Daily Briefing, Aug. 5

A scientist spent 12 months measuring the impact of solar-reflective paint in L. A. He found that ambient temperature dropped by up to 3.5°F. In the summer of 2022, more than 1 million of square feet of roads in L. A’s Pacoima neighborhood were covered with solar reflective paint. Schoolyards, basketball courts, and parking lots were also painted, some with colorful patterns by a local artist.

The release of Anderson’s new commercial for Montblanc has us nostalgic for his best commercial work. In 1924, luxury brand Montblanc launched its (ahem) signature product, the Meisterstück fountain pen. Now, the brand is celebrating, in the best way possible, by enlisting Wes Anderson to direct its newest commercial.

Amid fears that tech will erase jobs, more community colleges—and more tech companies—are banking on new two-year AI programs. Josh Sinnott graduated from Arizona State University in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in business. He worked various jobs, including a bakery, Charles Schwab, and a local startup.

Superchargers keep drivers in the gas station mindset—but EV charging doesn’t have to look like that. When Tesla laid off the entire team working on its Superchargers—a network of fast EV chargers that can add 200 miles of range in just 15 minutes—some took it as a bad omen for the charging industry overall.

In her new book, leadership expert Ashley Goodall argues that check-ins are a more personal way for teams to set goals. Performance management, if you’re not familiar with the term, is the slightly Orwellian name given to the process involving goal-setting, annual or semiannual reviews and feedback, and performance ratings, and in its traditional form, it represents a kind of all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of our worst and most erroneous ideas about human performance.

Big Oil has given more than $25 million to the GOP and conservative groups this election cycle. August Pfluger, an Air Force veteran and member of the U. S. House representing a small district in West Texas, isn’t exactly a household name on the national political scene, with little press coverage in the last two months outside a recent Fox News appearance.