Massive databases of user accounts seem to get hacked daily. The number of exposed accounts and passwords—usually encrypted weakly—has risen into the billions. Yet liability and embarrassment have left companies loathe to quickly disclose that they’ve been hacked.

That appears to be changing, in part due to new laws in effect or about to be in the European Union and some U.S. states, including California, that impose penalties on delays in notification.

But it’s also due to one Australian man’s accidental rise to the top of the account disclosure hack ecosystem. Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned has data from over 305 breaches and 77,000 selective dumps (called “pastes”) that total over 5.3 billion account records.

At Hunt’s site, visitors can type in their email address to see if their info is part of any breach. But over 2o million people subscribe to his free email notification service. They get breach alerts that are often timed to the disclosure by a company that’s been hacked—or, when companies refuse to acknowledge Hunt’s efforts at ethical advance notice, before official words of a breach comes down at all.

Whenever Hunt adds details from another of the inevitable cavalcade of breaches from public and private sites, subscribers get email. The number of accounts involved range from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions. “Just in the last few days, people have sent me dozens of breaches,” Hunt says.

He also has a cache of over half a billion passwords in plain text that have been revealed at some point from break-ins. Via automated requests, he feeds about 8 million responses daily to services that check whether a given password has ever appeared in any breach—and he does this cleverly, so his service doesn’t need to receive people’s passwords, even briefly, to perform the checking.

Have I Been Pwned’s name riffs on “pwned,” a term from 2000s-era youth culture that loosely means someone has dominated you, or “owned” you, in a videogame—or by hijacking some digital possession of yours. It’s now used routinely in the world of those who exploit system weakness for good or ill as a term of art.

Based in Gold Coast, Queensland, not far from Brisbane, Hunt works full-time for himself as a security consultant, speaker, and trainer. Have I Been Pwned takes up about 20% of his time, he says, often in the form of work on evenings, weekends, and holidays. It’s a solo effort, and he’s kept costs low by using cloud services and through constant efforts to improve efficiency.

Hunt’s site feels like a throwback to the early, idealistic days of the public internet. He says that his objective has always been, “how do we make good things happen after bad things happen?” He simply created something useful to fill a void that nobody with deeper pockets had addressed.

Unethical behavior, ethical response

Hunt was motivated to create Have I Been Pwned in 2013 as his response to growing concerns that breaches—such as that year’s leak of 150 million Adobe accounts—would result in a rash of exploitation. “I was seeing a huge prevalence of data breaches with accounts in them where I thought, on the one hand, people probably don’t know about this [breach] and they really should,” Hunt says. “On the other hand, I was finding quantifiable evidence of some of the things we know about the way in which people manage their online security.”

Multiple breaches confirmed that many people really do use a single password across multiple services. (A 2013 study by U.K. regulator Ofcom had found 55% of people used the same password for all their accounts, and a quarter used a birthdays or names.) Reusing passwords—even difficult-to-guess ones—is problematic, of course, because someone who’s obtained your password for one account can then try the same email and password combination at any other site they choose. They can even use automated tools to try to log in to thousands of sites.

Back in 2013, when Hunt was formulating his plans, the use of two-factor authentication—which is designed to foil interlopers even if they have your password—was much rarer. But even some sites with two-factor authentication will let you bypass it by requesting a password reset via email, possibly using an email account with a password that has itself been breached.

It’s one thing to tediously crack passwords one at a time, using social engineering, keystroke loggers, and other methods. It’s another to gain access to an account database, especially one that gets leaked publicly. With the method commonly used to encrypt passwords a few years ago—and still in unfortunately wide use today—crackers can use precomputed databases of encrypted versions of the most common passwords and instantly match them. This typically unlocks a huge percentage of account passwords, because people largely use simple passwords or ones that follow easy-to-anticipate patterns.

On top of that, with typical password encryption, if 100,000 people on a site use the same password, an intrepid identity thief instantly gains 100,000 account/password combinations they can try elsewere.

For years, developers have had access to far stronger tools that make every password’s encrypted version unique, and that require vastly more computation to crack each password. These readily available options aren’t widely deployed, though, as is made clear with every new breach.

Users can minimize their exposure by creating unique passwords for each site using password managers, some of which are now built into operating systems and browsers. But many don’t take advantage of these tools. Even people who listen to conventional wisdom about creating strong passwords may be following advice that is completely wrong and has been for years. And many of us have old accounts for which we haven’t changed passwords in many years, even if we now have the unique password religion.

Hunt reasoned that one way to help deter the extent of this problem was to build a site in which people could check whether their email address matched any publicly released breaches. Data from many major breaches is publicly available—sometimes because bad guys have intentionally released it to cause havoc. (In most of these dumps, the passwords were encrypted, but so weakly that it didn’t take much expertise to determine them via brute-force cracking.) He later added a service that lets visitors sign up to receive a message if their address appeared in any breach he subsequently added.

While anyone can type in an email address and see which breaches include it, Hunt marks some data leaks as sensitive, like that of the infidelity-encouraging Ashley Madison dating site. In these cases, to prevent anyone from using Have I Been Pwned to check on someone else’s online activity, matches are only sent via email to the addresses in question and don’t appear in the public site search.

Have I Been Pwned also doesn’t provide any linkage between email addresses and passwords. If someone emails Hunt to ask what password is associated with an account, his reply is, “It’s the one you put in there.”

Hunt’s careful stewardship of the data he’s collected stands in contrast to free and paid sites that provide access to full exposed records, marking a sharp delineation between information largely useful only to the party searching for their address and details that could allow identity theft and account hijacking. For instance, the site LeakedSource.com charged a fee to gain access to full details—including passwords it decrypted—all without verifying identity. Law enforcement seized its servers in January 2017 and Canadian authorities charged one man in January 2018 with trafficking in identity information among other alleged crimes. Hunt never planned to do anything like this, but staying as far away from the idea as possible proved prudent.

Doing the right thing

Have I Been Pwned’s high profile and Hunt’s methodical approach to disclosure makes his work a time sink. People routinely send him information about breaches they find, sometimes involving tiny numbers of people in, say, a private medical practice. Hunt says that such information comes from both “black hats” who want to show off their hacking prowess to him and “white hats” who want to do the right thing. Both groups are worried about how to handle the niceties of such disclosures themselves without potentially landing in hot water.

He doesn’t want to add any breach to his site before he’s made sure the affected group knows about it. Some don’t reply, especially small organizations. He’s had some bellicose responses, too, as when he couldn’t raise an alarm at a fan-fiction site and notified its users before the site’s administrators took action. Hunt says the site’s operators denied a breach, froze discussion threads, and cast aspersions on his legitimacy.

That sort of response does wear him down. “Not this again,” he thinks to himself. “I’ve got to go through this pain.”

According to Hunt, companies also now seem more ready to acknowledge the problem and contact registered users immediately. Some firms appear to be tracking email addresses released in other breaches, and warn users of their service about the potential of a reused password, or preemptively reset the user account password just in case.

Data-privacy laws have put some teeth into the legal side, which should cause companies’ legal counsels and even boards of directors to push for better security and disclosure. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation calls for severe penalties for the worst offenses. California’s new Consumer Privacy Act, which takes effect on January 1, 2020, is weaker than the GDPR, but still has teeth and can impose significant fines for misleading or negligent behavior. Alabama and North Dakota passed data-breach laws in the wake of 2017’s Equifax breach of nearly 150 million consumer records. These and other rules favor companies that disclose promptly and fully; delays and other shenanigans bring on heavy fines.

Hunt notes with strong approval that discussion platform Disqus and image host Imgur both made full disclosures within 24 hours of him contacting them. He says both firms forthrightly explained the breaches to their users, detailed what they did in response, and offered apologies.

Paying the bills

For something that’s so useful to so many people, Have I Been Pwned is remarkably economical to run. In June 2018, Hunt tweeted about his expenses in a way that sounded, fleetingly, as if the site was weighing him down financially. And he did once spend in the low hundreds of dollars per month on the necessary web services. But his big reveal was that in June, he’d gotten that cost down to about a buck a day. Since then, he’s made more tweaks, and the necessary Microsoft Azure cloud services now cost him roughly 2.6¢ a day.

