   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S34
S1
S2
S3
S4Why Talented People Don't Use Their Strengths - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)  Experts have long encouraged people to “play to their strengths.” But based on my observations, this is easier said than done, because we often undervalue what we inherently do well. As a leader, the challenge is not only to spot talent but also to convince your people that you value their talents and that they should, too. Begin by identifying the strengths of each member of your team. You might ask them, “What compliments do you tend to dismiss?” since people often downplay what they do most easily. Once you’ve identified their key strengths, ask them, “Are you doing work that draws on your strengths? Are we taking on projects that make the most of your strengths?” If the answer is no, reassign people to new roles where their strengths will be put to better use.
Continued here
|
S5
S6How Axe Body Spray is trying to move beyond teenage boys' lockers "The idea that you spray this on and you get the girl is sort of nonsense, really. I mean, they know it, we know it. ⦠So why don't we just kind of play to that?" said John Hegarty, founder of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, a London-based advertising firm that worked with Axe between 1994 and 2017."They were moving the needle maybe a little too far in terms of the brand pivot. That's a lot for a brand with that strong a DNA in the marketplace to achieve in that short period of time," said Stephan Kanlian, chairperson for the Fashion Institute of Technology's Cosmetics and Fragrance Graduate Program.
Continued here
|
S7S8One Line in 'The Acolyte' Completely Rewrites Lightsaber Canon in Star Wars When Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke that lightsabers aren’t as clumsy or random as blasters, he forgot to mention one other thing: If you bust out a lightsaber in most contexts, you have to be ready to turn that thing into a murder stick. This apparently doesn’t apply to instances of practice or using your lightsaber as a flashlight, but in The Acolyte, we’ve got a new layer of Star Wars lore that makes fighting with this elegant weapon not exactly as civilized as we were led to believe. In the very first scene of The Acolyte, as Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) battles Mae (Amandla Stenberg), we hear a lightsaber rule that gives Indara pause. It might give longtime Star Wars aficionados pause too. Is this really the way Jedi are supposed to think about their famous weapons? Spoilers ahead.
Continued here
|
S9Suni Williams Just Became the First Woman To Test Fly An Orbital Spacecraft Boeing Starliner's Wednesday launch aimed to be only the sixth time the U.S. has debuted a new spacecraft.It was finally smooth sailing on Wednesday for the Boeing Starliner spacecraft named Calypso. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are the latest astronauts to debut a new spacecraft. Williams has also made history as the first woman to perform such a feat.
Continued here
|
S10'The Acolyte's Sneaky Sith Easter Egg Teases the Answer to a Star Wars Mystery The word "Sith" hasn’t yet been said aloud in The Acolyte. That's despite the fact that the series has long been rumored to explore how the Sith survived even during the High Republic era — a period in which the Jedi Order was at its most powerful, widespread, and dominant. The show's creator, Leslye Headland, has even said on record that The Acolyte was inspired by her desire to explore the Sith, which is something that no live-action Star Wars TV show or movie has extensively done up to this point.Just because The Acolyte's first two episodes make no explicit mention of the Sith doesn't mean that the series hasn't already laid the groundwork for its religious order's reintroduction and presence, though. On the contrary, The Acolyte's second episode makes one huge reference to the Sith. It may go over most casual viewers' heads, but it should leave die-hard Star Wars fans even more excited to see what's to come.
Continued here
|
S11'Avengers 5' Will Be the Biggest -- and Riskiest -- Team-Up in MCU History For the past five years, Marvel’s been working overtime to solve one dilemma. How do you top Avengers: Endgame? So far, no tactic has managed to stick. Going back to square one and introducing new Avengers left its cinematic universe unfocused and crowded. Marvel’s attempt to give those new characters their own Thanos also backfired on every level. It took way too long to establish an Avengers-level threat in Jonathan Majors’ Kang, and by the time the character gained a foothold, Majors was convicted of reckless assault and harassment. Marvel swiftly cut ties with the actor, and its multiverse era has been in limbo ever since.The studio has yet to share its recovery plans, but insiders have hinted at a massive retooling behind the scenes, and Marvel’s scaled-back release slate reflects that. It will take much more for Marvel to recover its place in the pop culture pantheon, but the studio may have an ace up its sleeve.
