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This week, Zillow economists announced that they expect U.S. home prices, as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index, to rise 1.1% between January 2025 and January 2026. Thats a downward revision from their previous 12-month forecast, which had projected a 2.9% increase in U.S. home prices.
Zillows latest forecast anticipates home value growth in 2025 to be weaker than previously expected, wrote Zillow economists on Wednesday. New listings were higher than expected out of the gate this year, and inventory expectations that were revised higher have put downward pressure on Zillows forecast for home value growth.
Not only do Zillow economists predict weak national home price growth this year, but theyre also predicting that U.S. existing home sales remain unchanged from 2023 and 2024 at 4.1 millionwhich is well below the 5.3 million U.S. existing home sales in pre-pandemic 2019.
Zillow economists added that: As elevated mortgage rates dampen demand for home purchases, many potential buyers are staying renters for longer. Zillow forecasts a 3.7% increase in single-family rents for 2025, while multifamily rents are projected to rise by 3.1%. With apartment construction slowing, the growth rates for single-family and multifamily rents are expected to converge more closely than in recent years.
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Somewhere between 25% and 35% of working Americans are gig workerseither as a supplement to their primary income or as their full-time job. And for many gig economy workers, cash apps and marketplaces offer a simple and convenient way to receive payments. Enter the IRS form 1099-K.
Third-party payment apps have to issue a 1099-K form to taxpayers who make more than a certain earnings thresholda threshold which the IRS significantly lowered for the 2024 tax year. The IRS anticipates that millions of Americans will receive a 1099-K form for the first time this year because of that reduced earnings threshold.
If youve been wondering why you received a 1099-K form this year, heres what you need to know.
1099-K history
Prior to the introduction of third-party payment apps and online marketplaces, the IRS typically received reporting about your income from either a W-2 form (for traditional employees) or 1099-MISC form (for contractors, freelancers, or other nonstandard employment).
The introduction of third-party payment apps like PayPal changed the landscape for taxable income. Even though freelancers who collect payments via third-party apps must claim every penny of income (just as employees must track and claim their tips), taxpayers seriously underreported their income from third-party payment apps when the technology was new. Uncle Sam estimates that taxpayers underreported $450 billion in 2006, which equated to a 17% noncompliance rate.
Recognizing that modern problems require modern solutions (or at least a new tax form), the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 instituted a requirement that banks and credit card merchants report payments to the IRS via the new form 1099-K. The first 1099-K forms were issued in 2012 for the 2011 tax year.
Who issues 1099-K forms?
There are several different types of organizations, apps, sites, marketplaces, and platforms that may be required to issue a 1099-K form. These may include:
Auction sites (such as eBay)
Ridesharing platforms (like Uber or Lyft)
Crafting marketplaces (such as Etsy)
Crowdfunding platforms (like Kickstarter)
Freelance marketplaces (like Fiverr)
Online marketplaces (such as Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace)
Peer-to-peer payment platforms (like Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App)
Ticket exchange sites (such as StubHub or TicketSwap)
If you have earned money through any of these kinds of platforms, you may receive a 1099-K form this yearif you have taken in more than the minimum earning threshold (see below).
The one commonly used app that will not issue 1099-K forms is Zelle. Thats because Zelle directly transfers money from one bank account to another, rather than holding your funds in an account for you, the way PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App do. But just because Zelle will not issue a 1099-K doesnt mean youre off the hook for reporting any earned income you receive via Zelle. You will have to report income Zelled to your account on Schedule C of your tax return.
1099-K minimums
Until the 2024 tax year, the 1099-K form was only issued to taxpayers with more than 200 transactions on third-party payment apps who earned $20,000 or more in income. This meant only the individuals who were seriously committed to making a living via gig work received a 1099-K form.
That is now changing. For the 2024 tax year, if you made $5,000 on a payment app, you will receive a 1099-K, no matter how many transactions you cleared. This means hobbyists and side hustlers are much more likely to receive a 1099-K this yearand the likelihood will keep going up. Thats because the minimum income threshold for the 2025 tax year is $2,500, and it will dip to $600 thereafterand there is no minimum number of transactions to trigger a 1099-K filing.
2023 Tax Year2024 Tax Year2025 Tax Year2026 Tax Year and BeyondEarnings threshold$20,000$5,000$2,500$600Minimum transaction requirement200NoneNoneNone
This means your aunt Esther who has an Etsy storefront that sells five or six risque needlepoint projects per month will be as likely to receive a 1099-K form as a professional eBay seller with thousands of transactions per week.
Fixing 1099-K errors
Not all transactions on third-party financial apps are taxable. When your sister Venmos you $75 to pay for her half of your mothers birthday gift, that money is not taxable. But if you receive Venmo payments for your side gig as a photographer, that money is taxable. This means anyone who only has a single payment app for personal and professional payments may see errors on their 1099-K form.
To help ensure youre not charged tax on nontaxable payments from friends and family, the IRS has added a space at the top of the 2024 Schedule 1 form to report any money that was included on your 1099-K in error.
The spot on the Schedule 1 form also allows you to report 1099-K money related to personal items you sold at a loss. For example, if you resold courtside basketball tickets for $5,000 and accepted payment via Venmo, that would trigger a 1099-K form. But if you purchased those tickets for $6,000 and sold them at a loss, the $5,000 you received is not taxable. You can include that $5,000 in the new space on the Schedule 1 form, and you will not owe taxes on it.
