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42,039,103 | dsfdsg57 | 2024-11-04T06:39:30 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42039104
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,125 | rukshn | 2024-11-04T06:44:30 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,133 | cekrem | 2024-11-04T06:45:35 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,145 | shav7 | 2024-11-04T06:48:34 | Show HN: Bento Decks for VCs | Many VCs mentioned dealing with 100s of inbound pitch decks, and trying to determine the noise-to-signal ratio / alignment with their thesis is frustrating. So we decided to do a two-day sprint to solve this.<p>Built Bento Decks where you can upload your thesis and founder decks to get an output that evaluates alignment percentage and generates a TL;DR of the deck that can be shared with others. | https://whats.now/deck | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,177 | peter_retief | 2024-11-04T06:55:56 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42039395,
42040301
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,182 | kiyanwang | 2024-11-04T06:56:14 | Solving staffing challenges with concentric circles | null | https://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/solving-staffing-challenges-with | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Solving staffing challenges with concentric circles | 2024-10-30T20:30:40+00:00 | James Stanier | As you begin to lead organizations that are of a reasonable size, such as in the hundreds of engineers, you will find that staffing is one of the most repetitive and challenging aspects of your job.Ensuring that you have enough people focused on the right things, with the right skills, and in the right places is a never-ending task. It is also by definition unsatisfiable: you will never have enough people to do everything you want (or need) to do, and you will never have the perfect mix of skills and experience either.Organizations of this size typically span a wide range of products, technologies, and geographies, further complicating the issue of having the right number of people working on the right things.You’ll have production code that needs to be maintained, new features that need to be built, and bugs and support issues that need to be addressed. It’s a balancing act.When inevitably a team’s project pivots, expands in scope, or is just plain harder than expected, you’ll be asked to provide them more people to help. However, this isn’t straightforward as everyone else is equally busy. If you find yourself in wartime it may be the case that you can’t rely on hiring your way out of the problem either.So, let’s imagine that one of your 30 teams is asking for more people. What do you do?Before we think about what to do, perhaps we should imagine ourselves in that team’s shoes. What are they expecting you to do when they ask for more people?If they have a new and important thing to do, they may assume that you will prioritize their work over other lower-priority work, thus allowing people to move from the less important thing to the more important thing. This assumes that you have a continual stack ranking of all of the work that needs to be done at any given time and that this team’s work is somewhere near the top of the stack.It may be the case that you have a stack ranking like this. And if you do, good on you. However, if you’ve ever tried to do a stack ranking of, say, hundreds of projects and teams that span multiple products and pieces of infrastructure, you’ll know that it soon becomes quite complex: how do you compare scaling infrastructure with a new feature that could drive revenue versus another new feature that could unlock some big strategic deals?These stack rankings also often rank ongoing projects and initiatives and do not always take into account the need to maintain and improve existing products and services, which is especially true in SaaS: nothing is ever really done, it is running in production and needs to have a base level of maintenance and improvement over time.Instead, many organizations operate, often implicitly, on a pool of investments approach: there are X products or services that exist in production, spread amongst Y teams, and your optimization is to ensure that those products or services are being maintained and improved in a way that is consistent with the overall strategy of the organization.This is a much more nuanced approach than a simple stack ranking, and it is often the case that the right thing to do is to not move people from one team to another, even if the other team’s work is more important, since it leads to an unacceptable level of entropy in the overall system.Stack ranking taken to the extreme can lead to a situation where the pool of investment approach breaks entirely: you could argue that whatever the top 3 projects are, they should get all of the staffing, and the rest should get nothing. This is clearly not a good strategy as everything else would need to be abandoned.Given that you are likely operating in a pool of investments model which is more nuanced than a simple stack ranking, is there a more nuanced way to think about staffing challenges?When you are faced with no obvious way to solve a staffing challenge, it can be helpful to think about the problem differently. One way to do this is to think about the situation in terms of concentric circles.What I mean by concentric circles is imagining that the team asking for more people is at the center of a series of circles:The innermost circle is the team itself which is asking for more people.The next circle out is the team’s immediate neighbors in the org chart. They will typically share a common manager.The next circle out is the team’s broader organization. This could be a product group, a business unit, or a division. This may be the org that you run.Outside of the circle is the entire rest of the department, outside of your organization and control.It looks a bit like this.The idea is that you should try to sequentially work your way out from the innermost circle to the outermost circle, looking for ways to solve the staffing challenges at each level. You do this will the manager of each circle, asking them to help you solve the problem.For example, this could look a little like this:Starting at the innermost circle, you work with the team to see if there is any work that can be stopped, delayed, or de-prioritized to free up capacity without needing to add more people in the first place. You may be surprised at how effective this can be.If the above does not work, then you work with the manager of the team and its immediate neighbours to see if there is any way that people could temporarily or permanently move between sibling teams to help out. One benefit of this approach is that the people moving are more likely to have context and have a shared mission or goal with the team they are moving to.If that does not work, then you work with your direct reports to see if there is any way that people could move between teams in your broader organization. This is effectively what you would likely have been asked in the first place, but by working your way out from the innermost circle, you have a better chance of finding a solution that is more nuanced and less disruptive first.If all else fails, then you work with your peers in the department to see if there is any way that people could move between organizations. However, this is the most disruptive and should be a last resort, and in large organizations, it is often the case that this does not work without further escalation.There are several benefits to this approach. Firstly, from experience, you often solve the staffing problem by the time you’ve gotten to the second bullet point. This makes it faster to solve and less disruptive.Secondly, and importantly, you are implicitly coaching your managers that you do not need to be the arbiter of all staffing challenges and that they should be working with their peers to solve these problems themselves with the trade-offs that they need to make. This is very healthy in the long run.Next time you have a staffing challenge, try thinking about it in terms of concentric circles. If you’re on the asking team, why not think of solving from the inside out first? | 2024-11-08T08:58:15 | en | train |
42,039,184 | thunderbong | 2024-11-04T06:56:23 | In Memory of Stiver | null | https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2024/11/in-memory-of-stiver/ | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,198 | kiyanwang | 2024-11-04T06:58:42 | Three Things We've Learned About Generative AI and Developer Productivity | null | https://innovation.ebayinc.com/tech/features/cutting-through-the-noise-three-things-weve-learned-about-generative-ai-and-developer-productivity/ | 16 | 8 | [
42041925,
42048094,
42041307,
42043776,
42044580
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,205 | AiswaryaMadhu | 2024-11-04T07:01:26 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42039206
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,217 | brutecat | 2024-11-04T07:02:29 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,224 | vegapulse | 2024-11-04T07:03:40 | Recraft can generate long text now | null | https://www.recraft.ai/blog/recraft-introduces-a-revolutionary-ai-model-that-thinks-in-design-language | 2 | 0 | [
42040296
] | null | null | no_error | Recraft introduces a revolutionary AI model that thinks in design language | null | null | Today, we are announcing Recraft V3, our latest model that sets a new quality standard in the image generation space, outperforming all competitor models proven by the Hugging Face’s industry-leading Text-to-Image Benchmark by Artificial Analysis.The new Recraft V3 delivers across-the-board improvements, with particularly notable advances in text generation.We are also launching several new important features that allow our users to have more control over AI generation: the possibility to specify text size and positions in the image, precise style control, improved inpainting, and new outpainting capabilities.The model is now available for both free and paid users in the desktop app on Canvas, in the mobile app (available on iOS and Android), and via API. Winning image generation quality benchmarksRecraft V3 has set a new standard for excellence in image generation. Over the past 4 days Recraft V3 participated in the Hugging Face’s industry-leading Text-to-Image Model Leaderboard by Artificial Analysis. It secured #1 place with ELO rating of 1172. Recraft's new model is showing quality higher than models of Midjourney, OpenAI, and all other major image generation companies. Artificial Analysis’s leaderboards are the most popular publicly available rankings that evaluate and compare the performance of machine learning models across various tasks and datasets. Each leaderboard is designed around a specific task or benchmark dataset, showcasing how different models measure performance metrics.The text-to-image leaderboard ranks image generation models by their ELO scores, determined by pairwise image comparisons labeled by image arena visitors. Originally developed for ranking chess players, the ELO rating system has since been adapted to evaluate models across various competitive benchmarks.The main advantages of Recraft V3 light in text generation quality, anatomical accuracy, prompt understanding, and high aesthetic quality.Recraft V3 is the only model in the world that can generate images with long texts, as opposed to just one or a couple of words.Anatomical correctness is the metric used to select the model that generates the most accurate anatomy, ensuring a proper number of fingers, hands, and legs, realistic body proportions, spatial coherence within the scene, and natural positioning of background objects relative to the main subject. Recraft V3 is tuned to generate images with correct anatomy.Prompt-following refers to how accurately the image aligns with the details specified in the prompt. Recraft V3 can generate images with complex scenes, including the correct count, color, and positions of objects mentioned in the prompt.Aesthetical value is a subjective metric of the "beautifulness" of the image. This is where Midjourney has historically shined. The new model Recraft V3 takes this metric into account and is trained to have high aesthetic value for generated images.State-of-the-art in generation meets control and design capabilitiesRecraft started with a goal to build foundation models in the image generation space that would solve the needs of professional designers. The text-to-image benchmark focuses on overall image generation quality. However, for real-world tasks in the graphic design field, having a high-quality text-to-image model is not enough. It is important to provide users full control over image generation so that they can implement their ideas with high precision.The new model Recraft V3 is trained to provide more control over image generation than all other existing AI models. This release's main innovations are:Positioning Control and Generation of Graphic designsThe new model allows specifying the exact positions and sizes of text on a design. It is also possible to position other images and combine them with texts, allowing the generation of complex graphic designs.Style control The improved style creation process allows for fine-grained experimentation. It is possible to select a set of images to represent the brand style, and experiment with the style candidate until it is tuned to the exact look and feel needed for the brand. This is possible because Recraft V3 accepts style as an input to the model, and doesn't require retraining of the model to catch details of the style.Apart from the improved control features, Recraft V3 supports unique capabilities vital for graphic design space. The distinctive feature of Recraft is that it supports vector image generation, ranging from sets of simplistic pictograms all the way to highly detailed vector art. Also, Recraft V3 provides a whole suite of AI image editing tools that helps designers create and edit visuals end-to-end: AI Eraser, Modify Area, Inpainting, Outpainting, AI Mockuper, Creative and Clarity Upscalers, AI Fine-Tuning, and Background Remover. The first API with support of style consistency and vector art generationRecraft has also launched an API that enables developers and businesses to integrate SOTA image generation and AI design capabilities into their workflows. This API provides access to the Recraft model, supporting both raster and vector formats, generation of images with text and allowing for the creation of custom styles to ensure brand consistency. Additionally, it supports specifying brand colors and offers advanced features like vectorization, upscaling, image quality improvement, and background removal, providing users with a unique set of features covering all AI image editing suite via API.What’s next for Recraft? Recraft is all about giving designers more control. This means creators can manage every detail of their designs, ensuring the final product looks exactly how they want it. Recraft's team believes in providing intuitive solutions that allow pro designers to focus on what they do best: creating.Recrafters are always invited to give us feedback and feature requests, telling us what they love or dislike about the Recraft experience. | 2024-11-08T11:29:42 | en | train |
