February 10, 2025
Good morning! It is seven-below-zero (F) in our backyard at the moment. I happily shoveled about 8″ of fluffy snow for the better part of Saturday morning — free exercise. As I worked at moving the billions of flakes they became less fluffy and increased in depth to more than a foot!
I have one of those little relative humidity machines in my office… it is reading <30% right now. Desert air.
Looks like we are projecting ten or more days of outdoor temperatures below zero, way below zero, and way-way below zero — as pay back, no doubt, for some of those warmer days.
- Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (February 12, 1809) is the next big holy day — and then the Feast of Saint Valentine this Friday.
- Which do you think will make the bigger splash? Which should?
- Remember that aphorism from back on the farm?
- One bad apple spoils the whole barrel.
- Or, as I find more often, one bad potato spoils the peck… those potatoes are the worst, the awful smell!
- The aphorism stops short by not adding, unless you get rid of the bad apple or the bad potato… then the rest can be saved.
- True for many fresh fruits and vegetables — and especially cheese; trim away the mold and it’s still perfectly good.
- Sooner or later we will stop joking about the price of eggs and someone will do something, maybe.
- But, in the meantime, Why did the chicken cross the road?
- In this instance it was to contribute to the sustained, explosive growth, dominance, and profitability of the Atlanta-based Chick Fil-A fast food store.
- A Chick-Fil-A store at peak performance serves a customer (or several customers if grouped together in a car, and most are!) once every 13 seconds.
- And, it thinks it can do much better… Chickens, attention!
- Top leadership at Chick Fil-A study video tapes of the logistics at its stores as if they were gymnastics coaches looking for tiny flaws in technique.
- Oh, and back to the eggs.
- According to Genevieve Ko (NYT) you can substitute Flax Gel, Aquafaba, smashed bananas, applesauce, Tofu, smashed potatoes, and/or smashed yams for eggs.
- Let me know how your souffle, meringue, or omelette turn out.
- “Intensified competition.” “Escalation.” (DeepSeek’s response when asked, ‘What’s next for Artificial Intelligence?’) — Cohen
- Which automobile companies will suffer the most if/ when the Mexico/ Canada tariffs are imposed? Volkswagen, by far. (Bernstein)
- Fun fact: More than a quarter of General Motors’s cars sold in the United States come from Mexico or Canada. (Colias)
- Some of the better questions to ask when interviewing prospective employees for leadership positions — as informed by Bryant, MIT Sloan School:
- Do you really want to work here?
- What makes you tick?
- Do you have a high level of personal accountability and determination?
- Are you hungry to learn and to build new skills?
- Are you a team player?
- Are you self-aware?
- Will you thrive in our culture?
- (What IS our culture?) — added by YT
- Are you an effective leader?
- (If you steal these, be sure to give credit.)
- Were you at DAVOS? Aspen is next.
- “Business leaders today see geopolitical tensions as the biggest risk to economic growth…
- … equally, they don’t believe this period of geopolitical distaning will last forever…
- … ‘I am a big believer in globalization; I think it is only a matter of time before we see it swing back.’ ” (Axel)
- “In North America, we see women as 48% of entry-level employees, but then at that first promotion to manager, that drops down to 39%.” (Panas, Etc., et al.)
- Experts suggest employers could support women’s transition back to work (from childbirth, Etc.) in a few ways.
- Keep-in-touch programs, for example, can help women maintain workplace relationships while they are on parental leave. (Ibid.)
- Perhaps one of those Mr. Obvious observations?
- “Research indicates Generative Artificial Intelligence will trigger software customers to switch vendors more frequently as they race to keep up with the latest innovations.” (Ibid.)
- I know it’s not practical and that it’s (much) more complicated, but there must be answers somewhere in these data.
- A downtown Minneapolis office building that sold for $200 million in 2016 just sold for $6.25 million — a 97% discount compared to just nine years ago.
- That 960,000 GSF building is only 25 years-old.
- By the old-fashioned math, that’s less than $7 per square foot for indoor space — out of the wind, rain, ice, snow, cold, and heat.
- (A decent tent costs more.)
- The housing crisis in this country will probably get much worse before it gets better, if it ever does get better, but…
- … isn’t there a partial solution somewhere to do something — even temporarily — at <$7 per square foot?
- And, these anecdotal data are no doubt being replicated in other urban areas across the country.
