Category Archives: Evolution

(Editors note: As the 2022-23 season approaches, Pistons.com will examine the key storylines for the season ahead and beyond. Today: What is the next step in Saddiq Beys evolution and how far can his partnership with Cade Cunningham carry a young Pistons team?)

Theres been a long tradition of NBA players using their off-seasons to identify one or two areas of concentration to sharpen. It usually comes on the advice of coaches and is tailored to meet the needs required to fulfill a destined role within a team framework.

Saddiq Bey eschews that tradition.

I get that question every year since college, he said when his second NBA season concluded in April and was asked what he anticipated focusing on over the summer. I have the same answer. Try to be as complete a game as possible. I dont try to focus on one thing. I do want to sharpen everything. I just feel like my entire game, I want to sharpen up. If I can have a complete game, I can put myself in a good position.

With his off-season at the mid-point in July, Bey hadnt deviated from his plan one iota. Asked what the next step in his evolution might be while in Las Vegas with the Pistons Summer League entry, after going from two-thirds of his shots coming from the 3-point arc as a rookie to a little more than half as a second-year player, Bey again defaulted to his core career blueprint.

Just continuing to be a three-level scorer and try to be even more a four-level behind the 4-point line, he said. Being as versatile as possible. Being able to play any position, be anywhere on the floor to have no weaknesses. Every evolution is to be having the most complete game I can possibly have in each and every way.

That Bey doesnt get any pushback from Pistons management heavy-handed guidance on a narrower off-season focus is a testament to the teams faith in the work ethic of their 23-year-old forward. They understand that Beys hours in the gym will allow him to spend a sufficient amount of time on everything his considerable to-do list contains to show gains across the board.

In fact, the most sternly worded mission statement Pistons management and coaches imparted to Bey for his off-season went to the need to allow his body proper recovery time from the workload he assumes.

So it will be interesting to see what wrinkles Bey puts into evidence for year three, one that begins with a different dynamic for the Pistons and a different spot in the hierarchy for Bey. His first two seasons have seen an offense that catered to Jerami Grant and relied on him to rescue possessions gone awry. It began to change last season when Grant missed nearly two months with a thumb injury and Cade Cunningham began to spread his wings as the teams primary playmaker, a course the Pistons expect to follow for the foreseeable future.

Bey is the most certain sidekick at Cunninghams flank. How their partnership plays out will determine how Dwane Casey builds the offense out around them from there.

Beys 2021-22 season broke down into approximate thirds. He struggled over his first 25 games, averaging 12.2 points while shooting .348 overall and .305 from the 3-point arc while taking not quite half his shots from distance. Then Grant got hurt and Bey assumed his spot at power forward and had the same plays run for him the Pistons designed for Grant. Over the next several weeks, Beys scoring and efficiency both soared 19.1 points on .424 shooting and .360 from three. His shot attempts went from 12.8 a game to 15.0 though his usage rate rose only slightly, from 19.9 to 21.5.

When Grant returned, Beys numbers for the home stretch more closely approximated the middle third but ticked down slightly: 16.9 points on .408 shooting and .359 from three. His shot attempts also settled among the middle at 13.8 a game and his usage stabilized at 21.2 while his efficiency rose to 108.4 from 106.3 in the middle third and 98.0 over the first 25 games.

Was the spike when Grant went out more about issues in meshing with Beys more diversified game or coincidental and possibly indicative of Bey merely finding his footing as something beyond a catch-and-shoot specialist, a process accelerated by greater opportunity with Grant out? With Grant now moved on, what will Beys niche look like as Cunninghams sidekick? And how does folding in rookie Jaden Ivey to the mix affect the chemistry of that partnership?

Casey has mentioned a future that includes more of Bey operating as a pick-and-roll ballhandler. Bey flashed vision and passing skills in his second season, going from 2.4 assists in the first third last season to 3.4 by the final chunk of games. One possible course Casey chooses early in the season is to give Cunningham and Bey the space and time they need to let their partnership flourish organically and then slot in everything else around them as the situation warrants.

The basketball IQ and accountability both Cunningham and Bey evince as young players foreshadows a long and prosperous synergy for them. Further, theyre fully aware of the responsibility that now falls on their shoulders and are embracing it head on.

