Category: Newley’s Notes

Sent as a newsletter January 10, 2022. Want to join my email list? Sign up 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: I hope your holiday season was restful, and that you got a chance to see friends and family. Onward and upward to 2022!

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 👉 Out just before the new year, a WSJ Facebook Files story I helped with: What happened inside the company when whistleblower Frances Haugen stepped forward. The hed: Facebook’s Pushback: Stem the Leaks, Spin the Politics, Don’t Say Sorry.

2) 🍎 A story I wrote last Monday: India Hits Apple With Antitrust Investigation Over App-Store Practices

3) 🇭🇰 And one I wrote Friday: Hong Kong Officials Quarantined After Covid–19 Case at Tapas Birthday Party

4) 📚 New on Newley.com: The Best Books I Read in 2021.

5) 🎨 Also on Newley.com: a recent watercolor I like. Viewable on Instagram, as well.

6) 🩸 Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud. But her legal fight is far from over.

7) 😔 RIP Sidney Poitier.

8) 😿 And RIP Betty White.

9) 💫 Here is a gorgeous, close-up image of a comet.

10) 👏 100 things Austin Kleon enjoyed in 2021.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Good boi attends the fireworks.”

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💡 Quote of the week:

“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and therefore never scrutinize or question.” – Stephen Jay Gould

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🤗 What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and brave dogs who just want to join in the fun.

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter December 19, 2021. Want to join my email list? Sign up 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.

🙏 If you like NN, please share this link so others can subscribe.

Image of the week, above: a Hong Kong building that caught my eye the other night. I love how it’s bathed in a pinkish glow from neon lights across the street.

🚨 Programming note: There will be no NN for the next two weeks. I’ll return after the holidays. I hope you have a restful break with friends and family, if you’re taking time off. See you in January!

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🐦 A story I wrote Tuesday: India is investigating how Prime Minister Modi’s Twitter account was hacked. Someone posted a message to his more than 73 million followers falsely saying India is adopting bitcoin.

2) 📺 And one I wrote Thursday: Netflix slashed its prices in India, where it’s trailing rivals Amazon and Disney. Its least expensive plan is now $1.95 per month – but that’s still more than others charge.

3) 🇭🇰 And one more from me on Thursday: The prominent RISE tech conference, an international gathering of tech execs and startups, is postponing until 2023 a gathering that was set for March here in Hong Kong, citing uncertainties over Covid.

4) 😔 The U.S. surpassed 800,000 Covid–19 deaths. More than 5.3 million people have now died worldwide.

5) 🦠 As the Omicron variant spreads, parts of the U.S. and Europe are readying for a surge and canceling events.

6) 💊 But there’s some good news: Pfizer’s antiviral Covid pill appears quite effective.

7) 📚 ’Tis the season for best-of–2021 book lists. Enjoy picks from some of my favorite sources: the WSJ’s ten best in fiction and nonfiction; Five Books’s best of 2021; and the Economist’s selections.

8) 📆 Other good 2021 compilations: the best longform writing, and Bloomberg Businessweek’s Jealousy List. And for lighter fare: the best fails of 2021 and the best goals of the year.

9) 🦦 My WSJ colleague Jon Emont has a magnificent A-hed (the quirky stories we run on Page One) out this week about otters running wild in Singapore, centering on a recent attack on a British man. Contains the quote: “It was like somebody stapling my buttocks." Don’t miss it.

10) 👏 Please enjoy this remarkable obituary for Renay Mandel Corren. It begins: “El Paso, TX – A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday.”

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Ezra the service dog takes a well earned break to meet her favourite character.”

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💡 Quote of the week:

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter December 12, 2021. Want to join my email list? Sign up 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: a recent (and delicious) hot pot meal with friends.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 📖 My newest Books Notes post at Newley.com: “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World,” by Cal Newport.

2) 🦠 Good news: A third shot of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-vaccine neutralized the Omicron variant in lab tests.

3) 🍎 Apple may be working on the hottest new device since the iPhone, my WSJ colleauge Christopher Mims reports: an augmented reality headset or glasses.

4) 🎥 The best movies of 2021, via The New York Times’s A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis.