The future of 1099-K filing
The IRS wasnt quite done tinkering with the 1099-K rules when it lowered the earnings threshold and minimum transaction requirement. As of the 2025 tax year, third-party payment apps may request your taxpayer identification numberwhich for most people is their Social Security number. If a third-party payment platform does not have your valid tax ID number, the platform has to withhold 24% of your payment for taxes.
This is similar to how your taxes may be withheld from a traditional paycheck, but it can come as an unpleasant surprise to aunt Esther when she sells the $100 Kirk/Spock needlepoint to an enthusiast and only receives $76. While the withheld amount can be credited to the tax you owe when you file your taxes, or it may be refunded if you do not owe any taxes, many taxpayers will prefer to simply provide their Socia Security number to avoid the withholding altogether.
File responsibly
With more ways to get paid, there are more opportunities to underreport earned income. To combat taxpayer forgetfulness (both genuine and feigned), the IRS introduced the 1099-K form, which requires third-party payment apps to report earnings over a certain dollar amount.
As of the 2024 tax year, anyone earning $5,000 or more via payment apps or platforms will receive a 1099-K form. In 2023 and earlier, only taxpayers who earned over $20,000 and had 200 or more transactions got such a form. The minimum earnings threshold will go down to $2,500 for the 2025 tax year, and to $600 thereafter and there is no minimum transaction requirement.
Getting more tax forms may feel like a crappy reward for all the hard work you have put into your side gigbut the new 1099-K filing requirements will ultimately make it easier for you to correctly file your taxes. And correct tax filing keeps the auditor away.
While Valentines Day and football get the majority of publicity during February, theres more to this month than love and sports.
You may want to consider changing up your typical happy-hour order this weekend to celebrate an unconventional holiday. Saturday, February 22, is National Margarita Day. This refreshing beverage has a long history of making those who imbibe forget their troubles for a while. Let’s take a look at the invention of the drink and some fun deals to take advantage of.
What’s in a classic margarita anyway?
While many variations of the beloved drink have popped up over the years, in its purest form, a margarita is comprised of tequila, lime juice, and Cointreau or Triple Sec. Traditionally served in a glass with a salted rim, its sweet, salty, and sour elements make for a delicious flavor combination to sip on.
Who invented the margarita?
There are conflicting stories about the creation of this cocktail.
One version credits Carlos “Danny” Herrera. Necessity was the mother of invention in this version. In the late 1940s, Herrera, who owned the Tijuana, Mexico-area restaurant Rancho La Gloria, wanted to make something for customer Marjorie King. The young actress was allergic to all alcohol except tequila but didnt like to drink the spirit straight.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Herrera started experimenting and landed on the flavor combination we now know and love. He called the drink a Margarita (Spanish for Marjorie).
Another story asserts that Margarita Sames is the real hero. This Dallas socialite claims to have created the drink while entertaining at her Acapulco vacation home in 1948.
As this story goes, Tommy Hilton was one of her guests and liked it so much that he brought the drink to his hotels. But her claim is discredited in Anthony Dias Blues The Complete Book of Spirits, which states that the first importer of Jose Cuervo to the United States used the tagline, “Margarita: it’s more than a girl’s name,” in 1945.
What are some deals for National Margarita Day?
Chilis Grill & Bar and Lifetime have teamed up for the big day. They released a 15-minute romantic comedy film starring Maria Menounos and Taye Diggs about a powerful big-city lawyer who comes back to her rural hometown for the holiday.
You can stream it here, then head into the restaurant for $5 Tequila Trifectas at participating restaurants or a StrawEddy, the Margarita of the Month.
If you find yourself in California, head to your local El Torito on Saturday. Participating restaurants in this Mexican chain are offering $10 Margarita Flights. Variety is the spice of life after all.
Those in Atlanta can head to one of three Tin Lizzy Cantina locations. They are offering $6 House Margaritas and $8 Casa Noble Margaritas.
TexMex chain Chuy’s is also offering drink specials.
Finally, the New York Daily News has a roundup of Margarita Day deals in and around the Big Apple.
However you celebrate the boozy holiday, make sure to say Salud!
Kate Aronowitz tells me she first set out in graphic design because it felt like a discipline that helped her bring order to things. Many years later, she has a love-hate relationship with being labeled a creative because the creative process, as she sees it, is not just about art and designits as much about solving problems as it is building things from scratch. She also believes everyone can be creative under the right circumstances.
As portfolio operations lead at Google Ventures, Aronowitz has collaborated with some of the worlds most inspiring and hardworking founders. And now she has the opportunity to shape and inspire the next generation of students at Savannah College of Design as the schools newly minted executive in residence.
I usually am the first one up. I go downstairs with my dog, George, make coffee, and we go outside. I like having quiet time outside. Ill walk him or go to Pilates. I read the news. As much as it pains me, I like to know whats going on. Im not naturally an early riser, but if I approach the day with a clear mind, my work is better.
Im a big believer in reading a room. I think its more my predisposition. Even when I started my first design role as a junior designer, I often worked as a translator. When you get a design person and a businessperson together, they are often butting heads. Im always the one saying, Actually, I hear this. Listening to what people are saying, watching their body language, seeing how much people speak upits just being a very keen observer. Im fascinated by people, and UX design is about solving real peoples needs. A lot of the time, they cant express what they need; you have to listen for it.