We talk a lot together every day, Bey said over the summer. Its about our team, our situations, our opportunity. Its just having to play off each other more what spots each other wants the ball at, what spots we can help make plays for other people. I think we talk so much, were so close, that we have a good feel for each other on the court. At the end of the day, its not about me and him, its about what we can do with the experience we have to help our team.

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Storylines for 2022-23: Whats next in the evolution of Saddiq Bey in year 3 for Pistons? - NBA.com

Medical journals reveal physical/physiological changes to the human brain when people get used to less than optimal emotional states like anxiety, worry, depression, etc. For people with depression, its the shrinking of the Gray Matter Volume (GMV) and prolonged or pathological anxiety may result in the degenerative or impaired functioning of the hippocampus and the Prefrontal Cortex.

The surest way out of this conundrum is to be committed to personal evolution. A human being, on average, evolves once every 10 years, which means, in 10 years, they would have naturally evolved in terms of their maturity, capabilities, emotional mastery, and more.

In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Harini Ramachandran, Co-Creator of Excellence Installations Technology and Co-Founder of Antano and Harini, advised, By getting people to time-compress personal evolution to happen once every 6 months to a year instead of 10 years, is one of the surest ways to ensure people continue to evolve across all aspects of their life. Instead of viewing health in kilos, we aim for integrated life outcomes. With the predictive intelligence of EIT, it is possible to arrive at the minimum set of breakthrough opportunities that will get a person to evolve across all aspects of their life: including health, business, career, family, relationships and legacy.

Sonal Chadha, Lead Clinical Psychologist at Lissun, shared, Individuals should acquire skills to balance their authentic self in order to maintain mind-body connection. Systematic way of exploring and bringing introspection is a habit to evolve as an aware self. In order to have awareness and authenticity in oneself, we can engage in introspection, journaling, mindfulness living, relaxation and meditations. One needs to be allowed to look at their strength and weakness as an individual, which creates a connection to have a keen awareness of who you are and who you stand for. Bringing light to this connection can directly enhance one's physical and mental health.

Suggesting that effective human resource management is essential for delivering superior medical treatment, Dr Monica Gulati, Executive Dean and Registrar at School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in LPU, highlighted, The healthcare sector needs to place more focus on human resource management in order to develop new policies. When workers are aware of how their individual efforts that contribute to the end goals set by the management are valued, they are more likely to be engaged, motivated and perform at a higher level. Even organizations that take great satisfaction in putting a strong emphasis on psychological safety and transparency were forced to establish new regulations to maintain workplace ethics.

She added, From leisure to connection to the contribution, there is an additive progression where each step builds on the one before it. Many companies have already achieved significant advancements in the area of comfort, fostering a friendly workplace where employees are treated with respect. A company's chances of meeting or exceeding its financial targets, being high-performing, being innovative and flexible, and producing better business results all increase by a factor of two to three, six to eight, respectively, when this type of inclusive culture is established within the company. In order for employees to feel like their opinions are respected and welcomed, the culture should encourage everyone to be themselves, share their diverse views, and fit with the team's and organization's goals.

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Tips to develop connection between systematic personal evolution and health - Hindustan Times

[author: Patrick Gleason]

The major change in the modern corporate legal world has been the increase not only in the percentage of lawyers working in-house compared to big law employment, but the shift to corporate law departments as the primary legal advisors for their client colleague business leaders and the board of directors. In 1980, only 10% of American lawyers were in-house; today there are more in-house attorneys than large law firm counselors.

In fact, in-house law departments have grown 7.5 times faster than law firms from 1997 to 2017. It is the law department itself, not outside counsel, now in charge of defining and assigning work, generally favoring in-house resources, though often choosing tech-enhanced, alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) to accomplish what would have been repetitive but lucrative (i.e., time-consuming) outside counsel associate work less than two decades ago.

The last bastion of outside counsel authority is in litigation, corporate restructuring, and ancillary trial services. Will this change too?

To project the limits of in-house growth, it is important to look at the wider historical perspective of American in-house law. Three major catalysts have shaped the evolution of corporate law in the last thirty years, each resulting in an increase in in-house oversight.