42,039,267 | gnabgib | 2024-11-04T07:13:28 | 31%-efficient blade-coated perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell | null | https://www.pv-magazine-india.com/2024/10/31/kaust-helmholtz-zentrum-berlin-present-31-2-efficient-blade-coated-perovskite-silicon-tandem-solar-cell/ | 1 | 0 | [
42040291
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,291 | busmark_w_nika | 2024-11-04T07:18:44 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,296 | rahimnathwani | 2024-11-04T07:19:27 | Shaderblocks: Block-based image editing | null | https://thejenkinscomic.net/shaderblocks/ | 19 | 1 | [
42056608
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,297 | rcarmo | 2024-11-04T07:19:32 | Release RP2350 and ESP32-C6 support, RISC-V native emitter, common TinyUSB code | null | https://github.com/micropython/micropython/releases/tag/v1.24.0 | 5 | 0 | [
42040288
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,306 | albexl | 2024-11-04T07:20:38 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,318 | TheEdonian | 2024-11-04T07:23:37 | How to delegate work as a team leader | null | https://frederickvanbrabant.com/blog/2024-10-31-communication-for-team-leaders-trust/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,321 | fossdd | 2024-11-04T07:24:25 | PostmarketOS in 2024-10: Accepted Grants, Timelines and Tokyo | null | https://postmarketos.org/blog/2024/11/04/pmOS-update-2024-10/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | postmarketOS in 2024-10: Accepted Grants, Timelines and Tokyo | null | null | For the first time postmarketOS was represented at an event in Japan thanks to Rob and Masanori who went to the Open Source Conference 2024 Tokyo/Fall! As shown in the photo above, they had a cool table with asus-grouper, asus-tf201, xiaomi-beryllium, pine64-pinephone as well as stickers and flyers in Japanese (which ran out by the end!) and English. Several visitors mentioned that they were astonished how fast the tf201 and grouper appeared in the shell - and in general they were interested in seeing devices running with (near) mainline kernels. Thanks to everybody who came by! If you are in the area and missed the event, a Spring edition is coming up in February 2025.OrganizationalNLnet Grants AcceptedPablo and Oliver helped members of the Linux Mobile community to apply for grants from NLnet's NGI Zero Core fund, and we are excited to announce that they have been accepted!Biktor and Lynxis will be working on OpenIMSd, which aims to bring VoLTE (4G voice calls) to Qualcomm based phones (like the PinePhone) running Free Software Mobile Operating Systems including postmarketOS, Mobian and others. They will create a daemon which runs in parallel to ModemManager, which configures the baseband via QMI and brings up all the required services to be able to place VoLTE calls.Danny will be able to improve mobile-config-firefox and replace hacks we currently carry there to make the desktop version of Firefox work on mobile, with proper solutions in upstream Firefox. See Enhancing Firefox for Linux on Mobile for details. Milestones have been created and will be filled with related issues and merge requests.Trusted ContributorsAster is a new Trusted Contributor! They have been contributing to postmarketOS a lot over the past months, especially the Lomiri packaging, systemd support and design ideas for optionally immutable postmarketOS.Bryant stepped down as TC, and we thank him for the great improvements he has made to the project in the short time as TC: a lot of help with organizing ourselves better, reworking the homepage navigation and adding team pages (which also resulted in the amazing redesign!), work on mainlining the Galaxy Tab 4 family of devices and writing blog posts.GitLab MigrationWe have migrated from gitlab.com to our own instance at gitlab.postmarketos.org, see this separate post for details: Why and how we migrated from gitlab.com to gitlab.postmarketos.orgThe migration was followed by a lot of clean up work, and for the most part the new instance is functional. Sometimes cross compilation CI jobs are failing (#3275), we are working on it.systemd timelineIn last month's And what's next? section it seemed feasible that we could merge the systemd branch into edge in October. However the GitLab migration and related clean up tasks took longer than expected, and so we were not able to work on systemd blockers like #140 as much.In a recent team meeting we had to decide whether to include systemd in the upcoming v24.12 release or not (so we have enough time for testing and follow-up bug fixing). As we talked through it, we realized that we would likely burn ourselves out by attempting to have it in v24.12. It was not easy, but we decided on the new plan to merge it into edge after v24.12 is out and to ship it in a stable release for the first time with v25.06.pmbootstrapWork on the upcoming pmbootstrap v3 has been going on for several months now. It is reliable enough that we can use it pretty much everywhere in our own infrastructure (edge jobs for CI, building packages and images, monitoring, etc.) We slimmed down the related milestone to the critical path of what is really needed to make the release and plan to have it done before v24.12.Stefan joined Oliver and Caleb in maintaining pmbootstrap. Stefan also made a lot of improvements to the code base, mostly to get v3 ready for release and to improve typing (!2411/imported, !2415/imported, !2419/imported, !2421/imported, !2428, !2424, !2432, !2425, !2431, !2441, !2434, !2450, !2442, !2464, !2466). Thanks Stefan!SHA1 RSA signatures are considered insecure nowadays, for that reason they have been disabled in Fedora 41. Bart adjusted apk-tools in Alpine to also have a SHA256 RSA signature and Clayton made pmbootstrap to use this signature (!2417/imported, !2465). This fix has been backported to pmbootstrap 2.3.3, so it works on Fedora 41. Thanks Clayton, Bart!In order to be able to set PipeWire/PulseAudio as default per UI (which makes sense in a transitional phase until all UIs can use PipeWire) and similar use cases, pmbootstrap can now use a custom _pmb_default key from APKBUILDs (!2301/imported). Thanks Aster, Clayton!pmbootstrap now uses gitlab.postmarketos.org for new pmaports.git clones and can migrate users from the previous (archived) gitlab.com URL to the new URL in their already checked out pmaports. This has been backported to 2.3.2. (!2427, !2443, !2445, !2447, !2429, !2460). Thanks Luca, Stefan, Caleb, Oliver!"pmbootstrap install" now uses GPT (GUID Partition Table, not the AI thing) instead of MBR by default and implements the Discoverable Partitions Specification (!2426, !5707). Thanks Aster, sicelo!The CI jobs for generating pmbootstrap docs can now run in pmbootstrap's chroots. This is useful so users running this CI script locally don't need to install sphinx dependencies on the host system (!2413/imported). Thanks Luca!Lots of additional automated testing via integration tests (!2444, !2453). Thanks Clayton, Caleb!Fixes for making sure pmbootstrap works with Python >= 3.10 as well as running our CI tests against both 3.10 and 3.12 (!2455, !2471). Thanks Caleb!pmbootstrap was still running apk through QEMU in some cases, the related code has been reworked so this is no longer the case (!2463). Thanks Caleb!Lots of smaller fixes and improvements (!2416/imported, !2423/imported, !2433, !2412/imported, !2439, !2438, !2446, !2440, !2346/imported, !2449, !2448, !2454, !2451, !2456, !2457, !2458, !2461, !2459, !2462, !2470). Thanks Luca, Caleb, Clayton, Alexey, Oliver, Jane, Vikram!pmaports + aportsUser interfaces: GNOME was upgraded to 47.1, Phosh was upgraded to 0.42.1, KDE Plasma was upgraded to 6.2.2. Thanks fossdd, Stefan, Bart, Robert, Patrycja!Lots of kernel packaging patches, mostly upgrades to 6.11 (!5399/imported, !5557/imported, !5640/imported, !5608/imported, !5624/imported, !5669/imported, !5611/imported, !5672/imported, !5486/imported, !5602/imported, !5686/imported, !5731, !5741, !5753, !5705, !5702, !5709, !5690, !5725, !5716, !5745). Thanks Clayton, Stefan, Jianhua, Barnabás, Arnav, Adam, Duje, Caleb, Luca, Joel, Andreas, Alexey, Richard, Mighty!New devices: Google Pixel 3 (!5514/imported), a generic (!!) qcom-msm8953 device (!5692), Sony Xperia Z Ultra (!5739). Thanks Petr, Caleb, Barnabás, Kevin!A bunch of work went into making libcamera work on ex-Android devices (!5615/imported, !5623/imported, !5626/imported, !5628/imported, !5644/imported, !5710). One notable result is Pixel 3A rear camera enablement! Thanks Robert, Alistair, Clayton!Initramfs improvements to be able to drop the minimal initramfs and making initramfs-extra opt-in (!5636/imported, !5621/imported, !5751). Thanks Caleb, Luca, Clayton!Trailblazer now has support for PINE64 PinePhone (!5703). Thanks ArenM!With latest libadwaita, adaptive windows and dialogs in upstream GTK 4 are finally a reality! Therefore it was possible to finally drop our GTK 4 fork (!5622/imported). Thanks Pablo!A new postmarketos-dev package has been added to install bash and coreutils by default. We plan to provide -dev variants of some postmarketOS images for some devices for use by the Linux Mobile developer community, and in the meantime this can be used to conveniently add development tools when building your own image (!5180/imported). Thanks Caleb, Clayton!lk2nd: upgrade to 19.0 and related patches (!5682/imported, !5691, !5750). Thanks Barnabás, kouta-kun!The router linksys-jamaica has gotten (close to) mainline support (!5649/imported). Thanks ΞЖKƆ/QVH!samsungipcd has been upgrade to v0.3.0, which adds a PPP bypass, so that traffic can flow through the native interface (rmnet0) directly, and not via the emulated PPP (!5698). Thanks Sergey!Enable flathub by default (!5726), if flatpak is installed. Thanks Clayton!If you ever came across the error "crossdirect: can't handle LD_PRELOAD": why this happens has been researched and the error message has been improved to be a lot more helpful (!5744). Thanks Oliver!dtbloader: upgrade to 1.2.2, adding 3 new devices (!5737). Thanks Nikita!Initial SoC paackges for common configs of msm8226/msm8974 devices have been added in (!5732). Thanks Barnabás!The boot partition of google-x64cros devices was increased to 32 mb (!5730, edge post) Thanks Aster!Lots of patches related to systemd (!5631/imported, !5629/imported, !5592/imported, !5597/imported, !5635/imported, !5647/imported, !5651/imported, !5652/imported, !5560/imported, !5661/imported, !5576/imported, !5630/imported, !5685/imported, !5734). Thanks Jane, Bart, Caleb, Bart, Aster, Clayton, Pablo, Andrei!Lots of smaller fixes and improvements (!5625/imported, !5627/imported, !5634/imported, !5610/imported, !5639/imported, !5632/imported, !5653/imported, !5637/imported, !5663/imported, !5678/imported, !5679/imported, !5638/imported, !5642/imported, !5654/imported, !5687/imported, !5643/imported, !5633/imported, !5696, !5695, !5699, !5700, !5720, !5721, !5718, !5715, !5722, !5724, !5728, !5714, !5727, !5712, !5735, !5740, !5742, !5743). Thanks Minecrell, Jakko, Clayton, Pablo, Sergey, Caleb, Masanori, Bart, Jens, Alistair, Luca, Oliver!mobile-config-firefoxYears ago, by popular demand the navigation bar in mobile-config-firefox was moved to the bottom. However, after it was done we also got requests of making it configurable so people who prefer it differently can choose. This is now possible through an about:config option (!56). Thanks Peter!Declare touch density (!57) and add an option (via about:config as above) to give more place to tabs (!58). Both merge requests were opened by Peter and are based on an earlier MR from Cédric who started to upstream these patches from Droidian into mobile-config-firefox. Thank you both!Get some more space in the address bar by removing the -> arrow (you can just press return on your on-screen keyboard instead, !55). Thanks Peter!Fix: let clients detect touch screen (!54/imported). Thanks Seth!mrhlpr and mrtestmrtest/add_packages.py: add explanation why there might be no artifacts (!49/imported). Thanks Rob!mrtest: Add support for using an MR as a repo when upgrading (!50/imported). Thanks Stefan!CI: Build native libraries for mrhlpr and mrtest via mypyc (sort of as test ground for also doing this with pmbootstrap later on) (!53) Thanks Stefan!Various small improvements and fixes (!52, !46/imported, !55, !56, !54). Thanks Stefan, Rob, Zach, Pablo!Miscxfce4-phone: simplify display power behavior (!11/imported) and fix values to disable brightness reduction (!12/imported). Thanks Jakko!images: trailblazer: build gnome instead of gnome-mobile (!112/imported). Thanks Caleb!BuffyBox has seen various small improvements (!28/imported, !29/imported, !30/imported, !31/imported, !34). Thanks Johannes, Pablo, Colin, Владимир!postmarketos-mkinitfs: allow including initramfs-extra files in the initramfs (!48/imported). and add compile-time flag to disable Go GC (!56/imported). Thanks Clayton!bpo_failed_to_queued: add arguments for packages/images/bootstraps (!111/imported). Thanks Luca!Upstream-compatibility tests have been updated to work with pmbootstrap v3 (!14). Thanks Luca!openrc-settingsd: Implement Slackware specific information for rc.ntpd (!13). Thanks Nathaniel!Changes related to gitlab.com -> gitlab.postmarketos.org move (!113, !314, !319, !73, !9, !13, !51). Thanks Luca, Oliver, Arnav, Connor!Various fixes and improvements in other repositories (!8/imported, !10, !13, !4/imported, !5/imported, !3/imported) Thanks Stefan, Clayton, Oliver, Clayton, Jakko, Rob!And what's next?Since the Mozilla Location Service has been shutdown, we are discussing what other service to use instead for geoclue (#82), with the goal to enable one soon.SeaGL is coming up, 2024-11-08 to 09 in Seattle, US. Anjan will do an Introduction to postmarketOS talk there, and Clayton will be there as well. Consider stopping by if you are in the area!The FOSS on mobile devices devroom is back for another round at FOSDEM 2025! If you have a great idea for a talk, we want to hear from you - have a look at the Call for Proposals!Help wantedEdge images for google-nyan-big and google-nyan-blaze have been disabled, as the depthcharge images have become too big and nobody was able to look into it. If you have one of these devices and are interested in tweaking compression or coming up with another fix, it would be highly appreciated! (#3186)Our wiki still has many pages that link to the legacy repositories at gitlab.com/postmarketOS, including people's user pages. If somebody wants to help out with fixing these, please do!You can send us topics to include in the next blog post by commenting in: #185If you appreciate the work we're doing with postmarketOS and want to support us, consider contributing financially via OpenCollective. | 2024-11-08T12:24:36 | en | train |