I dont create well in total silence. I like a lot of white noise. If I have to write, I prefer to write on an airplane or in a café. Silence is very deafening. I go to sleep listening to podcasts. I find it hard to design and create if I put an hour on the calendar and say, Youre sitting and doing this thing. My best ideas come to me if I can get the questions I need to work on a week in advance. Im good at having that run parallel; Im processing in the background. Whether Im at the mall or watching a movie or baking, ideas pop into my head.
I find using my hands to be very helpful. Even if its business-case kind of stuff. I find it hard to be creative and type at the same time, so I handwrite a lot out. I find typing to be very constricting.
I work with really interesting founders. And I see my role as a designer more so now almost setting the stage and curating the conversations that allow creativity to happen. I am helping make founders ideas real. A lot of my day is being a really good listener and figuring out what problems need to be solved and figuring out how to do it quickly.
Im an optimist. If you look at a problem long enough, you can truly come up with a solution that will delight people. I dont believe theres any problem thats not solvable. I rarely get frustrated. I trust the process. If you iterate, put the right people in the room, and ask questions, you will learn something and you will move things forward.
Im interested in expanding what creativity means. Creativity has been put in this place where you either are or arent, or theres creative time and there isnt. Its thinking about a problem in a different way. Everyone has the ability. Im so much more open now to who is in the room. I hate when people are labeled creative. When you label a person as a creative, it limits it so that this is the only person in the room who can be creative.
Im a big list-maker. I break it into things. I am very strict about what fits onto my first list. I keep a running notes doc. I have a 2024 doc and its all the calls I was on that year. At any point in time, I can go back and pick up a thread where I left off. A lot of it for me is documenting and list-making so I dont have to keep it in my mind. I can go back and check things.
I need my alone time. Driving or walking the dog. Time with a whiteboard. If Im really feeling lost and Im not sure what to do, if I just put a pen in my hand and draw out what Im thinking I find it really helpful to just get out whats in my head.
Im very bad with distractions. I love doing the NYT crossword every day; its hard not to be following whats going on [in the news]. Im not great at tuning things out, but I have other outlets. I love baking and cooking. I started sketching again on my iPad. I have one of those expert Apple pencils. Even if its useless stuff like drawing a weird apple on my iPad, it centers me. If you can sit and noodle over the shades of red for an hour and a half, its good for your mind to be a better observer.
The rut I find myself in is more like self-doubt. I am a bit of a perfectionist. That is what drew me to graphic design in the first place. I was never attracted to fine art. I liked graphic design because it brought order to things. I hold a high bar for myself and always want to make sure Im bringing value, so I do question myself. I have to remind myself this is part of the process: Knowing that sometimes things dont work and thats okay, and what can you learn from it.
You have to get small wins every day. A lot of what we do with founders is help them prioritize. Some problems can be pushed off. Just ask yourself, whats keeping you up at night now? And how can you solve something immediately in front of you? A lot of it is taking big problems and breaking them down into bite-size chunks. Its so important to close out the day and feel like you made some small steps in progress.
I dont know about you, but I tend to think about my favorite tech tools as being split into two separate saucepans: the classic apps weve known and relied on for ages and then the newer AI apps that have shown up over the past several months to serve some super-specific purpose.
More and more, though, Im realizing that the most effective apps are the ones that seamlessly blend those two concepts and create a whole new recipe with the best of both worlds.
Thats precisely what the tool Ive got for you today manages to do. Its a brand new app released just moments ago thats basically Google Maps combined with ChatGPT, Perplexity, Wikipedia, and more.
And goodness gracious, will it bring some fascinating new flavor into your life.
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A modern mapping mashup
Let me back up for one quick second: A moment ago, I told you todays tool is a brand new service. And it isjust released days ago and almost certainly something you havent yet seen.
But its also connected to a standout service weve discussed in these quarters before.
The service is called PamPam, and we talked about it last May and then again in December, when I featured it as one of my favorite finds from 2024.
At the time, I described it as an AI map app thats actually worth your whileand thats still true today. But now, PamPam is even more useful, thanks to a massive upgrade that introduces a whole new ocean of actually-handy AI possibilities.
Specifically, PamPams gained some really slick integrations that bring data from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Wikipedia, and other smart sources into its interactive map-exploring experience.
So what does that actually look like in practice? Lemme show ya.
When you open up the new PamPam app, youre prompted to describe what exactly you want to do or see. You can type out anything, in plain English and without any complicated formatting requirements.
PamPam prompts you to ask anything, with a slew of new sources powering the results.
By default, the service will pull info from ChatGPT and Wikipedia into its results. If you click the little pill area with the logos, though, you can also bring other info sources into the mixincluding, so far, Perplexity and Foursquare.
Wikipedia, ChatGPT, Foursquare, and Perplexity are now a part of the PamPam picture.
For one example, I asked the service to suggest stuff to do and places to eat for a day in Pasadena with a family of fourincluding a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old. In a matter of seconds, it served up all sorts of thoughtful and specific suggestions, with info available in a sidebar and locations visible in a large interactive map.
PamPam’s results pull data from all your selected sources into a simple, map-embedded guide.