The first was the radical shift to in-house counsel pioneered by General Electric in 1987 that widely influenced Fortune 500 corporate practice. When Jack Welch was searching for a new general counsel for GE, he sought out the managing partner and founder of Sidley & Austins Supreme Court practice group, Rhodes Scholar Benjamin W. Heineman, Jr.

Heineman had not worked for Welch before, and in fact, was not even a corporate lawyer. But Welch tasked and empowered Ben Heineman to reimagine how a global corporation could better manage legal issues and overall risk. One of Heinemans first steps as GC was to replace thirty of his thirty-three in-house lawyers. Heineman strategically built out his law department with highly qualified, experienced private practice attorneys, often with specialized expertise.

In this new arrangement, the GE legal department itself would perform complex legal work as company employees, rather than delegating it wholesale to outside firms, as well as proactively working with and educating regulators. This reduced overall legal costs (though upping in-house lawyer salaries) and better managed risk. It also profoundly reduced the inefficiencies of outsourcing decision-making concerning complex, fast-evolving businesses to private practice attorneys removed from the shifting frontlines of commerce. (Transparency was not part of it: business unit leaders at GE did not know that their legal advisor colleagues were often paid more than them!) It was now the General Counsel and her co-worker counselors not the high-priced, time-charging outside big law partners that were the strategic legal leaders and advisors to the business units.

The second major shift in the empowerment of corporate counsel was the inevitable integration of business rigor and analytics into law departments. Although the global financial crisis was an accelerant for the rise of legal operations (the third phase of legal service evolution, see below), this intermediary if stealthier second shift in the go-go 90s up until the 2008 financial crisis successfully and irreversibly deployed outsourced talent to assist corporate law departments with due diligence and discovery reviews.

Following the lead of IT outsourcing, much of the grunt work, basic, legal analysis was now being accomplished by contracted professionals overseen by both outside counsel and increasingly by the corporate counsel team. This high-volume review, tedious but necessary discovery, and due diligence work was part of associate training for litigation and M&A work, or so the law firms insisted. It is crucial to note that litigation decisions and oversight even those that were nonstrategic were left untouched. Outside counsel and their legion of associates supervised the external contracted reviewers and hired the court reporters, translators, the tech, and jury consultants. Perhaps the best signifier of this middle phase of expanded corporate authority is the DuPont Legal Model, which enforced a strategy of convergence where outside counsel at least agreed to have skin in the game by reducing rates but receiving bonuses for successful (and proactive) results.

The third catalyst was the rise of the legal operations department. And while legal operations departments are still blossoming, their origin and scope are significantly different than the prior two shifts. The rise of corporate legal operations is not an attorney-driven appropriation of business ideas; it is a wholesale multidisciplinary, data enhanced re-evaluation and re-tasking of business risk reduction and compliance driven by professionals, often without law degrees.

The first Corporate Legal Operations Consortium was only seven years ago. Its founders (Connie Brenton; Stephanie Corey, and Mary OCarroll) drew on their Silicon Valley industry experience to focus on continuous, multidisciplinary process improvements that also lowered legal costs. This included strategic deployment of tech and data and leveraged outsourced professionals (not just lawyers) to accomplish more creatively and measurably with less staff and less attorneys.

The initial rise in legal operations was the natural consequence of the new in-house working model with the law departments serving as primary business unit advisors. As inside work increased in scale and complexity, there was a commensurate growth of wide-ranging administrative responsibilities managed by the law department. These important managerial business roles were ill-suited to lawyers without business or tech industry experience. The birth of the legal operations professional not only relieved attorneys of non-core legal and risk advisory roles but allowed for new ways to approach and better oversee the increased workload.

The most efficient external lawyer utilization is to engage as outside counsel trial tested litigators or transactional specialists whose knowledge, expertise, and front-line varied legal experience distinguishes them from corporate counsel. But even the appropriate delegation to outside counsel to oversee major or infrequent litigation, regulatory responses, business pivots or acquisitions does not necessarily mean that ancillary support services are best hired or managed by that expensive, specialized legal counsel.

Even eDiscovery born of the 2006 amendment of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure naming electronically stored information as crucial evidentiary data has shifted in major cases from being controlled exclusively by the law firms to being handled primarily by dedicated in-house professionals, who hire and supervise supplementary eDiscovery vendors in concert with outside counsel.

