Mayor Eric Adams told a roomful of people that the recent influx of migrants “will destroy New York City.” More than a hundred and ten thousand have arrived in the city in recent months, and more than half are currently staying at shelters and other emergency sites. Although some of the most high-profile arrivals have been sent on buses by Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, as part of a Republican plan to shift the burden of migrant crossings onto blue states, nearly ninety per cent of the migrants who have come to New York since last spring have arrived in other ways. Meanwhile, Adams has denounced the Biden Administration for not providing enough resources for the city to resolve what he describes as a dire crisis. (According to Adams, it will cost twelve billion dollars to house the migrants over the next three years.)I recently spoke by phone with Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, and an expert on how immigration policies at the federal, state, and local levels intersect. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why so many migrants have chosen to come to New York City specifically, why the Biden Administration cannot necessarily fulfill the Mayor’s requests, and how congressional inaction on immigration policy has exacerbated the problems that immigration hawks say they care about most.
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S31A.I. and the Next Generation of Drone Warfare  On August 28th, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, announced what she called the Replicator initiative—an all-hands-on-deck effort to modernize the American arsenal by adding fleets of artificially intelligent, unmanned, relatively cheap weapons and equipment. She described these machines as “attritable,” meaning that they can suffer attrition without compromising a mission. Imagine a swarm of hundreds or even thousands of unmanned aerial drones, communicating with each other as they collect intelligence on enemy-troop movements, and you will begin to understand the Deputy Secretary’s vision for Replicator. Even if a sizable number of the drones were shot down, the information they’d gathered would have already been recorded and sent back to human operators on the ground.In one sense, Hicks’s announcement, during an address titled “The Urgency to Innovate” at a meeting of National Defense Industrial Association, did not signal a wholly new approach. Five years ago, for example, the National Defense Strategy was already calling for major investments in artificial intelligence, noting that “we cannot expect success fighting tomorrow’s conflicts with yesterday’s weapons or equipment.” Since then, the D.O.D. has spent billions of dollars on artificial intelligence; last year alone, it allocated close to nine hundred million dollars to support nearly seven hundred A.I. projects. Still, as Hicks pointed out, many such technologies ended up cratering in the so-called valley of death—never getting adopted, even when they’d demonstrated success in the lab or the field. Her audience included numerous military contractors, whom she called on to “out-innovate our competitors.”
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S32Jennifer Egan on a Solution for Homelessness  About 1.4 million people in the United States end up in homeless shelters every year, with many thousands more living on the street. You could fill the city of San Diego with the unhoused. But there are proven solutions. For the chronically homeless, a key strategy is supportive housing—providing a stable apartment along with services like psychiatric and medical care on-site. The New Yorker contributor Jennifer Egan spent the past year following several individuals as they transitioned into a new supportive-housing building in Brooklyn. “Is it easy to bring people with these kinds of difficult histories into one place in the span of eight months? No,” she tells David Remnick. “Does it work? From what I have seen, the answer is yes.” Plus, the staff writer Jia Tolentino talks to Naomi Klein about her new book, “Doppelganger,” which spins a simple case of mistaken identity into a metaphor for the fragility of our society. And Joe Garcia, an inmate serving time for murder in California, reads from his recent New Yorker essay, “Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison.”Egan spent a year chronicling a new supportive-housing building in New York. This kind of facility works to end homelessness. What would be needed to scale it up nationwide?
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S33Lessons in Conquering Child Poverty  In January, it will be sixty years since Lyndon Johnson, in his first State of the Union address, announced an “unconditional war on poverty.” Johnson’s goal was to eliminate acute economic need among Americans of all ages, but he would go on to emphasize the negative effects of child poverty, including restricted access to “the skills demanded by a complex society” and a “mounting sense of despair which drains initiative and ambition and energy.”Research carried out in the past half century has supported Johnson’s point. People who grow up in poverty tend to have fewer academic qualifications, higher dropout rates, lower incomes, and more physical and mental health problems. Some individuals, of course, emerge from a background of childhood deprivation and lead highly successful lives. But, in general, as was the case in Johnson’s day, poverty is associated with human misery and a closure of “the gates of opportunity.”
