“Amazon’s Alexa Prize is a multimillion-dollar competition to build AI that can chat like a human. On the face of it, Amazon isn’t asking much: just create a chatbot using Alexa that can talk to a human for 20 minutes […]
“Robert Smith’s private-equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, revamps software companies by following detailed protocols and gauging employees’ personalities and cognitive abilities. ‘Their process is like a factory,’ says one investor.” | learn more
There was an investigation, and a resignation. Then the Water District approved a $95k payout to David St. Pierre, who earned $292k in 2017. Sounds great! | learn more
“Judge Joseph Claps has been charged with a misdemeanor gun offense after sheriff’s deputies saw a small gun fall from the judge’s jacket inside the weapons-free Leighton Criminal Court Building.” | learn more
Jack Ezon, founder of Ovation Vacations, shares a bunch of entertaining stories from honeymoons his company has planned for always rich and sometimes famous clients. |learn more
We once played a joke on a friend in high school by convincing him that metric minutes had 100 seconds. It turns out the joke is on us because it was once true. | learn more
The Global Hub is a sexy new building for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. It sits next to Lake Michigan, and is heavy on dramatic views of both the Lake and Downtown Chicago. It’s designed to promote […]
The WSJ explores the topic of meatless burgers that are getting placement in the meat section of grocery stores. No surprise: the meat industry is pissed about it. (If you get stuck on WSJ paypall, just google the article title […]
“Intriguing new research suggests that a particular bacteria may have beneficial anti-inflammatory effects on the brain. Early studies in rodent models found that through injections of the bacteria the animals can be ‘immunized’ against displaying anxious responses to stressful situations.” | learn […]
“It’s long been thought that one DNA sequence would always create the same protein, but now researchers have found the first exception to this “universal rule,” a microbe that chooses between two different translations each time.” | learn more