Category: Newley’s Notes

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes.

🚨 Breaking news just out from my WSJ colleague Krishna Pokharel: Indian Election Dates Set for April and May. The big picture:

India announced the rolling dates Sunday for national elections, setting the stage for the world’s biggest democracy to decide this spring whether to leave popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his conservative party in power.

And the details: “Elections will happen in seven stages starting on April 11 and ending May 19, with counting of votes to begin on May 23.”

📰 Meanwhile, I had two stories out this week.

The first: India Wants Facebook to Curb Fake News Ahead of Elections. It begins:

India is pushing Facebook Inc. to do more to combat fake news ahead of coming national elections, underscoring global scrutiny on the social-media titan.

All eyes on are on social media platforms like Facebook.

And the second: Uber Partner Picks Up $1.5 Billion From SoftBank. The lede:

Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab Holdings Inc. has raised $1.46 billion in fresh funding from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., which it will use to fuel its expansion beyond transportation services.

More moolah for Grab. Watch out, Go-Jek.

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

🔮 1) Facebook Plans New Emphasis on Private Communications [WSJ]

Facebook Inc., which became the world’s biggest social network by encouraging people to share photos and messages publicly, said it is now betting on the opposite: that the future of social media lies in private messaging and small-group chats.

Our tech columnist, Chris Mims, writes:

“Nothing in Mr. Zuckerberg’s manifesto or subsequent statements question the fundamental premise of Facebook’s business, which is gathering more data about us in order to reach us with more-targeted and effective advertising.”

(On the “pivot” to private, you may recall what I wrote in NN 144 last year, when I linked to a story about a new messaging app popular with college students: “Who needs Facebook when you have WhatsApp groups?”)

✖ 2) Elizabeth Warren says she wants to break up Amazon, Google, and Facebook [The Verge]

“The proposal is the most stringent stance taken by a candidate in the presidential campaign so far. Warren, pointing to the antitrust battle over Microsoft in the 1990s, said the companies must be broken up to stimulate competition in a monopolistic market.”

💊 3) FDA Approves Esketamine, the First Major Depression Treatment to Reach U.S. Market in Decades [Scientific American]

“The drug is related to ketamine, a common anesthetic that’s sometimes misused recreationally. Many experts have hailed esketamine as a critical option for patients in dire need of new treatments–particularly because it might work faster than existing antidepressants.”

📍 4) The Geography of Partisan Prejudice [The Atlantic]

“In general, the most politically intolerant Americans, according to the analysis, tend to be whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban.”

👓 5) How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all [LA Times]

“‘You can get amazingly good frames, with a Warby Parker level of quality, for $4 to $8,’ Butler said. ‘For $15, you can get designer-quality frames, like what you’d get from Prada.’”

🍴 6) The A.I. Diet [NY Times]

“Only recently, with the ability to analyze large data sets using artificial intelligence, have we learned how simplistic and naïve the assumption of a universal diet is…A good diet, it turns out, has to be individualized.”

✋ 7) Code hidden in Stone Age art may be the root of human writing [New Scientist]

“The moment she flipped the first one, she knew the trip had been worthwhile. The X and straight lines were symbols she had seen together and separately on various cave walls. Now here they were, with the X sandwiched between two lines to form a compound character. ”

👫 8) Couple has eaten at the same Wichita restaurant six nights a week for 15 years [The Wichita Eagle]

"‘It’s just about as cheap as going to the grocery store, buying your groceries, coming home, heating up the kitchen and doing the dishes,’ he said. ’If your time’s worth anything to you, it’s about the same as eating at home but you get a lot better service.’”

📖 9) African American History Books recommended by Imani Perry [5 Books]

“Bringing to light the long hidden suffering of human beings or their agency in earning freedom is a matter of urgency for me. I became a historian because I wanted to flesh all that out.”

🌭 10) What, Never saw a hotdog wiggle so much? [Reddit video] – (Thanks, Anasuya!)

Quote of the week:

💡 “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
– Kurt Vonnegut, “Mother Night.”

➡ Was this message forwarded to you? Sign up here.

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
Newley

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes.

"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” – Vladimir Lenin

🔮 That quotation came to mind over the last few days, when we simultaneously saw:

• Pakistan return a captured Indian pilot after clashes between the two nuclear-armed countries,
• the Michael Cohen hearing in Washington, and
• the Trump-King Jong-un meetup in Hanoi.