There are indeed litigation areas still managed by external counsel but ripe for efficiency improvements by shifting to direct enterprise oversight. More law departments are now engaging with litigation consultants at earlier stages of anticipated filings, providing early case assessments that can significantly reduce risks as well as providing data for best outside counsel and venue selection. Similarly, translation services can be more economically engaged and managed by the enterprise team rather than external counsel, whose value is again in direct litigation strategy and delivery.

Finally, businesses with steady litigation demands should seek consolidation and leverage of court reporting services where allowed, rather than relying on outside counsel procurement. However, the case-by-case hiring of these crucial, experienced, independent professionals by law firms limits the advancement of innovation and efficiencies, and inefficiently tasks the law firm with third-party administration. Likewise, state anti-contracting laws meant to ensure the independence of freelance court reporters by prohibiting pre-negotiated arrangements unfortunately further fragments the field and complicates the scaling of improvements.

The important protection of court reporter independence and the improved efficiencies of national contracting are not mutually exclusive. If the reporter upholds their duty of impartiality and the national court reporting vendor respects and affirms that individual duty, corporate law departments will gain significant efficiencies by bringing it in-house as well, continuing, if not completing, the longstanding empowerment of the in-house team and refocusing of outside counsel to core strategic legal work.

Conclusion

Is the long-running revolution from external big law partners to in-house legal as primary legal counselors to corporate units complete? Or are there still opportunities for corporate law departments to improve and economize legal work still managed by outside counsel? While bringing lawyers in house at the enterprise level may have become standard practice across most corporations, it would seem the next aspect of the corporate legal evolution involves leveraging preferred provider relationships with litigation support providers to maximize efficiencies and recognize cost savings across additional legal proceeding services such as court reporting, videography, interpreting and more.

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The Evolution of In-house Legal Departments and the Catalysts Behind Corporate Law as a Discipline - JD Supra

Donning a bushy black beard, a brimmed hat, suspenders and, sometimes, a corn-cob pipe, Yosef has seen an extensive evolution since his first appearance in the 1942 Rhododendron. As this year marks the 80th year since his inception, we traced Yosefs 80 year evolution from yearbook placeholder to Mountaineer mascot through archived photos, newspaper clippings and old yearbooks.

Originally introduced as Danl Boone Yoseff in the 1942 Rhododendron, Yoseff was added so editors could fill a blank space, according to App State Athletics. Pictured as a freshman, his image on the final freshman page made all columns of pictures symmetrical. The image depicts him with a slender face, wearing suspenders, a tall hat and smoking a pipe.

Yosef is an abbreviated mountain slang term meaning yourself. The hope of App State is that students, alumni, friends and family who are filled with school spirit have found Yosef, according to App State Athletics.

In 1946, Yosef appeared again as a regular opinion columnist in The Appalachian, writing a repeating column titled Musings of a Mountaineer each week. He covered topics from politics to local weather, often offering observations and jokes on current school issues while writing with a distinctive southern diction.

I warnt rightly agreeable at first to spoutin off my opinions for every young upstate to take advantage of, but I was promised my picture would be run next week so here I am, Yosef wrote in The Appalachian in 1947. I been around these parts a long time watchin the shenanigans and goings on and I spect I can hand out about the sagest piece of advice.

While App State Athletics website states the drop of the second f occurred in early 1947, this first opinion column posted in the Nov. 8, 1946 edition of The Appalachian has Yosef being spelled just with one f, indicating the transition from Yoseff to Yosef happened sooner.

In early 1947, Yosefs likeness was included in the paper for the first time, again with a large beard, a black brimmed hat and a slender face. Yosefs regular opinion columns ended in 1949, with a final column posted in the April 1, 1949 edition of The Appalachian.

Pictures from the Appalachian State Special Archives show students bringing Yosef to life while at pep rallies in the 50s. In 1958, a statue of Yosef was erected in Broome-Kirk Gymnasium, now Roess Dining Hall, according to pictures in the Appalachian State Special Collections.

The summer before the 1983-84 school year, a logo committee joined together and changed Yosef from the more realistic mountain man image into a cartoon-like caricature with a new mascot suit, according to the Feb. 22 1983 issue of The Appalachian.