A few supporters help subsidize Have I Been Pwned in modest ways. Cloudflare gives him complimentary access to its content-distribution and attack-mitigation services, but Hunt says his costs would be roughly a dollar a day if he paid for them. He also receives some assistance for his outgoing email, which helps given that his site sends out hundreds of thousands of emails a month.

As a one-man, part-time band, Have I Been Pwned has served Hunt well beyond any direct financial compensation. What he’s learned from building a service that has had to scale translates directly into his money-making consulting and training practice. But he’s also taken on a few revenue streams to offset his hard costs and as recompense for the many hundreds of hours he’s poured into the service over five years.

Anyone can use his password-checking operation for free, and even download the full version of the Have I Been Pwned database. However, Hunt also offers a fee-based service for companies that want consistent, high-volume access to perform live queries. Customers include Eve Online, MyLife, and AgileBits (the maker of the 1Password password manager, which also has a paid sponsorship deal with Hunt), as well as some unnamed security firms. This commercial endeavor serves a greater purposes by helping these companies keep users from using passwords already out in the wild.

A higher profile

In November 2017, Hunt came to Washington, D.C., invited to testify in front of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee about data breaches, their impact, and potential mitigations. He noted to the committee that the combined impact of data breaches was eroding the sense of our personal details being private enough to work to validate a login or our identity. He also expressed a desire for improved education, because most breaches arose from misconfiguration. In the Equifax case, for instance, the company’s series of bad decisions about security were only laid bare because one public-facing computer had an outdated software patch on it.

This testimony reflected how far Hunt’s efforts have come. But as a one-man company, he’s aware that he’s a sole point of failure. While he’s thought about hiring staff, he notes, “I can’t delegate my credibility.”

Hunt’s primary concern isn’t time, but liability. He worries that sharing more information from breaches with users could open him up to risk that he can’t bear, but which would be well within the abilities of a larger company with a staff of engineers, security architects, and lawyers. That’s led him to consider selling his service. But it has to be the right company, and, for now, he hasn’t found such a firm and it hasn’t found him.

For the foreseeable future, Hunt’s solo operation down under will continue to be indispensable. Have I Been Pwned’s millions of subscribers testify to its importance on today’s leaky internet. And the sad part is that it will only become more popular over time.

Van Halen’s tour bus has been the setting for plenty of strange stuff. But between the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, the back of the bus birthed a technological marvel. In the mid-1990s, looking to keep the band from going deaf on tour, sound engineer Jerry Harvey cooked up plans for the first set of in-ear monitors.

Essentially custom-fit earbuds, his invention revolutionized the touring industry. In-ears cleared the stage of those big, boxy black stage monitors blasting volume at the musicians, saving hundreds of artists from hearing damage. But the company he founded, Ultimate Ears, which has been owned by Logitech since 2007, has never been able to take the idea mainstream.

“Custom isn’t necessarily an attribute people know they should care about,” says Jonah Staw, general manager of Ultimate Ears Custom Earphones. “But people know what attributes they do care about. They want comfort, premium sound, sound isolation or cancellation, and they don’t want them to fall out. Custom delivers all that.”

UE recently acquired a startup called Revols and its do-it-at-home ear-mapping system to develop the Fitkit. The basic idea isn’t new: Another company, Eers, tried and failed to capture the market with a similar product a few years ago. But UE believes it’s the right time to broadcast the benefits of custom over the volume of Beats, Bose, Sony, Skullcandy, and their dominating market share. And a handful of competitors offering customs at a range of price points also thinks it’s time to take the tech to the masses.

Made to order

Since the 1980s, audiologists have been fitting patients with hearing aids by squirting silicon into ear canals to create individual molds. These molds offer important advantages for earbuds as well. “By default, it’s comfortable and stays in place because it fits your ear perfectly,” says Brian Fligor, chief audiologist at Lantos, a company that developed a 3D digital ear mapping system and used to make customs like UE. “Most importantly, it creates a natural seal that blocks outside noise. When used with earbuds, you can listen to your content at whatever level you want, and not just crank the volume to compete with the noise all around you.”

Noise isolation is critical, because blasting Van Halen, Beyoncé, or Chris Stapleton into your ears at high volume is probably making you deaf. The World Health Organization estimates nearly a billion people will have disabling hearing loss by 2050. Earlier this year, a study found 14% of more than 3,000 9- to 11-year-olds examined already had signs of hearing loss. More bad news: Hearing loss can increase your risk of cognitive decline, such as impaired memory or dementia-like symptoms.

Despite the near ubiquity of Apple’s EarPods and Beats’s big, bulky headphones, audiologists and sound engineers tend to agree that these name-brand offerings deliver lousy sound and little hearing protection. And, while extremely effective on static sounds such as the rumble of a jet engine, noise-canceling technology doesn’t work as well on a screaming baby or a fire-engine siren.

High-end custom earbuds top even the fancy noise-canceling Bose QuietComfort 35 II with all the five-star reviews. They are more comfortable and provide better sound and sound isolation. But at $500, Ultimate Ears’s lowest price point comes in at almost twice the cost of a pair of Bose headphones.

“The sound profiles we provide to consumers are the same as the ones we are providing to professionals,” Staw says. “It makes logical sense to lower your prices for a consumer product, but we think if you have some of the best audio available, why not give people the opportunity to experience that, even if they aren’t a stage musician?”

If you ask a professional musician, $500 is a steal for in-ear monitors. Other models of Ultimate Ears cost up to $1,500, and Jerry Harvey’s new company, JH Audio, offers entry-level products at $600, while the high end runs toward $3,000 (not including the trip to the audiologist for a mold, which can run about $150).

“Any apprehension or fear about messing up should be taken care of by knowing that they are remoldable,” Kirkpatrick says. “Just heat them up and try it again. And because the process is a thermal reaction and not a chemical reaction, people can reshape them as many times as they want, as their ears will change over time.”

High-end customs fit better, but Decibullz, which start at around $60, are a dramatic improvement over Apple’s EarPods. Not surprisingly, the company has grown quickly–Decibullz sold $35,000 worth of products in 2013 and is on track for $5 million this year. But 80% of its sales come in the form of earplugs, not buds–they’re Amazon’s top-selling hearing protection device and available at many outdoor shops.

Despite their advantages, Decibullz and competitors (such as Fuze and Earcandi, which offer similar do-it-at-home molds) and high-end customs such as Ultimate Ears have yet to capture even 1% of market share. Not one of these companies cracks the top 20 most-used headphone brands in the U.S.

“We are still creating our market and have two barriers to do that,” Kirkpatrick says. “The first is letting people know that customs exist, and for that, we need to have a bigger retail presence. The second is educating the public about the benefits, which is hard, because by their very nature you can’t borrow your friends’ to test them out.” UE, Lantos, and the London-based Snugs have tried to raise the profile of custom by offering fittings in brick-and-mortar locations. But nobody has figured out how to expand beyond a handful of sites in major cities.

Disrupting the ear

One piece of good news for custom earbuds is that investors are finally showing an interest in ear-related technology.

“Historically, the ear is an organ that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention from venture capitalists, but having worked for the previous five years at a venture-backed company, I see that changing,” says Fligor of his time with Lantos. He points to a range of young companies–Decimal Therapeutics, Frequency Therapeutics, and Earlens–working with VC funds to build new hearing aids and experiment with regenerative therapies for hearing loss. As money, tech, and an epidemic of hearing damage collide, customs will have a shot at going mainstream.

The headphone market is expected to hit $20 billion sometime in the next five years. By then, literally millions of people will need custom hearing aids, and the rest of the population will likely be trying to avoid needing them by using safer headphones. Whichever side of the equation you fall on, customs could be in your future.

The social media giant has filed for a patent for tech that allows it to tell who you live with in the same household, reports BuzzFeed News. Titled “Predicting household demographics based on image data,” the patent describes how Facebook can use its facial recognition technology on your photos to identify people in them, then correlate those people with the captions a user writes when they post a photo, as well as cross-referencing everyone’s device information, such as shared IP addresses to discover who lives in your household. As BuzzFeed News explains:

It would note the people identified in a photo, and how frequently the people are included in your pictures. Then, it would assess information from comments on the photos, captions, or tags (#family, #mom, #kids)–anything that indicates whether someone is a husband, daughter, cousin, etc.–to predict what your family/household actually looks like.

According to the patent application, Facebook’s prediction models would also analyze “messaging history, past tagging history, [and] web browsing history” to see if multiple people share IP addresses (a unique identifier for every internet network).

In one specific example, the model looked at an image a user posted with two females tagged, “#my_boss_at_home,” and another image with a young girl marked “my angel.” Facebook predicted that there were three people in the household, including the male user, and two females, “who are likely the male user’s wife and daughter.”

Oh, and Facebook uses pictures from both its main site and Instagram in this process. As for what Facebook will use this information for? Ad targeting, the patent says. The question is what could third parties use this information for if such data becomes compromised?

The once-king of the mobile landscape is acquiring Cylance for $1.4 billion in cash, Reuters reports. Cylance develops artificial intelligence products that help to prevent cyberattacks on companies. However, Blackberry will mainly use Cylance to boost its QNX unit’s capabilities, which makes software for next-generation self-driving cars.

Blackberry was once the darling of the smartphone world, dominating the industry for years. But then the iPhone came along in 2007 and the Canadian company found itself with a product that looked archaic in comparison. As the smartphone market progressed–and Blackberry’s share continued to decrease–the company shifted from selling mobile devices as its main product to selling software to manage mobile devices and other applications, such as software for autonomous vehicles. With its acquisition of Cylance, it looks clear that Blackberry believes continuing down the software path is the company’s future.

Imagine walking into the Italian factory that makes leather bags for Celine, and asking them to make you a black leather tote bag. You want the same exact high-quality materials, the same meticulous craftsmanship, similar designs. The only thing that is missing is the big logo. If you paid the bag maker fairly for the materials and the labor, the bag would run you about $250, which is a tiny fraction of a $4,000 tote you would pick up at a Celine boutique.

Italic, a new members-only marketplace that launches today, wants to sell you that Celine-quality bag without the outrageous price that comes along with the logo. Founder and CEO Jeremy Cai scoured the globe to find the factories that make products for the best luxury brands in the world and delivers a curated array of exclusive products from those same factories at reasonable prices. Unlike other direct-to-consumer startups, Italic doesn’t design products or even buy inventory from these manufacturers, leaving this up to product designers at the factories.

Among its 100 introductory products at launch, Italic will sell a $95 cashmere scarf made at Burberry’s factory, a $75 quilted wallet made at Prada’s factory, a $245 bucket bag made at Givenchy’s factory, and–my favorite item of the bunch–a $225 black pebbled fanny pack made at Cartier’s factory. New items will launch every month.

The products themselves don’t rip off the specific designs of other luxury brands–instead, products are crafted by makers at the factory who have years of experience making products for other companies. Parsing the Italic website, there are lots of designs that are on trend but aren’t reminiscent of any particular brand. The fanny pack, for instance, reflects the current, slightly ironic craze for this ’90s-style bag that brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton are playing into. A leather jacket is designed with the cropped moto look that is so in vogue, with unfussy silver hardware. Yet none of the items crib a specific design element of a particular brand, like the structured silhouette of Celine totes or Prada’s creative use of industrial nylon in backpacks and belt bags.

“We’re not trying to create a cohesive design language where everything must adhere to one specific aesthetic,” says Cai. “We’re not a product development shop. We’re trying to replicate what a retailer does at scale, but instead of working with brands, we’re working with manufacturing partners. The goal is to give customers lots of options.”

At the start, the majority of Italic’s offerings will be luxury accessories, like scarves and bags, since these products have the highest markups and best demonstrate the company’s value proposition. But eventually, Cai hopes to expand into a wide range of other categories, like toothbrushes and skincare. In each case, Italic will locate the very best manufacturers and make the same high-quality product without any branding.

Over the past several years, new startups like M.Gemi, Everlane, and Cuyana have said they use the same factories as luxury brands, but they generally don’t go so far as to name which brands they are specifically referring to. Italic, on the other hand, boldly names the specific brands that also make products at these factories. (That said, Italic doesn’t actually provide identifying details about these factories, like their names or locations, so the factory owners don’t damage their relationships with the luxury brands in question.)

“We’re a little controversial in that we say ‘here is a handbag made in the same factory as Prada,'” Cai says. “But because you’re buying it from the source, and there are no logos on any of our products, you can get it for a fifth or a tenth of the price that you might normally expect to pay. We think this is a powerful value proposition to someone who likes nice things but doesn’t like paying the premium for a logo.”

Instead, Cai and his team locate what they believe are they best factories in the world and connect them directly to customers through the Italic marketplace. Italic has its own inspection process, rather than just relying on third-party inspectors, and the company sends its own employees to learn about the the factory’s treatment of workers, environmental certifications, and quality. Cai says that Italic has turned down the vast majority of the more than 200 factories they have visited this year.

On the back end, the company created a software system that helps manufacturers track their inventory and sales through the Italic platform in real time. This is important, because these factories have often never sold directly to customers before. On the website, Italic curates a selection of products to sell, photographs them, and puts them on the Italic website for members to purchase. The company takes a small commission from the factory, but it makes most of its revenue from the $150 annual membership fee that customers pay.

Cai, who is in his twenties, is a Thiel Fellow, which means that he received a $100,000 scholarship from Peter Thiel’s foundation to drop out of school and pursue a big idea. He describes Italic as an “e-commerce moonshot” because it could disrupt the way that consumers engage with brands. That is, Italic could chip away at luxury fashion houses, allowing customers to go directly to the source of their products. He’s spent several years tinkering with this business idea and building out a team of executives who have worked at brands like Calvin Klein, Patagonia, Snap, and Wayfair. He’s also generated $13 million in funding from institutional investors like Comcast Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and individual investors such as the founders of Away luggage.

One of Cai’s biggest challenges was convincing these factory owners that he had their best interests in mind and wanted to help them make more money. Many luxury brands squeeze manufacturer’s margins while selling the product at 8 or 10 times what they cost to make, pouring this money into elaborate photoshoots, fancy stores, and shareholder’s pockets. Cai, on the other hand, is interested in finding ways to increase the amount that the factory makes on each item, while still selling them at prices that customers would think is great value. Cai, and his investors, believe this could be a winning business proposition for Italic as well, since the company will attract a much wider market than a typical luxury brand charging significantly more for each item.

While the idea of shopping directly from the factory is a relatively novel concept here in the U.S., it’s an idea that has been popular in China. Several Chinese companies, like Biyao, NetEase YanXuan, and Xiaomi Mijia Youpin, all operate on a similar model of going into top factories and selling brandless versions of products. The model has been successful with the Chinese market, which is remarkable since Chinese consumers tend to be more logo conscious than American ones. “People love logos there, it’s almost like America in the ’90s,” says Cai, whose family is from China. “And yet companies like these have really exploded.”

In his initial customer research, Cai has found that people’s attachment to a specific brand name varies a lot from person to person. Some people will only buy their sheets from luxury bedding maker Frette, but don’t care whether their leather bag has a fancy logo on it, as long as it is durable. Another person will drop $4,000 on a Celine bag, but will buy drugstore aisle makeup as long as it looks good. Cai’s goal is to provide a wide variety of products so that there’s something on the site for every kind of consumer.

While there’s been a resurgence of logomania over the last few years, with brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton plastering logos on products, a 2015 report by Goldman Sachs found that millennials prefer clothing without logos and branding. Italic is a direct response to this trend. “We’re cutting out the brand, which is the largest middleman of all,” Cai says.

If your friends are fans of Etsy, they may like these gift suggestions from executives of the Brooklyn-based artisanal e-commerce site.

1. Reclamation Etchworks Glass Spirit Decanters

$295 for set of six, etsy.com

“The Variance decanter collection is equally great for groomsmen and holiday gifts. I typically fill the decanter with my friend’s favorite spirit—so, two gifts in one.”—Jeremy Toeman, Etsy, VP, product management

2. Beardology Ultimate Man Set

$37.95, etsy.com

“There’s a reason beard oil is so trendy right now. It keeps you feeling and smelling fresh, but isn’t overpowering like a lot of colognes. Beardology uses all-natural oils to keep facial hair moisturized and healthy. The gift set includes oil and soap that’s great for everyday use, and the balm is ideal for traveling since it can’t spill or break in your suitcase.”–Jeremy Toeman, VP, product management

3. My Happy Soaps

$14.36, etsy.com

“My Happy Soaps are made from all-natural and organic ingredients, and the scents take you right to the French countryside where they are made. The wide range of colors and fragrances means you can choose the bars that complement your friends’ style and aesthetic.”—Linda Findley Kozlowski, chief operating officer

Related:21 inspired holiday gift ideas from staff at 4 cool companies

4. Hook and Matter Rose Gold Stud Earrings

$50, etsy.com

“Classic and timeless are always a hit when it comes to gift giving. These faceted earrings by Hook and Matter are a chic, geometric take on the traditional stud earring.”—Jessica Doyle, VP, communications

5. LovelyEarthlings Journal

$14.50, etsy.com

“Customized journals, like the ones from LovelyEarthlings, are a great holiday gift. The cover designs are super fun, and the blank pages are both a symbolic and literal fresh start for the new year ahead.”—Dayna Isom Johnson, communications manager and judge on NBC’s Making It

6. Kiwi Crate Subscription Box

$19.95/month, kiwico.com

“Kiwi Crate is meant for kids, but in my house it has become a full-family activity. The monthly boxes include STEAM-based projects [such as the My Body and Me sewing kit, above] that develop critical skills and get children’s creative juices flowing.”—Kruti Patel Goyal, general manager, seller services

As millennials grow up and start nesting, they’re graduating from Allen-key decor to higher-quality pieces–and a slew of new furniture companies are there to help. From delivering sofas in a box to offering online customization tools, these direct-to-consumer startups are reimagining how to buy a couch for the digital age. The forerunner of the bunch, Vancouver-based Article, launched five years ago and is track to make $200 million this year. “Our biggest challenge was getting people to buy such expensive products without ever seeing them in person,” says Aamir Baig, Article’s cofounder and CEO. “But luckily, millennials are willing to take that risk.” Here, a look at the latest entrants:

1. Maiden Home, New York, 2017

Approach: Democratize American craftsmanship by cutting out the middleman, markups, excess inventory, and showroom costs and selling North Carolina–made sofas on-demand and online; couches start at $1,975.

Audience: Would-be Restoration Hardware shoppers willing to spend more for long-lasting pieces.

Pedigree:Founder and CEO Nidhi Kapur ran business development and operations at Birchbox and Google. After raising an angel round of $500,000, she is bootstrapping the business, which has been profitable since day one.

Growth: Kapur courted interior designers to generate early buzz and plans to expand beyond sofas in 2019.

Verdict: The brand’s traditional aesthetic might not appeal to the fashion-forward set, but the quality is excellent.

2. Burrow, New York, 2016

Approach: Remove many of the pain points of furniture shopping by offering customers a single style of sofa, a modular, easy-to-assemble design that comes in a box, and instant financing via Affirm.

Audience: New-to-nesting urbanites who appreciate $845 sofas and free UPS shipping.

Pedigree: Cofounders Kabeer Chopra and Stephen Kulh met as MBA students at direct-to-consumer breeding ground Wharton. Casper investor New Enterprise Associates led Burrow’s $14 million Series A this year.

Growth: A new experiential store in New York lets shoppers try out sofas while watching movies beside a fireplace. Burrow also partners with coworking spaces to get its couches into offices around the country.

Verdict: The modular approach works well for basics; expanding into more stylish interiors will be tricky.

3. Interior Define, Chicago, 2014

Approach: Let shoppers customize their living, dining, or bedroom furnishings with different fabrics, finishes, and sizing options; furniture is made in China and delivered within 12 weeks (sofas start at $1,925).

Audience: Homemakers and interior designers attracted by the company’s AR visualization app.

Pedigree: Founder and CEO Rob Royer was an early employee at Bonobos, whose founder, Andy Dunn, participated in Interior Define’s $15 million Series B earlier this year.

Growth: Interior Define has six showrooms across the country, where customers can work with design specialists. Collabs with blogs like Apartment Therapy and The Everygirl build further awareness.

Verdict: The sheer number of options may overwhelm some customers.

4. The Inside, New York, 2018

Approach:Elevate a fairly standard collection of beds, chairs, and ottomans with on-demand textile-printing technology, allowing shoppers to choose from a Dorothy Draper-worthy collection of trendy patterns and designs.

Audience: Online influencers on a budget: chairs start at $299.

Pedigree: Cofounder and CEO Christiane Lemieux launched DwellStudio and was chief creative officer of Wayfair. Rent the Runway’s Jenny Fleiss andApartment Therapy founder Maxwell Ryan invested in the Inside’s seed round.

Growth: The brand has an outsize presence thanks to collaborations with fashion insiders including designer Clare V, French label Sezane, and Refinery29 cofounder Christene Barberich.

Verdict: The furniture range is limited, but the fabrics are perfect for an Instagram era.

Five people who work at the company famous for beautifully designed home sound equipment make their recommendations for great holiday gifts this year.

1. ROKR 3D Wooden Mechanical Puzzles

From $8.99, robotimeonline.com

“I love these puzzles [like the Marble Run Lift Coaster, $39.99]. I say they’re for my kids, but I always put them together while they watch.” –Christina Valente, Director, Corporate Beta Programs

2. Incense Pyres

$34, blackbirdballard.com

“If you want to give the gift of the ultimate home scent, nothing beats my hometown Seattle-based company Blackbird and its Mars incense cones–a rich, spicy, amberlike scent.” –Brian Beck, Global Head of Music

3. Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator Synthesizer

$49, teenageengineering.com

“The palm-size Pocket Operator is a great gift for any music lover interested in making beats on the go. It’s easy to use and no expert knowledge is needed–a perfect entry gift for those passionate about music making.” –Agnes Won, Senior UX Designer

Related:21 inspired holiday gift ideas from staff at 4 cool companies

4. Group Partner Painted Clay Flower Pot

$65, group-partner.com

“Made in Brooklyn, these pots come in many variations and are super fun.” –Jesse Johnson, General Manager, New York Store

5. Technivorm Moccamaster Coffee Brewer

$299.99, bedbathandbeyond.com

“A single manual button starts your brew and delivers consistent results. In a world filled with flashy gear, a return to the simple is a great way to start the day.” –Ryan Myers, Senior Product Manager

Need some gift-giving inspiration this year? We asked staff from four design-forward companies—Shinola, Sonos, Etsy and Mattel—to give us their suggestions.

Shinola: Koio Sneakers

From $178, koio.co

“Koio’s handcrafted Italian sneakers are classic low- and high-tops in great colorways. The company does cool collaborations, like the Game of Thrones low-top sneaker designed for HBO, and another collection inspired by the Beverly Hills Hotel.”–Kirk Black, NYC area manager

See Shinola’s complete gift picks here.

Sonos: ROKR 3D Wooden Mechanical Puzzles

From $8.99, robotimeonline.com

“I love these puzzles [like the Marble Run Lift Coaster, $39.99]. I say they’re for my kids, but I always put them together while they watch.”–Christina Valente, director, Corporate Beta Programs

See Sonos’s complete gift picks here.

Related: How these online furniture startups plan to win the sofa wars 

Mattel: Boosted Electric Skateboard

Starting at $749, boostedboards.com

“I often have to scoot around the Mattel campus, which spans several blocks, for meetings, presentations, and shoots. I love to kick it out on my Boosted board—good for anyone looking to upgrade their commute from mundane to magic-carpet-ride fun.”–Michael Kadile, product designer

See Mattel’s complete gift picks here.

Etsy: Reclamation Etchworks Glass Spirit Decanters

$295 for set of six, etsy.com

“The Variance decanter collection is equally great for groomsmen and holiday gifts. I typically fill the decanter with my friend’s favorite spirit—so, two gifts in one.”—Jeremy Toeman, Etsy, VP, product management

See Etsy’s complete gift picks here.

Just because you’re all grown up doesn’t mean you don’t still love toys. Here are five fun holiday gift ideas from folks at the iconic toy maker.

1. Boosted Electric Skateboard

Starting at $749, boostedboards.com

“I often have to scoot around the Mattel campus, which spans several blocks, for meetings, presentations, and shoots. I love to kick it out on my Boosted board—good for anyone looking to upgrade their commute from mundane to magic-carpet-ride fun.”–Michael Kadile, product designer

2. TC Electronic Ditto Stereo Looper

$129.99, guitarcenter.com

“This guitar pedal has a super-intuitive interface that allows even a hack like me to turn something into a musical loop that I can play over.”—Ed Duncan, head, Toy Box design and inventor relations

Related:21 inspired holiday gift ideas from staff at 4 cool companies

3. Moxi Lolly Roller Skates

$279, moxiskates.com

“I love supporting indie brands and companies started by women. I won’t lie, these Lolly skates are calling my name.” —Elena Wilson, design director, Barbie

4. Gudetama Fanny Pack

$32, sanrio.com

“The latest character from Sanrio, best known for Hello Kitty, Gude­tama is often depicted in funny, relatable situations that are made even more humorous by the fact that he is an egg. A great gift for those who don’t take life too seriously.”—Natasha Berling, VP, design, Toy Box

5. iXoost Speakers

From around $6,800, ixoost.it

“For the car enthusiast and music lover who has everything, consider these Bluetooth speakers made from the actual exhausts of high-performance cars.” —Ted Wu, VP, design, Hot Wheels

Five employees from the brand renowned for its classic retro aesthetic offer their suggestions for holiday gifts this year.

1. Koio Sneakers

From $178, koio.co

“Koio’s handcrafted Italian sneakers are classic low- and high-tops in great colorways. The company does cool collaborations, like the Game of Thrones low-top sneaker designed for HBO, and another collection inspired by the Beverly Hills Hotel.”–Kirk Black, NYC area manager

2. Faribault Wool Blanket

$200, faribaultmill.com

“It’s the perfect companion for weekend trips—durable, warm, and available in a variety of styles.”—Daniel Caudill, creative director

3. Dinosaur Designs Resin Bowl

From $50, dinosaurdesigns.com

“I’d buy literally anything from Dinosaur Designs. Their dish bowls for bits and bobs are so cute, with great price points.”—Ruthie Underwood, women’s design director

Related:21 inspired holiday gift ideas from staff at 4 cool companies

4. Sori Yanagi Stainless Steel Tongs

$19.80, amazon.com

“This is my all-time favorite cooking tool. I use them for everything.”—Whitney Delgado, VP, design

5. Clare V. Weekender Bag

$655, clarev.com

“I love the simplicity, practicality, and style of this bag, which works for both men and women. It comes in lots of colors that look even better monogrammed.”—Trish O’Callaghan, VP, communications

It looks like Julian Assange has been charged by United States authorities. What he’s going to be indicted for remains to be seen.

The upcoming indictment was reportedly supposed to be sealed, but due to some bizarre error, Assange’s name was mentioned in another unrelated case. This other court case, which was filed in Virginia, refers to existing criminal charges against him. According to a WikiLeaks tweet, this was a “cut-and-paste error.”

The court case Assange’s name pops up in says the case needs to be sealed “until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.” Yet because of this mistake, the cat seems to be out of the bag.

For years, Assange has been trapped in Ecuador’s embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden over charges of sexual assault. He has also been wanted in the U.S. for publishing classified cables and other documents. It seems Robert Mueller has also been investigating WikiLeaks for publishing hacked emails in 2016 from both Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department for the eastern district of Virginia would not comment to the Guardian about Assange’s indictment. The spokesperson did say: “The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.”

If you’re working and struggling with depression, you’re not alone. Over 16 million American adults suffer from depression, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, with the majority of those individuals in their prime working years. The median onset age for major depressive disorder is 32.5 years old.

Depression can cause difficulty concentrating, lead to feelings of exhaustion or being overwhelmed by your tasks. While some may attribute these symptoms to workplace stress, when the symptoms don’t go away outside work hours and begin to interfere with other areas of your life as well, it may be a sign that you’re suffering from depression and anxiety, two common mental health conditions that tend to go hand in hand.

According to Mental Health America, clinical depression costs the U.S. economy over $51 billion in workplace absenteeism and lost productivity. If left untreated, depression can be debilitating and harm your work performance, causing you to become even more anxious about your job stability or ability to move up the ladder.

Working with depression can feel like you’re slogging through the mud. Try these strategies to help you maintain your professionalism at work while coping with your depression symptoms.

Talk to your boss

While many individuals suffering with depression tend to be afraid to speak with their superiors about their mental health due to fears of being perceived as weak or incapable of doing their jobs, psychologist Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi says speaking with your boss or HR department is important to creating a work environment that works for you. She advises setting aside private time to speak with your boss, without any interruptions to discuss the issues you are having as well as any accommodations you may need in order to perform in your job. This may include additional time off, scheduled breaks, or for some, a more structured day. When discussing any accommodations, Benders-Hadi recommends focusing more on your ability to perform your job rather than specifics of symptoms you’re experiencing.

Take care of yourself

Developing a good self-care regime is extremely important in order to cope with depression and anxiety symptoms. Eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, exercising, and being social are critical coping mechanisms. Breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation can also help to calm your body when you’re feeling overwhelmed. There are several breathing exercise apps available that you can download and practice during a work break to help you cope throughout the day.

Organize your workday

To prepare yourself for the day and manage your depression symptoms, take the time to organize. Prioritize tasks, schedule frequent breaks, eliminate distractions, and break large projects into smaller, manageable pieces to better allow you to plan the day ahead.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Sanam Hafeez recommends scheduling your day based on when you are feeling your best. If your anxiety is high during the morning commute, for example, perhaps a shifted work schedule that has you coming into the office at 7 a.m. before rush hour, or, if early mornings aren’t your thing, around 11 a.m., after rush hour, and working until 8 p.m. may be an option. “The key is to know your best work situation where you’re most productive, less depressed or anxious, and have an open conversation to see what work arrangements can work,” says Hafeez.

Know your best times of day

Understanding when you are at your most productive can help you work through depression and anxiety. “If you know afternoons are more difficult for you to maintain focus, then get important tasks done first thing in the morning,” says Benders-Hadi.

Knowing your depression and anxiety triggers and when they are most likely to occur is also important to properly plan your day. “People who experience depression or anxiety in the morning may feel better turning the focus on meeting so they can interact with others and exchange ideas that may take their mind off what triggered the anxiety (a family issue or stressful commute),” says Hafeez. Others may want to focus on tasks and deliverables first thing in the morning and have meetings in the afternoon once they’ve crossed a few things off their to-do-list. Managing your workload means being mindful about when you’re at your best.

Rely on your support system

“It is incredibly important to have support from someone; your boss or coworkers, or people outside of the workplace entirely,” says Benders-Hadi. Depression can be an isolating experience. While you may feel like you need to cocoon yourself to avoid sharing details of your mental-health struggles with others, expanding your support system can be a valuable tool in your depression arsenal. “Often people can be feeling alone and unsupported, so it can be beneficial to reach out to others,” says Benders-Hadi. Schedule at least one or two social activities per week in your calendar.

Seek outside help

Acknowledge the struggles you are having, keeping in mind that mental health issues are nothing to be ashamed of. Finding a professional you can speak to is a great first step to tackling depression symptoms. Most Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) offer support for mental health concerns including depression and anxiety.

To have a chance of meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement, the world needs to scale up renewable energy six times faster than the current pace. One way to do that: Make it easier for anyone to support a large-scale solar or wind farm.

Power Ledger, an Australian startup that recently won Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge, plans to soon start selling tiny fractions of renewable energy plants to anyone who’s interested. “Presently, it’s quite hard for everyday people to invest in and co-own energy assets,” says Jemma Green, cofounder and chairman of the company. “It’s pretty much exclusively the domain of institutional investors.”

Early next year, the company plans to make its first offerings–portions of a commercial-scale solar farm and a grid-connected battery project in Australia–via cryptocurrency tokens on the blockchain. (If you have only a hazy understanding of what the blockchain is, here’s a detailed explainer.) “That will be the world’s first regulated crypto energy offering,” Green says. At a later point, customers will also be able to buy portions with dollars.

The company, like a handful of others, is already using blockchain to enable a peer-to-peer grid, a system that lets someone with solar panels sell excess power to their neighbors. In Japan, the company is using blockchain to help set up a virtual power plant. In California, it’s working with a utility to use blockchain to give electric car drivers carbon credits for charging their cars during the day, when there’s more renewable energy, instead of at night. But the new project uses blockchain to find a new source of funding for large-scale projects.