Continued here
|
S12These Wheeled Humanoid Robots Use AI to Team Up and Clean Your Messy House The future looks like a symphony of voice-controlled humanoid robots cleaning up after you.1X revealed the latest update to its Eve robot showing a small crew understanding a request to tidy up an office, linking together tasks like cleaning up a coffee spill, picking up a hoodie off the floor, and delivering drinks. This is the closest we’ve seen to a robot butler, and on top of that, it’s a whole gang of them. See for yourself in 1X’s demo.
Continued here
|
S13The Wildest Crime Thriller of the Year is an Unexpected Triumph Emilia Pérez shouldn’t work. First, there’s its billing as a “musical crime comedy,” a collection of genres that are rarely grouped together, let alone uttered in the same sentence. Then, there’s its premise: a Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) hires a small-time lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to assist him in getting a sex reassignment surgery in order to leave his life of crime behind and start anew as the woman he was always destined to be.It sounds like a recipe for the most ill-advised crime thriller ever (and indeed, is just a few details off from the Michelle Rodriguez thriller that was buried for its tasteless premise a few years ago), but surprisingly, Emilia Pérez is an emotionally fulfilling triumph.
Continued here
|
S14When Does 'The Acolyte' Take Place? Star Wars' "High Republic" Time Period, Explained The Acolyte is introducing Star Wars fans to a Jedi Order at the height of its power, but because the new Disney+ show is set much further back in the timeline than anything else we’ve ever seen in live-action, the specifics can get blurry. Here’s everything you need to know about where The Acolyte sits on the Star Wars timeline, and what it means for the story.The Star Wars timeline is centered around the Battle of Yavin, the climactic fight in A New Hope. For example, The Mandalorian is set in 9 ABY, nine years after the Battle of Yavin, while the first season of Andor is set in 5 BBY, five years before the Rebels win their first major victory.
Continued here
|
S15S16'Mortal Kombat 1' Leak Might Reveal a New Fighter Straight Out of Horror Movie History An unsuspecting Mortal Kombat creator may have inadvertently discovered the next guest character in the series. And if it’s true, it would be an inspired choice to join the morbid cast of colorful rogues, mages, and martial artists.Ghostface, the central slasher in the Scream series and probably the most recognizable horror icon of the 90s, is likely the next featured guest character for 2023’s Mortal Kombat 1. YouTube creator Interloko was the first to uncover evidence of the character’s inclusion on Wednesday.
Continued here
|
S17'The Acolyte' Got Fire In Space Ridiculously Wrong -- In Real Life, It's So Much Weirder We need to talk about that scene in the new Star Wars show, The Acolyte. Yes, the one with the flickering, crackling fire in space.Star Wars has never been noted for its scrupulous accuracy; that’s not really the point of the series. It’s space opera, not science fiction. But one scene in an episode of the new show Acolyte — which follows Jedi padawan Osha and her adventures on the titular spaceship — has stirred up quite a disturbance in the Force.
Continued here
|
S18S19'House of the Dragon' Star Gives an Intriguing Update on Game of Thrones' Most Exciting Spinoff House of the Dragon may be the first Game of Thrones spinoff, but it won’t be the last. From the moment credits rolled on the series finale, speculation swirled around different ideas for different series, from the likely (the cast is already announced for A Knight of the Seven Kindgoms, the adaptation of the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas) to the unlikely (despite Kit Harington’s best efforts, the Jon Snow sequel is no longer in development.) But one of the next Game of Thrones universe spinoffs may in fact be a spinoff of a spinoff — Nine Voyages, a prequel series focusing on the life of Corlys Velaryon, aka the Sea Snake. In late 2023, George R. R. Martin announced on his personal blog that the spinoff had been moved from live-action to animation for budgetary reasons. Now, a House of the Dragon star is eager to get involved in the project.
