Author: wildgreenquest@gmail.com

Key Takeaways Mariam Naficy is the founder and CEO of Minted, a stationery startup. At the start, in 2007, Naficy burned almost all of Minted’s initial $2.5 million funding round on a failed model of selling existing stationery brands online. A low-budget side experiment, crowdsourced design competitions for independent artists, became Minted’s core product and ultimately unlocked overwhelming demand. When Mariam Naficy opened the virtual doors to Minted, her stationery startup, she encountered every founder’s worst nightmare: silence. There were no customers. Back in 2008, no one was buying stationery online. Naficy had raised $2.5 million from friends and family,…

OpenAI on Thursday released its most capable AI system, GPT-5.5, which the company says will enable a more powerful Codex coding agent. OpenAI is quick to say, however, that GPT-5.5 will power the widening set of general digital work tasks that Codex is capable of. The system is significantly better than previous releases at helping with scientific work, including creative aspects of generating new hypotheses and testing them. The system represents an improvement in autonomous or agentic capability. GPT-5.56 “represents a step toward AI systems that can complete complex, multi-step tasks on a computer without human guidance,” OpenAI says in…

Harnest Oceansafe biodegradable garment labelsHarnestFour decades ago, Bangladesh’s garment industry consisted of small sewing workshops assembling pre-cut garments from Korea. Today, Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter, with exports climbing from $31 million in 1983 to $39 billion by 2025. That 1,000× increase was powered by abundant, low-cost labor and expertise in producing cotton-rich knitted garments and woven shirts and trousers.But Bangladesh’s garment industry is now reaching the limits of a low-cost manufacturing model and must move into more sophisticated, value-added production, according to World Bank analysis. The country knocks on the door of graduation from ‘least developed country’…

An $81 billion Warner-Paramount mega merger has received shareholders’ stamp of approval, propelling a deal that could vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape closer to the finish line. Per a preliminary vote count on Thursday, the overwhelming majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted in support of selling the entire business to Paramount for $31 a share, the company said. Including debt, the deal is valued at nearly $111 billion. Skydance-owned Paramount wants to buy all of Warner. That means HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like “Harry Potter” and even CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof with CBS, “Top Gun” and…

Class members in the Constar Financial Services and Empereon Marketing data breach settlement have eight days left to file a claim. The deadline is May 1, 2026. Eligible class members can claim up to $6,000 in losses plus three years of credit monitoring, and the claim form is the only way to receive any benefit.The case is Roller v. Constar Financial Services, LLC, pending in the Superior Court for Maricopa County, Arizona. The court gave preliminary approval to the settlement on January 15, 2026. Notice was mailed to class members on February 13. The final approval hearing is scheduled for…

After six weeks of testing, here’s how Yeti’s Tundra Haul stacks up against RTIC’s 52-quart Ultra Light. (Photo: Graham Averill)Published April 23, 2026 09:23AMSome of you reading this are too young to remember life before Yeti coolers, so let me tell you what it was like. It was a world full of melted ice and warm beer. Coolers sucked. Then Yeti redefined the hard-sided cooler category in 2006 with the burly (and expensive), rotomolded Tundra. Fast forward 20 years and Yeti is the king of keeping beer cold. Many of us happily fork over $500 for one of their hard…

For digital nomads, logging on to work from a cafe, co-working space, hotel lobby or airport lounge is a way of life.Remote working has been made possible by reliable high speed internet and turbocharged by the pandemic. For some remote workers, that includes working from somewhere other than their home, perhaps because their company doesn’t have a physical location in their area, or because they don’t have an ideal home office setup.Working in public, however, doesn’t come without privacy and security risks. Here’s a quick reminder of precautions to take: Read the rulebook Hybrid or fully remote working is the…

Published April 23, 2026 07:49AMFor the past few years, visitors have had to plan ahead if they wanted to behold Delicate Arch or one of the estimated 2,000 other curvatores of stone found at Arches National Park during peak season. But a couple months ago, on February 18, Arches announced the end of its requirement to purchase an advanced timed entry ticket. The timed entry requirement first came into effect in spring 2022, so it’s been four years since you’ve been able to roll up to Arches and enter on demand.Previously, the requirement went into effect during peak seasons and…

Companies are replacing transactional supply chains with collaborative partnerships to boost resilience, efficiency and long-term innovation.gettyFor decades, supply chains were designed as competitive fortresses optimized for cost, speed and control, often at the expense of transparency and flexibility. Companies guarded supplier relationships, hoarded data and negotiated relentlessly for marginal gains. That model delivered efficiency in stable times. However, stability is no longer the norm.Today’s supply chains are being reshaped by disruption: geopolitical tensions, climate events, shifting consumer expectations and rapid technological change. At the same time, breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, data platforms and connectivity are unlocking a different path forward,…

Employees at Meta Platforms may soon feel like they’re spilling TMI to their employer’s MCI. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is installing new software—reportedly dubbed Model Capability Initiative (MCI)—on its employees’ computers and workstations that will, among other things, track and capture mouse movements and keystrokes in an effort to train AI models, Reuters first reported on Tuesday.  It’s all part of a broader effort to develop autonomous AI agents that can perform specific work tasks. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the company was, indeed, pushing forward with the measure. “If we’re building agents to help people…