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S34What to Stream: Sam Peckinpah's Obscure Mini-Masterpiece  Modern-day Westernsâthat is, films that use the genre's tropes and traditions but are set in the presentâhave a noble history. Classics include Edgar G. Ulmer's "The Naked Dawn," Allan Dwan's "The River's Edge," Michael Cimino's "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," and Clint Eastwood's "Bronco Billy." And the past decade has brought David Lowery's "Ain't Them Bodies Saints," Chloé Zhao's "The Rider," and, of course, Jordan Peele's "Nope." Add one to this list: "The Losers," a 1963 film directed and co-written by Sam Peckinpah, one of the masters of the Western, famous for films such as "The Wild Bunch" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." Yet "The Losers" is barely known and comes from an unlikely source: it was made for television, as part of "The Dick Powell Show," an anthology series of dramas and comedies, which ran for two seasons, from 1961 to 1963; a trove of the show's episodes are streaming on YouTube. (Thanks to the consummate cinephile Howard Salen, long of Video Room, for the heads-up.) This kind of show had become popular in the mid-fifties, a way of bringing the allure of Hollywood (with the names of stars in the title) to the small screen, and a way for Hollywood actors and directors to keep busy at a time when the movie business, under the onslaught of television, was in a downturn. (The most prominent of these shows was "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," which ran for ten years.)Powell, who rose to stardom in film musicals of the thirties and transitioned to being a film-noir headliner in the mid-forties, launched his own production company in the fifties. Whereas another series of the time, "The Barbara Stanwyck Show," featured its eponymous star in every single episode, Powell acted in only a handful of episodes of "The Dick Powell Show." Mostly he hosted them, delivering an introduction to the camera. (After his death, in January, 1963, other stars took his place; "The Losers" is hosted by Robert Mitchum). Each episode runs nearly fifty minutes, and the transitions planned for its commercial punctuations are evident. Most of the episodes were directed by television specialists, but some were by noteworthy Hollywood figures of tough and relatively low-budget movies (one by Samuel Fuller, one by Joseph H. Lewis), and one was done by a young Hollywood director on his way upâBlake Edwards, who'd also started in TV but had already made a successful leap to features.
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S35The Futility of the Never Trump Billionaires  When the Republican Presidential-primary season began this spring, one element seemed different than in past cycles: the Party’s donors—its billionaires and multimillionaires and assorted invisible hands—were lining up against the front-runner, Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, raised an eye-popping hundred and thirty million dollars before the Florida governor’s campaign was two months old. Leaders from the Club for Growth, the influential small-government lobby, launched a PAC devoted to moving the Party’s voters past Trump. “The last three elections show he’s lost,” the group’s president, the former congressman David McIntosh, said. Americans for Prosperity Action, the super PAC affiliated with the Koch network, announced that it was committing seventy million dollars to stopping Trump from becoming President again, twenty-five million of which was pledged directly by Koch Industries. Of all the anti-Trump commitments, this one was perhaps the most striking: for a generation, the G.O.P. almost definitionally could not be said to be for something if Charles Koch was against it.But, as the campaign has moved from the heightened anticipation of the early summer to the grinding Iowa-New Hampshire circuit of the fall, the impact of all these pledges of money has, to put it charitably, been faint. On the trail, you will sometimes hear rumors of Stop Trump activity—one operative affiliated with a rival campaign told me that his canvassers in Iowa had come across Americans for Prosperity’s anti-Trump literature left at voters’ doors. Even the more visible efforts have been a little timid. During the first Republican debate, the Koch-affiliated super PAC paid for a thirty-second ad in which a woman in a cardigan and jeans stands on a white soundstage and speaks directly to the camera: “I’m just so tired of it all. The drama and chaos of Donald Trump. It’s all about him, and not about us. His obsession with 2020, revenge, and now all of the indictments. It’s exhausting.” She concludes, “To beat Joe Biden, we have to move on from Donald Trump.”
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S36S37You Need to Watch the Most Intricate Time-Travel Show on Netflix ASAP  A Time Called You is so much more than its time traveling premise — for better and worse.South Korean dramas — particularly the romantic ones — love to play with time travel. It’s been a staple of the industry for decades, from the classic film Il Mare to the hilarious Familiar Wife. As delightful as these past attempts have been, there are only so many ways to create a time loop. It’d be easy to assume that the time-tripping subgenre is finally running out of ideas — but Netflix’s latest K-drama, A Time Called You, is proof that there’s still endless content to mine.
