Photo by Alfons Morales on Unsplash.
Sent as an email newsletter December 29, 2019.
👋 Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.
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Here are ten items worth your time this week:
💲 1) Tech story of the week: State Support Helped Fuel Huawei’s Global Rise [WSJ]
“A Wall Street Journal review of Huawei’s grants, credit facilities, tax breaks and other forms of financial assistance details for the first time how Huawei had access to as much as $75 billion in state support as it grew from a little-known vendor of phone switches to the world’s largest telecom-equipment company – helping Huawei offer generous financing terms and undercut rivals’ prices by some 30%, analysts and customers say.”
📚 2) The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came. [Vox]
“Ebooks aren’t only selling less than everyone predicted they would at the beginning of the decade. They also cost more than everyone predicted they would – and consistently, they cost more than their print equivalents.”
🧬 3) Pentagon warns military members DNA kits pose ‘personal and operational risks’ [Yahoo News]
“The Pentagon is advising members of the military not to use consumer DNA kits, saying the information collected by private companies could pose a security risk, according to a memo co-signed by the Defense Department’s top intelligence official.”
“Sometimes the gangs spread rumours about the virus, which is fatal to pigs, but in more extreme cases they are using drones to drop infected items into farms.”
🕵️ 5) Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands [Washington Post]
“Short-range phone sensors and campuswide WiFi networks are empowering colleges across the United States to track hundreds of thousands of students more precisely than ever before. ”
🔥 6) The Couple That Fakes Their Own Paparazzi Photos [The Cut]
“The account was only three months old and had a one-word bio, ‘Samsara,’ spelled out in a cool Gothic script. It featured candid-style photos of an attractive couple wearing impeccably coordinated outfits and eating fast food that matched their clothing.”
🗣️ 7) The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts [The Atlantic]
“A dispute between a small group of scholars and the authors of The New York Times Magazine’s issue on slavery represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of American society.”
👨🎓 8) My Semester With the Snowflakes [Medium/Gen]
“At 52, I was accepted to Yale as a freshman. The students I met there surprised me.”
👏 9) Non-dog-related video of the week: 6 year old Irish girl hilariously insists on going to the pub [YouTube]
“My 6 year old daughter insisting that she should get to go to the pub. She is hilarious, watch until the end 😂😂”
🎾 10) Dog-related video of the week: Tennis balls overdose [Reddit/r/aww]
💡 Quote of the week:
“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” – Simone Weil
👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
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