5) 🗣 Related: Why it’s so hard to understand movie dialogue these days.

6) 🍽 A review of “the worst Michelin starred restaurant, ever” lit up the internet. And the chef appears to have responded in a unique fashion.

7) 👉 The most mispronounced words of 2021.

8) 🦦 A group of otters attacked a British man in Singapore, biting him 26 times in ten seconds.

9) 🚀 Forget using rockets to launch satellites. A startup in California wants to fling them into space instead. (Thanks, Dad!)

10) 🎧 The 50 best albums of 2021, according to Pitchfork.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Husky i don’t want stress.”

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💡 Quote of the week:

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." – Aristotle

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter December 5, 2021. Want to join my email list? Sign up 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: a building in Hong Kong’s Central district that I spotted recently. I love it for its monolithic beauty. It almost looks like it could be a slice of the Death Star.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 📖 My newest Books Notes post at Newley.com: “The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living,” by Russ Harris. It came out in 2008 and I’ve enjoyed it over the years. I finally typed up my main take-aways.

2) 🐦 Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as chief executive of the company. He’s also CEO of Square, a financial services company. Then a few days later Square changed its name to Block, a nod to cryptocurrencies and the blockchain.

3) ⚖️ Longread of the week: “Lina Khan’s Battle to Rein in Big Tech,” by Sheelah Kolhatkar in the New Yorker.

4) 💻 Lede of the week, by By Nilay Patel at The Verge: “KatKat Norton is a Microsoft Excel influencer.”

5) 🥃 The creator of a new and apparently good American whiskey is…Coors? (Via Mike W.)

6) 📺 Ridley Scott, director of the original “Blade Runner,” is working on a TV series based on the film.

7) 🍎 Beautiful HD video of Manhattan in 1993 (yes, 1993 – all of 28 years ago, which now somehow feels like a century ago). (Via PB.)

8) 🍟 Why some shapes of fries taste better than others, according to science.

9) 🎸 Inspiring, music-related video snippet of the week: the moment Paul McCartney created the hit song “Get Back.” From a popular new Peter Jackson documentary series on The Beatles (trailer is here).

10) 👏 Emoji, ranked from smallest (mosquito) to biggest (the sun) real-life size.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“When you dress up as your dogs favorite toy.”

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📚 What I’m reading

I first read Ken Follett’s classic 1978 spy thriller “Eye of the Needle” in high school, and loved it. I recently gave it another read, and found it equally compelling. Perfect pacing. Evocative characters. And pairs nicely with simultaneous nonfiction reading about World War II.

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🎥 what I’m watching

🇮🇹 “Azzurri: Road to Wembley” is an entertaining, hour-long documentary on Netflix featuring behind the scenes footage from the Italian national soccer team’s path to victory in last summer’s Euro championship. What team spirit!

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😂 Meme of the week, above: George Costanza’s wallet meets Omicron fatigue.

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💡 Quote of the week:

“True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island… To find one real friend in a lifetime is a good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.” – Baltasar Gracian

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🤗 What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of dogs encountering life-sized versions of their beloved chew toys.

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter November 28, 2021. Want to join my email list? Sign up 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: I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. As I do every year, I made my Aunt Cece’s pecan pie. And this year I finally raised my game by making the crust instead of (for shame) using a store-bought one. It did not disappoint.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🦠 A new Covid–19 “variant of concern”: Omicron, which has spread quickly in South Africa and has made its way to other parts of the world.

2) ⚖️ Three men in Brunswick, Georgia were convicted of murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. (Related: Don’t miss the moving 2020 longform article by Mitchell S. Jackson in Runner’s World called “Twelve Minutes and a Life.”)

3) 👉 RIP legendary Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim. He was 91.

4) ⚡ Nuclear fusion – clean, cheap, and massively powerful – may be soon within reach.

5) 🛸 The Pentagon is creating a new group to look into unidentified aerial phenomena in restricted airspace.

6) 🍞 Toaster innovation hit its peak in 1948; has it been downhill since then?

7) 📖 Library Athena is a new website that allows you to read free, public domain books.

