Newley Purnell

Sent as an email newsletter Sunday, August 2. Not a subscriber yet? Get it 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.

Photo of the week, above: I love Hong Kong’s unique, and apparently disappearing, corner buildings, known for their rounded edges. I came across this one as the sun was going down and liked the lines and colors.

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

1) Microsoft was in advanced discussions to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations from China’s Bytedance, but in recent days has “paused negotiations,” my WSJ colleagues report, after President Trump’s statements that he wouldn’t support such a transaction. If a deal happened, Microsoft would get a massive and rapidly growing social media platform, while Bytedance would be able to exit a market where it faces a potential ban.

2) The chief executives from the “GAFA” tech powerhouses – Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon – faced a congressional antitrust hearing. The session “laid bare deep-rooted frustration with some of the country’s most successful companies, at a moment when Americans rely on them more than ever,” my WSJ colleague wrote. The Verge has videos and a blow-by-blow from the day.

3) And speaking of Google: The Markup studied more than 15,000 search queries on the service and discovered Google “devoted 41 percent of the first page of search results on mobile devices to its own properties and what it calls ‘direct answers,’ which are populated with information copied from other sources.”

4) Authorities arrested the alleged mastermind of the recent Twitter hack that compromised accounts from the likes of Joe Biden, Kanye West and Barack Obama: a 17-year-old in Tampa, Florida. Prosecutors say he used a spear phishing attack, tricking Twitter employees to turn over passwords by pretending to be a Twitter IT worker.

5) RIP Wilford Brimley. The “portly actor with a walrus mustache who found his niche playing cantankerous coots in ‘Absence of Malice,’ ‘The Natural,’ ‘Cocoon’ and other films, died on Saturday at age 85,” the New York Times’s obit reads.

6) All the rage amid the pandemic: labyrinth making. “The labyrinth is a sure path for uncertain times,” Lars Howlett, who has a California-based labyrinth making business, tells Bloomberg CityLab. “It brings order out of a sense of chaos.”

7) Here’s a look at the history of the popular Pocari Sweat sports drink, “Asia’s answer to Gatorade.” Yes, the “Sweat” refers to perspiration: it’s designed for maximum re-hydration during exercise.

8) My favorite Premier League team, Arsenal, came from behind to beat Chelsea and win the FA Cup on Saturday! I suffered immense cognitive dissonance watching the staggeringly good Christian Pulisic (An American! With skill a Brazilian would be jealous of! At the age of just 21! As a standout player for Chelsea! Who then had to come off injured!) dance his way through our defense to score the opener. But Arsenal rallied thanks mostly the the phenomenal Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front and the unflappable Dani Ceballos in midfield. Onward, manager Mikel Arteta!

9) Here’s a fun video about motorbike riders in Indonesia who take pride in modifying Vespas in creative ways. (Thanks, Dad!)

10) Dog-related video of the week: “This is Lola. She likes cheese.”

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What I’m Reading

I continue to make my way through Evan Osnos’s 2014 book, “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.” It is exceptional.

Quote of the week:

“We make the moment as the moment is making us.” – Shinshu Roberts

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What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of dogs stealing bits of cheese.

Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as an email newsletter Sunday, July 26. Not a subscriber yet? Get it 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.

Photo of the week, above: a watercolor I painted during a recent trip to the beach here in Hong Kong.

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

1) A secretive Pentagon program studying UFOs will in the next six months apparently make some of its findings public.

2) The Fairfax (Va.) County School Board voted to rename Springfield’s Robert E. Lee High School after John Lewis.

3) Covid–19-related story of the week: Has Southeast Asia largely been spared because similar viruses have been circulating for years, providing some innate immunity? (Thanks, Suzy!)

4) Health-related story of the week: A new study shows that chemical ingredients used in many sunscreens show up in the blood “at concentrations far greater than the Food and Drug Administration’s safety threshold,” my WSJ colleague Jo Craven McGinty reports.

5) The New York Times is acquiring Serial Productions, the podcasting company that created “Serial,” aiming to “further the newspaper’s podcasting ambitions,” according to my WSJ colleague Benjamin Mullin.

6) Twitter is going to test some kind of subscription service.

7) The city of Paris created a “cinema on the water,” a floating movie theater where viewers took in a film from boats on the Sein.

8) How “Gunsmoke” paved the way for ubiquitous grandma couches – you know, those velour sofas with repeating pastoral scenes. (Thanks, Anasuya!)

9) Zoom dot earth provides “near real-time satellite images” from around the world. Just search for a location or spin the globe and zoom in.

10) Dog-related video of the week: “All offices should come with one of these.”

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What I’m Reading

I finished Jan Morris’s “Hong Kong” and have moved on to “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China,” Evan Osnos’s 2014 book.

Quote of the week:

“He who fears death will never do anything worth of a man who is alive.” – Seneca

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What’s new with you? Hit reply to send me tips, queries, random comments, and videos of dogs boosting workers’ morale.

Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as an email newsletter Sunday, July 19. Not a subscriber yet? Get it 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.

Photo of the week, above: taken during a recent hike here in Hong Kong.

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

1) Longread of the week: “How Pandemics Wreak Havoc – and Open Minds,” by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker. The piece’s subtitle: “The plague marked the end of the Middle Ages and the start of a great cultural renewal. Could the coronavirus, for all its destruction, offer a similar opportunity for radical change?”

+ Bonus Covid–19-related WSJ link: “Face Masks Really Do Matter. The Scientific Evidence Is Growing.”

2) RIP Rep. John Lewis: “Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial equality, and who then carried a mantle of moral authority into Congress, died on Friday. He was 80.”

3) Camouflage-adorned agents from Department of Homeland Security “rapid deployment teams” have been sweeping protesters off the streets of Portland, Oregon, sometimes ushering them into unmarked vans. "This is an attack on our democracy,” said Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.

4) Twitter suffered what is likely its worst hack ever: perpetrators took over prominent accounts, like those belonging to Barack Obama and Elon Musk, and posted messages related to a bitcoin scam.

5) Shot: China and the U.S. are in a new cold war, despite hopes from some that tensions can be turned into a less potentially destructive “rivalry-partnership,” Niall Ferguson writes. “They know full well this is a Cold War,” he says of China, “because they started it.”

6) Chaser: tech analyst Ben Thompson on “The TikTok War”: “… what makes TikTok so unique is that it is the culmination of two trends: one about humans and the Internet, and the other about China and ideology.”

7) Google is investing $4.5 billion in Jio Platforms, the telco and digital services firm that’s part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate run by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. Google follows investors like Facebook, Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic and more that are pouring cash into Jio, aiming for a piece of India’s burgeoning internet economy.

8) Not new, but new to me: Steve Wallis, an affable guy in Alberta, Canada, has become a YouTube sensation thanks to his offbeat camping videos. I especially like his “stealth camping” trips.

9) Just plain awesome: Wheelies parkour. (Via my pal Lee LeFever’s Ready for Rain newsletter, which I recommend highly.)

10) Dog-related video of the week: “Cute blind pup recognizing owner…Cutest thing I´ve ever seen.”

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What I’m Reading

I’m almost finished with “Hong Kong,” a portrait of the city and its peoples by the great Jan Morris. It’s a bit dated now, having been written before the British handover in 1997, but clearly conveys the fascinating history of the place.

Quote of the week:

"The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” – John Maxwell

Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley