Comment on 9 great reads from CNET this week - CNET

The largest fireworks show of the year will ignite from barges on New York City’s Hudson River. The problem with staging the biggest Fourth of July fireworks show in the country? You’re essentially in a perpetual small arms race with yourself. At the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks show in New York City, the metropolitan canvas is the same every year.

Imran Amed talks about the tumult at Shein and fashion’s role in the climate crisis on the latest episode of the ‘Rapid Response’ podcast. The fashion world is at a sudden inflection point. Big luxury players are struggling, e-commerce markets are floundering, and ultrafast players like Shein are disrupting. The Business of Fashion’s Imran Amed takes us inside the tumult, providing a framework to understand the trends and their larger economic impact.

Hugues Bruyère shows how human-machine collaboration can produce wondrous things. I’ve spent the last hour glued to the screen, mesmerized by the art of Hugues Bruyère. I kept looking at his video loops again and again, scrolling down his Threads homepage, hypnotized. I’ve never seen anyone merge physical media and artificial intelligence like this—turning the technology into a true artistic tool that actually makes sense and is pretty.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were stuck in their homes and social distancing was common, fireworks use shot up. It’s almost the Fourth of July—a day of parades, barbecues, and, of course, fireworks. But while parades and barbecues are still very popular, shockingly, this year fireworks are less so.

Any major highway project in the state must work to limit emissions and boost alternative modes of transportation. Highway planners consider a lot of factors when building out new roads: What’s the landscape like? How many drivers will the road serve? What will it cost? How will it affect the local economy?

Enlarge (credit: Roman Studio) Because most things about Earth change so slowly, it's difficult to imagine them being any different in the past. But Earth's rotation has been slowing due to tidal interactions with the Moon, meaning that days were considerably shorter in the past. It's easy to think that a 22-hour day wouldn't be all that different, but that turns out not to be entirely true. For example, some modeling has indicated that certain day lengths will be in resonance with other effects caused by the planet's rotation, which can potentially offset the drag caused by the tides.