Sent as a newsletter March 26, 2023. Not on my list? Join here.
👋 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.
Image of the week, above:
🏙 An apartment building here in Hong Kong. I love the textures.
My WSJ latest:
✏️ I’ve had three stories out since my last dispatch.
🇮🇳 From March 6, with my colleague Jeff Horwitz: YouTube, Facebook and Instagram Gave Platforms to Indian Cow-Protection Vigilante
✂️ From March 10, with Jeff and colleagues Salvador Rodriguez and Sam Schechner: Meta Plans New Layoffs That Could Match Last Year’s in Scope
💸 And from March 13, with my colleagues Raffaele Huang and Clarence Leong: Asian Startups’ Confidence in U.S. Banking Wanes After SVB Panic
Here are 10 items worth your time this week:
1) 📱 TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew was grilled by U.S. lawmakers over matters such as where data on users in the U.S. is stored, who can access it, and more.
2) 🧠 The AI revolution has begun, Bill Gates writes, arguing that new tools like ChatGPT could be as disruptive as mobile phones and the internet.
3) ⚖️ Following the guilty verdict in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial earlier this month, the New Yorker’s James Lasdun sums up what he calls a “fittingly theatrical spectacle.”
4) 📈 Gordon Moore, who co-founded Intel and posited that the number of transistors in a computer chip doubles about every two years, a theory known as Moore’s Law, died at the age of 94.
5) 💻 Related: For The Atlantic, Virginia Heffernan visits Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s biggest semiconductor maker.
6) 🌎 Interview with tech visionary Kevin Kelly, who was an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and founding editor of Wired (and whose “Cool Tools” podcast I have listened to for years).
7) 🖌️ Artvee allows you to search for and download artwork that’s in the public domain.
8) 🔪 “Instagram face” as “an instrument of class distinction.”
9) 🏀 For the first time ever in March Madness, all the number one seeds lost before the Elite Eight, setting up a final four featuring Florida Atlantic, San Diego State, Miami and UConn.
10) 💪 Mental heath break: imagining U.S. presidents as professional wrestlers.
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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:
⚽ An excellent dog-on-the-pitch moment.
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💡 Quote of the week:
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
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🤗 What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of dogs who just wanna be part of the action.
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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,
Newley