Clicking on any item in the map or the sidebar pulls up more detailed info from Wikipedia, along with more suggestions for subsequent questions from ChatGPT and any other activated sources.
You can keep asking more questions from all of your selected sources as you go.
Everything happens right then and there, in that same single screen and without any external windows or sign-ins. Its about as polished and pleasant of an experience as you could ask for, with all sorts of helpful touches pulled from the different sources and presented in a sensible-seeming, streamlined setup.
PamPam’s interface is a whole new experience that brings a blend of different info into a single map-centric spot.
PamPam does require you to sign in with a Google account in order to use the service, but it takes all of seven seconds to doand youll be off to the races and exploring your results in another few seconds from there.
The possibilities are practically endless, and best of all? It doesnt even cost a dime to try.
PamPam works entirely on the web in any browser, on any device.
Its completely free to use for these purposes, with evolving limits for the external sources. The site offers an optional Pro plan that raises those limits and unlocks extra features related to some of its other functions. (The company has a variety of corporate plans, too, which seem to be where the bulk of its money is made.)
PamPam doesnt require any personal info beyond your initial Google sign-in, and its privacy policy doesnt include anything unusual about how it handles the limited amount of data involved.
If you love these types of tools as much as I do, check out my free Cool Tools newsletter. I’ll introduce you to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in delightful waysthen send you another new off-the-beaten-path gem every Wednesday!
The relentless hype around AI makes it difficult to separate the signal from the noise. So its understandable if youve tuned out recent talk about autonomous AI agents. A word of advice: Dont. The significance of agentic AI may actually exceed the hype.
An Autonomous AI agent can interact with the environment, make decisions, take action, and learn from the process. This represents a seismic shift in the use of AI and, accordingly, presents corresponding opportunitiesand risks.
The P in GPT
To date, generative AI tools, largely subject to human supervision, have been designed to function by being pretrained (the P in GPT) on vast amounts of data such as large language models (LLMs) or other defined data sources and then to provide responses to inputs or prompts (a question or instruction) provided by users. This has proven to be an impressive way to come up with humanlike responses to queries or promptslike a baby imitating sounds or words without really knowing what it is saying. Kind of adorable, but unlikely to conjure Newtons Principia or a Beethoven symphony. So, are these generative tools really functioning as creative, independent beings? Doubtful. But that may be changing dramatically.
A new approach allows AI to interact directly and more autonomously with data and react in a dynamic waya lot more like what humans do. This technology relies on autonomous AI agents, which Bill Gates believes are going to upend the software industry, bringing about the biggest revolution in computing since we went from typing commands to tapping on icons. And that may be an understatement.
AI Agents
AI agents are designed to make decisions without human intervention to perform predefined (for now) tasks. They can reach into the outside world, find data they hadnt previously encountered, analyze it, then take actionfar more like human interaction with the environment and less like relying on the fixed data universe of a chess program or a chatbot and an LLM that cannot go beyond its pretrained knowledge. Sounds great. What could possibly go wrong?
This is a major step forward, replacing a clever statistical approach to replicating human expression with something capable of taking in previously unknown outside stimuli, processing it, and taking action without having to be pretrained or retrained. We are removing our intermediate role creating and governing AIs conceptual and decision-making universe.
Thats both the point and the problem. Its fair to say the AI baby is not just on its way to taking a few steps; it could be speeding down the highway in your new car, music blaring, swigging a bottle of tequila.
The upside is clear. Less need for specific training and oversight. Scalability is only limited by compute resources. You can remove the human intermediary and send out agents to go and complete vast amounts of tasks on their own. After all, they are agents, they have agencythe ability to make decisions and choices. And mistakes.
What could possibly go wrong?
As software rather than a human actor, AI agent mistakes can be instantly and almost infinitely compounded, replicated, and cascaded. It is also a target for hackers. There are obvious doomsday scenarios like a rogue AI agent improperly triggering a massive wave of securities trading or unintentionally launching a military retaliation. When it comes to decisions with potentially catastrophic consequences, human oversight is by no means perfect, but most of us feel at least a modicum of comfort knowing theres an expert human hand hovering over the go button.
There are less dramatic yet still highly impactful effects in the legal and compliance sphere that pose significant business risk. More and more companies are using AI-driven tools across the entire employee lifecycle, from selecting candidates to interviewing and hiring and continuing through performance assessment (raises, promotions, and termination). These tools are increasingly deploying AI agents. Providers often tout AI agents as supporting and improving the quality of critical HR decisions. But subtle errors in system design or implementation could lead to unfair outcomes. There’s a name for this phenomenon: algorithmic bias. At the same time, states are adopting laws penalizing both developers and users of such tools if their use results in unfair treatment of employees. And naturally, litigation is likely to follow.
Risky Business
It is undeniable that AI agents present a significant opportunity to increase productivity by automating routine tasks and freeing people up for more creativity and problem-solving. But the risks are just as undeniable.
While jettisoning supervision and oversight may be a necessity with kids at a certain point, the metaphor only goes so far when it comes to the emancipation of AI through autonomous agents. For now, as we gleefully remove the training wheels, we should be mindful of balancing our understandable enthusiasm with reasonable caution to avoid any catastrophic crashes.
As I write this, the most pleasing sound is washing over megentle waves ebbing and flowing onto the shore. Sadly, Im not actually on some magnificent tropical beach. Instead, the sounds of the sea are being generated by my Mac.
Yet, more than just being pleasing to the ear, this sound, and others the Mac can generate, have helped boost my focus in recent months when Im under deadline and trying to get work done. The feature is called Background Sounds. Here are some of the benefits Ive gotten from it and how you can use it, too.
The pandemic made me realize background sounds help me focus
I know some writers who need absolute silence when they are working. Ive never been one of those people. I work best when there is low-level noise from something else in the space around methe rustling of tree branches outside a window or the indistinct murmur of other people in a cafe.
I didnt realize how much I relied on background noise to stay focused until the early days of the pandemic when lockdowns hit. Like many, I was suddenly stuck working from home, cut off from the background noises I had become accustomed to. I tried supplementing the newfound silence with music, but songs and even instrumentals were too distracting.
Then, by chance, while browsing YouTube on my TV out of boredom one day, I came across an eight-hour video titled something like Relaxing Coffee Shop Ambience. The entire video was just an animated photo of the exterior of a visually appealing coffee house that played in a loop, but was set against a soundtrack of invisible customers murmuring, coffee mugs occasionally clacking, and autumn leaves blowing in the wind.
I played it on my television that day and, I swear, Id never focused so well on work before. Since then, I almost always play background ambience videos while I write. The cafe ones are nice, but natural ones, like rain or ocean scenes, really work for me. They seem to have a dual effect: increasing my focus while boosting my creativity.
But playing those videos is not always practical if you go outside the house. At work, you dont want your boss to think youre wasting time watching YouTube, and playing an hours-long video on your laptop is a great way to run out of battery halfway through your workday.
Thats where the Macs Background Sounds feature comes in. It doesnt have the visual distractions or battery drain issues that YouTube ambiance videos do. And while Apple may not be the first company to bring background sounds to the masses (apps like Calm and Headspace are the leaders in the ambient sounds landscape), the big benefit of Apple’s BackGround sounds is that it’s built into macOS, and so is free to use. This is terrific for those with subscription fatigue who don’t want to shell out monthly for yet another software service.
How to use Background Sounds on your Mac
If you have macOS Ventura or later, you can use the Macs Background Sounds capabilities. But first, you need to enable the feature. To do this, open the System Settings app on your Mac, click the Accessibility options, and make sure the Background sounds switch is toggled on. Next, go to the Control Center options in the System Settings app and make sure under Hearing that Show in Control Center is toggled on.
Once youve done this, you can quickly turn on the background sound of your choice. Heres how:
Click the Control Center icon in the Macs menu bar.
Click the hearing button (the ear icon).
Click Background Sounds.
Now click on the background sound you want to play.
The background sound you choose will now play in an infinite loop from your Macs speakers or through any headphones connected to your Mac. Your options include five natural soundsocean, rain, stream, night, and fireand three more basic white noise soundsbalanced, bright, or dark.
If youre like me, you may soon find that enabling any of these background sounds on your Mac helps you stay focused while working.
Is there any science behind the productivity benefits of white noise?
Ive met many people who are like me and say that playing background sounds helps them focus and even makes them feel more creative. But does science actually back this up?
It depends. Ive yet to find a rigorous scientific study that explored whether natural background noises, like rain or a crackling fire, actually have a measurable impact on ones ability to focus at work.
However, a 2022 study from researchers at the University of Southern California looked at the impact of white noise on neurotypical individuals. That study found that white noise played at 45 decibels resulted in improved cognitive performance in terms of sustained attention, accuracy, and speed as well as enhanced creativity. And when played at 65 decibels, the white noise led to improved working memorybut also higher stress levels.
Personally, I cant imagine working without some calming seaside background noise. It’s no day at the beachbut it’ll sound like it is.
Here in Atlanta, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum has been part of my daily life for years. Parks and trails surrounding the center connect my neighborhood to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park downtown and everything in between.
At the end of December 2024, thousands of people walked to the library to pay their respects to the former president as he lay in repose. The cold, snow and darkness of the evening were a stark contrast to the warmth of the volunteers who welcomed us in. Our visit spiraled through galleries exhibiting records of Carters life, achievements and lifelong work promoting democracy around the world.
U.S. presidents have been building libraries for more than 100 years, starting with Rutherford B. Hayes. But the urge to shape ones legacy by building a library runs much deeper. As a scholar of libraries in the Greek and Roman world, I was struck by the similarities between presidential and ancient libraries some of which were explicitly designed to honor deceased sponsors and played a significant role in their cities.
Trajans library
The Ulpian Library, a great library in the center of Rome, was founded by Emperor Trajan, who ruled around the turn of the second century C.E. Referenced often by ancient authors, it could have been the first such memorial library.
Today, someone visiting Rome can visit Trajans Column, a roughly 100-foot monument to his military and engineering achievements after conquering Dacia, part of present-day Romania. A frieze spirals from bottom to top of the column, depicting his exploits. The monument now stands on its own. Originally, however, it was nestled in a courtyard between two halls of the Ulpian Library complex.
Trajans Column now stands at the center of Rome. [Photo: Olivier Giboulot/Unsplash]
Most of what scholars know about the librarys architecture comes from remains of the west hall, an elongated room almost 80 feet long, whose walls were lined with rectangular niches and framed by a colonnade. The niches were lined with marble and appear to have had doors; this is where the books would have been placed. Writers from the first few centuries C.E. describe the library having archival documents about the emperor and the empire, including books made of linen and books bound with ivory.
Trajan dedicated the column in 113 C.E. but died four years later, before the library was complete. Hadrian, his adoptive son and successor, oversaw the shipment of Trajans cremated remains back to Rome, where they were placed in Trajans Column. Hadrian completed the surrounding library complex in 128 C.E. and dedicated it with two identical funerary inscriptions to his adopted parents, Trajan and Plotina. Scholars Roberto Egidi and Silvia Orlandi have argued that Trajans remains could later have been transferred from the column into the library hall.
Memorial model
Either way, I would argue that Trajans decision to have his remains included in the library complex, instead of in an imperial mausoleum, established a model adopted by other officials at a smaller scale. In the eastern side of the Roman empire what is now Turkey at least two other library-mausoleum buildings have been identified.
One is the library at Nysa on the Maeander, a Hellenistic city named for the nearby river. Under the floor of its entry porch is a sarcophagus with the remains of a man and a woman, possibly the dedicators, that dates to the second century C.E., the time of Hadrians reign.
The ruins of the library at Nysa on the Maeander [Photo: Myrsini Mamoli]
Another is the Library of Celsus, the most recognizable ancient library today, found in the ancient city of Ephesus. Named after a regional Roman consul and proconsul during the reign of Trajan, the building was founded by Celsus son, designed as both a place of learning and a mausoleum.
The librarys ornate, sculpted facade contained life-size female statues, making it an immediately recognizable landmark. Inscriptions identify the statues as the personifications of Celsus character, elevating him into a role model: virtue, intelligence, knowledge and wisdom.
Upon entering the room, the funerary character of the library became quite literal. The hall was designed like the Ulpian Library, but a door gave access to a crypt underneath. This held the marble sarcophagus with the remains of Celsus, the patron of the library. The sarcophagus itself was visible from the hall, if one stood in front of the central apse and looked down through two slits in the podium.
An endowment covered the librarys operational expenses in ancient times, as well as nnual commemorations on Celsus birthday, including the wreathing of the busts and statues and the purchasing of additional books.
The life-size statues on the facade of the Library of Celsus [Photo: Myrsini Mamoli]
Power and knowledge
These two provincial libraries highlight how sponsors hoped to be associated with the virtues a library fosters. Books represent knowledge, and by dedicating a library, one asserted his possession of it. Providing access to learning was an instrument of power on its own.
Beyond the handful of memorial libraries, many other ancient Roman public libraries were great cultural centers, including the Forum of Peace in Rome, dedicated by Emperor Vespasian; the Library of Hadrian in Athens; and the Gymnasium in Side, a city in present-day Turkey.
The most magnificent libraries combined access to manuscripts and artworks with spaces for meetings and lectures. Several had great leisure areas, including landscaped sculptural gardens with elaborate water features and colonnaded walkways. Literary sources and material evidence testify to the treasures that were held there: busts of philosophers, poets and other accomplished literary figures; statues of gods, heroes and emperors; treasures confiscated as spoils of war and exhibited in Rome.
A model of how Hadrians Library may have looked, complete with a landscaped courtyard. [Photo: Joris/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA]
Like the Ulpian Library itself, they continued the long tradition of Hellenistic public libraries, established by the most famous library of antiquity: the Library of Alexandria. Founded and lavishly endowed by the Hellenistic kings of Egypt, the Ptolemies, the building was meant to portray the king as a patron of intellectual activities and a powerful ruler, collecting knowledge from conquered civilizations.
In ancient Greece and Rome, anybody who could read had access to public libraries. Rules of use varied: For example, literary sources imply that the Ulpian Library in Rome was a borrowing library, whereas an inscription from the Library of Pantainos in Athens explicitly forbid any book to be taken out.
But these buildings were also meant to shape their sponsors legacies, portraying them as benevolent and learned. Presidential libraries in the United States today follow the same principle: They become monuments to the former presidents, while giving back to their local communities.
Myrsini Mamoli is a lecturer of architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Sophia Rosenfeld is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her previous books include the award-winning title Common Sense: A Political History. Her writing has appeared in scholarly journals, such as the American Historical Review and the Journal of Modern History, as well as in media publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Nation.
Whats the big idea?
There is such a thing as too many options. Nowhere is freedom-as-choice and choice-as-freedom more evident than in the United States. As important as the right to choose has been in various emancipation movements, there is a point at which choice can become a trap that goes too far.
Below, Sophia shares five key insights from her new book, The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life. Listen to the audio versionread by Sophia herselfin the Next Big Idea App.
1. Having choices makes us feel free.
Have you recently picked somethinganything? Maybe a kind of sandwich, a political candidate, or a movie to watch from the comfort of your couch? Did you first consult a menu of options and decide which appealed to you? That answer is probably yes because this kind of choice-making is routine these days. I am also going to guess that the opportunity to make a choice was valuable to you, even if it didnt fully register at the time.
When we make a menu-based choice, most of us experience it as a kind of freedom. At that moment, no one is telling us what to do, and we get what we want. Sometimes, we even feel we are defining ourselves in the process as distinctive people with distinctive tastes: vegetarians vs. meat eaters, fans of simple fare vs. foodies, etc. The same goes for choice-making about everything from ideas and beliefs to jobs, dates, or spouses. Choice is where political life, democracy, and consumer culture converge.
This is constantly being reinforced in our way of talking. Constitutions produced around the globe ever since the Second World War reflect this. You could also look at billboards and see this, too. The right to choose has become enshrined in everything from bills of rights to advertisements. For most of us, having options and being able to act on them in keeping with our desires is what feeling free (nowadays) is all about.
2. People always have as many choicesand they probably didnt care.
Exaltation of choice for choices sake, or choice as the key sign of autonomy, is relatively new. Just a few centuries ago, being at the top of the social scale meant not having to worry about what to own, where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, or who should rule. These questions were, ideally, already settled, sometimes from birth. You can probably imagine how this must have been a sort of privilege, as it meant a life without constant hustling. Choice didnt have the special status it has today for men or, especially, women.
Freedom was imagined differently. In the era of slavery and more rigid class structures, it had more to do with living without being dominated by someone else and with doing, of ones own volition, what was right rather than wrong. We might say that the emergence of individualized and largely value-neutral choice as a stand-in for freedom is really the story of the development of modern life around much of the globe. It is the story of how we learned to shop, read selectively, choose a place of worship, pick dance partners and then life partners, vote in elections, and participate in the invention of whole fields of studylike psychology or economicsthat explore how or why or when we make the choices we do.
We tend to see our attachment to choice as natural, maybe even biological, rather than something particular to our historical moment.
This story of how choice became the modern form of freedom has never been fully told or even recognized. Thats because we tend to see our attachment to choice as natural, maybe even biological, rather than something particular to our historical moment. However, once we see that we live uniquely in an age of choice as a result of historical factors, we also start to notice the many consequences of this development on how we live today.
3. Freedom of choice requires a lot of (largely invisible) rules.
As choices have grown across all kinds of sectors, from romance to politics to decorating your house, they have required new technologies to make them work. Think of catalogues, sample books, ballots, surveys, and all their internet counterparts, which require a display of all the available possibilities along with ways to register ones selections. The steady proliferation in both choice-making situations and choices themselves has demanded the invention of ever more rules about who can choose what and when and how. Selecting a sandwich off a menu posted behind a lunch counter paradoxically requires all kinds of largely invisible regulations that have also grown with time, from rules about the safety of the products one is picking amongst, to rules about what happens to the money you hand over in exchange for your turkey club, to rules about how to line up to register ones choice in the first place.
So-called free markets only work when laws of various kindsthemselves designed by a host of choice architects, in the lingo of behavioral economistsemerge to help make the whole business run smoothly. This kind of freedom to do or select what matches ones preferences is generally only available in our hours not on the job, or so-called free time. It is also always restricted to some people rather than others: people with money, people of a certain age, people who are citizens or residents, people of one sex rather than the other. Choice is always a limited form of freedom insofar as it requires other constraints, formal and informal, to be operable.
4. Choice can be a trap with negative repercussions.
Most of us, rightly, dont want to relinquish any of our existing freedom to choose. There is good reason why having choices is associated with human rights protections and global happiness indexes. It is hard for most Americans to imagine the benefits of arranged marriages, or a political system without secret, individualized voting, or a world of provisioning rather than supermarkets, even though these are relatively recent developments in the broad sweep of history.
But, then again, we rarely stop to look at the downsides of our reliance on and faith in choice. Humans are limited in our ability to make good choices, as psychologists often tell us, because we fail to really know our own minds. We are also made anxious by having too many choices since we cant predict their outcomes and know we are likely to wonder if we picked wrong afterward. Who cant relate to that feeling of slight panic and sometimes paralysis at the very 21st-century scenario of being confronted with too many options and too little guidance about how to discriminate among them, whether in real life or online?
Choice is always a limited form of freedom insofar as it requires other constraints, formal and informal, to be operable.
All this stress on individual choice means we often end up blaming peopleespecially disadvantaged people who face few or only bad choicesfor outcomes that might not be entirely their fault. Is it really a bad choice, suggestive of criminality, to try crossing a border illegally if one is stuck in a war-torn nation with no other possibilities for moving elsewhere?
We get so caught up in considering our own options for fulfillment that we become incapable of considering how to achieve something in our collective interest, like clean air, water, or a solution to the refugee problem. In such cases, having more choices doesnt enhance our freedom and well-being on an individual or societal level.
And for all its global appeal, not least under the guise of feminism, commitment to choice has also become a potent source of resentment in places and subcultures that do not accept that this central capitalist-democratic value should be a goal unto itself or that feel left out of its operation. Thats one reason political fights often revolve around the question of what choices should be available to whom, especially when it comes to women and their reproductive lives.
5. Knowing when to advocate for enhanced choices, and when not, could benefit us.
This isnt a brief for getting rid of choice, but we should be more attentive to when choice meets our needs and when it doesnt or wont. For example, we might find scenarios where we want fewer rather than more choices as consumers. Who wouldnt prefer a single good-quality, mandated health insurance plan over picking between nine different market options, all with different contingency plans, which we have no way of foreseeing if they will match our future needs?
