#679: On video games, Tazers and Twinkies, with Island IDAs in beast mode

Farm report: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as we shake off those April showers and get our hands dirty, plowing the back 40 of socio-economic progress.

It’s April 6 and we’re sowing the seeds of innovation, essential to a bountiful harvest of economic development. Dig it!

Start any day healthy: Before we get started, let’s raise a spoon to National Açaí Bowl Day, an annual celebration of the popular superfruit acai, mashed with bananas and frozen berries and finished with granola, seeds and other healthy toppings. .

On the other end of the nutrition spectrum, it’s also National Twinkie Day. Please celebrate responsibly.

Beer here: New Beer’s Eve, an April 6 celebration marking the night before New Beer’s Day, which relates to the legalization of beer sales in the United States on April 7, 1933 – a precursor to the official end of Prohibition, also demands rejoicing responsible.

Imagine this: If there are any photos of that first New Beer’s Eve, you can probably thank master innovator George Eastman, who sold his first Kodak film camera 133 years ago today.

It gets stuck : Speaking of Kodak moments, New Jersey DuPont chemist Roy Plunkett accidentally discovered Teflon on this date in 1938.

Last stop: New York City Streetcars also remained (for a time), which ended 125 consecutive years of service on April 6, 1957, with final runs on what is now Roosevelt Island.

New York’s streetcar service dates back to 1832 and the deployment of the world’s first streetcar line.

In a pinch, maybe: Jake can rake, but we probably won’t see him.

Designate this: It was on this date in 1973 that the designated hitter – long an abomination of the Major League Baseball junior circuit, poised to delegitimize National League pitching and batting stats and forever eliminate moments amazing like this – has become a thing.

Ongoing: And on that same day – April 6, 1973 – NASA Pioneer 11the first Earth craft to study Saturn up close, lifted off from Cape Canaveral.

Carrying a message from humanity to the cosmos (and directions to Earth, for curious visitors), the probe stopped transmitting in 1995 – although best guesses say it continues to traverse interstellar space, with a flyby of the star Lambda Aquila expected in about 4 million years.

Cover me! American nuclear physicist John Higson “Jack” Cover Jr. (1920-2009) – a NASA contractor who invented the Taser stun gun in his garage after reading about a man temporarily immobilized by a line electricity fallen – would be 102 years old today.

Mistral: Lyrical Latina.

Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520), the Renaissance master better known as Raphael, was also born on April 6; Chilean poet and diplomat Gabriela Mistral (born Lucila Godoy Alcyaga, 1889-1957), Nobel laureate known for her humanism; American engineer and industrialist Donald Douglas Sr. (1892-1981), who founded the Douglas Aircraft Co.; controversial American geneticist James Watson (b. 1928), Nobel laureate revered for answering fundamental genetic questions, before things went wrong; and American actor Billy Dee Williams (born William December Williams Jr., 1937), better known as intergalactic “Star Wars” villain Lando Calrissian.

Big ant: And bow down, Paul Stephen Rudd! The American actor – who has reached new heights as Marvel’s Ant-Man, and is also a candy store empresario in upstate Rhinebeck – turns 53 today.

Give People Magazine’s reigning Sexiest Man your very best at editor@innovateli.com, where there’s nothing sweeter (or sexier, for that matter) than your topical advice and calendar events.

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BUT FIRST, THIS

Good job: New rental housing and strong job creation highlight the performance of the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency in 2021, according to the agency’s annual economic impact report.

Compiled by Connecticut-based consulting firm Camoin Associates, the fiscal summary details 12 IDA-backed projects over the 2021 timeline — a significant year, the agency notes, with regional economies struggling to emerge from the pandemic. . In total, the projects are expected to generate more than $380 million in construction spending, the report says, with a “net benefit” of about $80 million to Nassau’s economy.

The 12 projects – half of which are focused on rental housing, with 885 new units (including 240 new affordable units) underway – are also expected to create 2,870 jobs, including more than 1,100 full-time positions after construction. “This agency is very proud of our unwavering approach to growing our economy over the past year – creating new jobs (and) building new homes for current and future residents while broadening the tax base of the county,” said Nassau County IDA Chairman Richard Kessel. Tuesday. “The 2021 report is proof that we have certainly rebounded.”

Pardon our appearance: renovations are underway inside the Long Island Innovation Park.

