Sent as a newsletter July 22, 2023. Not on my list? Subscribe 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:
🌧️ Rainy Hong Kong, seen from above. I like the colors.
My WSJ latest:
🐦 I helped out with this story, just out: Elon Musk Replaces Twitter’s Blue Bird With an ‘X’ <– free link. It begins:
Elon Musk rolled out a new X logo on Twitter after saying its signature blue bird will fly away.
Early Monday, the Twitter website started showing the new X logo in its upper-left corner, where Twitter’s blue bird once perched. Musk had overnight changed his profile photo, as well as that of the official Twitter account, to the new “X” logo.
And:
Musk has spoken before about his ambition to use Twitter as the foundation of a vision that he has described as “X.com” and an “everything app.” In March Musk said that he thought it was possible for his company “to become the biggest financial institution in the world.” He has cited as a model WeChat, a popular Chinese app that is used for everything from messaging to mobile payments to business services.
As they say: stay tuned.
Here are 10 items worth your time this week:
1) 🎥 “Barbie” made $155 million on its opening weekend, making it the biggest movie of the year.
2) ✋ On “Oppenheimer” and that Palm Pilot.
3) 🎬 Also: Christopher Nolan’s films, ranked.
4) 🎼 Tech pioneer and musician Jaron Lanier on what his musical instruments have taught him.
5) 💪 An interesting trend in crowded, hot Singapore: “Microgyms.”
6) 💉 Why Oregon’s effort to decriminalize drugs is failing.
7) ✏️ Video: antique pencil sharpeners.
8) 🗣 How Shakespeare’s plays were originally pronounced.
9) 🪐 A timeline of the far future.
10) 🐐 Lionel Messi made his debut for MLS side Inter Miami, coming on in the 54th minute and…well, just watch.
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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:
“Golden Retrievers celebrating their 155th anniversary in Scotland as a species.” Backstory is here. Thanks, Anasuya!
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💡 Quote of the week:
“Doubt can only be removed by action.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,
Newley