Continued here
|
S20Will 'Star Wars: Hunters' Ever Come to PC or Console? Developer Gives Update Star Wars: Hunters is the newest video game set in the beloved galaxy far, far away. The four-on-four arena hero shooter released Tuesday and has everything one would expect from a game in this saturated genre, decked out with Star Wars’ distinct blend of rustic wild west vibes and science fiction touchstones.But what Hunters lacks in originality, it makes up for with its fun, at times goofy presentation. The game’s brightly colored maps reminiscent of the Galaxy’s Edge theme park and interesting cast of heroes and villains pop with personality, marking some of the most interesting Star Wars characters introduced in ages.
Continued here
|
S21One of 2024's Most Exciting Indie Games Shows Off Robots on the High Seas In A New Trailer The cult hit SteamWorld series is getting a new entry this year, as we learned at a recent Nintendo Indie World. What’s more, it’s a direct sequel — only the second in developer Image & Form’s history — to the best game in the series’ cheery robot-filled world, in my opinion. SteamWorld Heist II looks like it will take the best parts of the original game and put an open-world twist on them, and a new trailer takes a deep dive into how that looks in action.Like the first SteamWorld Heist, the upcoming sequel follows a crew of steam-powered pirate robots as they engage in turn-based tactical battles on a series of enemy ships. This time around, the game trades the vastness of space for the high seas as its setting, and it lets players loose in an explorable open world, rather than just hopping from battle to battle like in the original game.
Continued here
|
S22'The Last of Us' Showrunner Reveals His Epic Plan to Adapt 'Part II' It may be the end of the world, but The Last of Us was just the beginning of the story. Season 1 of HBO’s video game adaptation starred Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as protagonists Joel and Ellie and covered the events of the first game, with a couple of bonus stories thrown in for good measure. But The Last of Us Part II has a much bigger story, and the showrunners are prepared to stretch the narrative to explore all its possibilities. In doing so, however, Season 2 could be quite different from the freshman outing.In a conversation with Deadline, The Last of Us co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed that while production for The Last of Us Season 2 is underway, it will be shorter than Season 1, with only seven episodes compared to Season 1’s nine. “What we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons,” Mazin said. “When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.”
Continued here
|
S23Volkswagen's Most Powerful EV Ever Also Won't Give You Range Anxiety Even before the base model of the ID.7 hits the U.S., Volkswagen just announced four, more tempting versions of the EV. Two models focused on performance (the ID.7 GTX and ID.7 GTX Tourer) and two versions with extra long range (ID.7 Pro S and ID.7 Tourer Pro S).If you’re a Volkswagen fan and a stan of EVs, these might be the electric cars you’re looking for.
Continued here
|
S24After a Decade, Dawntrail Feels Like the Big Change 'Final Fantasy XIV' Needs I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV for nearly a decade, and in that time, like most players, I’ve found my preferences for jobs and content. So, my biggest surprise after nearly six hours of playing Dawntrail is that I might have found a new favorite job, maybe even a replacement for my tried and true ones. The two new DPS roles coming with the expansion are brilliant additions that feel like a much-needed breath of fresh air, and that hearkens to the general feeling of Dawntrail at large. This is the start of a new era for Final Fantasy XIV, and the expansion wants you to know it. After Endwalker, which brought a close to the decade-long Hydaelyn and Zodiark storyline, Dawntrail kicks off a brand new story. Director Naoki Yoshida has previously described this expansion as a “summer vacation,” and that’s abundantly clear in the lush forests and dappled beaches of the new continent, Tural.
Continued here
|
S25The Case Of The Missing 45 Million Gallons Of Milk Public schools feed a lot of kids. The problem? Nearly 40% of that food gets tossed in the trash. Fortunately, there are smart solutions — coming straight from the students.In January 2019, students at Lovin Elementary School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, took a hard look at how much food they were throwing away. It was Taco Day, and as lunch period wrapped up, teacher Gerin Hennebaul and a group of students sorted the milk, fruit, vegetables, and other foods left on the cafeteria trays into buckets. “It really left an impact on the kids," Hennebaul says. "They were shocked."