8) 📱 Here are some classic mobile phones and other gadgets that have been disassembled and framed, such as my favorite old school non-iPhone smartphone, the Nokia E71.

9) 🗣 The Wisdom Project contains Merlin Mann’s life advice.

10) ☕ In praise of the moka pot.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“That’s my spot!”

📚 What I’m reading

I’ve been enjoying “The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain Are Challenging the Global Economic Order,” by my WSJ colleague Paul Vigna and Michael Casey. It was published in 2015 and has been updated; highly recommended for a detailed, balanced, thoughtful look at a much-hyped topic.

🎥 What I’m watching

We went to see “Dune” the other night, in the theater, and man: It is…majestic. Note: I knew very little of the storyline, and have not read the books, but I love director Denis Villeneuve’s work, especially “Blade Runner 2049.” So perhaps those more familiar with the Dune universe and characters will have complaints. But for a grand work of sci-fi cinema, sprawling in ambition and paced perfectly, with epic music, it delivers. (Trailer is here.)

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💡 Quote of the week:

“If you don’t make things happen then things will happen to you.” – Robert Collier.

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as an email newsletter November 21, 2021. Want in? Join my email list.

👋 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: taking in a recent sunset here in Hong Kong.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇺🇸 A group of cryptocurrency investors nearly succeeded in an attempt to purchase a rare copy of the U.S. constitution, raising more than $40 million but losing out to private collector.

2) 🦠 New research on Covid–19’s origins in China points not to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but to the market where animals that can carry the virus were sold.

3) 🎨 A massive new contemporary art museum, called M+, just opened here in Hong Kong; there are concerns about censorship. (I haven’t visited. Yet!)

4) 🪛 Apple is introducing a self-service repair program so people can fix their own iPhones and Macs.

5) 📷 Here are the winning photos from the first-ever Natural Landscape Photography Awards.

6) 🏞️ The National Park Service will for the first time be headed by a Native American: Charles “Chuck” Sams III, who is Cayuse and Walla Walla and hails from Eastern Oregon.

7) 📺 Netflix now provides a list of the top ten most watched movies and shows around the world (also viewable by country).

8) 🍑 The ATL Rap Map, painted by designer Joseph Veazey, shows Atlanta spots mentioned in hit songs through the years.

9) 🍴 FoodTimeline.org catalogs things humans have eaten over the millennia.

10) ⚡ Forget Tesla. Is Hyundai making the coolest looking electric vehicles these days, or what?

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Dads with dog they say they didn’t want GIF”

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💡 Quote of the week:

“A genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.” – Napoleon

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as an email newsletter November 16, 2021. Want in? Join my email list.

👋 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: a Hong Kong alleyway on a recent evening.

🆕 My latest story, an exclusive out Friday, is headlined:

Facebook Is Stifling Independent Report on Its Impact in India, Human Rights Groups Say

It begins:

Human rights groups say Facebook is stifling an independent report it commissioned to investigate hate speech on its services in India, the company’s largest market by customers and where scrutiny of its operations is increasing.

Representatives for the organizations say they have provided extensive input to a U.S. law firm that Facebook commissioned in mid–2020 to undertake the report. The groups say they supplied hundreds of examples of inflammatory content and suggested ways Facebook could better police its services in India.

Facebook executives from the company’s human rights team, which is overseeing the law firm’s effort, have since narrowed the draft report’s scope and are delaying a process that has already taken more than a year, the groups say.

“They are trying to kill it,” said Ratik Asokan of India Civil Watch International…

Click through to read the rest.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇨🇳 Evan Osnos on Xi Jinping and China’s past, present and future.

2) 🔫 Longread of the week: “My Father, the Hitman.”

3) 🥾 “Nimblewill Nomad” just hiked the more than 2,000-mile-long Appalachian Trail. He is 83 years old.

4) 🐅 “Tiger King” season two is out on Netflix Wednesday. Here’s the trailer.

5) 🇺🇸 🇰🇷 “Sesame Street” is getting its first Asian-American muppet: Ji-Young, a seven-year-old Korean American who loves skateboarding and the electric guitar.

