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The likelihood that everyone in your office has the same shoe size is probably really low. Between differences in height, gender, and age, shoe sizes can vary widely. So when all of your officemates are using the same standard desks and chairs, it would track that a lot of people find that their work environment doesnt quite fit right either. Compounding this problem is the fact that the average American spends approximately eight to nine hours a day sitting at work. No wonder 42% to 69% of office workers are estimated to have neck pain and 31% to 51% to have lower back pain. Some of the main risk factors that are leading to those injuries are awkward and non-neutral postures, says Lora Cavuoto, director of University at Buffalos Ergonomics and Biomechanics Lab. Luckily, learning some of the basics from the field of ergonomics can help you adjust your working environment and lower your risk of developing long-term injuries from sitting improperly at work. Here are some ways Cavuoto recommends adjusting your work environment: 1. Maintain a neutral position To begin assessing how ergonomically your office set up is, its important to begin by finding your bodys neutral position. When your body is in neutral posture, your joints are aligned and there is minimal stress on your muscles, tendons, bones, and nerves. When sitting at a desk, this means positioning yourself so that your feet are resting on the floor, you are sitting up straight with your head aligned with your shoulders and hips, your shoulders and neck are relaxed, and your elbows and knees are at 90 degrees. If your chair and desk do not comfortably allow you to maintain this position, you should consider making some adjustments. Lets say your table is too high, for example, says Cavuoto. Then, in order to rest your arms on the table, you’re winging your arms out so you’re needing to hold up the weight of your arms. All the muscles in your neck and your shoulders really need to engage to do that. Or if your chair is too high and your legs are hanging . . . then you might be putting pressure on the back of the knee, and that can lead to some stopping of blood flow down to the feet, causing your feet to fall asleep. The solutions for these can be as simple as adjusting your chair height or adding a foot rest under your desk. Adding a box under your desk so that you raise your feet to get your knees into a good position and rest your feet on the ground, or adding a riser to your monitor so that it’s in a good position for you to look comfortably are low-budget ways that can make a big difference, says Cavuoto. Its also important to consider how these adjustments may need to differ from day to day depending on what you are wearing and what tasks you are completing. One thing we often forget is if you wear different shoes, you may need to adjust the height of your chair, or add or remove a foot rest, Cavuoto says. Even if you’re switching from using a keyboard to writing something on a piece of paper, you might need to adjust the chair a little bit so that your arms are in a better position, because . . . the keyboard has maybe an inch or 2 of elevation. 2. Move your body regularly Even if you did maintain perfect neutral sitting posture throughout the workday, you might still encounter problems like blood pooling in parts of your body if you arent moving enough to circulate it. Additionally, sitting for long uninterrupted periods of time can lead to your blood sugar levels rising, causing the body to release insulin. Over time, as the body gets used to this, this could lead to inflammation and plaque buildup in your arteries. Cavuoto recommends getting up and taking regular movement breaks throughout the day to avoid these adverse effects. She also recommends paying special attention to areas of the body that tend to be under a lot of stress over the workday. Doing regular wrist extensor and wrist flexor exercises are important to stretch those tendons and ligaments in the wrists to reduce pain for people who spend a lot of time typing, she says. Similarly, she recommends taking a few moments throughout the day to stretch your neck. 3. Use a chair with proper back support Using chairs without good back support for long periods of time can put a lot of stress on your back and leg muscles to hold up your body. If you dont have fully fit core musculature, [and] you’re engaging those muscles all the time . . . those muscles can be tired, causing you to slouch and put pressure on your spine and other muscles, Cavuoto says. If youre able to choose your work chair, she recommends looking for one that can recline and has a headrest which allows you more flexibility to relieve pressure and adjust your body throughout the day. That allows you to rest your neck, your head, and your shoulders . . . so you can offload that head weight right off your neck, she says. 4. Consider your lighting environment Its important to note the impact that lighting has on our eyes throughout the day. Eye strain can cause a number of unpleasant effects, from migraines to neck and shoulder pain. While an office setting likely provides more even lighting conditions, Cavuoto says that a lot of people dont think about light sources as much when working from home. She recommends setting up your work environment with lighting that you can control over the day and to avoid settings that cause strong glare off your screen. 5. Use a monitor or a laptop screen, not both I don’t really use my laptop screen at all, actually, says Cavuoto. While using an external monitor is helpful because it enlarges the screen, another challenge when youre using a laptop and an external monitor on a desk is that the laptop is down on the surface and the monitor is a little bit raised. Ideally, to maintain a neutral posture, your screen should be at eye level. But when switching between a laptop and monitor, you may experience some neck pain and eye strain from switching focus between two screens at different heights and scales. If you dont have access to a monitor, try raising your laptop on a stand or stacking books underneath it to get it to eye level.
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E-Commerce
Fast Company has been covering a sea change in American business over the last 15 years or so. Companies big and small have embraced the idea that they ought to be accountable not just to shareholders but to all stakeholdersincluding workers, customers, communities, suppliers, and the planet. Some refer to it as stakeholder capitalism. Others like conscious capitalism. And for those of you who prefer woke capitalism, hey, thanks for joining us. But then, within the last year or two, it all fell apart. Even before Trump retook the presidency, CEOs had begun shuttering DEI programs and climate initiatives, and clamming up about the greater good they were pursuing. What happened? How did a megatrend that transformed boardrooms and C-suites unravel so rapidly? Thats the big question we asked James Surowiecki to dissect in this issues cover story, How Business for Good Went Bad.” Surowiecki, a veteran business journalist and author of The Wisdom of Crowds, does not disappoint. He deftly explicates a number of questions inside the big one. Perhaps the most disturbing: Was corporate Americas embrace of stakeholder capitalism ever real in the first place? In addition to those big words on the cover, Id like to call your attention to some smaller type: Summer 2025. Yes, our print magazine is now quarterly, down from five issues last year. Id like to explain the thinking behind this change, and what it means for the print magazine. Theres no point in denying the obvious: Print media aint what it used to be. I wouldnt be much of a business journalist myself if I pretended otherwise. Fast Company is susceptible to the same shifting business dynamics and consumer behavior that have forced countless publishers to cut back or eliminate their print products. And yet! We still believe deeply in print. We know that it delivers a special kind of experience for readers, one that no other medium can match. The beautiful, tactile object you are holding was reported, written, edited, and designed specifically to allow you to engage with the latest ideas of the innovation economy without the distraction and chaos of the daily news cycle. Read it on the weekend, ideally in a hammock. The coverage areas will be familiar: tech, design, marketing and branding, creativity, social impact, the future of work, and more. But unlike the up-to-the-minute news coverage youll find on fastcompany.com and our social channels, the magazine offers a view from 30,000 feet. In every article, data report, photo essay, long-form interview, and list of recognition program winners, our reporters analyze and contextualize industry trends, take readers deep inside the worlds most compelling companies, and mine the wisdom of the business leaders who are building tomorrows world today. We hope you enjoy it, and we welcome your feedback at editor@fastcompany.com. Mnuka Slab was designed in 2021 by Kris Sowersby for Klim Type Foundry A playful punch For this issues headline typeface, we chose Mnuka Slab. Its tall, condensed proportions are like a typographic punch in the guts, says designer Kris Sowersby, making it perfect for an issue that explores how stakeholder capitalism got the wind knocked out of it. Mnuka is inspired by 19th-century wood type, evoking posters that promoted the circus and civil protest. But it has a lighter side: Check out the pigtail of the uppercase Q and the ball terminal of the Jfitting for the issues tribute to Sharpie markers. And like Sharpies, condensed typefaces never go out of style. Mike Schnaidt, creative director
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China is developing robotic guards for its Tiangong space station. Equipped with small thrusters, these AI-powered robotic beasts are being developed to intercept and physically shove suspicious objects away from its orbital outpost. It’s a deceptively simple but ingenious step towards active space defense in an increasingly militarized domain. Rather than firing directed energy weapons like lasers or projectiles, which will turn the potential invader into a cloud of deadly shrapnel flying at 21 times the speed of sound, the Chinese have thought of a very zen reed that bends in the wind kind of approach. The bots will grapple a threatening object and lightly push it out of harm’s way. Elegant space jiu-jitsu rather than brute kickboxing. The announcement, made by scientist Sun Zhibin of China’s National Space Science Centre during a recent talk at Nanjing University of Science and Technology, comes as recent Pentagon reports reveal that China has already staged the first-ever satellite combat operations in low-Earth orbit. It marks a decisive shift from passive space exploration and coexistence to active territorial control at orbital altitudes. Beijing indicates that it is not arming its space station out of aggression, but as a response to recent threats by a Starlink satellite, which grazed the Tiangong, prompting evasive maneuvers and strong formal protest in the UN by the Chinese delegation. However, it would be naive not to see it as part of the ongoing effort to dominate space by force, which is now ongoing in Russia, the United States, and