European Union member states and legislators have agreed to mandate a single mobile charging port for mobile phones, tablets and cameras in a blow to technology giant Apple.
Tuesday’s agreement, a world first, means that from late 2024 most portable devices will be required to have a USB Type-C charging port. It will not apply to products released before the new rules come into force.
WASHINGTON — At her confirmation hearing in early 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told lawmakers that it was time to “act big” on a pandemic relief package, playing down concerns about deficits at a time of perpetually low interest rates and warning that inaction could mean widespread economic “scarring.”
A year and a half later, prices are soaring and interest rates are marching higher. As a result, Ms. Yellen’s role in crafting and selling the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Congress passed in March of last year, is being parsed amid an intensifying blame game to determine who is responsible for the highest rates of inflation in 40 years. After months of pinning rising prices on temporary supply chain problems that would dissipate, Ms. Yellen acknowledged last week that she had gotten it “wrong,” putting the Biden administration on the defensive and thrusting herself into the middle of a political storm.
“I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” Ms. Yellen said in an interview with CNN, adding that the economy had faced unanticipated “shocks” that boosted food and energy prices.
The Future Self concept is simple yet rarely practiced. To make quality decisions, know where those decisions will take you. Decisions and actions are best when reverse-engineered from a desired outcome. Start with what you want and work backward. Think and act from your goal, rather than toward your goal. Your brain does this automatically.
Indeed, neuroscientists now agree the brain is essentially a "prediction machine," guiding behavior toward the expected future. Learning is the process of updating and improving our brain's predictions.
The clearer you are on where you want to go, the less distracted you'll be by endless options. When you're disconnected from your Future Self, you get caught up in urgent goals that often result in low-quality behavior in the present. For the majority, this is the norm.
Believe it or not, rubber particulates from tires may pollute more than gasses emitted from vehicle tailpipes. Varying by compound, the emissions created by tires come in the form of expelled rubber particles which eventually reach waterways or soak into nearby soil. According to Emissions Analytics, a UK-based vehicle data specialist, tire-wear particles account for emissions at a rate 16 times greater than the maximum tailpipe emissions allowed for modern cars in the UK.
Over a tire's lifespan, it will emit an average of 1850 times more particles than the actual tailpipe emissions of a modern gas car. How did they come up with this whopping statistic? Data was collected using proprietary particulate sampling equipment over the course of 1000 real world miles in combination with precision scale weight figures on all four tires. Hundreds of brand-new and used tires in addition to various driving styles created additional variables in particulate mass emissions measurements.
Emissions Analytics cautions that such figures need careful scrutiny. "The fundamental trends that drive this ratio are: Tailpipe particulate emissions are much lower on new cars, and tire-wear emissions increase with vehicle mass and aggressiveness of driving style," the company report reads. "Tailpipe emissions are falling over time while tire wear emissions are rising as vehicles become heavier and added power and torque is placed at the driver’s disposal.