6) 🎧 Airpods are no longer cool. It’s all about wired headphones these days.

7) 🗞 “Storm Lake” is a new PBS documentary about the future of local news, centered on Northern Iowa’s Storm Lake Times. The trailer is here.

8) 🌍 Enjoy this “Timeline of the human condition.”

9) 🚢 MarineTraffic provides an amazingly detailed, clickable ship tracking map.

10) 🏠 McMansionHell is a blog that “roasts the world’s ugliest houses from top to bottom, all while teaching about architecture and design.” (Thanks, Anasuya!)

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“How dogs react when kissed… 🤗🤗”

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💡 Quote of the week:

“History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.” – Kurt Vonnegut

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as an email newsletter November 7, 2021. Want in? Join my email list.

👋 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.

🙏 If you like NN, please share this link so others can subscribe.

🪔 Image of the week, above: Happy Diwali from Hong Kong! Anasuya and I celebrated the holiday over dinner with friends.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 👏 This feels like big Covid news: Antiviral pills, which lessen Covid’s effects on those infected, appear to be coming soon.

2) 🦠 Also in Covid updates: vaccines for kids are imminent. The CDC recommended children ages 5 to 11 get Pfizer’s short.

3) 💻 Wondering what to make of Facebook – er, Meta – and the so-called metaverse? Here’s Nicholas Carr, author of “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” on “productizing reality.” (Thanks, Stuart!)

4) 🔨 File under “the world in 2021”: Transitory workers are moving around the U.S. helping fix climate-related disasters.

5) 🔍 Marginalia is a search engine made to “help you find some things you didn’t even know you were looking for.”

6) 🏠 The pandemic is breathing life into America’s suburbs.

7) 😴 Eleven artists explain their bedtime rituals.

8) 🏠 Arquitectura Libre features Adam Wiseman’s photos of “fantastical” houses funded by workers who have sent home money to relatives in Mexico, India, and Romania’s Transylvania region.

9) 📺 David Chase, creator of “The Sopranos,” seems to suggest what many have long assumed: that Tony was whacked in the series finale.

10) ✍️ Wes Anderson’s latest film, now out: “The French Dispatch,” about (if I’m discerning the plot correctly) the publication of a New Yorker-like magazine by expat staff in mid-century France.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

🐕 “4 puppies walking to Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive full song.” (Via PB)

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Dog-related reader submission of the week:

Thanks to NN reader Mike S., who sends along this photo of him and his wife, Marsha, in their award-winning Halloween “101-Dalmatians” costume!

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💡 Quote of the week:

“The beginning is always today.” – Mary Shelley

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as an email newsletter Sunday, October 17, 2021. Want in? Join my email list.

👋 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: Mr. Nudly. I continue to derive joy, even after all these years, from Starbucks baristas’ amusing spellings of my (admittedly unconventional) name. I’ve yet to add this newest gem to my Starbucks Misspellings gallery, but will do soon.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 📱 Is TikTok causing an increase in tics among teenage girls?

2) 👷‍♂️ Why the pandemic is driving a “Great Resignation” in the U.S.

3) ✍️ A New York Times Magazine longread by Robert Kolker that’s been getting a lot of buzz: “Who Is the Bad Art Friend?”

4) 🌲 A trip to Skellefteå, Sweden, home to tons of stuff made of wood, including a 20-storey building.

5) 🔫 Weaponry innovation of the week: quadrupedal robots with guns.

6) 🎵 The 200 best albums of the last 25 years.

7) 🎥 Coming December 24: “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, written and directed by Joel Coen. Here’s the trailer. Can’t wait.

8) 📸 Photographer Ola Maddams snaps beautiful nighttime photos of wildlife – right in her back yard.

9) 🎬 Map of the week: What the 1988 comedic classic “The Naked Gun” was called in various European countries.

10) 🎧 Podcast of the week: “The Unraveling of the Murdaugh Dynasty,” featuring my WSJ colleague Valerie Bauerlein discussing tragic events in rural Hampton County, S.C.

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🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Weeeeee!”

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💡 Quote of the week:

“The rarest of all human qualities is consistency.” – Jeremy Bentham

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👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley