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Not all emojis are created equal. The sparkle emoji or red heart emoji are staples of text conversations and social media captions. But how often are you using the baggage claim icon or the non-potable water symbol? Recently, a new trend has emerged: mainstream emojis are being passed over in favor of more creative alternatives. The broken heart emoji? Tired. Predictable. The wilted rose emoji? Aesthetic. Unexpected. The trend began earlier this year when a video from one TikTok user went viral. The caption read: lowkey starting to become too mainstream / i might just start using . Others quickly joined in. How it feels using in the era, one TikTok user posted, cutting to a photo of someones grandpa. @savo.rl #luracks#fyp#foryou not myself – luracks As David Doochin explained for Emojipedia: One of the most typical memes gaining traction among the TikTok contingent is the X has gone mainstream / we now use Y format that declares a given meme, emoji, or cultural symbol as out of date or past its prime and offers a replacement, usually a derivative of the original symbol in some way but sometimes totally arbitrary. The most commonly used emojis include faces, hearts, and hand gesturesones that slip seamlessly into texts to convey emotion. “Loudly Crying Face” was the most-used emoji of 2024, followed by “Face with Tears of Joy” and the “Fire” emoji. Now, among younger generations and the chronically online, certain emojis have taken on entirely new meaningswith lesser-used icons pulled from obscurity. YouTuber John Casterline posted a video last month encouraging people to adopt the aerial tramway emojionce the least-used emoji in the worldas a replacement for the common “Crying Laughing Face.” I came up with a plan where we can make this emoji one of the most used emojis, at least on YouTube, he explained. Instead of using laughing emojis from now on, replace it with this. And if someone doesnt know why youre doing it, dont tell them. This isnt the first time the aerial tramway has been thrust into the spotlight. Back in 2018, the now-defunct X account @leastUsedEmoji reported that the aerial tramway held the title of least-used emoji for 11 weeks straight. Responding to the call, public transportation advocates rallied around the underappreciated emoji, spamming Twitter/X with strings of the aerial tramway. The plan worked. After 77 days, the tram climbed the ranks and was replaced in last place by input symbol for latin capital letters. As of the accounts last post on August 3, 2020, input symbol for symbols had been the least-used emoji for 264 days. Perhaps its time it gets the same treatment.
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E-Commerce
Over the last two months, a first-of-a-kind project has taken shape at an industrial site in Nevada: the worlds largest microgrid built with used EV batteries, designed to power an adjacent data center.Its the first of a series of microgrids planned by Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company now valued at more than $5 billion. The company is taking in a quickly-growing volume of used EV batteriestens of thousands over the last year, and perhaps hundreds of thousands over the next 12 months. Most of those batteries still have enough capacity to have a second life before the materials are recycled. And they could help deal with a major energy challenge: how new data centers can come online quickly and cheaply without straining the grid and significantly adding to climate emissions.The amount of batteries coming back that have usable life and that are relatively more cost-efficient to deploy has ramped up dramatically in just the last year or two, says JB Straubel, CEO of Redwood Materials. The company announced its new energy business arm at an event on June 26.[Photo: Redwood Energy]Straubel, one of Teslas cofounders, left the automaker in 2019 to help build a new U.S. supply chain of critical battery materials using the growing pile of battery waste. Last year, the company started commercial production of cathode active material, one key component in batteries, from recycled materials. Its recycling business is already profitable; it generated $200 million in revenue last year. But it also recognized the huge opportunity to put some batteries to work again. [Image: Redwood Materials]How EV batteries can find a second lifeWhen a battery is in a car or a truck, its a pretty demanding application, Straubel says. You need a lot of power capability. You really want to charge quickly, usually, so you can go