As voters, we might want to take some options off the table entirely. I can imagine deciding we want to live in a world that doesnt offer civilians the option of buying certain kinds of military-grade weapons, just as we prohibit the option of buying children or bodily organs or dangerous drugs or driving without passing a special test. We might even decide there are some scenarios in which we need to limit the choices of some people to increase the choices of others.
Looking to history helps us see how choice came to occupy the importance and high status it has today. We can trace its development from the first want ads for spouses in the 18th century to Tinder today. History also shows where and how we risk going overboard, especially in the United States, where freedom-as-choice and choice-as-freedom are most evident. This inquiry is equally vital for ordinary people, business leaders, and policymakers.
Thats especially true at this moment, when artificial intelligence is being developed to grow our choices further and also to tailor those choices to individualsthus shaping and constraining which options we pick. We need to remain aware that the promise of choice has been critical to many emancipation movements, from abolitionism to feminism, and has given people new possibilities for how to live. Still, it is time we got past the idea that choice is either cost-free or always the solution, never the problem. Think about this fact next time you find yourself in front of any kind of menu.
This article originally appeared in the Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Clearly, automation will affect labor in 2025. But we maintain that when implemented well, automation elevates our employees and empowers our American workers to make U.S. businesses more competitive on the global stage.This is our why. Now Chang Robotics president, Kate McAfoose, will address the how. These are remarks she shared at a recent Delaware Valley Goods Movement Task Force quarterly meeting panel.
New automation brings new challenges
Yes, new challenges emerge with increased automation and digitalization. As an engineering firm, our company is coming from an engineering culture into companies ranging from manufacturing to warehousing, transportation, e-commerce, healthcare, and government spaces. Many are Fortune 500; some are smaller, but the challenges they face are the same:
They want to maintain staffing from within their regions, but they must be sure theyre meeting quality requirements and regulatory benchmarks.
They want to build a resilient supply chain within the U.S.
So how do they transition manual workers to jobs informed by digital technologies?
Smart technologies and asking the right questions
As part of our robotic solutions, we integrate smart sensors, internet of technology (IoT) platforms, data collection, and analysis. We also provide C-suites with a dashboard to track key metrics, and identify areas where performance may be lacking. The dashboard answers questions such as Are we maintaining uptime? Are we meeting production requirements? Are the quality measurements in line?
Perhaps the client needs to improve operational efficiency to maintain profitability. In healthcare, nursing staff may be burned out due to a shortage, leading to physical exhaustion or extended shifts. Or a government facility might be readyor requiredto transition to autonomous shuttles.
In all cases, the process involves finding the repetitive tasks that are not necessarily high skilled, then finding ways to automate those functions. Now the challenge is to upskill the staff and operators to new trades as were implementing the systems.
Training the trainers is key
Our company has a philosophy called train the trainer. As we implement new technology, we walk side by side with the operators for roughly 3-6 months. We make sure they understand and can operate the system; then we help them champion the system. In addition to the new level of employment, they earn the metaphorical badge of honor for having learned a new trade.
We focus on empowering employees who can go home and say, My job is cool. I get to work with robots. Its not a situation of humans being replaced by robots, but in positioning them with collaborative robots that can drive efficiency and quality but cannot function without human interaction. If we implement the change in this way, everyone wins.
A new world, with room for many
How many people go through high school thinking, I want to specialize in goods movement or I want to work in automated transport? This is not a career path people have considered as a cool future role. But as these functions become better understood, the respect for their power will grow.
There will still be a range of skilled and lower-skilled positions in the automated workforce. More positions will naturally focus on the maintenance and planning of the automated facilities. People will be required to perform maintenance and testing functions and to plan and maintain the spare parts inventory. These roles are vital to the operations success and will naturally gain a much bigger seat at the organizational table.
Automation also applies to quality control. For example, if youre automating plasticware production, the utensils must come off the line cleanly, with no excess edges. The moment one piece fails to meet quality standards, it can cause a backup in the entire line, leading to a shutdown and requiring manual labor to resolve the issue. If youre operating with a smaller staff, youll need to pull workers from other areas, further slowing down production. Everyone involved will continually learn and adapt.
Jobs remain, but skillsets are shifting
It’s critical to avoid the assumption that automation leads to job reduction. Its a drive for as much production and quality enhancement as possible, but it will require a specialized team to achieve. Ideally, its the same team you already have, but differently trained.
Traditionally, manual warehouse labor roles have very high turnover. After 6 months, many workers feel the job is repetitive and unappealing, or they leave to avoid night shifts or seek higher pay elsewhere. When this happens, the training investment is lost, and the next employee must be trained. However, when automation is implemented effectively, the need for manual labor decreases. Ideally, this reduction can occur through natural attritionwhen an employee moves on rather than advancing, the company may not need to hire a replacement.
Automation can streamline roles that involve heavy lifting, high workplace injury risk, and increased burnout or boredom. People will leave less often. Effective automation can reward companies and workers in new ways.
Technology for a bright future
What does this mean for our childrens future? Kate has a child in kindergarten right now. I have no idea what she will do. Maybe shell pursue data science or data analysis, but the truth is, the roles of the future most likely dont even exist yet. But they will be necessary. And so will she.
We will continually need to strive for the right decisions and balance, with a focus on innovation and action. This is how the next generation of companiesand employeescan continue to win.
Matthew Chang is founder and Kate McAfoose is president of Chang Robotics.