42,039,331 | marban | 2024-11-04T07:26:19 | X updates block feature, letting blocked users see your public posts | null | https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/03/x-updates-block-feature-letting-blocked-users-see-your-public-posts/ | 6 | 1 | [
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42,039,339 | null | 2024-11-04T07:27:25 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
"true"
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42,039,341 | iechoz6H | 2024-11-04T07:28:12 | When did the English start turning their forks upside down, and why? | null | https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/oct/13/readers-reply-when-did-the-english-start-turning-their-forks-upside-down-and-why | 3 | 0 | [
42040413
] | null | null | Failed after 3 attempts. Last error: Quota exceeded for quota metric 'Generate Content API requests per minute' and limit 'GenerateContent request limit per minute for a region' of service 'generativelanguage.googleapis.com' for consumer 'project_number:854396441450'. | Readers reply: When did the English start turning their forks upside down, and why? | 2024-10-13T13:00:54.000Z | null | When did the English start turning their forks upside down, making it more difficult to eat, and why? Jane Shaw, FranceSend new questions to [email protected] replyPut simply, the English hold them in the correct way. serapisSaid no one anywhere ever, except in England. raphanusIt wasn’t the English who started it, but the French. After looking at pictures of Poseidon with his trident, they thought it good to introduce the fashion of eating “à Poseidon”, which the English then turned into “upside down”. WormloverI’ve no idea, but it’s ridiculous. As a small child, I soon learned to ignore such nonsense. How can you possibly keep peas on the other side of an implement intended for use as a scoop? LorlalaI eat my peas with honey;
I’ve done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife. eibhearI was taught to mash the peas onto the back of the fork. Mind you, my school also compelled me to eat right-handed, against my natural, if sinister, inclination. BochiForks were originally straight and used to skewer food. Later, forks received a bend, which makes it easier to skewer with a push of your index finger. Forks were never used to shuffle food into your mouth; a spoon is used for that. NotWithPastryThis question is fundamentally misconceived. Clearly both tines-up and tines-down are equally wrong. I never even touch cutlery. My servants just pop morsels of food into my mouth upon demand. GeppidWhich way up is defined as upside down? It depends whether you are spearing or scooping. HilaryAJAs a baby boomer, I was brung up proper like and never turned my fork over. My mum was an expert at eating peas on the convex side. However, as a victim in the late 60s of the British government’s encouragement of European rapprochement, I went to Germany for the summer at the age of 18. There is something salutary about having everyone look at you as though you are a complete pillock. So I changed – and never looked back. As luck would have it, the queen never invited me to dinner, so I got away with it on the whole. And since the B-word, I have little inclination to return, so that’s all right then. WinnallThe fork is the most versatile of cutlery. Introduced late compared with the spoon and the knife, I suggest we’ve used it like that from the start. You can use it to scoop up your peas or baked beans. But you can flip it to hold a piece of meat while you cut with a knife. That’s why the prongs are curved. Then you can pierce that piece of meat or a solid vegetable such as a brussels sprout or a carrot. And you can twiddle it around to wind a mouthful of spaghetti or linguine. It all depends on your diet. ChevalianThe fork is a tool – and a very good one, too. As with crafts tools, there are many ways to use a fork and only fools tell you how. When I saw this question, I’d supposed it might refer to the way up that you should leave the fork after a meal. To answer that: no craftsperson leaves a tool with its sharp parts pointing upwards (and forks were once rather sharp). Further, when posh cutlery was silver-plated, it was thought that if you left the fork with tips upwards, the convex back might wear, or that a significant part of the implement might be immersed for some time in food that could dissolve the plating. quietreasonIt’s quite amusing watching Americans who, despite having reached adulthood, in many cases quite some time ago, are utterly bewildered when trying to use cutlery. Begin with knife and fork in correct hands, cut several pieces of the food; then put knife down, change hands for the fork, twist it through 180 degrees, stab a couple of pieces of food; then switch back, pick up knife again and repeat the whole operation. LuxbeeLet me try to answer this as an American. We usually cut foods like meat with a knife. However, if the food can be cut with the side of the fork, that’s what we do. We also consider it good manners to have one hand on your lap when you eat, so maybe that’s part of it. When this started, I have no clue. It could be we didn’t care how we held our utensils, just as long as we could eat with them. wesoedenI’d be suspicious of someone who kept one hand in their lap while eating. seedysolipsistI remember both sets of grandparents telling us that we should always have both hands visible throughout the meal, no waving cutlery around or talking with our mouth full and no elbows on the table. That was the 1950s, mind. MMornex74Forks were unusual at the table in England until well into the 1700s – knives, fingers and wooden spoons were the customary food implements. The knife was a personal one, taken to the table at meal times. The story I was told was that American colonists were largely dependent on imported knives, making them expensive and harder to obtain. The habit developed of families sharing the use of one knife, cutting as needed before eating with fingers or wooden spoons. Forks gained popularity in the English-speaking lands on both sides of the Atlantic. The English adopted holding a knife and a fork in each hand, as many Europeans were, but the habit of changing knife to fork and back with the same hand remained in the US. leadballoonHow to eat with cutlery should be on the list of topics not to discuss because neither side will ever get the other’s perspective (see health care and gun control). solarjh55Fork ’andles. beardy23As an experiment, I’ve just tried eating with an upside-down fork. The food went everywhere but into my mouth and the tines have destroyed the palm of my hand. EddieChorepostIf God had meant for us to use the fork upside down, he would have bent the prongs the other way. browne365 | 2024-11-08T01:38:53 | null | train |
42,039,343 | kiyanwang | 2024-11-04T07:28:24 | Why Perfect Clustering Algorithms Don't Exist | null | https://blog.codingconfessions.com/p/the-cap-theorem-of-clustering | 2 | 1 | [
42040394,
42040283
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42,039,346 | null | 2024-11-04T07:28:47 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
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42,039,354 | gadgetonhand | 2024-11-04T07:29:59 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,355 | null | 2024-11-04T07:30:05 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
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42,039,362 | null | 2024-11-04T07:30:35 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
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42,039,369 | null | 2024-11-04T07:31:20 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
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42,039,388 | KalepaInsurance | 2024-11-04T07:35:51 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,394 | loongloong | 2024-11-04T07:38:02 | Microsoft accused of "greenwashing" due to fossil fuel partnerships – DCD | null | https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-accused-of-greenwashing-due-to-fossil-fuel-partnerships/ | 2 | 0 | [
42040401
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,401 | ingve | 2024-11-04T07:39:27 | The history of Unix's ioctl and signal about window sizes | null | https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/unix/WindowSizeIoctlAndSignal | 111 | 45 | [
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42,039,406 | ronyba | 2024-11-04T07:40:06 | City council faces £216.5M loss over Oracle system debacle | null | https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/birmingham_oracle_cost/ | 35 | 20 | [
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42,039,412 | timbilt | 2024-11-04T07:41:52 | Thinking LLMs: General Instruction Following with Thought Generation | null | https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10630 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,416 | realtouch | 2024-11-04T07:42:56 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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42,039,438 | Stamigos | 2024-11-04T07:49:15 | Show HN: I Never Met This Boilerplate, but Always Wanted It – FastAPI and React | null | https://craftyourstartup.com | 4 | 1 | [
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42,039,448 | mrchike | 2024-11-04T07:50:21 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,454 | smgit | 2024-11-04T07:51:52 | Soda Is Making a Comeback | null | https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/business/coke-dr-pepper-soda/index.html | 4 | 5 | [
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42,039,495 | demir99antay | 2024-11-04T08:00:03 | SHOW HN I just launched my first ever SaaS/Indie App | null | https://getvocabia.com/ | 2 | 2 | [
42039496,
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] | null | null | missing_parsing | Vocabia | null | Vocabia |
Why This App?
Are you tired of complicated language apps that make it hard to just learn the words that matter? This app keeps
things simple. The app teaches you the 2,000 most commonly used words in your target language, along with key
conjugations, so you can reach fluency faster.
2,000 Words for B1 Fluency: No more endless vocabulary lists. Focus on the words you actually
need to speak confidently.
Common Conjugations: Master verb forms so you can put your new vocabulary into action right
away.
| 2024-11-08T03:53:26 | null | train |
42,039,498 | algoghostf | 2024-11-04T08:00:05 | Is ChatGPT Search Going to Disrupt Google Search? | null | https://medium.com/@AhmedF/is-chatgpt-search-going-to-disrupt-google-search-54ee228ed577 | 4 | 5 | [
42039816,
42040206,
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] | null | null | missing_parsing | Is ChatGPT Search going to disrupt Google Search? - Ahmed Fessi - Medium | 2024-11-04T07:48:00.850Z | Ahmed Fessi | ChatGPT Search — Source OpenAIOpenAI has just unveiled Search for ChatGPT, a groundbreaking AI-driven search engine. Unlike traditional engines that provide a list of links, SearchGPT leverages advanced language models integrated with real-time web data. It aims to deliver a more human-like, conversational search experience — meaning you can interact with the search engine as if it’s an intelligent colleague answering your questions, refining the responses based on your follow-ups.When you type a question, and instead of a cluttered page of links, you get a direct, comprehensive answer with references. Need more details? Ask a follow-up question, and Search for ChatGPT remembers your context, refining its answers based on the conversation so far.The core of this technology? A combination of AI models — similar to those used in ChatGPT — and live data fusion from the web. This means answers that aren’t just conversational but are also highly up-to-date, perfect for those needing the latest market data, sports scores, or news updates.A More Collaborative Search ExperienceOpenAI is aiming to fundamentally shift how we interact with search (and to disrupt Google?). Traditional search engines provide results; you, as the user, have to do the work to find out what’s relevant. SearchGPT… | 2024-11-08T17:38:13 | null | train |
42,039,499 | kiyanwang | 2024-11-04T08:00:11 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,519 | NoaEshed | 2024-11-04T08:03:31 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42039520
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,537 | joneinar | 2024-11-04T08:07:57 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,542 | jay_joshii | 2024-11-04T08:08:36 | Engineering Folks Job Hunt | what's your biggest challenge in the job hunt? | null | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,546 | WithinReason | 2024-11-04T08:09:19 | Influence Agents | null | https://geohot.github.io//blog/jekyll/update/2024/11/04/influence-agents.html | 3 | 1 | [
42040389,
42040259
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,555 | chha | 2024-11-04T08:11:29 | "Do not hallucinate": Testers find prompts meant to keep Apple AI on the rails | null | https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/do-not-hallucinate-testers-find-prompts-meant-to-keep-apple-intelligence-on-the-rails/ | 2 | 1 | [
42039755
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,561 | aard | 2024-11-04T08:12:46 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,565 | halildeniz | 2024-11-04T08:13:12 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42039566
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,574 | febed | 2024-11-04T08:14:14 | Earth endured over one million years of rain in the "Carnian Pluvial Event" | null | https://www.earth.com/news/earth-endured-a-million-years-of-rain-in-the-carnian-pluvial-event/ | 13 | 2 | [
42041345,
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,585 | joneinar | 2024-11-04T08:16:16 | All AI Coding Assistants | null | https://www.topaidevtools.com/ | 3 | 5 | [
42039744,
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42040266
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,596 | aard | 2024-11-04T08:18:53 | Cannot Measure Productivity (2003) | null | https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html | 34 | 11 | [
42040707,
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We see so much emotional discussion about software process,
design practices and the like. Many of these arguments are impossible
to resolve because the software industry lacks the ability to measure
some of the basic elements of the effectiveness of software
development. In particular we have no way of reasonably measuring
productivity.
Productivity, of course, is something you determine by looking at
the input of an activity and its output. So to measure software
productivity you have to measure the output of software development -
the reason we can't measure productivity is because we can't measure
output.