China. [Photo: Getty Images] A logical design Chinas solution is actually the only possible design that makes sense. On Earth, when you destroy an aerial object, it falls to the ground, where it stays forever thanks to gravity. But firing a projectile at an object approaching a space station wouldnt end a threatit would unleash chaos. Imagine this: A bullet, no larger than your fist, streaks toward an incoming satellite. They collide not with a Hollywood explosion, but a silent, hyper-violent shattering. At orbital speeds10 times faster than a rifle roundthe impact vaporizes metal, scattering a storm of razor-edged fragments in all directions. Each shard, now a new projectile, inherits the objects original velocity. Some scream toward the void; others carve lethal arcs back toward the station, peppering its hull like cosmic shotgun pellets. This isnt just debris. Its a permanent minefield that doesnt go away. Those fragments dont slow down. They dont fall. They loop around Earth for decades, crossing orbits like invisible shrapnel. One piece tears through a solar panel, crippling a satellite. Another punches into a fuel tank, triggering a secondary explosion. The cascade begins: each new collision spawns more debris, more weapons. Low-Earth orbitonce a highway of discoverybecomes a junkyard of spinning blades, making space travel impossible for centuries to come. This doomsday scenario is what its technically known as the Kessler effect, which was formulated in 1978 by NASA scientists Donald J. Kessler and Burton G. Cour-Palais. Firing a laseror any other form of directed energy beamwouldnt stop the incoming object either (to be strictly correct, it would eventually, as light exerts a force on objects, but it would take years, so its not useful for this defense scenario). Sun’s proposal, however, would theoretically work perfectly. First, its not only about space robots. It outlines a tiered response protocol that transforms space station defense from reactive to proactive operations. When sensors and ground control detect an approaching object, the system initiates a comprehensive intent assessment phase, analyzing the intruder’s trajectory, velocity changes, and behavioral patterns to determine whether the approach represents deliberate reconnaissance, accidental drift, or potential collision threat. The assessment feeds into a decision matrix that weighs multiple response options, ranging from subtle evasive maneuvers and orbital adjustments to the deployment of what Sun describes as specialized robotic thrusterssomething Im calling space guard dogs. These bots are the most cinematic capability of the defense, involving physical interception. You can think about these space guard dogs as autonomous directional thrusters like the ones that Apollo astronauts used to maneuver the Apollo Command Module or the Lunar Module. The engineers have not presented the design for these bots yet, but they describe small thrusters equipped with sensors, a docking mechanism, and artificial intelligence. After launching from the Tiangong and intercepting the suspicious object, the bots docking mechanismmost likely a grapplewill latch onto the intruders. Once securely attached, the thrusters will fire in a controlled propulsion burn to push targets into safer trajectories, like a tugboat in a port, effectively creating a moveable exclusion zone around China’s premier space asset. Sometimes another spacecraft may deliberately come closemaybe just to take a lookbut it can still interfere with our operations, Sun explained during his presentation, acknowledging that even ostensibly peaceful approaches can disrupt critical station operations. The strategic rationale of the system is rooted in past incidents that have highlighted the vulnerabilities of orbital assets. In December 2021, China formally reported to the United Nations that its Tiangong space station was forced to perform two evasive maneuvers in the same year to avoid potential collisions with SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. Starlink-1095 and Starlink-2305 reportedly descended from their typical operational orbits of around 555 kilometers into Tiangong’s zone at approximately 382 kilometers, prompting emergency actions on July 1 and October 21, 2021. The encounters were observed by Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell using U.S. space tracking data, estimating that the Starlink satellite in the October incident might have come within a mere 1.8 miles of the Tiangog station. In space distances, this is the equivalent of two cars coming within fractions of an inch from a crash. The near-misses occurred while astronauts were aboard the station, endangering the life or health of astronauts according to Beijing. China stressed that states are responsible for all national space activities, including those conducted by commercial operators. The Chinese complaint to the UN highlighted the difficulty in predicting the Starlink satellites’ trajectories due to their continuous maneuvering, with their strategies largely unknown and orbital errors hard to assess, thus posing a collision risk. For the July 2021 encounter, there was no advance communication between SpaceX and