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During and immediately after the Great Depression, the design of everything from vehicles to appliances became minimalist and industrial, tending towards the modern “streamlined” look, which was characterized by rounded edges and sleek shapes. For example, in 1934, industrial designer Raymond Loewy redesigned the Coldspot refrigerator, turning it into “a single smooth, gleaming unit of functional simplicity.” Now the world has suffered another crisis, but to paraphrase former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: never waste a good crisis....

Peter was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), the same incurable illness that killed Stephen Hawking. The disease degenerates the nerve cells that enable us to move, speak, breathe, and swallow. In time, it can render a person physically paralyzed while their brain remains alert, locked into a body it can no longer control. Peter was given two years to live. But Peter had a plan to beat the prognosis....

On average, people spend four hours on their phone every day, we’re addicted to our phones, but it’s not all our fault. Apps are designed to manipulate our brain chemistry to make us stay on their platform for as long as possible because that’s what benefits their bottom line. Everything you see in an app is a result of a human decision and is carefully designed to keep you hooked for hours on end....

Text “Hi” to 9013151515 on WhatsApp, or use this link to launch the chatbot. Once the bot responds with the menu, send 1 — that’s for finding info about COVID vaccination centers and authentic info about vaccines. Send 1 again to find center details. Type the six-digit pin code of your area. You’ll get a reply with your nearest centers, along with slots available and the age limit applicable for that center....

I mean, people are even skipping Zoom meetings by looping videos of themselves paying attention. I for one applaud this creativity, but if you have work to do and actually want to be an adult about it, here are some handy tips to help you stay focused during a virtual meeting. Make it a video call (and keep it that way) Always make it a video call. If you’re working from home, a video call will force you to get dressed and deter you from getting distracted because you’ll be seen by everyone else attending the meeting....

Being apart from the people you love and enjoy can suck. Even without the current need for preemptive social distancing, sometimes ordinary life can keep you away from your social circle. So what can you do to mitigate the distance? Try eating together — online, we mean. One of the ways we keep bonds strong with our friends and relatives is to eat together. Obviously doing that in person is out of the question at the moment, given we’re all supposed to shelter in place....

Software development has definitely got an edge over the other industries regarding remote work. What is a trend now in other industries has been an industry-standard in software development for the last decade. Many companies have experience of remote working with freelance developers or with offshore development teams that are located in distant regions (here you can learn more about offshore software development). While remote working is not entirely new to software developers, it still has not been acclimated to the level of sophistication that full-scale work-from-home and remote development environments demand....

I don’t know when it started, but I’m a tab fiend. My computer browser is overflowing with sites I keep open just in case, one day far into the future, I might need them. And my iPhone? Well, that’s even worse. Because so many links from chat applications automatically open in Safari, I have a ridiculous number of tabs open on my mobile. Normally, this doesn’t bother me. But every now and then I get that Marie Kondo urge and just want to simplify my digital life....

Not to mention, against the backdrop of COVID-19 and a heavily disrupted investment sphere, early-stage founders now face an even more complex road to securing funding. The business landscape has no doubt changed for good because of the pandemic; there are more opportunities to respond to new customer needs and get ahead of the curve for future usage trends. Founders who know there is a clear appetite for their product or service and can showcase early growth may actually find themselves in a more favorable position to ask for more money....

What do you do if you want to record a call on your phone, video and audio? Turns out that’s not as easy as it sounds. Very few services have a built-in method of recording calls, but there is one that does: Skype. Yes, Skype, of all things. I never thought I’d be in a position to recommend Skype over the other vidcalling platforms there are out there, but this is really a very simple method of recording a call....

“How can I boost my productivity and procrastinate less?” This is a question I’ve asked myself countless times. Shall I ignore my emails, try and get through them as quickly as possible, or set aside some time every week to clear my Inbox? Then, one day, as I was trawling through Twitter I saw Intercom co-founder Des Traynor’s tweet — and well, it struck a chord. How much do they overlap in your world?...

The workday evolved in 2020, and tools are adapting to accommodate that. Google announced a few subtle tweaks to Google Calendar. The main one: you can segment your workday into multiple chunks. The working hours feature lets you indicate which hours are part of your workday, which is important when someone else is trying to schedule a meeting with you. For example: my manager, Deb at Zapier, works 8:30 a....

For the moment, the main question is, how do we stop the spread of the virus? For states, the choice is between health and the economy. They must either shut down their economies and impose nationwide quarantines to prevent the spread of COVID-19, or continue business as usual and risk infecting millions of people with the virus. Most governments have chosen the former. But even though our lives will never return to its former state, humanity will eventually overcome the coronavirus....

With the help of some basic physics and arithmetic, we’re here to help you make sense of these numbers. Which spec tells me the battery capacity? When you look up an electric bike or escooter, chances are you’ll come across a variety of numbers related to the battery. These three are the most common ones: volts, amp-hours, and watt-hours. Watt-hours (again, that’s ‘Wh’) are the most useful unit when it comes to energy capacity....

Bodyweight workout — Callum Booth Because I do my best to be a Fit Boy™ (and am basically unbearable), I’ve been building my own bodyweight workout to beat this damn lockdown. “But what sort of bodyweight workout?” I hear my legions of fans screaming. Well, I’m glad you asked. Because I live on the second floor apartment built in the 1880s (what I like to refer to as pre-Joe Wicks times), there are certain exercises that would probably force my also quarantined neighbors to burst out of their flats, cut me up into tiny pieces, and make a Fit Boy Segments Health Shake™ out of my remains....

I didn’t fight a lot as a kid. Or as an adult, for that matter. My preference is to avoid violence as much as possible. This isn’t really about maintaining some noble philosophy, it’s mostly just self-preservation. I would never bet on myself winning a fistfight, ever. Unfortunately, I couldn’t always avoid violence as a kid. I lived in a pretty good part of town, which just happened to be closer to a ‘not-so-good’ part of town....

The Health Information National Trends Survey reports that 75% of Americans go to the internet first when looking for information about health or medical topics. YouTube is one of the most popular online platforms, with billions of views every day, and has emerged as a significant source of health information. Several public health agencies, such as state health departments, have invested resources in YouTube as a channel for health communication....

Although returning to work in offices full time is now possible, the latest figures from May show 26% are still working from home while a further 11% are hybrid working: splitting their work time between the office and home. With fewer people commuting and less food wasted as previously catered work events were held online instead, many hoped that a shift to remote working would benefit workers and the environment....

However, learning Python is not an easy thing. To get started, you first need to find the best online way to get there, which is difficult in itself. There are thousands of Python courses and tutorials, all claiming to be the best. True, practice alone is not perfect, but perfect practice is. This means you need to make sure you’re always following the best coding practices (commenting on your code, using correct syntax, etc....

In a letter to Congress, IBM’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, addressed the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and said the company would like to work with officials to achieve racial equality. Krishna suggested that there need to be key policy changes through police reform, responsible use of technology, and broadening skills and educational opportunities. To that end, he said that IBM won’t offer general-purpose facial recognition technology as it might be used for mass surveillance: Facial recognition used for surveillance has been a worry for privacy experts....