We felt the need to have a mascot like the other universities. It would be easier for a costumed character to raise school spirit; people dont have that pizazz, said Jane Rex of the App State Athletic Office in the Sept. 1, 1983 issue of The Appalachian.

Although not the first to put on a Yosef costume, Todd Hutchinson was the first person to wear the revamped costume for athletics, according to the Oct. 13, 1983 issue of The Appalachian.

Hutchinson said he was first disappointed to wear the cartoon-like outfit, because he felt he was better at portraying the laid back country boy image he identified with.

But, I see now where it takes a lot more effort and concentration to wear the costume. The responsibility is more intricate because you have to learn how to walk and make motions and deal with kids, Hutchinson said.

1999 saw the tightening of tobacco laws in North Carolina and yet another change in Yosefs appearance. Yosef lost his cob pipe and gained a longer and more flowing beard as found in the Oct. 10, 2016 issue of The Appalachian.

App State Athletics reintroduced the Vintage Yosef in 2012 and its popularity soared, according to the Dec. 5, 2013 issue of The Appalachian. Due to this overwhelming love for the older mascot, the athletics department decided to officially make the Vintage Yosef the official secondary logo of App State.

The mascot additionally had its name changed to Victory Yosef and was used on merchandise as early as that years, 2013, holiday season.

The support of Victory Yosef has been overwhelming since bringing it back, so it just made sense to make it an official logo moving forward, said Mike Flynn in the same article.

Yosef now is a very cartoon-centric logo that builds hype in fans and encourages students to give their all for Appalachia. His face covered in App gold topped with his signature slightly bent forward 10-gallon hat. In most images he is seen smoking his staple corncob pipe. His appearance includes the icon wearing black and gold suspenders, a black bushy beard, retaining some of the original elements of The Rhododendrons 1942 Danl Boone Yoseff, while moving away from the original slender design of the icon.

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Evolution of App State's own mountain man - The Appalachian Online

What if I told you that next year youd be able to play a game that feels like its taken all the best bits from the best Nintendo Switch games like Hollow Knight and Super Mario Odyssey and put them all together? Well, that game is Biomorph, and following six years of tender love and care, its about to be released into the wild.

Biomorph is the second game from Lucid Games Studio, set up by industry veterans Maxime Grgoire and Francis Lapierre, who have credits on the likes of Far Cry 5, Thief, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex. And while they both had cushy jobs in the triple-A industry, Biomorphs creation was written in the stars.

When we were at school, Maxime said lets go to work, make some money, and then in ten years reconvene and start up our own studio, Lapierre tells The Loadout at Gamescom. So ten years down the line, Maxime called me and said its time to leave Ubisoft, and I did.

I had a nice job, but when I was younger I always told myself that Id have my own game company one day, and I did not want to regret it.

And Lapierre hasnt regretted making that decision. While showing me Biomorph at Gamescom, the Frenchmanwas rarely seen without a smile on his face he knows hes onto a winner.

Biomorph is a soulslike metroidvania at heart. You play as a bat-like creature with massive ears and a penchant for snuffing out the monsters. While youll defeat enemies and take on their form and powers, just like in Kirby, you will eventually have to work out how to outsmart them again at a later date. Thats because in Biomorph, your enemies will return bigger and better than before.

If you biomorph into that monster, then itll learn a little bit about what you do, Lapierre explains. So when you next see them, theyll use powers that you do. Theres a monster in the level I played, for example, that can run and perform a charge attack. But when you defeat and morph into it, youll quickly realise it has a scream attack too.

By the time Id met this big baddie again, Id screamed the house down so much so, in fact, that it started using it against me. Now this monster was supercharged, giving me a more challenging boss fight that required me to use all my skills in battle.

And while its challenging, its important to say here that Biomorph isnt as difficult as the games its borrowing ideas from. Lucid Dreams wants Biomorph to be challenging, but not impossible and in an age where soulslikes are getting more and more hardcore, thats a welcome addition.

Biomorph is set to release on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023.

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Biomorph is an evolution of Hollow Knight that you must play - The Loadout

Photo: A prairie dog, by skeeze via Pixabay.

Editors note: We are delighted to welcome Dr. Iacobini as a new contributor to Evolution News.

Does the idea of purpose have a place in science? Can there really be a science of purpose? Has anyone previously tried to describe such a concept? And what might that entail?