to fast charge stations. And you also need a pretty high percent of your overall initial range that you purchased in the car. But even when a battery has lost so much capacity that it no longer makes sense for driving, it can still be used to store energy. In that application, charging and discharging can happen slowly. A battery might only have half of its original capacity, but can still reliably support the grid or a microgrid. In some cases, it could be used for years before its eventually recycled.In the new microgrid, on Redwoods campus near Reno, more than 800 used EV batteries are connected to 20 acres of solar panels. It has enough power to run a new AI data center on the site, built by Crusoe, a company that designs and deploys low-carbon compute infrastructure.The data center operates fully off the grid, without an external backup. We still expect [the microgrid] to be very, very reliable, Straubel says. In some cases, it might be more reliable, because we have less failure points. To make it possible to avoid the grid completely, the team built a relatively large amount of solar power and large battery capacity. In other cases, the company will build microgrids that do have a grid connection, but allow data centers to run on their own renewable energy most of the time. Some projects could also be built with backup from gas generators. But there are advantages to off-grid renewable projects.[Photo: Redwood Energy]Why companies want to go off the gridOff-grid projects are faster than other alternatives. Right now, the wait time for a new gas turbine can be as long as seven years. Connecting large new renewable energy projects to the grid also takes years because of long delays in the permitting process. A self-contained microgrid can avoid waiting in the interconnection queue. And if its fully renewable, like the project from Redwood and Crusoe, it can also avoid the long process to get air quality permits. All that a project needs is simple construction permits. The process to build can also happen quickly. (Crusoes own data center infrastructure, which uses modular, self-contained small units, is also fast to deploy. The new data center is already running in test mode and will be available for Crusoes cloud customers to use in the coming weeks.)Because renewable energy is cheap, and Redwoods battery system is also affordable, the microgrids can compete head to head with fossil fuels. Were seeing prices now that I think are below what you can do with the gas microgrid, says Straubel. All of this means that even if a tech company doesnt have sustainability as its first priority when it builds a new data center, the microgrid can still be a compelling choice. It seems that in this moment, speed and power availability is the number-one topic, Straubel says. Maybe number two would be overall economics. Number three is sustainability. Not to say that people dont care about thatI feel that most of our customers care quite deeply about it. But theres a lot of pressure for everyone to grow fast and balance all these other constraints while doing it.[Photo: Redwood Energy]The potential for scaleData center providers that want to use solar power need to find land in the right location. But one recent analysis found that there was more than enough available land in the U.S. to support the massive energy demand from new data centersfar more than even high-end projections that say that we may need a staggering 300 gigawatts of new energy by 2030 to cover growth. That analysis looked at the feasibility of microgrids that were 90% renewable and 10% gas-powered. But it mapped out potential sites in detail, and points to areas that could also potentially be used for 100% renewable projects.Redwood is already working on other microgrids for other data centers. And over time, as more used EV batteries become available, they can play a greater role for the grid overall. The volumes in the automotive and transportation sector are so much higher than in the grid sector, Straubel says. Over the long term, I believe that EV batteriestrucks, cars, robotaxis, all of itwill have an extremely significant role to play in really all bulk energy storage.It can help the cost of energy storage come down, which is key to helping renewables fully scale up. Renewables are our cheapest source of generation today, he says. And I think thats only going to expand. But theyre intermittent. We have to find a cost-efficient way to deliver firm, reliable, renewable energy if we have a hope of scaling it. And to me, that is really the long-term main application.