Continued here
|
S2610 Years Ago, Tom Cruise Made an Underrated Sci-Fi War Movie -- And Popularized a New Genre FromSoftware is notorious among video game fans for its bleak and challenging action RPGs like Bloodborne, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring. Their notoriety stems from the incredible difficulty of their (often inhuman) bosses, and the frustrating reality that success requires multiple deaths and rebirths as players figure out the capabilities and weaknesses of those powerful foes. These elements are so associated with the studio that games by other creators with similar traits have been informally dubbed ‘Souls-like.’ It makes for an intense gaming experience, but one that hasn’t been translated to the big screen... except it kind of has, thanks to Doug Liman’s time-looping action-sci-fi masterpiece Edge of Tomorrow.Adapting the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow follows reluctant soldier Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) who, upon getting covered by the blood of nigh-victorious alien invaders, reincarnates and resets that bloody day every time he dies. The attackers, called Mimics, are biologically strange, brutal, lightning-quick, and connected by a hive mind that can rewind and reset time upon death or defeat. This allows them to study and defeat human forces until Cage ingests the blood and teams up with the last human to acquire the ability, Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt). She walks Cage through his new abilities, and he grows in skill and knowledge with each demise, ultimately defeating a seemingly insurmountable foe. Sound familiar, Souls fans?
Continued here
|
S27The Rotten Secret Plaguing America's Grocery Stores We live on a planet where people still die of starvation, and yet we still waste so much food — it’s a problem, and not just for sustenance but the environment. You may not be aware of it, but a huge amount of that waste comes from the grocery stores and supermarkets we shop at every week. Part of it is just a category problem: Americans are used to seeing a wide and alluring variety of foods on shelves, and a lot of it, especially for produce and meats.So what do the stores do? They overpurchase, “knowing that some food waste must be built into their bottom line,” says Jennifer Molidor, senior food campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. We also have high standards for freshness, especially with unregulated best-by dates that make it hard to determine whether food is actually safe to eat, so retailers throw out edible food that might be perceived as undesirable. Profit margins on perishable foods are so high that stores would rather overstock so as not to miss even one sale.
Continued here
|
S28Who is Qimir? 'Acolyte' Theory Could Reveal the Show's Biggest Twist No Star Wars story is complete without a freaky Sith dude in a freaky Sith mask. The original trilogy, of course, had Darth Vader. The sequels had Kylo Ren. Even Ahsoka had its own masked villain in Marrok, though the series didn’t exactly capitalize on his potential. Hopefully the same won’t be said for The Acolyte, the first live-action story set in Star Wars’ High Republic era. The series takes place about 100 years before the Jedi Order fell to the machinations of the Sith; appropriately, it follows the emergence of a Sith Master, the first the Order has seen in centuries.
Continued here
|
S29The Best New Sci-Fi Show on Netflix Was Almost Way More Ambitious In another version, the ambitious sci-fi show might have pulled off an impossible challenge.In the 2016 short film Scavengers, a spaceship explodes, the fiery debris raining down on an inhospitable alien planet. On the surface, two survivors wordlessly interact with the strange flora and fauna, turning spores into binoculars and alien intestines into jet fuel. It’s a bizarrely beautiful symphony of images and sounds, condensed into what feels like an eight-minute fever dream. And animator Joe Bennett, who wrote and directed Scavengers with Charles Huettner, wanted to preserve the fever-dream feeling of the original short in their adaptation of the story into a full-fledged TV series — including the lack of dialogue.