Since the subject matter itself is at the very leastnovel in the scientific context, questions like these are unavoidable. The science of purpose is new to the analytic framework, and is thus obliged to make the case for its claim to validity.

Lets agree to accept an inarguable definition of science, and see ifpurposecan be accommodated within that framework. Here is a straightforward and broadly accepted definition of science. It is the observation of natural phenomena in order to discern recognizable patterns that canbe described in a cause/effect relationship, so that a modelof that relationship can be developed that provides at the veryleasta qualitative generalization that applies to those observed natural phenomena. At the quantitative level, such a generalization must be tested to makeverifiable predictions regarding the behavior of such phenomena.

I dont thinkthat one can easily find an exception to this definition. Science, especially biology, has historically been a descriptive, qualitative exercise. Almost all of the laws of science, which apply to the quantitative portion of the definition, are limited to the realm of chemistryand physics.

The scienceof purpose can bereadilysubsumed within the qualitative/descriptive definition. But beyond that, a modeling relation allows for quantitative analysis as well.

Lets continue with a further definition. What ispurpose?I define it as: the achievementof a predetermined outcome to fulfill a desired goal. Notice that this definition entails two concepts rarely employed in science:intentionality and the future tense.

Yet, with just a little reflection, one realizes that it is straightforward to compilean endless list of examples in nature that exhibit purpose. Bees gather honey, birdsbuild nests for their young, salmon migrate to feed and mate, snakes lay in ambushfor theirprey, plant stems bend toward the light, gymnosperms spray pollen to reproduce, prairiedogs dig burrows to hide from predators, wolves hunt in packs toimprove their predatorysuccess, ruminants travel in herds to resist predation. That would be thetaxonomyof purpose, understood in much the same way that anatomists began to understand physiology two centuries ago.

It was the discovery of the similarity of the anatomy between different classes and phyla of organisms that allowed for biology as adescriptive and qualitativescience to progress. In much the same way, one quickly realizes the unity of severaldiscrete purposes that govern andunify the biosphere.

Those purposes include procurement of food, shelter, a suitable environment, mating, protection of offspring, and more. These are all readily definable purposes that define almost all of biota. Purpose at these descriptive levels is undeniable, demonstrable, and easily contained within a generalizable model oforganism.Yes, in short, purpose has a place in science.

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Defining the Science of Purpose - Discovery Institute

This week marks the fifth anniversary of Apple revealing the iPhone X, one of the biggest redesigns in the iPhone's history. Among other innovations, the iPhone X introduced the notch to the iPhone with Face ID and a design language that has persisted through the last several years.

In memory of the notch turning five years old this week, we thought we'd look back at the history of the iPhone's display bezels and how they have evolved into the pill-shaped cutout it is becoming today.

Throughout those initial years, Apple hardly touched the bezel design around the iPhone's display, keeping the thick "forehead and chin" bezels as displays gradually grew from 3.5 inches in the first few generations to as large as 5.5 inches with the "Plus" variants of the iPhone 6, 6s, and 7. It wasn't until 2017 that things started to radically change.

With that significant change to the iPhone's display, Apple had to rethink how iOS handled content. The new design also meant that third-party apps needed to be updated to support the notch and be sized correctly for the new display. The notch remained a key design element of the iPhone for four years until it was ever touched again.

Dynamic Island is an entirely new way to interact with the iPhone that integrates the pill-shaped cutout into the iOS experience by moving alerts, notifications, and other information to the top of the display and around the cutout, which digitally resizes to respond to what's being displayed. Dynamic Island has received praise since its unveiling last week, with some calling it the "best design work from Apple in years."

Rumors currently suggest that Apple is planning to bring Dynamic Island to the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models next year as the feature trickles down from the highest-end models, so it seems likely that Apple's notch replacement is here to stay for at least a few more years. What would you like to see as the next major design change on the iPhone? Let us know down in the comments.

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A Walk Down Memory Lane: Evolution of the iPhone Display Bezels and Notch - MacRumors

Taking stock of the third-party delivery market in the second quarter of 2022 largely continues long-term trends, but there are some notable nuggets.