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E-Commerce
I run two companies, lead a team of over 20 people, mentor women entrepreneurs, and juggle multiple side projects. As a result, my calendar is filled with calls, meetings, decisions, deadlines, and the constant ping of notifications. For years, I convinced myself that unpluggingeven for a daywould be reckless. What if something urgent came up? What if everything collapsed? Eventually, though, I did it. I turned off my phone for seven full days. No email, no WhatsApp, no Slack, no Instagram. Just silenceand, of course, a notebook. This digital detox had a deeper purpose than a conventional holiday. In todays world, being on vacation can mean keeping in touch, even if lightly: answering emails, reading news, scrolling through social media, and so on. We stay in the information bubble, which makes it difficult to tune out the noise. I didnt plan to turn this into a case study. I simply needed a break. What I didnt expect was how deeply restorative and surprisingly productive it would be. My fear was that it would slow me down, but instead, it recalibrated me. And if youre someone who thinks they cant afford to disconnect, thats exactly why you should. Heres a way to start. What the detox looked like Because it was the weekend, I didnt need to make a big announcement. Just four peoplemy mother, sister, business partner, and assistantknew how to reach me in case of an emergency. Everyone else was left in the quiet. It was all designed consciously. Part of the detox fell on the weekend, when I did not expect any urgent messages from clients or partners. Also, there were some public holidays, so in the end I only missed one day of work. At the same time, I put my full trust in my team. Our managers are the first point of contact for clients, while my business partner is the go-to touchpoint for employees. Everyone also has my assistants contact details, so if something truly pressing had come up, they would have easily found out why I wasnt responding. So, late on a Friday night, I shut my phone down, and didnt turn it back on until one hour before my next workday. This buffer gave me space to ease in without anxiety. In case youre wondering, there were no exceptions. The phone wasnt silenced or stashed in a drawer I could access when I needed comfort. It stayed off, completely out of reach. Heres a snapshot of how a day looked like during this period: Mornings started with movementpilates or a long runfollowed by a mindful, unhurried breakfast. Then: hours of reading real books. No articles, no headlines. I took two naps a day for the first 48 hours. It was as if my nervous system had been waiting for permission to rest. By day three, something shifted. I began writing. Not for deadlines, just to think. I filled pages and pagesincluding my goals for the year, updates to my life balance wheel, forgotten ideas, coaching reflections, and personal values I hadnt revisited in months. Creative clarity came fast, and because I opened the space for it, it stayed. Three lessons I took with me I walked away from my phoneless time with dozens of insights. Of those, three stayed with me, and theyve reshaped both how I work and how I lead. #1: Clients are mirrors Every client relationship reflects something back at you. When youre truly present, you start to notice what those reflections are teaching youwhere your boundaries are too loose, where your expertise can deepen, what energizes you, and what drains you. We also learn to listen more attentively. As a seasoned PR pro, I know what I need to do to achieve the best possible resultsthe biggest coverage, the boldest narrative, the most polished story. But over time, Ive realized that what I consider the best isnt always what the client actually needs. This shift in perspective changed the way I work, and helped me build deeper relationships with my clients. I can honestly tell Ive learned more about myself from client work than from many books or programs. Not because they teach me something directly, but because they hold up a mirror. When were receptive to it, that relationship becomes a shared process of growth. #2: Choose your energy before the day begins Before I made this shift, my mornings belonged to everyone else. Id wake up and immediately jump into the noiseemails, deadlines, and messages. I was reacting to the worlds demands before Id even taken a breath. But now, I begin each day with a decision: Who do I want to be today? I started setting a tone for the day, not with tasks, but with intention. Calm. Generous. Creative. Focused. That one quiet choice each morning changed how I navigated everything else. I wasnt reacting, I was leading from the inside out. And when you do that, the world starts meeting you differently. Now, the day feels like minenot something Im surviving, but something Im actively shaping. #3: Dont make decisions just to relieve pressure Many of us, especially high performers, can easily confuse urgency with clarity. We say yes, push forward, launch, commit. Not necessarily because were grounded, but because were tense. Stepping away helped me name that pattern. During this time, I realized how often I made choices to soothe discomfort rather than move from vision. Now, before anything, I pause and ask myselfIs this decision coming from a place of power, or from a place of pressure? Why more people should try a phone detox Your brain needs rest. Not scrolling, not content-switching. Real, deep rest. We dont hesitate to give our muscles recovery days after a grueling exercise session. Why cant we do the same with our minds? When we stop consuming content, our brain starts producing it. Ideas resurface. Our vision returns. We reconnect to the version of ourselves that doesnt need noise to feel alive. Silence, as I learned, did not slow me down. It reintroduced me to what matters the most. We frequently imagine disconnection as a luxury. Its not. From this new vantage point, I can say it is a leadership practice. It is how we step back into our lives with discernment, energy, and purpose. Nothing burned down while I was gone. The world kept spinning. And I came back steadier, sharper, and more attuned to those things I hold dearly. If youre still thinking along the lines of, I could never take a week off, thats exactly your sign. There is clarity waiting for you, patiently, on the other side of silence.
Category:
E-Commerce
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