Or, to put things in more modern parlance:

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

🏪 1) Amazon to Launch New Grocery-Store Business [WSJ]

“The company plans to open its first outlet, in Los Angeles, as early as the end of the year, one person said…Additional talks are under way for Amazon grocery stores in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, the people familiar with the matter said. The new stores would be distinct from the company’s upscale Whole Foods Market chain. ”

💻 2) The Trauma Floor: The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America [The Verge]

“Collectively, the employees described a workplace that is perpetually teetering on the brink of chaos. It is an environment where workers cope by telling dark jokes about committing suicide, then smoke weed during breaks to numb their emotions.”

🚗 3) Lyft’s IPO Could Start a Record Year For New Tech Listings [WSJ]

“Lyft Inc. made its IPO papers public Friday, a move that fires the starting gun on what is expected to be one of the biggest years ever for initial public offerings.”

📝 4) What’s Next For New Yorker Reporter Jane Mayer? [Elle]

“‘She’s the best investigative reporter in America,’ says Daniel Zalewski, her New Yorker editor. ‘Not the best female investigative reporter.’”

🆒 5) At Deadspin, can the cool kids of the sports Internet become its moral authority? [Washington Post]

“Deadspin is currently for sale by parent company Univision, but even as it wrestles with the uncertain economics of digital media, there is a more fundamental question for the site. The enfant terrible has grown up: Is the new version righteous or self-righteous?”

🔬 6) Genetic testing firms share your DNA data more than you think [Axios]

“Genetic testing companies that trace customers’ ancestry are amassing huge databases of DNA information, and some are sharing access with law enforcement, drug makers and app developers.”

👎 7) China bars millions from travel for ‘social credit’ offenses [AP]

“Would-be air travelers were blocked from buying tickets 17.5 million times last year for ‘social credit’ offenses including unpaid taxes and fines under a controversial system the ruling Communist Party says will improve public behavior.”

💁 8) Most Personality Quizzes Are Junk Science. Take One That Isn’t. [FiveThirtyEight]

“Meet the Big Five, the way most psychologists measure and test personality. It’s a system built on decades of research about how people describe one another and themselves. ”

😓 9) The Most Effective Form of Exercise Isn’t ‘Exercise’ At All [Quartz]

“Even brief sessions of 20 seconds of stair-climbing (60 steps) repeated three times a day on three days per week over six weeks can lead to measurable improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness.”

📷 🐶 10) K9 Can’t Stop Kissing His Partner During Photo Shoot [The Dodo]

“While Knach appears to be trying his best to strike an appropriately stoic and professional pose at first, Kenobi evidently had other ideas.” (Thanks, Anasuya!)

❤ If you received this email from a pal, sign up here.

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
Newley

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes.

📰 A story I wrote with my colleagues Rajesh Roy and Dustin Volz ran on the front page of Friday’s WSJ.

The hed: U.S. Campaign Against Huawei Runs Aground.

And the lede:

Washington has hit an unlikely roadblock in its extraordinary global push to sideline China’s Huawei Technologies Co.: the world’s biggest democracy, India.

📶 Click through to read the rest, including details on the why the American government is trying to thwart Huawei’s expansion, what so-called 5G technologies promise, and why India’s mobile operators say they’re not buying Washington’s warnings.

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

⚠ 1) You Give Apps Sensitive Personal Information. Then They Tell Facebook [WSJ]

“The social-media giant collects intensely personal information from many popular smartphone apps just seconds after users enter it, even if the user has no connection to Facebook, according to testing done by The Wall Street Journal.”

🎤 2) Google claims built-in Nest mic was ‘never intended to be a secret’ [The Verge]

“Google has admitted it made an error when it didn’t disclose that its Nest Secure home security system included an on-device microphone.”

🏆 3) Oscars 2019: ‘Green Book,’ Rami Malek and Olivia Colman Are Winners [NY Times]

“‘Green Book,’’ about a white chauffeur and his black client in segregation-era America, won best picture and two other trophies at the 91st Academy Awards, overcoming a series of awards-season setbacks and mixed critical notices.”

🧠 4) China’s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced [MIT Technology Review]

“‘The simplest interpretation is that those mutations will probably have an impact on cognitive function in the twins,’ says Silva. He says the exact effect on the girls’ cognition is impossible to predict, and ‘that is why it should not be done.’”