In data from YipitData, a research and analysis firm with a focus on the delivery market, the big market share numbers continue to move in the same direction. DoorDash remains the No. 1 delivery player by far, reaching 60 percent of the total market through the second quarter.

Grubhub makes up 9 percent and has continued to tick down in market share. According to Yipit researchers, the third-largest U.S.-based delivery provider was down 2 percent in July compared to July 2021. It does, retain a strong position in New York, its largest market, but there Grubhub share has also ticked down 1 percent.

In the middle, with about 30 percent of the market share is Uber Eats, which has been in that range since July of 2021. The company lost some share in major markets like Boston and Philadelphia.

Getting down to the market level, secondary markets are currently seeing the most growth. According to Yipit, both Memphis, Tennessee, and Sacramento, California, grew third-party delivery sales by more than 10 percent, as seen in the chart below.

Larger cities, including Chicago, New Orleans and San Diego all saw sales decline slightly. While it wasnt shown in the numbers, that may be due to nice summer weather and a consumer base that is more willing to go out and have fun as pandemic habits wear down.

At the brand level, one of the largest brands by scale was the most aggressive grower. Pizza Hut saw third-party delivery sales explode by 48 percent year quarter-over-quarter.

That is right in line with the rollout of third-party in the Yum-owned brand. As Food On Demand covered back in August, the brand has been aggressive in bringing the option for third-party to locations across the country.

We made progress expanding systemwide adoption of third-party delivery-as-a-service to help address our delivery driver capacity constraints to meet consumer demand. As of the end of Q2, approximately 55 percent of our U.S. locations have implemented delivery-as-a-service, up from 40 percent at the beginning of the quarter, said Yum CEO David Gibbs.

He hinted in the second-quarter earnings call that the company was struggling to hire and retain delivery drivers. Adopting delivery services was in part easing staffing pressure for franchise operators.

It wasnt the only fast grower. Crumbl Cookies shot up by more than 40 percent and upscale Mediterranean fast-casual brand Cava was right behind at just over 35 percent growth. IHOP and First Watch, at either end of the breakfast spectrum, both sank by about 9 percent as more people braved the crowds for pancakes and eggs.

Head over to see the rest of Yipit Datas examination of the second-quarter data, including how third-party players differed in key markets and what markets shrank when it came to third-party delivery sales.

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Two Charts Show Ongoing Third-Party Evolution - Food On Demand News

This is the first in a five-part series titled Scaling Up. Each week, well release a new graphic explaining one way the pork industry has changed in recent decades. This week, were focusing on changing farm sizes.

Since the 1990s, hog farms have gotten bigger, more specialized and more productive, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Agricultures Environmental Research Service.

The report illustrates drastic shifts in several aspects of the pork industry over the past three decades, tracking how the industry moved away from small operations where farmers raised hogs from birth to slaughter and toward large operations focusing on only one or two stages of the hogs life cycle.

(Hog farms) are large, and because they're large, they are able to take advantage of economies of scale, said economist Carolyn Dimitri, associate professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University and one of the authors of the report. That seems to be what the industry looks like now.

The larger the farm, the lower the production cost is per hog. This economic principle has resulted in the industrys shift towards concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, which have proliferated across the Midwest.

In addition to examining farm size and specialization, the report also outlines changes in farm production contracts, input costs and regional differences. (More on those in the coming weeks.)

The report cites technological innovation as a driving cause of change. Ben Lilliston, director of climate and rural strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said corporate consolidation and policy decisions, such as subsidies in the Farm Bills of 1990 and 1996 that lowered the cost of feed, also contributed to the sectors transformation.

The pork industrys move towards bigger, more specialized operations also have had negative consequences for air and water quality in CAFO-dense areas.

While nearly half of all small and medium hog operations closed in recent decades, the number of large farms almost doubled.

In 1997, large farms accounted for nearly 40% of the swine produced in the U.S. Twenty years later, these operations produced more than 72% of U.S. hogs, according to the report.CAFOs are an economically efficient way of growing hogs, as bigger farms have lower production costs per animal, the report found.

CAFOs are subject to more regulations and permit requirements than smaller operations, though information about them is sparse. These extra-large farms can produce more than 1 million gallons of waste per year, often leading to air and water pollution.

