You’ll get the hang of it: Don’t hang your head, intrepid innovator – it’s Wednesday out there, and you’re already halfway through this latest busy workweek.
You hang with it, and we’ll hang with you. This informative innovation review will help you hang on – in fact, you’ll be hanging on every word.
Do you feel lucky: A lifestyle with panache.
You gotta have art: It’s Oct. 25 out there, and we lift your mood first with International Artist Day, less about your Picassos and Georgia O’Keeffes than your local studio and your own creative self-expression.
Speaking of artistic expression, today is also National Punk For a Day Day, a studded-leather, heavily pierced, spikey mohawked celebration of Alice Cooper, the Velvet Underground and the entire punk-rock scene.
Use your noodle: All that punk-rocking takes a lot of energy, so put up a pot of water, please – it’s also World Pasta Day, celebrating the global culinary staple every Oct. 25.
Thin Red Line: Over dinner, show off your big brains by explaining the true origins of Lord Tennyson’s famous poem “Charge of the Light Brigade” – less an act of noble courage than a military blunder of epic proportions, stumbling into the history books on this date in 1854.
Buy low, sell high, eh: More successful has been the Toronto Stock Exchange, which is now Canada’s largest stock exchange but boasted a meager 18 listed securities when it officially formed on Oct. 25, 1861.
New wave: Also selling high was the first commercial microwave oven, which went for about $1,295 when it hit retail shelves 68 years ago today.
(Hackneyed) diamonds in the rough: The young Rolling Stones introduce themselves to Ed Sullivan.
Rolling start: Also hitting high notes were the Rolling Stones, who made their legendary first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on this date in 1964 (and are still getting it done six decades later).
Scare tactics: And it was Oct. 25, 1978, when filmmaker John Carpenter’s horror classic “Halloween” first graced U.S. theaters.
While it wasn’t the first slasher flick, it’s generally regarded as the one that put the genre on the map – and it definitely introduced the world to a largely unknown Jamie Lee Curtis, cutting it up in her first starring role.
He’s a Picasso: Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973) – known to have created more than 20,000 individual works of art, including drawings, stage costumes and theater sets – would be 142 years old today.
I respectfully disagree: Knight was a coaching genius — but a courtside menace.
Also born on Oct. 25 were French composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875), known best for “Carmen” and other Romantic Era operas; American industrialist and diplomat John North Willys (1873-1935), who in his day trailed only Henry Ford in U.S. automobile production; American physicist William Higinbotham (1910-1994), a Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist credited as the inventor of the first interactive analog videogame; American immunologist Marian “Bunny” Koshland (1921-1997), who broke new ground on the science of antibodies; and American former basketball coach Robert Montgomery “Bobby” Knight (born 1940), a Hall of Famer known best for his relentless intensity.
To uphold the constitution(s): And take a bow, Chester James Carville Jr.! The American political consultant, author and occasional actor – who’s strategized for political candidates in at least 24 different nations – turns 79 today.
Wish the Ragin’ Cajun well at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips are a major part of our campaign strategy – and your calendar events always get our vote.
About our sponsor: SUNY Old Westbury empowers students to own the future they want for themselves. In a small-college atmosphere and as part of the dynamic, diverse, 5,000-strong student body, students at Old Westbury get up close and personal with the life and career they want to pursue. Whether it’s a cutting-edge graduate program in data analytics, highly respected programs in accounting and computer-information sciences or any of the more than 70 degrees available, a SUNY Old Westbury education sets students on a course toward success. Own your future.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Sweep rewards: If El Niño delivers any whopping nor’easters this winter, the good folks at Republic Airport might need a new runway-strength snow broom.
Well, now they can afford one, thanks to a fresh $49 million funding package for statewide airports announced this week by the New York State Department of Transportation’s competitive Aviation Capital Grant Program. Among the grants was $1 million for DOT-owned Republic Airport, the general-aviation public airfield in Farmingdale – among the smaller of the 35 separate stipends this funding round, but enough for Republic to snag that snow broom and some electric lawnmowers and add EV charging stations to its main parking lot.