📋 5) How Letterboards Took Over America [Slate]

“Since that fateful day when the photo of Wynn went up, letterboards have transcended baby photos – and Instagram – to become something you see just about everywhere.”

😔 6) America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable [NY Times Magazine]

“…even in a boom economy, a surprising portion of Americans are professionally miserable right now. ”

🐺 7) She Never Looks Back: Inside Elizabeth Holmes’s Chilling Final Months at Theranos

“Around this same time, Holmes says that she discovered that Balto – like most huskies – had a tiny trace of wolf origin. Henceforth, she decided that Balto wasn’t really a dog, but rather a wolf. In meetings, at cafés, whenever anyone stopped to pet the pup and ask his breed, Holmes soberly replied, ‘He’s a wolf.’”

📍8) A Detailed Map of Medieval Trade Routes in Europe, Asia, and Africa [Kottke]

“It’s not quite globalization, but many of the world’s peoples were well on their way to connecting with everyone else.”

🌋 9) The Perfect Shot [Twitter: @ABC]

“Yosemite National Park is again wowing visitors and photographers with its annual ”firefall“ – the moment every February when the setting sun illuminates Horsetail Fall to make it glow like a cascade of molten lava.”

🌟 10) Watch: Dog Makes Amazing 83-Yard Frisbee Catch at AAF Orlando Apollos Game [SI]

“The new Alliance of American Football league is only in its third week of action and there’s already one play that should be nominated for catch of the year.”

🔥 If you received this email from a pal, sign up here.

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
Newley

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

🎥 1) Netflix Raises Prices on All of Its Subscription Plans [WSJ]

“Netflix, which last raised its prices in late 2017, will increase the cost of its most popular plan by 18% to $13 a month, from $11. That plan allows users to stream on two screens at the same time. The most basic plan, which allows a single stream, will go up one dollar, or 13%, to $9 a month. Raising prices will help Netflix swallow higher content costs as the streaming TV wars intensify.”

💔 2) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and wife MacKenzie are getting a divorce [Recode]

“The split between the tech titan and his wife, a novelist, could have an impact on Amazon’s ownership. Jeff Bezos owned 16.3 percent of Amazon’s shares as of February 2018, but it’s possible half of that stake could go to MacKenzie in a split.”

🌊 3) Antarctica is losing ice 6 times faster than in 1980s [Axios]

“Antarctica is shedding ice at an increasingly rapid rate, potentially imperiling coastlines around the world as sea levels increase in response, a new study finds.”

🤸 4) For Katelyn Ohashi, Viral Gymnastics Joy Was No Act [NY Times]

“At a college meet over the weekend, Katelyn Ohashi of U.C.L.A. delivered a brilliant technical floor routine, with nary a step on her landings. But a YouTube video of that performance has attracted millions of viewers not because of her skill level but rather the unabashed fun she seems to be having while doing it.”

Watch her routine on YouTube here.

🔇 5) Project Alias is a Weird ‘Parasite’ That Gloms Onto Alexa to Increase Privacy [Gizmodo]

“Project Alias’s solution is to play static into the smart speaker’s mic all the time, only stopping when you give Alias a command that it has to pass on.”

📊 6) The Hot New Asset Class Is Lego Sets [Bloomberg]

“Collecting Lego – yes, the plastic toys made of interlocking bricks that become cars and castles and robots – returned more than large stocks, bonds and gold in the three decades ending in 2015, says a study by Victoria Dobrynskaya, an assistant professor at Russia’s Higher School of Economics. ”

🎸 7) Behold the theorbo, an enormous baroque lute [BoingBoing]

“‘People complain a lot about the space that I take up,’ says Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny.”

🌍 8) It’s Waiting There For You: Toto’s ‘Africa’ Is Playing On Repeat In A Desert [NPR]

“Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf installed Toto Forever late last December while back home with his family in Namibia. Six speakers are placed atop individual plinths and attached to an MP3 player that contains only the song; the entire thing is powered by solar energy with the promise that it will run ‘for all eternity.’”

👏 9) A typo landed him an invite to a bachelor party halfway across the country. Naturally, he’s going. [Washington Post]

“Will Novak was sitting in front of his computer Jan. 7 when an email flashed across the screen, advising him that his attention was urgently needed. The subject? Angelo’s bachelor party. The 35-year-old did not, however, know anyone named Angelo.”

(Well spotted, Miles!)

P.S. There are pics on Will’s Instagram feed.

💃 10) Dancing Dog Gets Haircut [YouTube]

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

📹 1) For Owners of Amazon’s Ring Security Cameras, Strangers May Have Been Watching Too [The Intercept]

“Beginning in 2016, according to one source, Ring provided its Ukraine-based research and development team virtually unfettered access to a folder on Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service that contained every video created by every Ring camera around the world.”

👴🏻 2) People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds [The Verge]

“In fact, age predicted their behavior better than any other characteristic — including party affiliation.”

⭐ 3) How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success [New Yorker]

“‘I don’t think any of us could have known what this would become,’ Katherine Walker, a producer on the first five seasons of ‘The Apprentice,’ told me. ‘But Donald would not be President had it not been for that show.’”

👽 4) Avi Loeb on the Mysterious Interstellar Body ’Oumuamua [Spiegel]

Astronomer Avi Loeb believes that the interstellar object dubbed ’Oumuamua could actually be a probe sent by alien beings. Given the evidence that has so far been gathered, he says, it is a possible conclusion to draw.

🚬 5) Is Marijuana as Safe as We Think? [New Yorker]

"In some cases, heavy cannabis use does seem to cause mental illness. As the National Academy panel declared, in one of its few unequivocal conclusions, ‘Cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.’’

➡️ 6) The Weight I Carry [The Atlantic]

“I weigh 460 pounds. Those are the hardest words I’ve ever had to write. Nobody knows that number—not my wife, not my doctor, not my closest friends. It feels like confessing a crime.”

📚 7) The best books on Creating a Career You Love [FiveBooks]

“Bestselling business author Emma Gannon tells Five Books about the career advice books that have inspired her most.”

📺 8) The 20 Best TV Dramas Since ‘The Sopranos’ [NY Times]

“Before ‘The Sopranos,’’ yes, TV dramas could take risks (‘Twin Peaks’) and tell stories about difficult people (‘NYPD Blue’). But after the ducks landed in Tony’s backyard pool in January 1999, an immense flock followed….If ‘The Sopranos,’’ which debuted 20 years ago this week, built the ground floor, this list looks at what TV erected on top of it.”

🌍 9) The Mysterious Life (and Death) of Africa’s Oldest Trees [TOPIC]

“A shocking study published in 2018 found that some of the most beautiful, and famous, baobab trees are dying. What will this mean for the people who depend on them—and for the planet?”

🧙‍♂️ 10) my dog only responds to Harry Potter spells [YouTube]

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

😐 1) Literally Just A Big List Of Facebook’s 2018 Scandals [Buzzfeed News]

“If you thought 2018 was tough for you, imagine being a staffer in Facebook’s public relations department.”

🔖 2) Best of 2018 [Longform]

“We recommended 1,138 articles articles this year. These were our favorites.”

🎮 3) Fortnite isn’t a game, it’s a place [Charged]

“Not only is Fortnite the new hangout spot, replacing the mall, Starbucks or just loitering in the city, it’s become the coveted ‘third place’ for millions of people around the world.”

🍳 4) What 24 hours in a diner taught me about New York [Economist/1843]

"I’d petitioned the owner of the Chelsea Square, John Lapsadis, to let me spend 24 hours at one of his booths, to see life here from sunrise to sunrise. He’d shrugged. ’Do what you want.’”

⛔ 5) Digital detox: Resorts offer perks for handing over phones [AP]

“Some resorts are offering perks, like snorkeling tours and s’mores, to guests who manage to give up their phones for a few hours. Some have phone-free hours at their pools; others are banning distracting devices from public places altogether.”

😞 6) Latent Prejudice Stirs When a Black Man Tries to Join a Charleston Club [NY Times]

“Dr. Brown was the only African-American nominee, and the only one to receive a subtle tap on the shoulder on the way back into the room. Eleven black marbles had been dropped in his box.”

📺 7) Few people are actually trapped in filter bubbles. Why do they like to say that they are? [Nieman Lab]

“Media choice has become more of a vehicle of political self-expression than it once was…Partisans therefore tend to overestimate their use of partisan outlets, while most citizens tune out political news as best they can.”

👂 8) Amazon error allowed Alexa user to eavesdrop on another home [Reuters]

“The customer had asked to listen back to recordings of his own activities made by Alexa but he was also able to access 1,700 audio files from a stranger when Amazon sent him a link, German trade publication c’t reported.”

⚽ 9) The best football tweets of 2018 [BBC]

“…what’s important here is not the actual events themselves but how the beautiful game was documented on Twitter.”

😂 10) Dog-related image of the week: Picture makes me laugh every time!! [Reddit]

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

📈 1) How Microsoft Quietly Became the World’s Most Valuable Company [WSJ]

“Microsoft Corp. tried through the years to compete in a range of buzzy consumer businesses, but it was Chief Executive Satya Nadella’s focus on selling humdrum yet fast-growing computing services to companies that allowed it to reclaim the title of world’s most valuable company.”

📧 2) Facebook’s Zuckerberg at Center of Emails Released by U.K. Parliament [WSJ]

“The U.K. Parliament released on Wednesday a trove of internal Facebook Inc. emails that show Mark Zuckerberg and other executives pursuing hard-nosed tactics to stifle competitors, as well as considering a range of possibilities for monetizing the massive amounts of data the company collected on its users.”

🤝 3) The Friendship That Made Google Huge [The New Yorker]

“Coding together at the same computer, Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat changed the course of the company – and the Internet.”

🎉 4) Instagram Is the New Evite [The Atlantic]

“Here’s how it works: When teenagers are planning a big party, they’ll sometimes create a new Instagram account, often with a handle that includes the date of the party, like @Nov17partyy or @SarahsBdayOctober27. The account will be set to private, and its bio will list the date of the party and sometimes the handles of the organizers.”

🎧 5) An appreciation of the long-lost MP3 player skins of yesteryear [BoingBoing]

Winamp was infinitely customizable, and there was an exuberant practice of coming up with MP3 player skins (some of Winamp’s competitors adopted its skin format, making the skins interoperable among different players), and sites devoted to featuring

🎥 6) The Best Movies of 2018 [The New Yorker]

“The gap between what’s good and what’s widely available in theatres – between the cinema of resistance and the cinema of consensus – is wider than ever.”

Related: Five good SF/F films from 2018 (that you probably missed) [Factor Daily]

🔭 7) The Best Science Books of 2018 [Five Books]

“As life on Earth is rocked by conflict and environmental crisis, these serene little scientific emissaries remind us of how different it can be when we collaborate selflessly in the getting of knowledge.”

Related: Here are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years [Literary Hub]

🔨 8) The Trade Journal Cooperative [TradeJournalCooperative.com]

“Our editors painstakingly comb through the back alleys of capitalism to bring you fascinating publications like Pasta Professional, American Funeral Director, and Plumber Magazine.”

🦆 9) Quackarazzi: Mandarin duck holds NYC in its spell [AP]

“A horde of photographers has been gathering daily in the park off Fifth Avenue for well over a month, hoping to catch a glimpse of the exotic bird with pink, purple, orange and emerald green plumage and markings that admirer Joe Amato compares to ‘a living box of crayons.’”

🎩 10) Dog-related link of the week: Who Let the Dogs Out (at the Wedding)? Readers Respond [NY Times]

“We asked our readers to submit photos of their dogs, cats and even birds dressed in fancy wedding fashion. Here’s what they shared.”

📹 In NN 154 I mentioned a blog post I wrote about a climbing documentary on Neflix I liked called “Valley Uprising.”

I’ve got another Netflix doc to recommend: “Get Me Roger Stone.” It came out last year but Anasuya and I just watched it last night.

It’s about the career of the notorious (a designation of which he would approve) political strategist and lobbyist, beginning with his work on the Nixon campaign and continuing through President Trump’s election.

(It’s especially timely given Robert Mueller seems to be investigating links between Stone, Wikileaks, and the release of stolen Hilary Clinton emails.)

On to this week’s NN.

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

🔬 1) Chinese Scientist Claims World’s First Genetically Modified Babies [WSJ]

“Scientists and doctors in China and abroad swiftly rebuked Dr. He after the Associated Press first reported the news of the births on Monday. The global scientific community has previously voiced concern that China is racing ahead with gene-editing experiments without adequate regulation or oversight.”

🖥️ 2) The End of the Beginning [YouTube]

“In his now annual state-of-innovation talk at the a16z Summit in November 2018, Andreessen Horowitz’ Benedict Evans walks through where we are now in software eating the world… and how things may continue to change over the next 10 years.”

💊 3) Are You Sitting Down? Standing Desks Are Overrated [New York Times]

“Research…suggests that warnings about sitting at work are overblown, and that standing desks are overrated as a way to improve health.”

🤗 4) Teens Say Social Media Isn’t As Bad For Them As You Might Think [Buzzfeed]

“Seriously: 81% of teens said it makes them feel more connected to friends, 71% said it helps them show their creative side, 69% said it helps them make friends and with a more diverse group of people, and 68% feel like they have people who support them through tough times.”

📚 5) The 10 Best Books of 2018 [NY Times]

“The editors of The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.”

📅 6) Forget the chocolate: Advent calendars go for booze, cheese [AP]

“They’re meant to appeal to nostalgic adults who want to count the days till Christmas with something other than sweets. They’re sold for a limited time, get major social media buzz and tend to sell out quickly.”

☠ 7) The Google Cemetery [Gcemtery.co]

“A total of 44 products have been sent into oblivion.”

🎿 8) James Niehues: The Man Behind the Map [Kickstarter]

“Jim has extensively researched, photographed and illustrated nearly every ski map used in North America over the last three decades.”

🥔 9) Driver: I wasn’t on my phone, I was eating a hash brown [AP]

“A Connecticut man who says he was wrongly cited for distracted driving after police mistook a McDonald’s hash brown for a cellphone is continuing his legal fight.”

🐾 10) Dog-related video of the week: Dog’s unbridled joy for soldier’s homecoming goes viral, brings smiles [ABC News]

“Cassandra Cabrera deployed to Africa when her beloved Miss May was just a puppy. She was worried that by the time she returned, her best friend wouldn’t remember her.”

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
Newley

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

⛔ 1. By me and my colleague Sarah Nassauer: Walmart’s Flipkart CEO Steps Down in Wake of Misconduct Allegation. Binny Bansal, an India startup icon, is out.

💰 2. Also by me, with my colleague Corinne Abrams: India’s Top Payments App Faces Challenge From Google and WhatsApp. The lede:

India’s biggest mobile-payments startup, Paytm, has wooed hundreds of millions of users and attracted investment from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The biggest challenge for its charismatic founder, 40-year-old Vijay Shekhar Sharma, lies ahead: Keeping Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp at bay as they push into India, the world’s hottest new market for mobile money.

🌄 3. By me at Newley.com: Excellent Climbing Documentary: ‘Valley Uprising’ — Worth a watch, even if you’re not into the sport.

🔍 4. Shot: Big tech story this week: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis [NY Times]. Here are the Times‘s six takeaways.

😠 5. Chaser: With Facebook at ‘War,’ Zuckerberg Adopts More Aggressive Style [WSJ] — “Mr. Zuckerberg’s new approach is causing unprecedented turmoil atop Facebook, driving several key executives from the company, according to people familiar with the matter,” reports my colleague Deepa Seetharaman.

✈️ 6. Thanksgiving travel-related story of the week: Flying over the Thanksgiving holiday? You could help set a record: [ABC News] — More than 30 million people could travel over Turkey Day weekend this year, a new milestone.

😋 7. Thanksgiving side dish-related graphic of the week: Here’s What Your Part Of America Eats On Thanksgiving [FiveThiryEight] — Wait: Salad?!

👖 8. Fashion-related story of the week: The Sneaky Way Clothing Brands Hooked Men on Stretch Jeans [The Atlantic] — Note: I will keep my Levi’s 501s, thank you. Is nothing sacred?

📈 9. Uplifting chart of the week: Human history, in one chart [Vox] — 2018 got you feeling down? Repeat after me: Things. Are. Getting. Better (in the macro sense)!

👶 10. Dog video of the week: Everything’s terrible, so here’s a kid losing the most adorable fight ever [@RobertMaguire_]. Awesome.

🍰 BONUS THANKSGIVING LINK: Pecan Pie in Singapore? Don’t Mind If I Do! [WSJ, no paywall] — My piece from 2014, featuring my Aunt Cece’s famous pecan pie recipe and other goodies.

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
Newley