Continued here
|
S30S31Beyond the veil - what rules would govern John Rawls's 'realistic Utopia'? | Aeon Videos The US philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) is perhaps best known for his ‘veil of ignorance’ thought experiment, which he first laid out in his landmark work A Theory of Justice (1971). Envisioning a society built by rule-makers who were blind to their own identities, Rawls reasoned that structures that privilege certain classes over others would be unpopular, and a more rational and just society would emerge.However, as this TED-Ed video illustrates, A Theory of Justice does far more than just describe the thought experiment. Rather, Rawls articulates the policies he believes should emerge from this initial conceit, outlining a democratic government with an economic structure that allows for equal opportunity and, ultimately, only as much inequality as would benefit society’s worst-off members. With stylish visuals, the animation details the ideas and ideals outlined in A Theory of Justice, criticisms of the text raised by prominent thinkers, and the lasting impact of Rawls’s groundbreaking work more than half a century after its initial publication.
Continued here
|
S32S33S35Baby Reindeer: How police could have prevented Martha's stalking from getting worse Receiving a cryptic email from a stranger you’ve met once at a bar might be weird, but when the messages start getting frequent, obsessive and borderline threatening, you might be dealing with a stalker. This is the premise of Scottish actor and comedian Richard Gadd’s popular Netflix show Baby Reindeer. It tells the story of Donny, a fictionalized version of himself. Baby Reindeer illustrates the harrowing details of how Donny’s stalker, Martha, insidiously invaded various aspects of his life, first stalking him online incessantly, then turning up to where he lives uninvited, then harassing his friends, girlfriend and family, and eventually violently assaulting them.
Continued here
|
S36S37Alice Munro wrote a 1970s play in southwestern Ontario -- and continues to inspire regional theatre This week, I’m elated that my play Post Alice will be performed on the Blyth Festival Theatre’s stage as part of the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story in Huron County, the Huron Tract on Treaty 29 territory in southwestern Ontario. This region is also known to some readers and writers as “Alice Munro Country.”As a young girl growing up in Huron County, Ont., in the 1990s, I spent hours reading Munro’s stories. In the years since, I have remained a devoted fan of her work, particularly for her complex depictions of southwestern Ontario life.
Continued here
|
S38Biden's immigration order won't fix problems quickly - 4 things to know about what's changing Immigration is a top issue in the upcoming presidential election – and President Joe Biden’s new executive order restricting migrants’ ability to apply for asylum is likely to further elevate the subject in national politics. The number of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has soared in recent years, with 249,785 arrests taking place along the border in December 2023. That marks a 13% rise from the 222,018 migrants arrested by the Border Patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2022.
Continued here
|
S39Solar farms can eat up farmland - but 'agrivoltaics' could mean the best of both worlds for NZ farmers New Zealand plans to commission about eight gigawatts of solar photovoltaic projects – more than the maximum power demand of the whole country on a typical winter’s day – by 2028, according to the government’s latest generation investment survey.Eight of these solar farms are already operational and spread across the country. More than 40 are in various stages of development, with the construction of the largest single project, in excess of 150 megawatts, due to start this year.
Continued here
|
S40S41S42Blade Runner soundtrack at 30: how Vangelis used electronic music to explore what it means to be human In June 1994 the late composer Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou – better known as Vangelis – released his soundtrack for the 1982 film Blade Runner. It would go on to become emblematic of his skills, with only a handful of soundtracks reaching a similar level of cult status.Prior to this, sci-fi film scores tended to be characterised by orchestral sound palettes. For instance, John Williams’ 1991 Star Wars soundtrack leaned on the London Symphony Orchestra to communicate the vastness of a galaxy far, far away.
Continued here
|
S43'We cannot simply go, go, go.' What is girl mossing, the wellness trend that rejects hustle On TikTok and Instagram, people are “girl mossing”: lying on a forest floor, staring up at a leafy canopy or caressing moss. The United States National Forest Foundation even borrowed the term to kick off its 2024 Instagram account. Girl mossing recognises a need to step away from the pressures of modern, urban life, promoting spending time in nature as a restorative practice. The fast pace and pressure of neoliberal capitalism take an enormous toll on wellbeing: not just personal, but social and planetary. These pressures are most acutely felt by women – whose labour remains, in large part, undervalued and underpaid – and by young people, who are often in precarious work, priced out of the housing market. Yet they’re still bombarded with images of unattainable success on social media. Not so the moss selfies.