This doesn't mean people don't try. One of my biggest irritations
are studies of productivity based on lines of code. For a start
there's all the stuff about differences between languages, different
counting styles, and differences due to formatting conventions. But
even if you use a consistent counting standard on programs in the same
language, all auto-formatted to a single style - lines of code still
doesn't measure output properly.
Any good developer knows that they can code the same stuff with
huge variations in lines of code, furthermore code that's well
designed and factored will be shorter because it eliminates the
duplication. Copy and paste programming leads to high LOC counts and
poor design because it breeds duplication. You can prove this to
yourself if you go at a program with a refactoring tool that supports
Inline
Method. Just using that on common routines should allow you to
easy double the LOC count.
You would think that lines of code are dead, but it seems that
every month I see productivity studies based on lines of code - even
in such respected journals as IEEE Software that should know
better.
Now this doesn't mean that LOC is a completely useless measure,
it's pretty good at suggesting the size of a system. I can be pretty
confident that a 100 KLOC system is bigger than a 10KLOC system. But
if I've written the 100KLOC system in a year, and Joe writes the same
system in 10KLOC during the same time, that doesn't make me more
productive. Indeed I would conclude that our productivities are about
the same but my system is much more poorly designed.
Another approach that's often talked about for measuring output
is Function Points. I have a little more sympathy for them, but am
still unconvinced. This hasn't been helped by stories I've heard of
that talk about a single system getting counts that varied by a factor
of three from different function point counters using the same
system.
Even if we did find an accurate way for function points to
determine functionality, I still think we are missing the point of
productivity. I might say that measuring functionality is a way to
look at the direct output of software development, but true output is
something else. Assuming an accurate FP counting system, if I spend a
year delivering a 100FP system and Joe spends the same year delivering
a 50FP system can we assume that I'm more productive? I would say not.
It may be that of my 100FP only 30 is actually functionality that's
useful to my customer, but Joe's is all useful. I would thus argue
that while my direct productivity is higher, Joe's true productivity
is higher.
Jeff Grigg pointed out to me that there's internal factors that
affect delivering function points. “My 100 function points
are remarkably similar functions, and it took me a year to do them
because I failed to properly leverage reuse. Joe's 50 functions
are (bad news for him) all remarkably different. Almost no reuse
is possible. But in spite of having to implement 50 remarkably
different function points, for which almost no reuse leverage is
possible, Joe is an amazing guy, so he did it all in only a
year.”
But all of this ignores the point that even useful functionality
isn't the true measure. As I get better I produce 30 useful FP of
functionality, and Joe only does 15. But someone figures out that
Joe's 15 leads to $10 million extra profit for our customer and my
work only leads to $5 million. I would again argue that Joe's true
productivity is higher because he has delivered more business
value - and I assert that any true measure of software development
productivity must be based on delivered business value.
This thinking also feeds into success rates. Common statements about
software success are bogus because people don't understand
WhatIsFailure. I might argue that a successful project is
one that delivers more business value than the cost of the project. So
if Joe and I run five projects each, and I succeed on four and Joe on
one - do I finally do a better job than Joe? Not necessarily. If my
four successes yield $1 million profit each, but Joe's one success
yields $10 million more than the cost of all his projects combined -
then he's the one who should get the promotion.
Some people say “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it”.
That's a cop out. Businesses manage things they can't really measure
the value of all the time. How do you measure the productivity of a
company's lawyers, its marketing department, an educational
institution? You can't - but you still need to manage them (see Robert Austin for more).
If team productivity is hard to figure out, it's even harder to
measure the contribution of individuals on that team. You can get a
rough sense of a team's output by looking at how many features they
deliver per iteration. It's a crude sense, but you can get a sense of
whether a team's speeding up, or a rough sense if one team is more
productive than another. But individual contributions are much harder
to assess. While some people may be responsible for implementing
features, others may play a supporting role - helping others to
implement their features. Their contribution is that they are raising
the whole team's productivity - but it's very hard to get a sense of
their individual output unless you are a developer on that team.
If all this isn't complicated enough the Economist (sep
13-19, 2003) had an article
on productivity trends. It seems that economists are now seeing
productivity increases in business due to the computer investments in
the nineties. The point is that the improvements lag the investments:
“Investing in computers does not automatically boost productivity
growth; firms need to reorganize their business practices as well”.
The same lag occurred with the invention of electricity.
So not just is business value hard to measure, there's a time
lag too. So maybe you can't measure the productivity of a team until a
few years after a release of the software they were building.
I can see why measuring productivity is so seductive. If we
could do it we could assess software much more easily and
objectively than we can now. But false measures only make things
worse. This is somewhere I think we have to admit to our ignorance.
| 2024-11-08T20:58:54 | en | train |
42,039,601 | tauqeernasir | 2024-11-04T08:20:41 | Why and how I over-engineerd my tech blog? | null | https://blog.tauqeernasir.com/why-i-over-engineered-my-tech-blog | 1 | 0 | [
42040399
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,614 | aard | 2024-11-04T08:23:00 | Theory U and Theory T | null | https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00029 | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,623 | kure256 | 2024-11-04T08:25:37 | GitHub k3d action to run lightweight k3s clusters | null | https://github.com/AbsaOSS/k3d-action | 1 | 1 | [
42039624
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,631 | aard | 2024-11-04T08:28:47 | The Distance Podcast | null | https://thedistance.basecamp.com/ | 1 | 0 | [
42040252
] | null | null | no_error | The Distance Podcast | null | null |
Basecamp spent three years telling the stories of people who run businesses that endured 25 years or more. Have a listen — they're an inspiration for anyone looking to build a business that goes the distance.
or use this URL in your favorite podcast app:
https://thedistance.basecamp.com/podcast-feed.xml
All fifty eight episodes:
Business Model
Lily Liu was 16 years old when a talent scout approached her at a department store. She started her career as a model, but found her true calling behind the scenes, first representing her three daughters and then opening her own talent agency. For Lily, who’s spent her career working for opportunities for Asian and Asian-American talent, the issue of representation has taken on a special resonance.
Going to the Mattresses
Tim Masters describes himself as “just a mattress maker,” but that belies the business acumen he’s gained over decades of building and selling beds. Tim’s store in the Chicago suburbs, Quality Sleep Shop, opened in 1969 and has held its own against the proliferation of private equity-backed mattress corporations and chain stores. As Big Mattress has grown more complex, churning out endless permutations of confusingly named products, Tim has embraced simplicity.
If It Ain't Baroque, Don't Fix It
Ben and Larry are longtime owners of two different music-related businesses, a payroll service for musicians and an auctioneer of rare classical LPs. They don’t know each other, but they have something in common: They’re both still running their businesses on custom software written in the 1980s by the same developer. If you miss the sound of a dot matrix printer at work, this is the episode for you.
Troy Henikoff
Troy Henikoff was a college student in 1984 when he wrote his first program, a piece of software to help his grandfather’s steel warehouse manage their inventory. That summer project led Troy to start his own software consulting business a couple years later. This is an atypical Distance story about beginnings, endings and unexpected legacies.
The Business Cycle, Part 2
In 2010, as Worksman Cycles was emerging from the recession and ready to grow again, the maker of heavy-duty cycles saw an exciting opportunity to supply the bikes for New York City’s bike share program. But the city rejected Worksman’s proposal, and that disappointment lay the groundwork for the company to relocate to South Carolina, leaving behind the city it had been in since its founding in 1898.
The Business Cycle, Part 1
Worksman Cycles is the oldest American bicycle manufacturer that still makes its products in the U.S. Founded in New York in 1898, Worksman has outlasted the demise of American cycle manufacturing by focusing on a niche category: heavy duty tricycles that factory workers use for hauling equipment and getting around industrial plants. And Worksman’s president is determined to keep the company in the U.S., even as that commitment has been tested through the years.
Steeped in History
Nom Wah Tea Parlor is New York Chinatown’s oldest dim sum restaurant. For decades, it served Cantonese dumplings and rolls in the traditional way, from trolleys pushed around the restaurant. When Wilson Tang took over Nom Wah in 2011, he switched from trolleys to menus with pictures and started serving dim sum through dinner. He also opened new locations that broadened Nom Wah’s repertoire beyond dim sum. These were big changes for a restaurant that opened in 1920, but Wilson saw them as measures to secure Nom Wah’s future for its next century in business.
Make It Rain
Matt Stock is a business owner who loves marketing and has embraced the unglamorous job of selling a pretty mundane service: basement waterproofing. He’s tried everything from Yellow Pages to billboards to Internet advertising at U.S. Waterproofing, his 60-year-old family business. But Matt faced one of his greatest challenges as a business owner and a marketer in 2012, when Illinois was hit with a drought.
You Butter Believe It!
Every year in the weeks leading up to Easter, the four-person staff at Danish Maid Butter Co. starts counting sheep. The Chicago company has made lamb-shaped butter for more than 50 years, moving from wooden molds dropped in cans of ice water to a more modern process. There are other parts of Danish Maid’s business that are larger and growing faster, but the two siblings that run the company remain committed to the butter lambs as an important link to both their family legacy and current generations of customers.
Jungle Jim, I Presume?
In an industry known for selling commodities at low margins, Jungle Jim’s International Market in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio is something else entirely. It’s a super-sized grocery store that’s also a tourist attraction with animatronic characters, a dedicated events center, and a working monorail. At the center of this unexpected food empire is a businessman known simply as Jungle, who started with a pop-up produce stand and built something closer to a theme park than a grocery store.
The Richest Man In Town
Cullinan’s Stadium Club and Beverly Records sit next door to each other in the Chicago neighborhood of Morgan Park. The owners of the two businesses have been friendly since Dan Cullinan opened his bar and grill in 1989. But even Dan couldn’t imagine how John Dreznes of Beverly Records would rush in to help when Cullinan’s Stadium Club ran into financial trouble in late 2016.
All the Art That's Fit to Print
In 1989, Deborah Maris Lader had recently moved to Chicago and was looking for a studio where she could make prints and meet other artists. She couldn’t find a place like that, so she opened her own: the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative. Deborah also took the unconventional step of setting up the print shop and gallery as a business rather than a non-profit. She’s learned how to run a sustainable enterprise without grants or donations, which are the lifeblood of other arts organizations, and to balance her dual roles as business owner and artist.
Solo Act
Bruce Roper never planned to start a business. As a teenager, he wanted to be a Beatle. As an adult, he moved to Chicago after a brief stint running a music store and began fixing guitars. Over the next quarter century, Bruce built up a modest but steady one-man business repairing and building instruments, as well as teaching guitar building. Bruce’s students come to him seeking the secrets of making guitars, but he’s the first to say there are no secrets. It’s just a matter of doing it, and there’s no substitute for the decades of experience Bruce has accumulated.
Diamonds Are Forever
Jewelry tells a story. For Kathy, the owner of a 90-year-old jewelry store in Berwyn, Illinois, every piece of her jewelry adds up to a larger, richer history about the business that she joined as a 16-year-old part-time employee and ended up running. A lot of small businesses are labors of love, but the story of Kathy and Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers is a love story in more ways than one.
Neighborhood Fixture
The neighborhood appliance store is all but gone from the American retail landscape. But on Chicago’s north side, Cole’s Appliance and Furniture Co. has been selling refrigerators and sofas from the same corner since 1946. The Krasney family, which has owned Cole’s for three generations, has learned how to outlast big box stores, online competition, and the booms and busts of the housing market.
Clothes Call
When the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, Jim Piko Jr. wasn’t just thrilled as a longtime fan of the team. Marathon Sportswear, the screen printing company his father started in the family garage in 1980, began printing tens of thousands of officially licensed Cubs t-shirts as soon as the team won the championship. It was the equivalent of a farmer’s bumper crop for Jim. Being prepared for that moment took weeks of advance preparation—and years of slowly building a business, one t-shirt at a time.
Help Wanted
In 2009, as Chicago manufacturer Wiegel Tool Works was emerging from the recession and wanting to hire again, company president Aaron Wiegel noticed that his job ads for tool and die makers were going unfilled for months. That realization led to his restarting an apprenticeship program, which he pitches as an alternative to college—especially at a time when the cost of higher education looks increasingly to be a bad deal.
Test of Metal
Otto Wiegel founded Wiegel Tool Works the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. This year, his three grandchildren mark the manufacturing company’s 75th anniversary. The family business, which specializes in precision metal stamping, has survived succession issues and dislocations in the global economy to become somewhat of a rare species: A midwestern American manufacturer in growth mode.
Party Foul
The products that AR-EN Party Printers makes—customized items like gift tags and coasters—are a luxury and not a necessity, but that doesn’t make them any less important to the company’s customers. AR-EN can’t afford to misprint a couple’s monogram or get a color wrong. In this mini episode, business owner Gary Morrison recalls one memorable incident in his company’s early history.
Party in the Front, Business in the Back
When Gary Morrison’s mother and her best friend got into the foil-stamped napkin business in 1979, the two women were just looking for a side project that would make them some extra money. Decades later, Gary is running AR-EN Party Printers, a company that custom prints cocktail napkins, coasters, matchboxes and more. He’s the first person to acknowledge that no one really needs what he’s selling, yet he’s figured out how to make a sustainable business out of disposable personalized favors.
Cremains To Be Seen
From seagrass caskets to biodegradable urns designed for water burials, there is a growing number of options when it comes to burying the dead. In this mini episode, Claudette Zarzycki of Zarzycki Manor Chapels, a 101-year-old funeral home, talks about how approaches to mourning are evolving.
Home is Where the Hearse Is
Four generations of the Zarzycki family have lived behind or above their funeral home, starting with founder Agnes Zarzycki, the first woman funeral director of Polish descent in Chicago. Today, 101-year-old Zarzycki Manor Chapels is still run by women, who are upholding old traditions—like conducting funeral services in Polish—while bringing in new ideas to keep their business going for the next century.
Stranger Things
It takes a lot of work to make a dead body appear healthy and lifelike. It also takes a lot of chemicals, like the kind manufactured by 124-year-old Frigid Fluid. In this mini episode, learn more about embalming and some of the strange phone calls that the company gets.
Job Preservation
The modern practice of embalming started in the U.S. during the Civil War, and Brian Yeazel’s family got into the embalming fluid business a few decades later. Frigid Fluid, the company his great great uncle founded in 1892, is also the inventor of the automatic casket lowering device. Brian, who took over in 2013, has discovered that even a business based on life’s only certainty—death—isn’t nearly as steady and predictable as it may seem to outsiders.
Uphill Climb
R. Russell Builders is still recovering from the worst housing market it’s experienced in its 60-year history. But before “subprime mortgage” was a household term, company founder Ron Russell, Sr. was overcoming his own personal challenges so he could pursue the career he wanted.
The House that Russell Built
The housing crisis wiped out half of the homebuilders in the U.S. This is the story of one that survived, but emerged from the recession to find both itself and its industry drastically changed. Ron Russell Sr. founded R. Russell Builders in 1956, and the company found success in converting large tracts of raw farmland in Chicago’s western suburbs into tidy subdivisions. His son, Ron Russell Jr., was at the helm of the family business when the crisis hit, and he’s charting a course for R. Russell Builders in a housing market that’s still chastened from the recession.
The Man on the Wall
Willie David Langford Senior’s picture is on the wall of Langford’s Barber Shop, the business he founded in Atlanta in 1964. The barber shop has long been a neighborhood haven, not least of all for the many kids who grew up in the area. In this mini episode, hear more about Willie Langford’s legacy and the young people he took under his wing.
Grateful Heads
LaMichael Langford grew up watching his uncle run a barber shop and would sneak in his friends to cut their hair. LaMichael eventually took over the business that his uncle opened in 1964, and Langford’s Barber Shop has been a constant in an Atlanta neighborhood that’s seen significant demographic shifts over the decades. Throughout all the changes, Langford’s has been there—both for its customers and for its longtime employees.
It's a Hardware Life
John Stallworth has worked almost non-stop at his hardware store for over 40 years. He’s passed that work ethic down to his son, John Jr., who works alongside his father at the shop on Chicago’s South Side. In this mini episode, find out what it takes to run a neighborhood hardware and bike repair shop that helps anchor its community.
Unchanging Gears
John Stallworth has been selling hardware and fixing bikes at his shop on Chicago’s South Side for 50 years, helping to anchor a neighborhood that’s struggled with population loss and divestment. John’s Hardware and Bicycle Shop is the kind of old-fashioned business that’s happy to sell customers two nails instead of a whole box. The store’s motto is “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” Today more than ever, the neighborhood needs John Stallworth and his business.
Soy Meets World
Jenny Yang held many different jobs in Taiwan and the U.S. before discovering her passion: running one of Chicago’s oldest tofu manufacturers. In this mini episode, Jenny talks about her long, winding journey to Phoenix Bean Tofu and how immigrating to the U.S. opened new possibilities for her.
Soy You Bought a Tofu Factory
In 1999, Jenny Yang discovered a small tofu company in her Chicago neighborhood that made the fresh soybean curd she remembered from her native Taiwan. Seven years later, when Jenny learned the business was in danger of closing, she impulsively stepped up to buy it. Jenny didn’t just guide Phoenix Bean Tofu through the transition, but opened new markets for her products and today is on the cusp of a major expansion.
Director's Cut
Choosing and taking care of a knife can be an intimidating process for home cooks. In this mini episode, Northwestern Cutlery owner Marty Petlicki and a culinary school director offer some knife tips and dispel a common misconception about what a sharpening steel actually does. (Hint: It’s not for sharpening!)
Knife Work If You Can Get It
In 1972, when two cousins opened Northwestern Cutlery, their knife rental and sharpening business, they chose a location in Chicago near the city’s meatpackers. Over the next decades, the dramatic transformation of the neighborhood around the business meant a nearly complete turnover in Northwestern Cutlery’s customer base—from industrial meatpackers to affluent gourmands.
Junk in the Trunk
We ride along with a two-man 1-800-GOT-JUNK truck team in Vancouver, British Columbia and learn about what they will and won’t take (no bed bugs or asbestos, please), what kind of personality is required for the job and some of their best finds.
The Rubbish Boy
Brian Scudamore was 19 when he set up his junk-hauling business with a used pick-up truck and a stack of business cards. But his ambitions were always greater than being a one-man junk operation. Brian Scudamore wanted his company to have a brand as polished as FedEx or Starbucks, and he wanted it to be big. Today, 1-800-GOT-JUNK is in three countries, and Brian is using what he learned about franchising to take other unglamorous home services and make them into big businesses.
Swan Song
In the ice sculpture world of the 70s and 80s, swans ruled the roost. Jim Nadeau carved a swan every Sunday for the brunch service of the hotel where he worked. He doesn’t make too many swans anymore, but the shape is still taught in culinary schools. In this mini episode, find out how swans became standard in ice sculptures and what rookie carvers can learn from making them.
Mr. Freeze
In the 1970s, ice carving was the province of chefs at high-end hotels that made the sculptures part of their decor for Sunday brunch. Jim Nadeau came out of this tradition. Then, in 1980, he got the idea to start his own ice carving business in the Chicago area. Nadeau’s Ice Sculptures was among the first specialty carving shops to open and helped take the craft out of upscale hotel kitchens and into the mass market.
Code TH
The Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico draws many visitors looking to admire or buy fine artwork. Then there are the treasure hunters, who come to the gallery looking for clues about a chest of valuables reportedly buried in the Rocky Mountains by the gallery’s previous owner, retired art dealer Forrest Fenn. The Nedra Matteucci Galleries’ rich history and unique architecture only add to the institution’s mystique, making it a magnet for fortune seekers.
Humble Adobe
Santa Fe, New Mexico is home to around 200 art galleries. Even in this thriving art scene, Nedra Matteucci’s gallery stands out. The 44-year-old gallery, which she bought in 1988, is housed in an adobe compound spanning two acres, and the business takes a grounded approach to fine art. If visiting the Nedra Matteucci Galleries feels like you’re stepping into someone’s home, it’s because Nedra, a New Mexico native who got her start selling paintings on the road, has made approachability part of the overall experience.
A Lively Conversation, Part 2
In the second half of the conversation between Paul McKenna of Starship restaurant and Anne Pezalla and Kate Pezalla Marlin of Lively Athletics, the business owners talk social media, the dark side of coupons and what’s next.
A Lively Conversation, Part 1
We’re trying something new with this episode. It’s a conversation between business owners on different ends of the experience spectrum. Sisters Anne Pezalla and Kate Pezalla Marlin opened their women’s athletic apparel and running shoe boutique, Lively Athletics, in 2014. They’re at the start of their entrepreneurial journey and wanted to get some advice from Paul McKenna, who’s been running a sandwich shop and catering business called Starship since 1977. You’ll hear Anne, Kate and Paul discuss growth, competition, burnout and other issues facing small business owners.
Resurrection Mary
With 95 years of history behind it, the Willowbrook Ballroom in Willow Springs, Ill. has seen many generations of dancers come and go. One dancer in particular has stuck around: Resurrection Mary, the ghost of a young woman who’s reputed to haunt the ballroom and the area around it. She’s one of the region’s most well-known spooky legends.
Save the Last Dance
When Birute and Gediminas Jodwalis bought the Willowbrook Ballroom from the business’ founding family nearly 20 years ago, they inherited an intensely loyal but shrinking customer base of Sunday afternoon dancers. The 95-year-old Willowbrook is one of the area’s last remaining traditional ballrooms, and while the pastime continues to slowly fade away, the Jodwalis’ commitment to their legacy customers hasn’t wavered. They have adapted the event space for a modern clientele while honoring a promise they made to the founding family to keep the Sunday dancers on their feet and the big bands on stage.
Children of the Corn
The primary business at the Funk family farm is maple syrup production. But the farm also grows corn and soybeans to supplement the income from maple syrup. Mike and Debby Funk, the fifth generation to farm on the family land in central Illinois, met de-tasseling corn as teenagers. In this mini episode, Debby remembers those days of meeting her future husband and tasting his family’s maple syrup for the first time.
Funk Yeah!
Central Illinois is a long way from Vermont or Canada, but that hasn’t stopped the Funk family of Funks Grove, Ill., from building a multi-generational maple syrup business. Every year, the Funks collect sap from thousands of trees that have been passed down in their family and boil it into pure maple syrup. The acres of maple trees, along with syrup-making expertise and the love of a business that’s unpredictable and laborious, are family assets that have sustained generations of Funks.
Keeping Those Refrigerators Running
In the early 80s, long before he became the CEO of LION, his family-owned manufacturing company, Steve Schwartz ran his college fraternity’s refrigerator rental business. Fridges are a far cry from LION’s core business of making protective gear for firefighters, but that early experience gave Steve his first taste of entrepreneurism.
Fire Sale
LION’s products can mean the difference between life and death for the customers of this family-owned company, which makes protective clothing and training equipment for firefighters. From its origins in 1898 as a horse-and-wagon operation selling clothing to farmers in Dayton, Ohio, LION turns out everything from Teflon suits worn by medical personnel transporting Ebola patients to mini metropolises spanning 20 acres that can be set on fire to train fire departments.
Closure
The 2014 ownership transition at Women & Children First was an emotional process, as the founders of the feminist bookstore sold their business to two staff members after 35 years at the helm. In this mini episode, the past and present owners of Women & Children First talk about the day they officially closed the deal.
Independent Women
Throw your hands up at me! In 1979, Ann Christopherson and Linda Bubon opened a store in Chicago to sell books by and about women. Their business, Women & Children First, became a place where emerging writers could be discovered, a safe space for women to discuss issues important to them, and a neighborhood institution that survived the rise and decline of large chain bookstores. Ann and Linda sold Women & Children First in 2014 to staff members Lynn Mooney and Sarah Hollenbeck, who are continuing the store’s mission of being independent, literary, political—and sustainable.
Cold Storage
The Great Depression hit shortly after Joe and Katherine Sapp opened their Chicago ice cream shop, Original Rainbow Cone, and subsequent generations of Sapps haven’t forgotten what it meant to almost lose everything. In this mini episode, current Rainbow Cone owner Lynn Sapp talks about the physical reminders of her grandparents’ survival mentality.
Rainbow Connection
Opening an ice cream store in Chicago is not for the faint of heart. Factor in a mostly deserted neighborhood and the Great Depression, and the idea of selling ice cream looks utterly harebrained. Yet that’s exactly what the Sapp family did in 1926 when they started Original Rainbow Cone, and their signature treat—five flavors arranged in diagonal slabs—has come to symbolize spring and summer for generations of Chicagoans who grew up on the city’s south side.
If These Cubicle Walls Could Talk
The modern office has gone from private offices to cubicles, and from cube farms to more open spaces with lower partitions. All those changes have been good business for Office Furniture Resources, which is marking 25 years of buying and reselling the chairs, desks and cubicles that make up American offices. OFR operates in an industry that’s completely behind the scenes yet touches the lives of workers everywhere.
Getting the Boot
Shaun Hildner, co-producer of The Distance, goes shopping for cowboy boots at Alcala’s Western Wear and learns “an old cowboy trick” from business owner Richard Alcala.
Bootstrapped and Proud
As an urban metropolis east of the Mississippi River, Chicago might seem like an unlikely home for a purveyor of cowboy hats, boots and shirts. Yet Alcala’s Western Wear has flourished in the Windy City for over four decades, building a massive selection and a knack for customer service. For the Alcala family, now in its second generation of ownership, western wear has proved to be much more than a fashion fad.
Pulp Fixing
Human history comes with a long paper trail, and Graphic Conservation Company’s mission is to preserve and restore that record. The 95-year-old lab specializes in repairing works on paper, which range from priceless historical artifacts and artwork to personal items like someone’s old letter to Santa Claus. After nearly a century of smoothing wrinkles, patching holes and removing acid burns, there are few problems—on paper, anyway—that Graphic Conservation’s staff can’t fix.
Always Glad You Came
Bill Carlson describes his business as “a little shot and a beer bar,” but the 61-year-old Uptown Tavern has always been more than a dive. It’s a place where third-shift workers can unwind in the early morning and where people without a place to go on Thanksgiving can come in for a free turkey dinner. Bill, a veteran bartender, knows that even a humble tavern needs to keep evolving to survive.
A 102-Year Winning Streak
Bowlers Journal International is the longest-running sports monthly in the United States, and it’s a print magazine that’s held on to a remarkably loyal base of subscribers and advertisers since its founding in 1913 by a Chicago shoe salesman. Of all the stories Bowlers Journal has told, the most enduring is that of its own longevity and close relationship with its readers.
Holiday Bow-nus
In this mini episode, Carol Richardson of Richardson Farm explains how to tie a perfect bow.
Homestead for the Holidays
The Richardson family arrived in Spring Grove, Illinois in 1840, when brothers Robert and Frank each claimed 80 acres of farmland that had become available for homesteading. Successive generations of Richardsons tried their hand at cash crops, dairy cows and pig production. But it was the agritourism business that proved the most sustainable for the 175-year-old family farm, which today is operated by the fifth and sixth generations of Richardsons. The family sells cut-your-own Christmas trees during the holidays and operates the world’s largest corn maze in the fall. They’ve become experts in seasonal entertainment, offering a nostalgic rural escape from suburban sprawl.
Dance Marathon
Kerry Hubata started dancing at the age of eight and hasn’t stopped. In 1968, she and her mentor opened a classical ballet studio in the Chicago suburb of Evanston. The two women never set out to be entrepreneurs, but they ended up with a sustainable business that’s trained everyone from professional dancers to the mayor of Chicago.
Chocoholic Anonymous
Athena Uslander is the Cyrano de Bergerac of brownies. The company she co-founded in 1983, Silverland Bakery, makes sweet treats that are sold under the names of grocery stores and restaurants across the U.S. and even internationally. Silverland Bakery may not have the consumer name recognition of a Mrs. Fields or Betty Crocker, but Athena Uslander has the sustainable business and entrepreneurial career she always wanted.
Family Medicine
When Abdul Qaiyum, a young Pakistani immigrant, discovered Merz Apothecary in 1972, the Swiss German drugstore was on the verge of closing permanently after nearly a century in business. Qaiyum bought the store from the founding family and has run it ever since, transforming a modest purveyor of homeopathic remedies into a retailer that combines modern business savvy with old-world nostalgia.
Grave Matters
The Peter Troost Monument Company has been making grave markers, headstones and mausoleums in the Chicago area since 1889. The issue of longevity has a particular resonance for fifth-generation president Lisa Troost, who knows that the product she sells is a one-time purchase that is meant to last forever.
The Bales Girls
Stacey Bales has worked in almost every department at her family manufacturing business, from the front office to the shop floor. But when it came to running the entire company, she expected her father, Steve, to do that for at least another decade. That all changed with Steve Bales’ sudden passing in 2009. Stacey and her sister, Sara, found themselves in charge of the business without their father, boss and mentor. Today, they’re building on Steve Bales’ legacy while crafting their own vision for the company.
Ancient History, Modern Family
As students of history, Harlan Berk and his three children know that circumstances around them can change rapidly. They’ve learned to adapt the family business through 51 years of buying and selling ancient coins, as well as antiquities and maps. From rare artifacts to a mystery involving long-lost valuables and the FBI, there’s no telling what might turn up next at Harlan J. Berk Limited.
Farming Like the Joneses
The Jones family has been farming in Iowa for generations. They have weathered tough winters, the consolidation of small family farms and the farm crisis of the 1980s. Today, 29-year-old Will Jones is in charge, and he’s melding his own vision for the family business with the collective wisdom of predecessors like his father.
The World's Largest Laundromat (Redux)
There’s been a laundromat on this corner of Berwyn, Illinois for more than a half century. But it was the current owner, Tom Benson, who made the World’s Largest Laundromat into the family-friendly destination it is today. This is an edited and improved version of an episode we originally aired in February.
Pipe Dreams
The warehouse at Carma Labs in Franklin, Wisconsin is filled with boxes of the 78-year-old company’s signature product, Carmex lip balm. But there’s something else going on in this concrete storage facility. Carma Labs President Paul Woelbing, the grandson of the company’s founder, is on year eight of a personal mission to construct a massive pipe organ at the warehouse that will be open to the community. Woelbing wants to spur interest in organ music among a new generation of listeners and players—building a musical legacy alongside his business one.
It Soothes, It Heals, It Tingles
Alfred Woelbing made the first batch of Carmex at his kitchen stovetop in 1937. He was looking for a cold sore treatment and came up with a hit lip balm instead. Nearly 80 years later, Carma Labs is still independent and running under family ownership. Find out what goes into the Carmex formula—both for making lip balm and building a company that takes care of its customers and employees over the long term.
Cheesecake, the Chicago Way
The list of classic Chicago foods includes pizza, hot dogs, Italian beef—and Eli’s Cheesecake, a creamy confection with a hint of sour cream and a butter shortbread cookie crust. The dessert was first served at Eli’s The Place For Steak, a restaurant owned by lifelong Chicagoan Eli Schulman that served guests from local politicians to visiting celebrities like Frank Sinatra. Today Eli’s son, Marc, oversees the family dessert business, which makes cheesecakes and other sweet items for restaurants and grocery stores worldwide. The Distance takes you inside a real-life cheesecake factory.
High Fidelity
Some of the audio world's most revered headphones are made in a cramped Brooklyn townhouse that used to house a fruit store.
Wholesale Changes
Chicago’s Fulton Market district is the city’s last remaining food market, a hub for meatpackers and wholesalers of agricultural products. But a wave of new development, including high-end restaurants and luxury condos, is transforming Fulton Market and prompting many long-time business owners to question whether the neighborhood can continue to sustain their livelihoods. We talk to two Fulton Market businesses about how they’re navigating this transition.
Bonus Episode: Jason Fried
Jason Fried co-founded Basecamp in 1999 and in 2014 launched The Distance. Shaun Hildner sat down with Jason to talk about The Distance and the kinds of business stories that interest him.
Special Arrangements
It’s been 83 years since Roy Sheffield started selling bouquets on the street, but the bloom is still on the rose of the business he founded.
A Stitch In Time
The master tailors at this store know how to cut a fine figure.
Auto Transmission
One man's junkyard is the next generation's modern recycling center.
All The Right Angles
From speakeasies to supermarkets, this packaging company never stops looking for new opportunities.
Freshly Pressed
Harry Holly invented a machine for molding hamburger patties that helped give birth to the modern fast food industry.
Second Cycle
Laundry gets way more fun when there's free pizza, live animals and family-friendly entertainment in the mix.
Time and Tide
No detail is left to chance in the pursuit of building the world’s finest wooden boats.
Life of Pie
The inventor of the insulated pizza delivery bag saved one of America's most beloved foods from a cold and soggy fate.
Guardians of the Gallery
Meet the company that art museums and galleries call when they need a literal helping hand.
Not That Kind of Ghoul
Don’t stop make-believin’—this block-long costume store has been open all year round for nearly half a century.
The Music Man
For schools that don't have their own music programs, this 30-year-old education company teaches kids to toot their own horns.
Aloha from the Hala Kahiki
This tropical-themed bar has endured decades beyond the end of the original tiki fad.
The Bra Surgeon is in
This lingerie store has tackled a vexing issue for many women – ill-fitting bras – for the last 27 years.
Chicago’s Last Tannery
More than a century after its founding, Chicago’s last tannery is still running under family ownership.
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A healthy brain (fMRI image). Researchers are investigating the effects of stimulating regions of the brain linked to depression. Credit: Mark & Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute/Science Photo LibraryA remote clinical trial involving more than 150 people has shown that an experimental treatment for depression — which uses a swimming-cap-like device to gently stimulate the brain — can be effective when carried out at home. The non-invasive therapy, known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is designed to stimulate areas of the brain linked to mood regulation, and delivers a painless, weak electrical current through electrodes placed on the scalp. It could be a game-changer for the more than one-third of people with depression who do not respond to standard treatments such as antidepressants or psychotherapy.How deep brain stimulation is helping people with severe depressionThe trial, described on 21 October in Nature Medicine1, found that after ten weeks of regular treatment, participants who received tDCS showed a greater reduction in depressive symptoms than did those in a control group. Previous research has explored using tDCS to treat depression, but this study stands out for its long timescale and remote, home-based design, which did not require participants to make daily visits to a specialized clinic.“When we think about that aspect of barriers to mental health, accessibility is a huge one,” says Shawn McClintock, a clinical neuropsychologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, who was not involved in the study. The trial “really starts to substantiate the ability to take mental health treatments into a home setting”, he adds.Making brain cells fireIn the trial, researchers targeted the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in decision-making that is often less active in people with depression. “The tDCS involves a small current that makes it easier for the brain cells to discharge or to fire,” says study co-author Cynthia Fu, a clinical neuroscientist at King’s College London.Fu and her colleagues trained 120 women and 54 men, all of whom had been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder, to use the tDCS headset and randomly allocated people to either the treatment or a control group.Found: a brain-wiring pattern linked to depressionThose in the treatment group received a current of 2 milliamperes to the scalp — about 0.5% of the amount drawn by a 100-watt light bulb — for 30 minutes, 5 times a week for the first 3 weeks, then 3 times a week for 7 weeks. Participants in the control group wore a sham headset, which only delivered a brief pulse of current at the start of each session, mimicking the feeling of real tDCS without providing the same stimulation.After 10 weeks, the treatment group’s scores on a scale that measures depression symptoms dropped by 9.41 points, whereas the control group’s score decreased by 7.14 points. Nearly 45% of participants with the active tDCS device experienced reduction in or recovery from their symptoms, compared with almost 22% of those with sham device. The headsets were used in addition to other treatments — many of the study participants took antidepressants and enrolled in psychotherapy for at least six weeks prior to the study.Mixed resultsAlthough these results are encouraging, previous research has suggested that tDCS doesn’t work for everyone. Last year, for example, a study of 150 people found that tDCS did not have antidepressant effects2. But trials with positive and negative outcomes are both equally important to investigate the method’s potential as a treatment for depression, says Frank Padberg, a psychiatrist at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. The next step should be to understand why tDCS works for some people but not others, and to look for ways to personalize the treatment, he adds. “Different people need different dosages.”Future studies could also use brain imaging and electrical recording to observe changes in neural circuits during tDCS treatment in real time, says McClintock. This would help researchers to “see what this treatment is actually doing at the neural circuit level”.“Three decades ago, I wouldn't have thought that this stimulation does anything on the brain,” says Padberg. But now it is known that tDCS affects brain activity, “I'm pretty sure that an optimized method will make it to clinical care one day,” he says.