The product, called Asset Germination, will work with existing solar farms and other assets, rather than building new ones, because that’s less risky for Power Ledger’s retail investors. Sophisticated investors can separately take on new projects, where there’s the risk that a developer might not be able to complete construction or might not find customers to buy the electricity. Retail investors will only buy assets that are already up and running. The process helps spur the growth of renewables because developers can use the cash from the sale to build new projects more quickly than would otherwise be possible.

Typically, selling a solar or wind farm to institutional investors is a slow process. “It’s very time consuming, and there aren’t that many buyers, because it’s a large asset in terms of how it’s packaged,” Green says. “But in fractionalizing it into some portions and putting that token on an exchange, that makes the asset more liquid.” The power plant (or battery, or other renewable energy asset) will operate like a trust, with a custodian managing the plant for investors. Investors will get returns as the electricity is sold, and the blockchain–which creates an immutable ledger of transactions–will make the process transparent and secure.

Using the blockchain is also a way to tap into the huge amount of money flowing into crypto markets–often for questionable ideas like Bananacoin, a digital token pegged to the price of bananas, or occasionally outright scams, like OneCoin, a Ponzi scheme that raised hundreds of millions of dollars. “A lot of the investment propositions in crypto are very high risk and will potentially turn out to very little, in a similar way to what occurred with the tech stock boom in the early 2000s,” Green says. “I think that crypto holders are interested in real assets.”

It’s one of a small but growing number of approaches to crowdfund cleantech. One new site is attempting to build a version of Kickstarter for large renewable energy projects. Some researchers are exploring the idea of using the blockchain to bypass the middleman in funding new infrastructure in the developing world. “The public financing of infrastructure because it is an absolutely broken, and I would argue, in many, many parts of the world, completely corrupt process,” says Michael Casey, a senior advisor for the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT Media Lab, who helped launch a research project to look at using blockchain to build solar microgrids in Puerto Rico. Neighborly, a Bay Area startup that is trying to democratize municipal bonds, has worked with small investors to fund projects like a massive wind farm in Utah and hydropower in Ohio.

For Power Ledger, the new project is a way to accelerate the shift to a zero-carbon economy in the tiny window of time that’s left to avoid catastrophic climate change. “I hope that it can play a decisive factor in helping to meet the Paris climate goals,” says Green.

Amazon’s decision to locate two new “headquarters” in Long Island City in Queens, New York and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia has already provoked a firestorm of outrage, especially over the news that tax breaks and other subsidies for the sites will exceed $4.6 billion.

That makes it the fourth-costliest megadeal in U.S. history, just behind the Foxconn deal in Wisconsin (which is melting down and may never qualify for many of its tax breaks).

Voices as disparate as the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity and Democratic Socialist Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have denounced the incentive deals and called for no subsidies to a company headed by the world’s richest person.

The costs are high, both in absolute terms and on a per-job basis, contrary to Amazon’s artful spin. In a classic example of cost-benefit apples and oranges, citing only one New York State incentive, Amazon said the sum “equates to $48,000 per job for 25,000 jobs with an average wage of over $150,000…” Of course, wages cannot be compared to tax breaks since employees pay only a small percentage of their salaries as taxes to offset the tax breaks. And the cost per job in New York is actually at least $112,000–and that is not a full accounting.

Oddly, Amazon’s own press release includes information about its economic development incentives. Such information normally comes only from governors or mayors. It suggests Amazon is trying hard to control the narrative about the cost-benefit numerator, i.e., to minimize the perceived subsidy costs while maximizing the benefits.

Minimizing the costs and maximizing the benefits

Indeed, besides the cost-benefit sleight of hand, the company’s press release mentions but fails to price-tag three large New York subsidies. One is the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program. REAP gives companies a per-employee tax credit of $3,000 per year for up to 12 years, and Amazon projects hiring 25,000 employees. Accordingly, the New York City press release puts the REAP cost at $897 million.

Amazon also downplayed the city’s Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP), which, like REAP is an “as of right,” or automatic subsidy that a company receives simply by performing an eligible activity. ICAP partially abates property taxes for up to 25 years, an enormous subsidy if Amazon builds $3.6 billion worth of space, as projected. The City estimates the ICAP subsidy at $386 million.

New York is also granting Amazon a Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT. Akin to a tax increment financing district, some of Amazon’s property taxes will be diverted away from the city’s general fund and instead be used to enhance the project area, further enhancing Amazon’s property value. Neither Amazon’s statement nor the City estimated the value of this subsidy, which could also reach nine figures.

Separately, the state award under the Excelsior program is projected at $1.525 billion to $1.7 billion.

Also unstated: The Long Island City project site is in an Opportunity Zone (a new federal giveaway hidden in Trump’s tax bill). So high-net-worth individuals who have large unrealized capital gains (e.g., long-term Amazon shareholders) can invest in the project and avoid federal capital gains tax. We have no estimate of this cost. In Virginia, both of Arlington’s Opportunity Zones are close to the Amazon site.

The Amazon press release also failed to mention an entire new campus close to its Arlington site, announced on HQ2 day by Virginia Tech University and Gov. Ralph Northam. It will cost $1 billion and “was part of the higher education package affiliated with the proposal that led to the selection of Crystal City in Northern Virginia as one of the two new Amazon headquarters locations,” according to Virginia Tech’s press release.

(UPDATE: A rep for Virginia Tech sent the following statement to clarify its role: “The university and the state both committed to provide $250 million to seed the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. The remaining funding model requires private philanthropy, industry partnerships, and the creation of other revenue streams by leveraging the innovative shared spaces of the campus plan. The buildout for the $1 billion campus is expected to take 10-15 years and more than half of that money is expected to come from non-public funds.”)

These four omissions alone–REAP, ICAP, PILOT and the Virginia Tech campus–push the taxpayer costs of the two deals to above $4.6 billion, and we expect more such costs will be disclosed.

A cynical ploy to gin up pressure for more tax breaks

New York also states that $2.4 billion in infrastructure improvements had recently been announced in Long Island City.

Big picture: Amazon‘s decision looks like textbook Site Location 101 and a teachable moment about the zero-sum “economic war among the states.” To no surprise, Amazon chose two deep pools of executive talent and political power: the nation’s financial capital and its government capital. The 238-city competition clearly looks to have been a cynical ploy to gin up pressure for more tax breaks on the finalist cities and states.

The Virginia location is very close to the Pentagon and not far from the Central Intelligence Agency, two of its most profitable cloud-computing clients. And as Prof. Scott Galloway has noted, Amazon’s three headquarters will be an average of just 6.4 miles from CEO Jeff Bezos’s three residences.

The cities making the biggest known subsidy offers did not win the deal: Montgomery County, Maryland at $8.5 billion; St. Louis at $7.3 billion; or Newark at $7 billion. But the pressure of those and other big subsidy offers helped Amazon once again get paid to do what it apparently would have done anyway.

The same is true of $1.6 billion in subsidies it has gotten to build data centers and warehouses, even though it must have such facilities to fulfill its cloud-computing and Prime business plans.

I urge the 235 places that “lost” HQ2, to disclose their first-round bids for HQ2. They are not covered by non-disclosure agreements. You put enormous amounts of time and money into developing these proposals and now they should be repurposed. Toronto disclosed its proposal long ago; it has been downloaded 17,200 times and has helped attract other tech employers.

We are also seeing a new flow of such disclosures. For example, Pennsylvania finally capitulated to Freedom of Information litigation and disclosed elements of its offer made in support of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. As we’d opined recently, the state’s offer included a “paying taxes to the boss” subsidy–of $4.5 billion!–in which Amazon would have kept some of the HQ2 employees’ state personal income taxes, presumably without the employees’ knowledge or consent.

Incredibly, the Pittsburgh bid has also just been disclosed: It was valued at $9.4 billion, making it the largest bid yet revealed–but we have many more to go!

Jeff Bezos is disrupting the economic development tax-break-industrial complex, but not in a way Corporate America may appreciate! Will blowback against his naked grab finally change the game? Stay tuned!

This story has been updated.

Greg LeRoy directs Good Jobs First and is author of The Great American Jobs Scam.

Because there’s no trace of financial hypocrisy in the administration that ran on populism and passed a tax cut for billionaires, conservative pundits have turned their attention to freshperson congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The democratic socialist ran on a platform of economic and social reform, and won in part because her would-be constituents recognized someone fluent in their own financial struggle. Since winning, Ocasio-Cortez has proven even more relatable, admitting that she currently can’t afford to move to D.C. because her government salary won’t kick in for months. Somehow, this is the comment that reporters from Fox News, who appear to accept every Trump quote as gospel, are hell-bent on poking holes in.

“Ocasio-Cortez claims she can’t afford D.C. apartment, but records show she has at least $15,000 in savings,” screamed one Fox News headline. It’s supposed to be a gotcha moment, but it actually serves to make Ocasio-Cortez look more credible. (She only has $15,000. The moving costs only could easily wipe out 1/5 of her savings in one go.) I’d assumed Fox News paid its employees exceptionally well–I mean, something has to help them sleep at night–but apparently it’s the channel’s official position that $15,000 is a literal embarrassment of riches. How dare she pretend she can’t afford to move just yet when she has almost enough money in the bank to buy a Toyota Tercel!

Even more offending than this Fox News headline is what Twitter-sleuthing Eddie Scarry posted on Thursday. The Washington Examiner reporter tweeted a picture of Ocasio-Cortez taken from behind, with the following caption: “Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now. I’ll tell you something: That jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.”

Obviously, the only struggle here is Eddie Scarry and his ilk struggling to find a way to turn Ocasio-Cortez into a boogeywoman. This isn’t scrutiny; it’s stalking, and it’s creepy. Before he deleted the tweet, and followed it up with a pitiful backpedal, Scarry found himself elevated to the upper tier of the Ratio pantheon–with thousands more Twitterers digitally yelling at him than liking or retweeting him.

One person who wasn’t yelling at Scarry, though, was Ocasio-Cortez.

The congressperson-elect appears to conserve her anger for the issues she’s most passionate about–taking Amazon to task for its plan to disrupt New York City with HQ2, for instance, or pressuring Nancy Pelosi to act on climate change. These are causes that require her full attention and earnest outrage.

When it comes to Twitter trolls trying to take her down a peg, though, she brushes them off with an easy grace and wit that recalls Don Draper’s famous “I don’t think about you at all” line on Mad Men, letting fans get mad on her behalf.

Ocasio-Cortez's superpower is making conservatives admit that they think only rich people should have clothes and housinghttps://t.co/c10OJ8ffSL

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) November 15, 2018

This past summer, when Pinocchio-if-the-Koch-brothers-were-Geppetto Ben Shapiro kept insisting on Twitter that Ocasio-Cortez debate him, she didn’t capitulate or get mad. Instead, she compared his pestering to catcalling and moved on with her life. Earlier this week, when Fox News tried to scare its viewers about Ocasio-Cortez’s positions, with a graphic citing her desire for free healthcare and tuition, she turned it back around on them. And then there’s her response to this latest attack.

First she tweeted about why the Scarry tweet existed in the first place and chided him for deleting it without apologizing, then she offered a response that was savvy, casually hilarious, and seemed to be tossed off effortlessly. It’s this one that proved most instructive.

By early evening on Thursday, Scarry’s tweet had achieved low-key meme status, with Twitterers posting images of famous coats alongside his original caption. One of these apparently caught Ocasio-Cortez’s attention, and she sent the quote-tweet featured below.

.@Seinfeld2000 here is the episode you asked for https://t.co/mWWYdbM4Gy

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 15, 2018

Usually when politicians attempt humor, they are so out of touch and unfunny that it comes off as grotesque. Whether you find Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet funny is subjective, but it’s undeniably plugged into the culture. It reveals a firm grasp on insta-meme culture, and a familiarity with the Seinfeld Current Day account (which is a parody of the more popular, but now defunct Modern Seinfeld account.)

Ocasio-Cortez’s trolls may be beneath her contempt, but that won’t stop her from briefly dunking on them before moving on to what really matters.

Singapore may be turning its island state into a surveillance state.

The nation plans to install cameras equipped with facial recognition technology to all 110,000 lamp posts around the city, making it easier than ever for the country to keep tabs on its citizens and visitors, Reuters reports. The so-called “Lamppost-as-a-Platform” pilot project will allow the government to “perform crowd analytics” and support anti-terror operations through “various kinds of sensors on the lampposts, including cameras that can support backend facial recognition capabilities,” according to a government spokesperson who spoke to Reuters.

GovTech, the Singapore government agency in charge of the program, is reportedly still looking for the right technology, but wants to begin piloting the program next year as part of a broader “Smart Nation” plan that uses cutting-edge tech to “improve people’s lives.”

While anyone who has watched Person of Interest knows that widespread camera surveillance is common in London and New York, Singapore’s system will reportedly be closer to China’s surveillance tech and use the most extensive facial recognition technology to date. That is enough to raise privacy concerns among rights groups.

Singapore has pledged to be sensitive to privacy, but the advances in technology that would allow it to identify a face in a crowd, is making many privacy-consious people nervous.

New York City may be home of the Pizza Rat and one of the stinkiest waste infrastructure problems in the country, but it’s also one of only five major U.S. cities with water that’s drinkable straight from the tap, and clean enough to forgo additional filtration. It’s a rare urban asset, one that inspired architect Tei Carpenter and designer Chris Woebken to reimagine the everyday fire hydrant as something that could be used more broadly.

Through a series of playful, bright blue fixtures and simple, easily attached extensions, the duo transform fire hydrants into public drinking fountains and sprinklers that they hope to have installed around the city. In one of three variants of the concept, the hydrant is retrofitted to be a water fountain for all, with taps for humans, pets, and even birds; in another, it serves as a fill station for water bottles, addressing the mounting plastic waste crisis. In the third, the designers cleverly attach a sprinkler head to the hydrant, playfully addressing the way they’re already used by locals in the summer, cracked open during block parties or sweltering afternoons as a respite from the heat.

While Carpenter and Woebken’s New Public Hydrant project is currently a proposed concept, the designers make a good case for its viability. And in fact, the project itself was largely inspired by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s recent Water-On-the-Go pilot program, which has installed pop-up public fountains around the city to urge residents to drink from the city’s taps, rather than loading up on plastic bottles.

“There’s an interest in looking at small-scale infrastructure that’s already there,” says Carpenter of the practical hydrant hack, “and through the Water-On-the-Go program, we wanted to reimagine this idea through an intervention.”

Clean public drinking water is far from a common urban resource. For that reason, the designers caution that the New Public Hydrant is, for now, a city-specific project that serves to renew an awareness and appreciation for the overlooked resource, and the “invisible” infrastructure that brings it into our homes.

Carpenter and Woebken’s project is among several speculative designs that have been proposed as part of “Water Futures,” a yearlong research program of talks, events, and installations on the global drinking water crisis, curated by British design historian Jane Withers, at the Mini-backed design incubator A/D/O in Brooklyn. According to a 2012 UN Water Report, an estimated 1.8 billion people–close to a fourth of the world’s population–will be living in countries with water scarcity in 2025.

The Rotterdam studio Ooze Architects has presented a series of research vignettes investigating urban water systems, while Studio Swine reimagines water fountains as heightened pieces of public art that celebrate water infrastructure. Earlier this year, an installation by Arabeschi di Latte presented a series of “water tastings” that made use natural water filtration methods used in different regions of the world, ranging from cilantro and sap wood to black charcoal. Meanwhile, rotating talks and panel discussions have brought experts from across disciplines as a resource for designers to contextualize larger issues surrounding the water crisis, and empower them to take part in providing solutions through design.

“I’ve long been interested in water and how designers could help shape a more sustainable, but also a sort of more pleasurable future–bringing water back into the center of our lives, because we’ve tended to have made it an invisible, industrial liquid, and we’re a bit surprised when the taps run dry, to say the least,” Withers says, in reference to the severe water crisis that hit Cape Town earlier this year. Set to run through December, “Water Futures” will culminate at year’s end with a research paper of its findings.

“Obviously, many of the ways we were thinking about using water aren’t appropriate for the future,” added Withers. “There’s a real scope for design to engage, along with water scientists, hydrologists, engineers, geographers, and all other sorts of other people, but there’s a lot of work to be done to reimagine the future.”

When Tanaya Winder earned her Master of Fine Arts in 2012, she knew she wanted to make a living writing and performing spoken word. But without any blueprint to follow, she questioned whether she’d be able to translate all the years she’d spent studying creative writing and poetry into a viable career.

