Newley Purnell

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.”

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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!)

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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.”

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Newley