Continued here
|
S44Regenerating Oceania: the 'unique and unifying' Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture makes a comeback Rows of dancers, bodies attired with natural fibres and adorned with fragrant oils and flowers, move in synchronous harmony. They raise their voices in song and affirm connections across the vast seaways of the Pacific. Watching and listening are delegates and visitors from many islands. All have come to learn, to represent and to connect. Scenes such as this will be a focus when the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture – known by many simply as FestPAC – kicks off on O‘ahu in Hawai‘i today.
Continued here
|
S45The UK's nature restoration plans have some big holes - here's how to fill them The UK is already one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. Any further loss is a major risk to wellbeing and prosperity, would make climate change worse, and would remove options for adapting to a warming world. The UK public cares deeply about nature, yet it is not a major topic in this election.That’s why we recently sent a letter to all UK political parties asking them to make the loss of nature at home and overseas a priority both in this election and in the years to come. The letter was signed by over 180 UK scientists with expertise in biodiversity and conservation, including Fellows of the Royal Society and government advisers.
Continued here
|
S46What toilet paper and game shows can teach us about the spread of epidemics How can we explain and predict human behaviour? Are mathematics and probability up to the task, or are humans too complex and irrational?Often, people’s actions take us by surprise, particularly when they seem irrational. Take the COVID pandemic: one thing nobody saw coming was a rush on toilet paper that left supermarket shelves bare in many countries.
Continued here
|
S47'Only disconnect' - in Caledonian Road, Andrew O'Hagan depicts Britain's great unravelling It is Thursday May 20, 2021, and Campbell Flynn – “tall and sharp at fifty-two […] a tinderbox in a Savile Row suit, a man who believed his childhood was so far behind him that all its threats had vanished” – makes his way along Piccadilly to sign copies of his latest book, a life of the painter Vermeer that the Financial Times has declared “a work of mesmerising empathy”. Famously, almost nothing is known about Vermeer’s life; all we have is the art. We might say the same about Campbell. We are not sure who he is. There is only artifice, the performance of roles: husband, father, commentator, celebrity professor. In lifelong flight from his impoverished upbringing in Glasgow, he has made a career of surface, gesture and interpretation.
Continued here
|
S48Why do we love to see unlikely animal friendships? A psychology expert explains The internet is awash with stories and videos of unlikely animal friendships, often with many millions of views. This content typically shows animals from different species showing affection to one another, signifying a bond or even a “friendship”.These relationships have been captured in people’s homes, such as with Molly the magpie and Peggy the dog, in zoos, such as with Baloo the bear, Leo the lion and Shere Khan the tiger, and even in the wild, such as one case of a fox and cat living together in Turkey.
Continued here
|
S49S50The Federal Union: how a group of 1940s economists dreamt of a European Union for the working classes On the eve of the Second World War, three Oxbridge graduates joined forces in London and wrote a pamphlet calling for the union of Britain with other democracies to avert the coming conflict. They sent the short pamphlet, titled “Federal Union”, to more than 500 opinion-makers in Britain. The warm reception of their federalist ideas led to the launch of an organisation named after the pamphlet. By 1939 more than 200 branches of the organisation were founded all over Britain, with more than 10,000 members.With the latest European elections in sight and right-wing parties on the rise, FURI remains a fascinating example for early debates on the economic aspects of European federation. The institute attracted economists of different creeds, including William Beveridge, Lionel Robbins, Friedrich Hayek, James Meade and Barbara Wootton. While they all were convinced that nationalism was the cause of war and strife, they had different views on the economic advantages of federation. Should it facilitate planning on a transnational scale or foster free trade? How could a federation benefit the working classes not only by averting war, but also by transforming the economy?
Continued here
|
 |
TradeBriefs Publications are read by over 10,00,000 Industry Executives About Us | Advertise Privacy Policy Unsubscribe (one-click) You are receiving this mail because of your subscription with TradeBriefs.
Our mailing address is GF 25/39, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110008, India |