ReferencesWoodham, R. D. et al. Nature Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03305-y (2024).Article
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Download references | 2024-11-08T16:14:53 | en | train |
42,039,703 | blackeyeblitzar | 2024-11-04T08:45:24 | Chaos as thousands turn up for AI 'hoax' Halloween parade that didn't exist | null | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dublin-fake-halloween-parade-ireland-ai-advert-b2639505.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,710 | rossant | 2024-11-04T08:47:07 | The background noise that can catch criminals (2021) [video] | null | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0elNU0iOMY | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T13:12:22 | null | train |
42,039,727 | DazDev | 2024-11-04T08:51:04 | An alternative to LeetCode style interviewing | null | https://syntaxsunsets.com/posts/an-alternative-to-leetcode-style-interviewing/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,732 | burrito_brain | 2024-11-04T08:51:34 | null | null | null | 2 | null | [
42040246
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,741 | cbswei | 2024-11-04T08:54:26 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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42,039,748 | williswee | 2024-11-04T08:54:50 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,757 | MKorkut | 2024-11-04T08:56:46 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,760 | MKorkut | 2024-11-04T08:57:37 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,769 | MKorkut | 2024-11-04T08:58:24 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,776 | mariuz | 2024-11-04T08:59:18 | From Theory to Code: Implementing a Neural Network in 200 Lines of C | null | https://twitter.com/konradgajdus/status/1837196363735482396 | 3 | 2 | [
42040075
] | null | null | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T18:00:34 | null | train |
42,039,779 | JNRowe | 2024-11-04T08:59:53 | Igalia and WebKit: status update and plans | null | https://mariospr.org/2024/11/03/igalia-and-webkit-status-update-and-plans-2024/ | 2 | 0 | [
42040398
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,800 | marban | 2024-11-04T09:04:26 | Quincy Jones, producer and entertainment powerhouse, dies aged 91 | null | https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/04/quincy-jones-musician-michael-jackson-producer-dies | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,805 | Mike_Andreuzza | 2024-11-04T09:06:04 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,809 | amorsly | 2024-11-04T09:06:37 | Show HN: Screend – AI Interviewer Designed for Talent Teams | Hey HN! Excited to introduce Screend, an AI interviewer that helps talent teams make hiring faster and fairer through objective screening and structured assessments.<p>Interviews are tailored, focusing on candidates’ actual responses rather than any surface-level factors. AI interviews are new, and not everyone’s used to them — but so far, 83% of candidates have given positive feedback, noting the fair and clear process.<p>I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially around improving candidate experience and the future of AI in recruiting. Looking for feedback and testers! | https://screend.co | 2 | 1 | [
42039987
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,824 | walterbell | 2024-11-04T09:09:13 | How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (2021) | null | https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-western-difference | 6 | 0 | [
42040241
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,826 | rrampage | 2024-11-04T09:10:05 | How Can MySQL Catch Up with PostgreSQL's Momentum | null | https://www.percona.com/blog/how-can-mysql-catch-up-with-postgresqls-momentum/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,843 | 2winpower | 2024-11-04T09:14:23 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,866 | todsacerdoti | 2024-11-04T09:19:28 | Simple trick to save environment and money when using GitHub Actions | null | https://turso.tech/blog/simple-trick-to-save-environment-and-money-when-using-github-actions | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,876 | sohkamyung | 2024-11-04T09:21:53 | Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 on sale now at $60 | null | https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-touch-display-2-on-sale-now-at-60/ | 5 | 1 | [
42039932,
42040234
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,891 | cannibalXxx | 2024-11-04T09:25:27 | Mastering SEO: Best Practices Every Web Developer Should Know | In the vast landscape of the internet, where millions of websites compete for attention, mastering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for any web developer. Implementing SEO best practices not only improves a website's visibility but also enhances its relevance and user experience. This article outlines essential SEO strategies tailored for web developers to ensure their creations rank high and thrive in the digital realm.<p>1. Mobile-First Design:<p>With mobile devices dominating internet usage, prioritizing mobile-friendly designs is imperative. Utilize responsive design techniques to ensure seamless user experience across various screen sizes. Google's mobile-first indexing means that your site's mobile version is the primary factor in how it's ranked.<p>2. Optimized Site Speed:<p>Site speed is a critical factor influencing both user experience and search rankings. Optimize code, compress images, and leverage browser caching to reduce loading times. Tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights can help identify areas for improvement.<p>3. Keyword Research and Content Optimization:<p>Thorough keyword research is the cornerstone of effective SEO. Identify relevant keywords and integrate them naturally into your website's content, including headings, meta descriptions, and image alt texts. However, avoid keyword stuffing, as it can harm your site's ranking.<p>4. Structured Data Markup:<p>Implement structured data markup using Schema.org to provide search engines with additional context about your content. This can enhance your listings in search results, increasing click-through rates and improving overall SEO performance.<p>5. Secure Website (HTTPS):<p>Security is a top priority for both users and search engines. Switch to HTTPS to encrypt data transmitted between the user's browser and your website's server. Google considers HTTPS as a ranking signal, providing a slight boost to HTTPS-enabled sites in search results.<p>6. Quality Backlinks:<p>Acquire high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites within your niche. Focus on creating valuable content that naturally attracts links from reputable sources. Avoid black hat tactics such as buying links, as they can result in penalties from search engines.<p>7. User-Friendly URL Structure:<p>Craft user-friendly URLs that are descriptive, concise, and include relevant keywords. A clear URL structure not only helps search engines understand your site's content but also improves readability for users.<p>8. Regular Content Updates:<p>Keep your website's content fresh and relevant by regularly updating and adding new content. This signals to search engines that your site is active and authoritative in its niche, potentially leading to higher rankings and increased organic traffic.<p>9. Optimize Images and Multimedia:<p>Optimize images and multimedia elements by using descriptive filenames, relevant alt texts, and appropriate image sizes. Compress images without sacrificing quality to reduce page load times while maintaining visual appeal.<p>10. Monitor and Analyze Performance:<p>Utilize analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor your website's performance, track key metrics, and identify areas for improvement. Regularly analyze data to refine your SEO strategy and adapt to evolving search algorithms.<p>If you're interested in this content, come and see the techniques I used to get 10,000 views in less than two weeks. Join this chat room and I'll tell you all about it: https://chat-to.dev/chat?q=more_traffic_for_web | null | 2 | 0 | [
42040238
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,896 | null | 2024-11-04T09:27:26 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
"true"
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,903 | doener | 2024-11-04T09:28:16 | Humans without a sense of smell breathe differently | null | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52650-6 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,906 | adrian_mrd | 2024-11-04T09:29:54 | Robot retrieves radioactive fuel sample from Fukushima nuclear reactor site | null | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/02/robot-retrieves-radioactive-fuel-sample-from-fukushima-nuclear-reactor | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,910 | thunderbong | 2024-11-04T09:30:25 | 'Cosmic inflation:' did the early cosmos balloon in size? | null | https://theconversation.com/cosmic-inflation-did-the-early-cosmos-balloon-in-size-a-mirror-universe-going-backwards-in-time-may-be-a-simpler-explanation-238343 | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,915 | Corrado | 2024-11-04T09:31:35 | All You Need for Artificial Intelligence Is a Commodore 64 | null | https://hackaday.com/2024/11/03/all-you-need-for-artificial-intelligence-is-a-commodore-64/ | 2 | 1 | [
42041883,
42040199
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,917 | QuesnayJr | 2024-11-04T09:31:42 | What Is the Tallest Unfinished Building? | null | https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-the-world-s-tallest-unfinished-building.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | What Is The World's Tallest Unfinished Building? | 2019-09-23T12:17:00-04:00 | Sophy Owuor |
The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang. Editorial credit: Oleg Znamenskiy / Shutterstock.com.
The Ryugyong Hotel, which is also sometimes referred to as Yu-Kyung Hotel or the 105 Building, is an iconic but unfinished building in Pyongyang, North Korea. The unfinished building is a pyramid-shaped skyscraper that is 1,080-feet-tall and contains 105 floors, hence the name the "105 Building." It is also the tallest building in North Korea, and was listed as the world's tallest unoccupied building by Guinness World Records. Construction of the building began in 1987, but was temporarily stopped in 1992 when the country entered an economic crisis, and later resumed in 2008. The building was designed as a mixed-use space, which would include a hotel.
Origin of the Ryugyong Hotel
In the 1980s, North Korea’s economy began to slow as the national debt became an increasing concern. During the same period, South Korea's agriculture-based economy was transforming into to one of the most successful economies in the world. Since the Cold War still ongoing, both countries were competing for legitimacy and global prestige. Concerned that South Korea was advancing faster, North Korea searched for ideas to boost its prominence. North Korean leader Kim II Sung thought that the best way to surpass South Korea was to create a super modern hotel that would serve as a symbol of Pyongyang. Therefore, the concept of the Ryugyong Hotel was born, which was planned to be the world's largest hotel at that time.
Architecture
The Ryugyong Hotel is a 1,080 ft tall building and is North Korea’s tallest structure. The building was planned for completion in June 1989, and would have become the tallest hotel in the world until 2009, when Rose Tower was completed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The unfinished hotel currently ranks as the 63rd tallest building in the world, and is 12th in the world in terms of total number of floors. The Ryugyong Hotel is pyramid-shaped and consists of three wings. Each wing measures 330 ft long and 59 ft wide, and the three wings converge near the top to form a pinnacle. The building is topped by an 8-floor truncated cone that is 130 ft wide and is intended to rotate, plus an additional six static floors on top. According to some sources, the Ryugyong Hotel was designed to include five revolving restaurants and at least 7,650 guest rooms. More recently, the building is reported to be planned for mixed-use development.
Construction
Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987, with Baikdoosan Architects & Engineers, a North Korean construction firm, serving as builder. However, there were several barriers to its completion, especially the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. North Korea was subsequently deprived of its trading partners, leading to an economic crisis that wiped out almost 40% of the nation's GDP. By 1992, the Ryugyong Hotel had been built up to its full architectural height, but work was halted since the economy was not stable enough to support further construction. The site remained inactive for 16 years, until April 2008 when Egyptian-based Orascom Group resumed construction. This work concentrated mainly on the building's exterior, while the interior remained incomplete. In 2018, an LED screen was fitted on one side of the building's exterior, which is used to show animations and film scenes.
Home
World Facts
What Is The World's Tallest Unfinished Building?
| 2024-11-08T14:20:07 | en | train |
42,039,918 | thunderbong | 2024-11-04T09:32:11 | 'Smart toilet' monitors for signs of disease (2020) | null | https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/smart-toilet-monitors-for-signs-of-disease.html | 2 | 0 | [
42040232
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,921 | slow_typist | 2024-11-04T09:32:45 | (tr)uSDX – pocket multimode HF transceiver | null | https://dl2man.de/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | DL2MAN.de – home of the (tr)uSDX | null | null |
Overview:
(tr)uSDX is the successor of the uSDX Project. It´s the Result of the Collaboration between PE1NNZ and DL2MAN. The design was intended as an easy to build (pre-assembled) Kit, that can be sourced (in a group buy situation) for abt. 50,-€. 3D Printed Housing not included in this price.
This means: Even commercial use is allowed as long as you don´t change anything ! No Royalties charged, donations welcome.
Where to buy ? Klick here: List of official suppliers
Overview
The (tr)uSDX is a 5-Band / Mulitmode QRP Transceiver in Pocket Format (90x60x30mm – 140g). It features a highly efficient Class E PA and Supports CW/LSB/USB and AM/FM. It covers by default 80/60/40/30/20m (alternative Filter Setups possible)
It is supplied with an OLED Display, onboard Mic, (tiny) onboard speaker and for improvised QSO onboard PTT Key can be used as emergency CW Key.
Further on, the (tr)uSDX has a (Micro)USB CAT and Programming Interface, and while it produces typically 5W @ 13,8V Power Supply, it can create 0,5W Output from 5V USB Supply alone.
Typically it draws 80mA on RX (with MS5351 – less with Si5351) and 500mA on TX @13,8V and typical 85% PA Efficiency.
It is supplied with OnBoard SWR Bridge and Voltage/Current measurement Hardware, to help in tuning and operation.
Continue on the sub-pages:
1 (tr) uSDX Group Buy – Gerbers & more
2 (tr)uSDX Assembly – Schematics and more
3a (tr)uSDX Bootloader – (Initial Firmware)
3b (tr)uSDX Firmware – (Working Firmware)
4 (tr)uSDX Manual – how to operate it
5 (tr)uSDX Details – Infos about CAT Control and Streaming
Where to buy (tr)uSDX ?
| 2024-11-08T15:58:54 | en | train |
42,039,930 | khadako735 | 2024-11-04T09:34:30 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,039,935 | stareatgoats | 2024-11-04T09:35:19 | Cheap Thrills, an album cover by Robert Crumb (2020) | null | https://musicaficionado.blog/2020/01/28/cheap-thrills-an-album-cover-by-robert-crumb/ | 179 | 85 | [
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A curious tale this, about an artist who draws an album cover for a band he does not care for, playing a music style he does not listen to, appealing to an audience he does not connect with. And to top it, the art selected for the front cover was the one he intended for the back cover. The result: one of the most iconic album covers to come out of the late 1960s. This is the story of Robert Crumb’s cover art for Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company’s career-changing album Cheap Thrills.