Answer the call : A Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency transaction will trigger a $44.3 million investment in the Long Island Innovation Park in Hauppauge, which will build on a new overlay area in the town of Smithtown .

IDA pre-approved a tax incentive package supporting Venture One Real Estate, an LLC to demolish an underutilized 90,702 square foot office building and build 123,970 square feet of industrial space on 7, 4 acres straddling Wireless Boulevard. The project – which promises 220 jobs in the construction phase, with 30 full-time equivalent jobs to come – is progressing in the new Smithtown overlay area, a bit of zoning flexibility created specifically in response to a 2017 economic opportunity analysis that gave priority to new industrial spaces.

The Venture One project, which still has to undergo a final IDA vote, ticks important economic development boxes – but more importantly, it fills a critical need overall, according to IDA’s executive director of Suffolk County, Tony Catapano. “It’s no secret that industrial space is in high demand,” Catapano said Tuesday. “IDA is pleased to invest in this project as it will provide quality space to attract new businesses to the area or help existing businesses to expand.

POD PEOPLE

Episode 16: Brian Fried, always thinking.

What really makes the HIA-LI tick? How about the Long Island Association? What are Adelphi University’s long-term plans? What’s on the drawing board at SUNY Old Westbury? And that of Hofstra? What are the secrets of Long Island’s most successful product designer…and what really scares the best ghost hunter on the island?

Sponsored by clean energy pioneer ThermoLift, Season 2 of Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast provides these answers and more – a premier classroom for inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives. Take full ears.

TOP OF THE SITE

Pac-Man Fever: April Fool’s Day pranks notwithstanding, Smith Haven Mall’s Game On Retro Arcade is a smash hit.

Solid ground: State and local funders hope a state-of-the-art ground transportation hub will help Long Island MacArthur Airport get off the ground.

Little reminder : Thanks for forwarding this brilliant newsletter to your fellow innovators – also remind them that individual subscriptions are always easy, always free.

VOICE

Non-profit presenter Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Garden City-based Family and Children’s Association, is booking time with Airbnb, which has offered people around the world a chance to help short-term Ukrainian residents. resources – a brilliant lesson in innovation for charities on Long Island.

WHAT WE READ

Adapt quickly: Innovation is supposed to be hard – it’s how you adapt that counts. Fast Co. pivots.

Release: With fuel prices skyrocketing (and still do), there are proven ways to stretch every gallon of gas. Huffpost tanks.

Accentuate the positives: Russia’s horrific war in Ukraine may actually foster a long-term shift toward sustainability. Nature extrapolates.

RECENT FUNDING

+ Herb’N Eden, a Georgia-based all-natural bath and beauty company, closed a $1.2 million funding round led by Mercantile Venture Capital, with participation from The Core Venture Studio.

+ Dank Bank, a Delaware-based NFT trading platform, raised $4.2M in pre-seed funding backed by Mechanism Capital, Samsung NEXT, Morningstar Ventures, Vincent Van Dough’s Starry Night Capital, Kyros Ventures, and Cryptopathic .

+ Electives, a Massachusetts-based educational platform connecting teachers and corporate learners, closed an $8 million Series A funding round led by Accomplice and G2O Ventures, with participation from Boston Seed Capital.

+ Green Revolution Cooling, a Texas-based provider of single-phase immersion cooling for data centers, raised $28 million in Series C funding led by SK Lubricants.

+ Black Crow AI, a New York-based no-code machine learning infrastructure company, raised $25M in Series A funding led by Imaginary Ventures, Left Lane, Good Friends, Interplay, and Red Antler, among others .

+ Flux Marine, a Rhode Island-based developer of electric outboard motors and personal watercraft battery systems, raised $15.5 million in Series A funding led by Ocean Zero, Boost VC and Winklevoss Capital, among others .

Do you like this newsletter? Sponsorships of the Innovate Long Island newsletter, website, and podcast are a great opportunity to reach the inventors, investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders you need to know (just ask New York Tech). Marlene McDonnell can tell you more.

UNDER THE FOLD

Short attention span: It’s your brain on TikTok.

TikTok Brain: Short content videos rewire children’s minds.

Candy Crush: Inflation beats the Easter Bunny.

Wordle on Steroids: Meet Semantle, Wordle’s incredibly difficult impersonator.

Uploaded: Please continue to support the incredible institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including the New York Institute of Technology, where they have the best technology tools of today – and are already developing those of tomorrow. Check them.