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S38Michael Jai White Did Magic Tricks With 'Dark Knight' Co-Star Heath Ledger  The action-icon star of Spawn, Black Dynamite, and Outlaw Johnny Black reveals his secret obsession: magic.With five simple words, Heath Ledger’s Joker made movie history and launched a million memes (and one very comprehensive oral history). But behind the scenes on The Dark Knight, doing magic tricks was just another day in the life for Ledger and his fellow actor, Michael Jai White, a self-taught magician who performs tricks both on and off the set.
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S39How Kenneth Branagh Brought the Agatha Christie Whodunit Back to Life  The hottest name in Hollywood right now is Agatha Christie. It might seem strange considering the famous murder-mystery novelist passed away almost 50 years ago, but in the last few years, we’ve seen a deluge of adaptations and Christie-inspired whodunits. You wouldn’t be wrong to claim that the bestselling novelist’s name is more relevant than ever, but according to Agatha Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, it never went out of fashion.“At the end of the day, people like great stories,” Prichard tells Inverse. “And these are great stories.”
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S402023 Is Redefining the Assassin Thriller, Thanks to 2 Legendary Directors  Are you in need of a hired killer? We know a guy who knows a guy… or two. They’re David Fincher and Richard Linklater, who just premiered their latest work at Venice Film Festival, and they’re both about hitmen. The Killer and Hit Man may not be imaginatively titled, but they are equally shrewd about where the assassin-for-hire archetype sits in our collective psyches. More interestingly, they reveal everything about the contrasting visions between two American filmmakers who, a few decades ago, helped define an explosively creative era in Hollywood.Neither director went to film school, opting to learn the ropes in ways that counter the previous generation of Spielberg, Scorsese, et al. Both filmmakers witnessed firsthand the stagnation of creative voices in the ‘80s and sought to break free from them in their studio and independent work that followed, and their resistance to conform continues until today. Not content with repeating the steps of their forefathers, The Killer and Hit Man take the pop culture understanding of what a hitman is, acknowledge how contrived it is, and explore the severe emotional consequences of making that fantasy your life.
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S4130 Years Later, the Worst Final Fantasy Game Is a Baffling Relic of Another Age  Since its first entry in 1987, Final Fantasy has been one of the most popular, beloved series in all of gaming. Telling tales of high adventure as heroes fight to overcome darkness, Final Fantasy games are known for their moving stories, memorable characters, and vast reinvention between titles.Outside of the mainline series, Final Fantasy has also gotten a number of spinoffs that stretch the identity of the series even further. They explore different stories and use vastly different mechanics from major Final Fantasy releases. This month sees the anniversary of one of the best, most inventive among Final Fantasy spinoffs, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
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S42'Honkai: Star Rail' PS5 Port Release Date and Pre-Order Bonuses  HoYoverse took a gamble when it developed a PlayStation port for the first time with its Breath of the Wild-inspired action RPG, Genshin Impact. After seeing the game’s soaring success on console, the company decided to also develop a PlayStation port for its latest turn-based hit, Honkai: Star Rail. After watching everybody else have fun exploring Honkai Star Rail’s universe alongside the Astral Express Crew, PlayStation fans finally have some concrete news about when they can join in on the fun thanks to the September 2023 State of Play.The new character Luka will be coming to the game soon and will be available on PlayStation.
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S43'Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn' Continues the Story of 2021's Best RPG  The September 2023 State of Play was a great showcase for RPG fans, especially those looking forward to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and its twisting timeline. But one welcome surprise was the return of Tales of Arise, 2021’s best RPG, which announced that it would be releasing an expansion before the end of the year. Beyond the Dawn looks to add a hefty amount of new content for fans of the base game. Here is everything you need to know about Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn and how it will continue the story of Alphen and Shionne.
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S44Bose's New Headphones Bring Spatial Audio to Everything  We don’t know how it stacks up to Apple’s spatial audio, but it works with any content..There’s a new spatial audio option on the market and this time you won’t need Atmos to take advantage. Bose updated its QuietComfort lineup of headphones with three options: the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, and the QuietComfort Headphones. Two of those options introduce Bose’s Ultra branding, which earns the name thanks to a new Immersive Audio feature.
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S45The iPhone 15's Spatial Video Just Made Apple's Vision Pro a Lot More Compelling  Cutting-edge tech has a way of creeping up on you. One second it’s in the lab and the next it's in the code of every company that can fit the word “ChatGPT” into a press release. For Apple, that quiet tech revolution is coming in a few ways. The first, is in the form of a $3,500 “spatial computer” called the Vision Pro. The second, at least by my estimation, just arrived with the announcement of the iPhone 15.
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S4650 Absolutely Genius Things on Amazon With Insanely High Reviews  There are plenty of things that have gone viral for being genius, clever, or the best thing ever — and yet, when you check them out, you’re... less than impressed. Well, not with this list of clever Amazon finds.From a spinning tie rack that saves you space to a fancy set of glasses with matching glass straws, these 50 things aren’t only absolutely genius, but they have insanely high reviews that you can trust. And, with reviews like these, you’re sure to be impressed.
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S4715 Years Ago, a Visionary Director made a Shocking Dystopian Sci-Fi Movie That Was Ahead of Its Time  River water no longer belongs to the residents of Santa Ana del Rio, a small town in the Oaxaca region of southern Mexico. Instead, a U.S. company owns rights to the precious liquid and ships it north for American consumption. Local farmers must buy back their own water at a premium, while security forces wielding military weapons murder any “burglars” on sight.That’s the initial setup for the not-so-far-fetched first feature by visionary director Alex Rivera. Sleep Dealer explores the extraction of resources and labor from the Global South, mixing real-life issues with science-fiction technology. Fifteen years after this independent film’s release in 2008, the sociopolitical issues it cleverly addresses have only grown more urgent.
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S48How to ease the seemingly endless pain of prolonged grief | Aeon Essays  is a science journalist from Bolzano, Italy. He covers the environment, technology and psychology for newspapers and magazines in Europe and the UK. He is also the author of Science Journalism: An Introduction (2017) and Telling Science Stories (2020).On a January evening in 1992, I was sitting in our kitchen, reading a comic book. My older sister Claudia went out to run an errand at a nearby minimart, just before it closed. Her keys jingled as she said goodbye and pulled the door shut. Her footsteps rushed down the stairs. A minute later, I heard her slam the garage door after she had pulled out her bicycle. Moments later, I heard a loud thud from down the street. I also thought I heard a muffled scream. I was 10. I couldn’t connect the dots.
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S49Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings  Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author’s research shows that managers who don’t hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and emotionally. When the meetings are done well, they can make a team’s day-to-day activities more efficient and better, build trust and psychological safety, and improve employees’ experience, motivation, and engagement at work. The author has found that although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to one-on-ones, they are most successful when the meeting is dominated by topics of importance to the direct report rather than issues that are top of mind for the manager. Managers should focus on making sure the meetings take place, creating space for genuine conversation, asking good questions, offering support, and helping team members get what they need to thrive in both their short-term performance and their long-term growth.
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S50S51The Very Real Dangers of Executive Coaching  Over the past 15 years, it has become more and more popular to hire coaches for promising executives. Although some of these coaches hail from the world of psychology, a greater share are former athletes, lawyers, business academics, and consultants. No doubt these people help executives improve their performance in many areas. But I want to tell a different story. I believe that in an alarming number of situations, executive coaches who lack rigorous psychological training do more harm than good. By dint of their backgrounds and biases, they downplay or simply ignore deep-seated psychological problems they don’t understand. Even more concerning, when an executive’s problems stem from undetected or ignored psychological difficulties, coaching can actually make a bad situation worse. In my view, the solution most often lies in addressing unconscious conflict when the symptoms plaguing an executive are stubborn or severe.
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S523 Strategies to Boost Sales and Marketing Productivity  A study of B2B companies found that just one in 20 was able to consistently grow sales faster than sales and marketing expenses. As companies seek to cut costs in an uncertain economy, increasing this commercial productivity is a smart strategy. Research shows the three ways companies can do this are to refine the go-to-market model, turn every rep into an A player, and make sales and marketing support more efficient.It’s almost axiomatic that growing revenues will require adding sales and marketing costs at the same rate. Most heads of sales and marketing believe in their bones that their teams cannot get more productive over an extended period. Teams can find cost-cutting and efficiency tweaks, yes, but not full-blown, sustained productivity gains. This is a damaging, self-reinforcing belief — and our research shows it’s not necessarily true.
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S53The Elusive Green Consumer  Companies that introduce sustainable offerings face a frustrating paradox: Most consumers report positive attitudes toward eco-friendly products and services, but they often seem unwilling to follow through with their wallets. The authors have been studying how to encourage sustainable consumption for several years, performing their own experiments and reviewing research in marketing, economics, and psychology.
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S54Exploit the Product Life Cycle  Most alert and thoughtful senior marketing executives are by now familiar with the concept of the product life cycle. Even a handful of uniquely cosmopolitan and up-to-date corporate presidents have familiarized themselves with this tantalizing concept. Yet a recent survey I took of such executives found none who used the concept in any strategic way whatever, and pitifully few who used it in any kind of tactical way. It has remained—as have so many fascinating theories in economics, physics, and sex—a remarkably durable but almost totally unemployed and seemingly unemployable piece of professional baggage whose presence in the rhetoric of professional discussions adds a much-coveted but apparently unattainable legitimacy to the idea that marketing management is somehow a profession. There is, furthermore, a persistent feeling that the life cycle concept adds luster and believability to the insistent claim in certain circles that marketing is close to being some sort of science.1
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S55The 30 Elements of Consumer Value: A Hierarchy  What consumers truly value can be difficult to pin down and psychologically complicated. But universal building blocks of value do exist, creating opportunities for companies to improve their performance in existing markets or break into new markets. In the right combinations, the authors’ analysis shows, those elements will pay off in stronger customer loyalty, greater consumer willingness to try a particular brand, and sustained revenue growth.
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S56S57Neuromarketing: What You Need to Know  The field of neuromarketing, sometimes known as consumer neuroscience, studies the brain to predict and potentially even manipulate consumer behavior and decision making. Over the past five years several groundbreaking studies have demonstrated its potential to create value for marketers. But those interested in using its tools must still determine whether that’s worth the investment and how to do it well.
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S58Business Marketing: Understand What Customers Value  How do you define the value of your market offering? Can you measure it? Few suppliers in business markets are able to answer those questions, and yet the ability to pinpoint the value of a product or service for one’s customers has never been more important. By creating and using what the authors call customer value models, suppliers are able to figure out exactly what their offerings are worth to customers.
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S59Branding in the Age of Social Media  Marketers originally thought that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter would let them bypass mainstream media and connect directly with customers. Hoping to attract huge audiences to their brands, they spent billions producing their own creative content. But consumers never showed up. In fact, social media seems to have made brands less significant.
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S60The Globalization of Markets Many companies have become disillusioned with sales in the international marketplace as old markets become saturated and new ones must be found. How can they customize products for the demands of new markets? Which items will consumers want? With wily international competitors breathing down their necks, many organizations think that the game just isn’t worth the effort.
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S61How to Scale Local Innovations in Big Companies  All too often innovations — including new products, new HR policies to attract and retain talent, and new production processes —developed in one part of a business stay there. Other groups that could benefit from them don’t know they exist. This leads to lost revenues and higher costs, since teams around the world often end up duplicating (or triplicating, or quadruplicating) investments in solving common problems. This article identifies three common obstacles to scaling innovations and describes a way to overcome them.
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S62Will AI Replace the Front Office in Pro Sports?  With accurate player-availability predictions for all active players, AI-powered decision-making is dramatically improved around three dimensions: 1) Risk management: If a productive wide-receiver is likely to get hurt, for example, a team might invest more in talented backups, to minimize drop-off in team performance during injury. 2) Training and targeted interventions: If AI suggests a player is injury-prone, teams can target that player with customized training, nutrition, or other regimens to reduce the likelihood of injury. Alternatively, a team might choose to reduce a player’s workload, also reducing risk. 3) Personnel decisions: By identifying factors that predict injury or other unavailability, teams can draft, trade for, or otherwise acquire players that they believe are more likely to be available season-long. Additionally, teams may choose to trade players for whom injury seems likely.