the China Human Spaceflight Engineering Office (CMSEO) about the pass. SpaceX, for its part, confirmed that it checks for close approaches with both the International Space Station and China’s Space Station. The United States stated in response that these activities did not meet the threshold for established emergency collision criteria, and therefore, emergency notifications were not warranted. China disagreed, and the International Space Stationmanaged by the United States, Russia, and Europewould have probably executed the same maneuver, according to past operational history. This divergence in perspectives underscores a critical gap in international norms and communication protocols for space operations. The absence of clear, mutually agreed-upon rules for collision avoidance and maneuver notification between major spacefaring entities fosters an environment ripe for misinterpretation, accidental collisions, and escalating tensions, directly fueling the perceived need for space guard dog capabilities and contributing to a more contested space domain. This is even more important when you take into consideration how all these global powers are actively putting weapons in space and training for space war contravening the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the document that established international space law and prohibited placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on celestial bodies, or in outer space. [Photo: Getty Images] Advantage China Chinas protests in the UN are ironic given that Chinas ambitions in space extend far beyond its defensive robots. The country is quickly expanding military space operations, building capabilities that are reshaping the global space landscape. It founded its space force in 2024, declaring orbital operations the most crucial domain for the countrys defense. This is nothing that the United States and Russia havent been doing for decades. The Pentagon also has its own space force armfounded by Trump in his first termand has recently suggested to accelerate the countrys efforts in response to Chinas latest developments. One of the most concerning developments for the U.S. is China’s demonstrated prowess in rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), precise spacecraft maneuvers to approach and closely operate near another object satellite. These involve controlled relative motion for activities like inspection, maintenance, docking, or capture. They can be peacefullike filling the fuel tank of a satelliteor military, like taking down another spaceship. U.S. Space Force officials have likened China’s maneuvers to dogfighting in space, a term that evokes Star Wars space battles but that actually occurs in a much different way, with long trajectories that take a long time to complete and none of that Luke versus Vader tit-for-tat. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein stated in March 2025 that China has been using experimental satellites to practice these dogfights, an event that has beaten the Pentagons own plans to do the same. The test involved a series of proximity operations conducted in low-Earth orbit last year, involving five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity, and in control. There were three Shiyan-24C experimental satellitesthink about these as the attackersand two Shijian-6 05A/B experimental space objectsthe targetswhich came within less than roughly half a mile of each other. These operations are not just technical demonstrations; they are seen as practicing tactics, techniques, and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another, the Space Force says, hinting at potential hostile intentions. It is not the first time China has done it, too. The Shijian (meaning “Practice” in Chinese) series of satellites has long been a focal point of concern for U.S. government and space observers due to their unannounced launches, deployment of undisclosed sub-satellites, and unusual orbital maneuvers. It has demonstrated RPO capabilities, including close inspection and even towing of other objects. The Shijian-17, launched in 2016, was equipped with a robotic arm. U.S. Space Command Commander General James H. Dickinson publicly warned in April 2021 that this robotic arm could be used in a future system for grappling other satellites, highlighting its potential for counter space capabilities. Which brings us back full circle to that idea of the space guard dogs and why Sun believes they need them. [Photo: Getty Images] The militarization of space There have been previous military operations in spacemost notably, the U.S. conducted several nuclear tests in space, like Starfish Prime in 1962, a 1.4 megaton bomb detonated at a high altitude over Johnston Atoll, an island in the Pacific Ocean, aimed t study the effects of EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) on electronics and satellites. But things are getting really heated now. The U.S. Space Force is playing catch up with Chinese capabilities. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) are spearheading initiatives like the Victus Haze mission, which has already been delayed from mid-2025 to a late 2025 launch. Using only two spaceships, it aims to partially match the capabilities demonstrated by the Chinese. More importantly, however, is President Trumps Golden Dome, an ambitious $175 billion plan to build a coast-to-coast missile defense shield over the U.S. that envisions hundreds or even thousands of satellites in orbit, equipped with advanced sensors and interceptors, including space-based lasers, that are designed to detect, track, and neutralize incoming hypersonic, ballistic, and space-based weapons. Critics warn that such a system, aspiring to make the U.S. invulnerable, could be perceived by adversaries as an attempt to undermine nuclear deterrence, thereby fueling a dangerous global arms race. Indeed, China is already developing counter-stealth materials designed to evade Golden Dome’s detection capabilities. Russia has been developing orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons for years. U.S. officials have confirmed that Moscow is developing a nuclear weapon designed to target satellites, capable of producing a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP) upon detonation that could indiscriminately disable hundreds of government and commercial satellites in low Earth orbit. This threat is particularly concerning given the critical reliance of modern society on satellite infrastructure. The Pentagon further stated that Russia launched an anti-satellite vehicle into orbit in May 2024, placing it in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite, and that the Kosmos-2553 spacecraft, launched in February 2022, contained components of Russia’s anti-satellite nuclear weapons system. China has clearly stated that they consider orbital space domination crucial to have military superiority on Earth. They have declared they want technological hegemony in hypersonic space weapons and so far they have achieved it, according to the Pentagon itself, which referred to its tests as close to Sputnik moment back in 2021. William Schneidera senior member of the Hudson Institute think tankwrote in 2022 that Chinas new space hypersonic force is a system of systems designed to beat the U.S.’s early warning capabilities, which detect any nuclear launches in the world. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army doesnt try to hide its fight for orbital domination, as American Enterprise Institutes analyst Larry Wortzel highlighted as far back as 2007: In a China Military Science article, Major General Liu Jixian of the PLA Academy of Military Science paraphrases Kennedy this way: Whoever controls the universe controls our world; whoever controls space controls initiative in war. Now we are seeing the results of this vision. Of course, the U.S. thinks the same, as chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force said in March at the Air & Space Forces Associations Warfare Conference in Aurora, Colorado: We must think of space as a warfighting domain, rather than just a collection of support activities. His thoughts are a summary of the new official Pentagon doctrine for military space operationsSpace Force Doctrine Document 1, published back in April. These developments, coupled with the deterioration of existing arms control frameworks like the New START Treatyset to expire in February 2026 with no successorand the suspension of U.S.-China arms control talksback July 2024 over US arms sales to Taiwanpaint a grim picture of a space environment increasingly devoid of guardrails. A vacuum of agreed-upon norms and limitations creates a dangerous free-for-all, where each nation’s perceived need for security drives a continuous cycle of innovation and counter-innovation, pushing towards an orbital arms race and bypassing or ignoring the Outer Space Treaty. Aside from Russias alleged new nuclear satellite, spaceships like the ones used in Victus Haze or Tiangong’s defensive robots operate within a legal gray area that exploits ambiguities in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits placing weapons of mass destruction in space, but doesnt say anything about conventional defensive systems. By framing the robots as nondestructive tugboats rather than weapons, China maintains plausible deniability while establishing operational precedents that could normalize active space defense measures. But, as we know, RPO capabilities have offensive applications too: The same robotic systems capable of pushing away threats could theoretically capture or disable hostile satellites through controlled manipulation. Sun’s acknowledgment that satellites sometimes approach deliberately to take a look reflects growing concerns about orbital espionage, where nations deploy satellites for close-range intelligence gathering against foreign space assets. The development signals that space warfare has moved beyond theoretical planning into operational reality, with the three top world powers now fielding systems capable of engaging hostile targets across the orbital domain. In this emerging environment, the line between defensive maneuvering and offensive action becomes increasingly blurred. And with it, the risk of actual space warwhich could signal the start of a nuclear war on the groundbecomes clearer by the day.
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