Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
American consumers spent $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, according to data from Adobe Analytics, which says it tracks more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail websites. That’s a new record, and up from $10.8 billion spent on Black Friday last year, Adobe says. Between 10am and 2pm, online shoppers were supposedly spending $12.5 million every minute. Forbes reports that Adobe said in a statement that the numbers show Black Friday has become “a major e-commerce moment, as more shoppers opt to stay home and take advantage of deals.” The company projects that Cyber Monday (coming in two days,…
Dr. Vinay Prasad, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division, sent a memo to staff that linked children’s deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine, but did not provide data to back the claim.The memo said that a review “found that at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination,” according to multiple sources familiar with the email. The memo was first reported by the New York Times.Prasad suggested that the deaths were related to myocarditis, or the inflammation of the heart muscle. Prasad did not share any data used in the review, including the…
In early November, a developer nicknamed Cookie entered a routine conversation with Perplexity. She often tasks it with reading her developer work in quantum algorithms and writing readme files and other documents for GitHub. She’s a Pro subscriber and uses the service in “best” mode, meaning it chooses which underlying model to tap from among ChatGPT and Claude. At first, it worked well. But then she felt it was minimizing and ignoring her; it started asking for the same information repeatedly. She had an unsettling thought. Did the AI not trust her? Cookie — who is Black — changed her…
Sgt. Major Carlos Ruiz shared his fitness routine for longevity at 50.Ruiz balances cardio, resistance training, and recovery to maintain Marine Corps fitness.He emphasizes hydration, proper gear, and adapting routines for sustained health and performance.For every military service chief, there’s a senior enlisted advisor, the person responsible for what’s often the most human side of command, including things like troop welfare and fitness.In the Marine Corps, that’s Sgt. Maj. Carlos Ruiz — tall, upbeat, and, at 50, still running miles alongside Marines across the globe.While generals shape strategy and operations, senior enlisted leaders focus on how those decisions impact the…
What is MrBeast’s secret to YouTube popularity?During a court deposition last November, YouTube’s top creator, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, boiled his videos’ success to three main factors:High-budget spectaclesOriginalityObsession over content qualityAt a high level, the creator’s dominance is rooted in the work of hundreds of creative staffers who help dream up video ideas, build elaborate sets, and ruthlessly optimize to YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.Let’s dive into the three key elements of his content strategy, starting with the MrBeast spectacle:There’s no denying that MrBeast is YouTube’s king of stunts.”I buried myself alive for seven days. No one else does that…
Meghan Jenkins had her hands full with her toddler, Malachi. He was energetic and inquisitive, eager to explore the world around him. He loved anything to do with the Miami Dolphins and played constantly with dinosaurs and monster trucks. He was settling in at day care while Jenkins returned to work after taking a year off. Life was busy, but happy. In March 2021, Jenkins noticed Malachi was tired and lethargic. He also had a lingering cough. One day, he threw up. When Jenkins changed his diaper, she found black stool. Immediately concerned, she and Malachi went straight to the…
MADRID, Nov 29 (Reuters) – About one third of Spanish pork export certificates have been blocked after the first outbreak of swine fever for three decades, Spain’s agriculture minister said on Saturday.”Of the 400 export certificates to 104 countries, a third are blocked. We are working to open them as quickly as possible,” Agriculture Minister Luis Planas told a press conference.The virus, last recorded in Spain in 1994, was detected in six wild boar near Barcelona.Planas said the value of the country’s pork exports is 8.8 billion euros ($10.20 billion), of which 58% goes to the European Union.He said exports…
Palantir’s Alex Karp is not the typical tech CEO. It makes sense then that one of the big data company’s foundational principles is rooted in the lessons of a 1970s Toyota executive.Karp is a firm believer in the Five Whys, a simple system that aims to uncover the root cause of an issue that may not be immediately apparent. The process is straightforward. When an issue arises, someone asks, “Why?” Whatever the answer may be, they ask “why?” again and again until they have done so five times.”We have found is that those who are willing to chase the causal…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dhyey Mavani, a 21-year-old software engineer at LinkedIn, based in Sunnyvale, CA. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I moved to the US from India in 2021 to attend Amherst College, where I triple-majored in computer science, mathematics, and statistics. During my freshman year, I developed a support system for statistical programming that became part of an introductory statistics course.Opportunities to talk about my work on and off campus started coming up, which led to different perspectives, insights, and connections. I thought about how I could scale this up…
Northwestern University has agreed to pay $75 million to the U.S. government in a deal with the Trump administration to end a series of investigations and restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding.President Donald Trump’s administration had cut off $790 million in grants in a standoff that contributed to university layoffs and the resignation in September of Northwestern president Michael Schill. The administration argued the school had not done enough to fight antisemitism.Under the agreement announced Friday night, Northwestern will make the payment to the U.S. Treasury over the next three years. Among other commitments it also…