Business
How Airlines Decide Which Plane to Use. Another fascinating about the airline industry. Demand is not the only factor that determines which aircrafts to use.
Inside the Meltdown of a Wunderkind’s A.I. Hedge Fund. It is remarkable how an astounding successful hedge fund story had to sell off positions literally overnight to stay alfoat. That’s what extreme leverage does to you. If all goes well, you are a poster boy of retail investors. But it doesn’t necessarily take long for the tide to go out, as Warren would say. I personally think that AI stocks will come back, but right now survival is the priority and unfortunately he had to sell most of his positions and take a black eye.
How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal. It’s not a surprise to see Meta uses its scale and resources to drive a hard bargain. My questions are 1/ is it beneficial to the state of Lousiana and the local community and 2/ should the local community have more say in the matter? “Move fast and break things” is Meta’s mantra, but it should not apply to the lives of local citizens.
To keep growing, incoming Best Buy CEO says he first wants to go smaller. “As he prepares to take the helm, Bonfig has said he’s focused on four key pillars: advancing Best Buy as a retail and technology company, improving its reach, enhancing the customer experience and focusing on being a human-powered company. Bonfig has also said he’s looking into ways to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom and Best Buy’s spot in that next chapter. To lean into those markets, the company is opening new small-format stores, ranging from 12,000 to 15,000 square feet, compared to its medium-format stores, which range from 20,000 to 25,000 square feet. Some of its largest stores, including its flagship location in New York City, exceed 40,000 square feet. When Best Buy joins a new, smaller community, he said, the company has found more customers physically go to a store for the first time, but they also use the app and digital channels as well. The Jonesboro store marks Best Buy’s return to the town after a tornado destroyed its previous location.”
Van Leeuwen’s Path From a Single Ice Cream Truck to a Dessert Giant. “It’s been 18 years since Van Leeuwen, along with his co-founders — Laura O’Neill, whom he married and later divorced, and his brother Pete — began selling their high-butterfat ice cream, originally out of a retrofitted postal truck in Lower Manhattan. Since then, the closely held company has opened stores in 14 states and Washington, DC; expanded its packaged pint business into supermarkets; and, more recently, rolled out a suite of additional products, including popsicles, bite-sized bonbons and, new this year, frozen yogurt, without straying from its whole-ingredients philosophy. The co-founders struggled to find a food manufacturer willing to make ice cream with just eggs, cream and milk, and no stabilizers. They ultimately found a co-manufacturer in upstate New York, stored their ice cream at a small Häagen-Dazs distributor in the Bronx and drove 80 tubs of the stuff to their yellow truck in Lower Manhattan several times a week at 7 a.m. in Ben’s Subaru. “By the end of that summer, we’d absolutely destroyed, in an irreparable way, the suspension on that Subaru,” he says. Volume sales of superpremium ice cream pints at grocery stores and mass retailers increased 4.1% over the 52 weeks ended June 13, compared with a 4.8% decline for value ice cream, according to NielsenIQ. Overall, superpremium ice cream now accounts for 37% of the category by dollar share, NIQ says. Van Leeuwen’s rapid growth in the freezer aisle has earned it a spot on BNP Paribas SA’s list of top 50 “disruptor” food companies, with the bank estimating the brand’s 2025 grocery sales alone at $51 million. (The company declined to give its own estimate or comment on the BNP figure but says it expects 20% revenue growth this year.) Scoop shops still make up more of the company’s revenue than its retail products, Van Leeuwen’s CEO says, a roughly 60%-to-40% split.“
Other Stuff I Find Interesting And So May You
Inside On’s tech lab, where robots build running shoes in 3 minutes and can eliminate up to 300 hours of human work. It is remarkable what technologies can achieve and free up human labor. On relied on dedication to making the best running shoes possible and innovative engineering to become one of the best running shoe brands in the world.
The mind virus: Why you should care whether you read AI-generated content. Writing is thinking. Prompting is NOT. If you want to do a full marathon under 2 hours, there is no short cut. You gotta train day in and day out for a while. If you want to be great at football (soccer), it takes training from the early age. Again, no short cut. If you want to improve your thinking, writing certainly helps. Prompting? Unlikely.
Why rice crops could be in for a weird year. “In another twist, the very carbon dioxide that is causing global warming also makes it easier to grow rice. Higher concentrations of CO2 in the air enhances photosynthesis and improves water-use efficiency, said Jain, calling it “the primary environmental factor” contributing to the surge in worldwide rice productivity. Still, the increasingly warmer and dryer conditions that climate change will bring are expected to inhibit rice growth. A new study found that climate models have generally underestimated the production loss by as much as half. For every degree of warming Celsius, it said, rice production will fall about 8 percent.”
Japan’s Zoos Feel the Strain of a Shrinking Society. “Zoos around the globe are facing mounting financial pressure as rising energy and food costs, along with stricter animal welfare standards, make caring for captive wildlife more expensive. At the same time, they are increasingly expected to serve as conservation institutions, funding research and maintaining genetically viable breeding populations. Industry experts say Japan is particularly vulnerable to financial pressures because about 80% of its zoos are municipally run, with taxpayer money the primary source of funding. While some operations are outsourced, many zoos are overseen by civil servants working in government bureaus responsible for tourism, parks or even roads.”
Stats
The number of children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, compared with a drop of 7% nationwide
Minh Quang Duong 
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