The story of this album cover starts in January of 1967,
when Crumb moved to San Francisco. The previous two years were spent soaking in
LSD and travelling between New York, Chicago, and Detroit. The drug was legal
then and an eye opener for many, as he remembers: “At that moment, 1965-1966,
it was very exciting. You got in a subway and you were a person that took LSD.
If there was another person on that subway who has also taken LSD, you
immediately knew who they were, you knew each other. You’d look in their eyes
and you knew and they knew you had. It was like an intimate brotherhood of
people who had seen through the whole thing in some way that most people didn’t
have a clue at all. There was that golden moment.”
During these two years he published the character of Fritz the Cat, the most outrageous feline in history, in various magazines including Help! and Cavalier. Other characters started their life during that period and bloomed after his move to the Hippie capital. They included the mystic guru Mr. Natural, the sex-crazed Mr. Snoid and last but not least, Snoid’s favorite companion Angelfood McSpade, the insatiable African black woman who took stereotyping to new levels.
Upon his arrival in San Francisco, Crumb quickly found his way to Haight Ashbury and the Psychedelic Shop and immersed himself in the carefree culture of the town: “San Francisco was a great town at the time, a really beautiful city. After living in Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Detroit, all these really depressing industrial cities, San Francisco seemed like a sweet little cupcake with Victorian houses and pretty parks.” The town offered him the best environment to indulge in the things that most interested him: drawing wild comics and taking acid. Oh, and of course, sex.
Talking about LSD and its impact on the counter-culture, Crumb said: “LSD was the road to Damascus for the hippies. It turned the left wing serious political anti-war movement into something religious and visionary. It was no longer political, folk music, help the Negros, fight the war and all that. It became mystical, saving the earth, the preciousness of nature, living close to nature. Much more radical and extreme.” He was drawing all that time, adapting old cartoon styles to the hippie hallucinogen vision, slowly picking up interest and recognition. After contributing his work to various underground magazines, he was invited to create a full comic magazine named Zap. The first issue featured his favorite Mr. Natural on the cover.
The publication of Zap Magazine provided exposure but no income and Crumb was nearly penniless. Copies of the first issue were printed, folded and stapled by Crumb and sold on the street at Haight-Ashbury for 25 cents a copy. Proprietors of stores in that hip area did not get what’s with these comic books he was offering them. They stocked psychedelic art nouveau concert posters, incense, pipes, bongs, candles, not comic books that looked like Popeye on the cover. But within six months Zap comics caught on and Crumb became known for his talent as an underground comics artist. None describes the world of Crumb better than Crumb: “My comics appealed to the hard-drinking, hard-fucking end of the hippie spectrum as opposed to the spiritual, Eastern-religious, lighter-than-air type hippie.” Still, monetary rewards were not forthcoming from hippie stardom. He wrote in a letter in June 1968: “What good has fame done me? I’m broke and girls still act aloof. Time has come for a change! Bwah howdy!” In that same letter, addressed to his friend Mike Britt, he mentions an important meeting, contrasting it with the sad affair of his monogamous relationship: “I am going over to meet Janis Joplin tonight… CAN’T WAIT! Which brings me to another important point, which is my sex life has been sliding downhill lately so I’m trying to do something about that! The only girl I’m making it with is my wife, and getting’ tired of just her all the time.” Words that would send chills down conservative Americans’ spines, but we are at the center of the hippie galaxy in 1968, the time and place where anything goes. Was Janis his salvation from bedroom boredom? Lets stick with the topic of this article and assume that she was just asking him to draw the cover of her band’s second album, which is exactly what happened.
Janis Joplin, 1968
Crumb had no patience for much of the music surrounding him in San Francisco or elsewhere in the late 1960s. This is blasphemy for anyone (myself included) who cares about all the great music created in those days, the golden age of rock and psychedelic music. But Crumb came from another era, mentally, and to him this music was commercialism personified compared to the roots music from the 1920s and 1930s that moved him: “I had no patience for any of that psychedelic pop music or crap that came in the 60s: The Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison, The Doors, The Beatles, Bob Dylan. I had little or no interest in any of that. I thought I had found some music that was much more real, that came from the heart of people’s culture but had been wiped out by mass media and commercialism.”
Robert Crumb, 1969
But Crumb made an exception with Janis Joplin, connecting with her for their mutual love of old Blues music: “She wasn’t nationally known yet. I remember going to see her at the Avalon Ballroom and you could tell right away that she had an exceptional voice and she would go far. She started out singing old time blues like Bessie Smith. She was kind of a folknik originally.“ While he did not care for her current band and the psychedelic spin they took on blues, he recognized her ability to belt out the good ol’ blues: “Janis had played with earlier bands just playing country blues and it was much better. Way, way better. She’s singing well, not screaming, not playing to the audience that wanted to watch her sweat blood. In the beginning she was just an authentic, genuine Texas country-girl shouter.”
Janis Joplin, San Francisco 1966
Crumb was not the first choice for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s album cover. The band, which rose to meteoric success immediately after their milestone performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967, was quickly signed to Columbia Records who wanted an album quick to cash in on the emerging flower power market. The original title for the band’s first album for Columbia was Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills, a fair summary of the band’s credo. That, of course, did not fly with the suits at Columbia who nixed the blunt Sex and Dope and left only the vague Cheap Thrills. When it came time for the album cover, the band’s idea was to go with an expected band photo, with a minor twist of taking the photo in their birthday suits. The result proved unsatisfactory, and another no-no for the suits who make the decisions.
The idea of going with a standard band photograph was not
abandoned yet, as Drummer Dave Getz remembers: “Then Bob Cato, CBS’s art
director, thought we should do a photo session with Richard Avedon, perhaps the
most famous fashion photographer in the world. Avedon did his ‘Avedon thing’ on
us; the fan blowing our hair, the strobe lights flashing, white background,
random rearrangement of our faces. It was another huge and costly miss. The
photos were good but more about Avedon than us.”
Big Brother and the Holding Company, by Richard Avedon
What’s a band to do now? Enter Crumb the Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills universe. Drummer Dave Getz recalls the moment the idea of asking Crumb to do the cover came up: “We had a huge loft/warehouse in SF where we rehearsed and I lived. I remember us all sitting around and talking ideas for the cover and I said ‘How about asking R.Crumb?’ Janis, James (Gurley, guitar player) and I were all big fans of his work, we loved his cartoons which were appearing in the SF underground newspapers and Zap Comics. But outside of SF not that many people knew of his genius.” Through a mutual friend they got Crumb’s number and Janis called him. Crumb continues the tale: “Janis asked me to do an album cover. I liked Janis OK and I did her cover. I took speed and did an all-nighter. The front cover I designed wasn’t used at all. They used the back cover for the front. I got paid $600. The album cover impressed the hell out of girls much more so than the comics. I got a lot of mileage out of that over the years!” Getz adds: “The next weekend Crumb came to our show at The Carousel Ballroom, sat on the floor in our backstage dressing room and observed. He really wasn’t into our music but it didn’t matter. It was maybe one or two days later Crumb called Janis to come and pick up what he’d done.”
Janis Joplin, by Richard Crumb
Getz is understandably mild in his description of Crumb’s opinion of Big Brother and the Holding Company. Here is Crumb’s version, unadulterated: “She was a swell gal and a very talented singer. Ever heard any of this pre-Big Brother stuff she recorded? She was great. Then she got together with those idiots. The main problem with Big Brother was they were amateur musicians trying to play psychedelic rock and be heavy and you listen to it now and it’s bad… just embarrassing.” Agree with him or not, this is Crumb. Gotta love his candid way of describing things in words and images.
Back to that cover. Crumb’s original idea for the front
cover was a cartoon of the band performing on stage with the band’s faces
pasted on them. The band was less than overwhelmed by this, but then they
looked at what Crumb delivered for the back cover and they saw the light. A
comic strip with a panel for each of the songs plus band members credits. They
immediately decided to make it the front cover and forever cemented the iconic
status of that comic strip among album covers.
Lets give the band some and listen to a few tunes from that album, while looking at the comic panels related to them.
We begin with I Need A Man To Love, a blues-rock number that Crumb adorned with his idea of a well-endowed woman (Janis) stretched on a bed, looking in need, of a man.
Next is the band’s fantastic cover of Summertime, George Gershwin’s song from the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The song has been covered many times in operatic and jazz renditions, but here it takes a completely different spin with a wonderful arrangement and solo by the band’s guitarist Sam Andrew. As for Crumb’s depiction of that scene from the musical, lets not even go there. Suffice it to say that a cover like that will not see the light of day today.
And one more, the song that put the band and Janis Joplin on the map at the Monterey Pop Festival, Big Mama Thornton’s Ball and Chain. The song closes the album with a bang with one of the dirtiest guitar sounds committed to vinyl and a vocal performance for the ages.
Cheap Thrills was released in August of 1968, steadily climbing the Billboard LPs chart until it reached the top and stayed there 8 consecutive weeks. When Janis Joplin announced during a show at the Fillmore East in the fall of 1968 that their album cover was the work of R.Crumb, they received the biggest standing ovation of the night. Crumb was a hero for the hippies, but by that point he was on a very different wavelength. He liked some aspects of the Hippie movement, what he termed as seeing through the hype of consumer culture. He valued how they strived to live simply and saw the ecology movement being sparked by that. But he quickly became disillusioned by the movement: “Since it was mostly children of the middle class, it was immediately something for them to be smug about. ’Oh, I have seen the light and you haven’t. I’m beautiful, I’m spiritual. I lost my ego and you haven’t.’ It became where in any social gathering everybody sat around trying to out-cool each other.” But as he admits, he never felt comfortable in that environment anyway, even when it was at its peak of innocence: “I couldn’t kick off my shows and go dance in the park. I didn’t have it in me.”
In November of 1968, when the album peaked at the top of the
LP charts, the top 10 albums also included Electric Ladyland and Are You Experienced
by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Time Has Come by The Chambers Brothers,
Crown of Creation by Jefferson Airplane, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and
Wheels of Fire by Cream. This was the golden age of psychedelic music. Crumb
was inside the bubble physically, but not mentally.
I want to spend the last part of this article discussing the
music Crumb DID like, for which he produced many album covers and portraits of
musicians, all of them wonderful articles of art. None of them as remotely well
known as Cheap Thrills, however by all means worth looking at.
Crumb owns a large collection of old 78 albums. He talked elaborately about his passion for the music he loves, and the moment he started collecting music: “I always liked the kind of music you’d hear in the background of old movies from the early ‘30s, the early sound movies and cartoons. And then in my searching for old books and comic books, these junk stores had these old 78 records. One day, out of curiosity, I bought some of these records. They were very cheap. I put the records on and voila! ‘Oh my god, that’s the music, that’s the music from these old movies, that’s incredible.’ I was sixteen and I remember very clearly the day that I discovered that you could find those records. They were lying around everywhere in those days, in 1959.”
In his teens Crumb was exposed to 1950s pop music, which he describes as something he had to suffer through, singers like Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Doris Day. He had a period of reprieve with the advent of rock n roll, Elvis Presley and Little Richard: “There was some feeling of blues and old time country in that early rock and roll, it was coming out of really low life in the South. Those people all came from the lowest rung of society.” That period did not last long for him, as it was quickly commercialized for middle class consumption, and he stack with old black blues and folk music ever since.
Asked about how a white guy connects so deeply with black music created in the 1930s, he answered: “I don’t know. There’s something so raw, kind of beauty that speaks to me in a deep and direct way. Personally I barely even know any black people and I can’t relate to lower class black culture very well at all. It’s very alien to me in a certain way, and people I’ve known from that black culture, I’ve never been able to get very close to, because their values are so different. So what is it about their music that speaks so directly? It has some universal appeal because it has had such a big influence on the music of the entire world.”
What a better way to close this article about Crumb and his contributions as an artist to the music world, then mention the stint he had in the mid 1970s as a musician himself. After settling down in Madison, California, Crumb started playing banjo and mandolin in the Cheap Suit Serenaders Band: “They were my pals for years. We sat around playing music together and somebody said we could play a job for $100, so we agreed. It was interesting for a while, but I came to the point where I realized I had to quit. I asked myself ‘Do I want to get more deeply involved in this music business?’ and I really didn’t.”
If you enjoyed reading this article, you may also like this one about another great album art coming out of San Francisco in the late 1960s:
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