The USDA considers a hog farm to be a CAFO if more than 2,500 hogs weighing more than 55 pounds are confined at the facility for at least 45 days out of the year.

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Scaling Up: The weighty impact of hog farming's evolution? - Iowa Public Radio

The iconic footwears history dates back over 100 years ago in the old American West.

From cattle drives to catwalks, the cowboy boot has gone through quite a transformative journey.

One of the most iconic footwear styles traces its origins to the late 1870s in the old American West.

A combination of tough terrain, cattle drives and safety while riding horseback all contributed to the iconic footwears design.

Cowboys on the Trail, Lithograph from Painting by R. Farrington Elwell.

(Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group / Getty Images)

The story of the cowboy boot is the story of the cowboy.

"There's no more recognizable symbol worldwide than the American cowboy," said Michael Grauer, McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture and Curator of Cowboy Collections and Western Art at the National Cowboy Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

"They represent freedom and liberty, they generally represent hard work and all qualities and values that most people admire, and [people] want to be part of that somehow," he added. "So, wearing a cowboy boots or a cowboy hat, you somehow become part of that great tapestry that is cowboy culture."

A cowboy boot in a stirrup.

(Three Lions / Getty Images)

The cowboy boot as we know it today dates back to the post-Civil War trail driving era in Texas and Kansas.

According to Grauer, the main model for the cowboy boot at the time was the military boot. But unlike the cavalry men who rode on the balls of their feet, cowboys rode on the instep of their feet, leading to a key development in the shoes design.

"The real invention of the true cowboy boots is with the insertion of the steel shank in the instep," Grauer said, noting that the steel shank was sewn between layers of leather to create a supported instep in the boots.

This development was critical in that, as cowboys rode with their feet in the stirrups of their saddles, wearing boots with a sturdier instep made riding more comfortable. In doing so, the addition of the supported instep allowed cowboys to ride for longer periods of time.

A line of cowboys resting on a fence and showing off their boots. Circa 1955.

(Keystone / Getty Images)

Time spent in the saddle led to a few other developments toward the modern cowboy boot.

For example, the initial boots had a rounded toe design. A pointed toe was later adopted, however, as it allowed cowboys to slide their feet into the stirrups more easily.

A higher heel was also incorporated. By having a higher heel, cowboys could have an easier time preventing their feet and ankles from sliding into their stirrups.

"One of the things that a cowboy feared the most, seeing his foot caught in a stirrup and getting pitched off because then the horses would drag them," Grauer said. "It was usually a fatal outcome if that happened."

Cowboys on horses with their cattle behind them. Texas, circa 1900.

(Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group / Getty Images)

Another part of the cowboy boots evolution involved the adoption of taller uppers or shafts. According to Grauer, the tall shafts were initially called "stovepipe", as they looked like stove pipes on top of a boot. These uppers provided more protection for the leg as cowboys rode through the brush during cattle drives.

"I believe this with all my heart that cowboys built America," Grauer said. "They built America because of the work that they did, which was dirty. It was dangerous, often boring. They made low wages, and they still make bad wages, but they're still willing to do that, put food on the table."

"This great country was built with beef and bread, and it needed strong boots to do that work, whether those are cowboy boots or farmers boots," he added.

A view of country singer and songwriter Ernest Tubb's back-up players the Texas Troubadours backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Circa 1951.

(Bob Grannis / Getty Images)

In the time since its creation, the cowboy boot grew from its practical uses on cattle drives to becoming a fashion statement and part of popular culture.

Some of the folks who helped spread the popularity of the cowboy boot and overall cowboy aesthetic were musicians. According to Grauer, musicians who played what was then known as "hillbilly music" appropriated the cowboy aesthetic to make the musical genre more mainstream. This led to the genre later being called "country and western."

From there, many others also began to sport the iconic footwear and style of cowboys.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders perform during the game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Seattle Seahawks on August 26, 2022 in Dallas.

(Matthew Pearce / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)

"People for the most part appreciate what the cowboy stands for, even if that's a mythological cowboy, and they want to somehow be a part of that they want to appropriate part of that somehow," Grauer said.

"So, wearing boots is very much part of that being a little bit cowboy, I guess you could call it by putting it on your feet," he added.

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From cattle drives to catwalks: The evolution of the modern cowboy boot - Fox Weather