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S63Welcome to the Experience Economy How do economies change? The entire history of economic progress can be recapitulated in the four-stage evolution of the birthday cake. As a vestige of the agrarian economy, mothers made birthday cakes from scratch, mixing farm commodities (flour, sugar, butter, and eggs) that together cost mere dimes. As the goods-based industrial economy advanced, moms paid a dollar or two to Betty Crocker for premixed ingredients. Later, when the service economy took hold, busy parents ordered cakes from the bakery or grocery store, which, at $10 or $15, cost ten times as much as the packaged ingredients. Now, in the time-starved 1990s, parents neither make the birthday cake nor even throw the party. Instead, they spend $100 or more to “outsource” the entire event to Chuck E. Cheese’s, the Discovery Zone, the Mining Company, or some other business that stages a memorable event for the kids—and often throws in the cake for free. Welcome to the emerging experience economy.
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S64A Refresher on A/B Testing  A/B testing is a way to compare two versions of something to figure out which performs better. While it’s most often associated with websites and apps, the method is almost 100 years old and it’s one of the simplest forms of a randomized controlled experiment. This testing method has risen in popularity over the last couple of decades as companies have realized that the online environment is well-suited to help managers, especially marketers, answer questions like, “What is most likely to make people click? Or buy our product? Or register with our site?”. It’s now used to evaluate everything from website design to online offers to headlines to product descriptions. The test works by showing two sets of users (assigned at random when they visit the site) different versions of a product or site and then determining which influenced your success metric the most. While it’s an often-used method, there are several mistakes that managers make when doing A/B testing: reacting to early data without letting the test run its full course; looking at too many metrics instead of focusing on the ones they most care about; and not doing enough retesting to be sure they didn’t get false positive results.
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S65A Simple Way to Introduce Yourself  Many of us dread the self-introduction, be it in an online meeting or at the boardroom table. Here is a practical framework you can leverage to introduce yourself with confidence in any context, online or in-person: Present, past, and future. You can customize this framework both for yourself as an individual and for the specific context. Perhaps most importantly, when you use this framework, you will be able to focus on others’ introductions, instead of stewing about what you should say about yourself.
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S6615 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer  In some industries, a weak labor market has left candidates with fewer options and less leverage, and employers better positioned to dictate terms. Those who are unemployed, or whose current job seems shaky, have seen their bargaining power further reduced. But the complexity of the job market creates opportunities for people to negotiate the terms and conditions of employment. Negotiation matters most when there is a broad range of potential outcomes.
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S67How to Answer "Why Do You Want to Work Here?"  Of all the interview questions job applicants prepare for, the most obvious ones sometimes get the least attention. Yes, you came ready to share your biggest flaw, your greatest strength, a moment when you shined, and a concept you learned, but what do you do with a broad but direct question like “Why do you want to work here?” In this piece, the author offers three strategies for answering this common interview question and provides sample answers for you to use as a guide.
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S68How to Write a Cover Letter  Perhaps the most challenging part of the job application process is writing an effective cover letter. And yes, you should send one. Even if only one in two cover letters gets read, that’s still a 50% chance that including one could help you. Before you start writing, find out more about the company and the specific job you want. Next, catch the attention of the hiring manager or recruiter with a strong opening line. If you have a personal connection with the company or someone who works there, mention it in the first sentence or two, and try to address your letter to someone directly. Hiring managers are looking for people who can help them solve problems, so show that you know what the company does and some of the challenges it faces. Then explain how your experience has equipped you to meet those needs. If the online application doesn’t allow you to submit a cover letter, use the format you’re given to demonstrate your ability to do the job and your enthusiasm for the role.
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S7038 Smart Questions to Ask in a Job Interview  The opportunity to ask questions at the end of a job interview is one you don’t want to waste. It’s both a chance to continue to prove yourself and to find out whether a position is the right fit for you. In this piece, the author lists sample questions recommended by two career experts and divides them up by category: from how to learn more about your potential boss to how to learn more about a company’s culture. Choose the ones that are more relevant to you, your interests, and the specific job ahead of time. Then write them down — either on a piece of paper or on your phone — and glance at them right before your interview so that they’re fresh in your mind. And, of course, be mindful of the interviewer’s time. If you were scheduled to talk for an hour and they turn to you with five minutes left, choose two or three questions that are most important to you. You will always have more time to ask questions once you have the job offer in hand.
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