The largest individual awards ($2.5 million each) went to South Albany Airport, Syracuse Regional Airport, Genesee County Airport and Griffiss International Airport in Oneida County, covering new hangars, de-icing upgrades, infrastructure improvements and more. “These targeted investments will support projects that will have a positive, long-lasting impact on the local communities while improving the resiliency of our transportation infrastructure,” DOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez said in a statement.
Blade runners: The construction of giant offshore-wind turbine blades is expected to create thousands of New York State jobs.
Renewed interest: With Albany’s energy agenda seemingly on the ropes – and just days after she KO’d a controversial bill that would have expedited a proposed South Shore wind farm – Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday announced the largest state renewable-energy investment in U.S. history.
Listing a catalogue of new ventures and previously promoted projects (and highlighting New York’s ambitious energy strategy), Hochul announced conditional awards for three offshore-wind and 22 land-based renewable-energy projects, expected to generate a combined 6.4 gigawatts of clean energy (enough to cover 2.6 million homes, about 12 percent of statewide energy needs). The projects also keep the state’s 2030 goals – including renewable sources for 70 percent of statewide electricity – within reach.
The governor also highlighted 8,300 new energy-industry jobs (two new offshore-wind blade-and-nacelle manufacturing facilities play large) and some $20 billion in government and private economic-development investments. “New York continues to set the pace for our nation’s transition to clean energy,” Hochul said. “An investment of this magnitude is about more than just fighting climate change – we’re creating good-paying union jobs, improving the reliability of our electric grid and generating significant benefits in disadvantaged communities.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Bipolar vortex: The Innovate LI Debrief returns with Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research Professor Anil Malhotra, who will co-direct an ambitious national coalition focused on bipolar disorders.
You just haven’t listened yet: You haven’t missed a thing on Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, the only podcast series featuring regional innovation-economy leaders – yeah, there have been, like, four-dozen episodes, but they’re all right here.
VOICES
Moon missions faked? Voices Historian Tom Mariner is not having any of that conspiracy-theory nonsense, not with Long Island’s critical contributions to early space exploration so well-documented – and the world’s largest collection of irrefutable Apollo-era evidence sitting in Garden City.
STUFF WE’RE READING
Incidental: No, management platform 1Password has not been hacked and your personal data has not been exposed. Forbes sets the record straight.
Satisfaction not guaranteed: Science knows what makes humans happy – but humans focus more on what makes them rich. Vox detects data discrepancies.
Dammit, Jim: If Jordan thought the speakership battle was crushing, wait until George Clooney’s OSU sex-abuse documentary debuts. The Independent sneaks a peek.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Flash Pack, a New York City-based adventure-travel agency, raised $6.2 million in funding led by JamJar Investments and PPF.
+ Noodle Cat Games, a Utah-based independent game-development studio, closed a $12 million Series A funding round led by Hiro Capital, Makers Fund, KRAFTON and Sony Innovation Fund.
+ K2 Space, a California-based satellite-technology startup, raised $7 million in funding. Backers included Alpine Space Ventures.
+ Cionic, a California-based neurotech pioneer, raised $12 million in Series A extension funding led by L Catterton and THVC.
+ Position Imaging, a New Hampshire-based location-tracking platform, raised $30 million in funding led by GT Investment Partners and Aon plc.
+ HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based defense-technology innovator, raised an additional $10 million in Series D-1 funding led by Lockheed Martin Ventures.
Like this newsletter? Innovate Long Island newsletter, website and podcast sponsorships are a prime opportunity to reach the inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives you need to know (just ask SUNY Old Westbury). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (I Need A Vacation Edition)
All the comforts of home: Including 26 bedrooms (plus about 150,000 books).
By the numbers: New rules are coming for Americans traveling abroad.
By the book: New VRBO owner? Avoid these rookie mistakes.
By the books: Welcome to the only UK library you can sleep in.
By the way: Before you go, thank you for supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including SUNY Old Westbury, where numbers and books are only part of the success-focused collegiate experience. Check them out.