Today, Winder is a entrepreneur, author, and educator. She runs a management agency representing fellow Native American artists and also tours the country lecturing and performing her own work. Her recent travels have brought her to actress America Ferrera’s New York City book launch (Ferrera’s new anthology, American
Like Me, features one of Winder’s essays), and to a New Mexico middle school to speak with a class whose teacher has incorporated Winder’s poetry book into the curriculum.

While she continues to face plenty of obstacles forging a largely uncharted path, she has come to appreciate the success you can unlock by converting challenges into opportunities.

Here, in honor of Native American Heritage Month, Winder and other Native American professionals share how to reframe common workplace obstacles.

Cultivate community as you create your own road map

Upon realizing the navigable career path she’d been searching for after graduate school didn’t exist, Winder says she tapped into the creativity and resiliency of her ancestors to adopt a new approach: If you don’t have the space you need, create it.

A critical part of rejecting the limits of what seemed possible was seeking out others in similar situations for support. “That way you don’t have to figure it out alone. And as you do start to figure things out and create new pathways, you can share them,” Winder says. Largely by way of social media, she began connecting with fellow creatives. In particular, she discovered the power of Facebook groups for artists of color.

In 2015, after a few years of cultivating informal “friendtor” networks, Winder banded together with a handful of other Native artists and musicians to launch a formal management agency, the Dream Warriors Collective. While the artists’ performance genres of choice vary, they find enormous value in navigating the arts and entertainment industry together. They bolster each other’s visibility, swap best practices, and help protect one another from being taken advantage of or tokenized.

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A post shared by Tanaya Winder (@tanayawinder) on Dec 18, 2017 at 9:04am PST

Winder now makes a point to tell others what she wishes someone had told her: No matter what field you pursue, you will face professional hurdles at all stages of your career. That’s all the more reason to cultivate peer and mentor communities. It can be as simple as posing a question or sharing a resource on Twitter using niche hashtags (for example, #POCcreatives) that may lead you to others. “It’s about giving yourself permission to dream, ask for and offer help, and do,” Winder says.

Invert teachable moments

Megan Red Shirt-Shaw is familiar with the experience of being the only Native American individual in a particular room. A member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, she previously worked in college admissions, and as she pursues a doctorate in higher education at the University of Minnesota, she remains committed to increasing Native representation and retention in classrooms and workplaces. She’s also well aware of the challenges that come with navigating micro-aggressions and institutional biases on top of an already full workload. After years of feeling the pressure of being the only Native person in different contexts at predominantly white institutions, she realized something had to change.

She opted to reframe the constant pressure she felt to debunk stereotypes and educate her colleagues about Native American identity and culture. Instead of attempting to represent an entire population, Red Shirt-Shaw now approaches the moments when she feels like “the only” in a room as opportunities to share the onus with members of the majority.

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Sep. 27 is #NativeWomenEqualPay Day. It represents the fact that, on average, Indigenous women are paid just 57% of what white men are paid. We're all phenomenal women, and we all deserve equal pay for equal work. Get this tee and support the Native Voices Rising Fund to benefit organizing, advocacy, and civic engagement in American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. @phenomenal.ly

A post shared by Megan Red Shirt-Shaw (@mredshirtshaw) on Sep 27, 2018 at 9:00am PDT

She does this by elevating the work of relevant experts and empowering her colleagues to seek out several different voices and perspectives. If she’s the only Native individual in a discussion about contemporary Indigenous identities, for example, she’ll clarify that she’s speaking for herself, rather than as a definitive authority on Native American identity politics. Then she’ll refer people to the work of relevant Indigenous scholars, writers, and activists.

Now, she encourages others feeling similar pressures to come to an important realization: You don’t always need to single-handedly shoulder that burden. You can still speak up, share your opinion, and be an activist. By pointing to outside resources, you can empower others to source diverse perspectives to educate themselves. “I hope it makes them feel like they have more work to do together, as opposed to listening to one Native person,” she says. “Then it’s their responsibility to do the growing and knowledge seeking.”

Fill a void in a way that serves your community

When Dennis Worden was working in tribal policy and economic development in Washington, D.C., he knew of several established tribal officials and other successful Native professionals he admired. Yet he seldom saw positive representations of them in mainstream media.

“You could read career lessons from Steve Jobs online,” says Worden, a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe now working in corporate policy in Arkansas. “But as a Native professional, there’s not a ton of media featuring success stories from people who look like you and are from the communities you’re from.”

Instead of seeking out individual role models’ advice ad hoc and solely for his own gain, Worden saw an opportunity to address the problem on a larger scale. From his home, he started recording NextGen Native, a podcast featuring his one-on-one conversations with Native professionals in the corporate world across a range of industries and locales. Featuring one guest per episode, he created a natural, consistent opportunity to seek advice from people he admired.

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Hyping myself up for podcast convo after a day's work. It's a grind but so worth it. #nativeawesome #podcasting

A post shared by Dennis Worden (@dword03) on Oct 20, 2016 at 5:18pm PDT

A self-described introvert, Worden found that setting up a community-facing platform gave him reason to push himself out of his comfort zone. He not only got access to the advice he and others were seeking, but he expanded his network and elevated his profile as a leader in and beyond the Native American community.

In the process of creating 100 episodes, he also learned audio production and marketing skills. Whether he was interviewing Native leaders like former U.S. ambassador Keith Harper, getting feedback from Native youth, or receiving inbound encouragement from non-Native leaders like Cecilia Muñoz, director of the Obama White House’s Domestic Policy Council, he was continuously excited to see the fruits of his side hustle.

Once you identify a gap, think through how you might fill it in a way that serves your personal goals and your community. “If you find a challenge you’re passionate about, you likely have a lot more capacity than you realize to take it on yourself,” says Worden. “The question to ask yourself is: Do I want to take on this challenge? Not, ‘Do I have the ability?'”

Katie S. Sanders is a freelance journalist whose reporting pursuits have brought her to Norwegian prisons, JDate, and the White House South Lawn. Follow her on Twitter at @katiessanders.

Though the holidays are a popular time for workers to cash in on their vacation days, there are plenty of good reasons not to take time off toward the end of the year. For one thing, holiday travel can be prohibitively expensive, so if you’re looking to visit friends and family, the latter part of the year is perhaps the worst time to do so. Additionally, putting in more face time toward the end of the year can work to your advantage when your manager is focused on things like promotions and raises. And, you’ll probably find that you’re more productive when the ever-present distractions known as your coworkers disappear.

Then again, there’s a downside to having the office all to yourself, and it’s getting dumped on when everyone else is away. If you’re worried that your life is going to be miserable during the holidays because your coworkers will be gone, here’s how to mitigate that concern.

1. Set boundaries

When many of your colleagues take off at the same time, somebody has to pick up the slack. And chances are, that somebody will be you. That said, you shouldn’t have to drive yourself utterly crazy trying to manage your own job plus the work of six other people, so before your colleagues leave, sit them and your boss down and set some ground rules. Explain that while you’re happy to help out, you can only do so much, especially if you have your own deadlines to meet. With any luck, your manager will recognize the tough spot you’re being put in and figure out a way to more equitably divvy up the load so you don’t get slammed.

At the same time, let your colleagues know that while you’d like to serve as a backup for each and every one of them, you can’t help everyone at the same time. This way, it’ll be on them to duke it out and see who gets to ask you for coverage, as opposed to you having to make that decision.

2. Talk to your boss about getting temporary help

It’s common to see a lot of empty desks at the office around the holidays, but if you’re concerned about keeping up with your workload in the absence of much of your team, try suggesting to your boss that you hire some temps to help compensate. Whether your manager says yes will probably be a function of your company’s budget, but if there’s wiggle room to get some extra hands on deck, and you’re willing to train those temps, it might ease the burden on you.

3. Keep your eyes on the big picture

Getting overloaded with work is no fun, especially when it happens because you’re frantically trying to cover for everyone who’s out. At the same time, recognize that in doing all of that work, you’re making a good impression on your boss while building some goodwill with your coworkers. And remember, if you push yourself to step up and cover other people’s workloads when they’re away, they’ll return the favor when it’s your turn to be out.

There’s no question about it: It’s hard being left behind at the office while your colleagues all take time off for the holidays. At the same time, that influx of work you might have to cope with isn’t a long-term or permanent change, so if you can survive the next bunch of weeks, your officemates will be back before you know it.

This article originally appeared on The Motley Fool and is reprinted with permission.

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