Newley Purnell

Sent as a newsletter August 14, 2023. Not on my list? Join 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 sunset here in Hong Kong.

My WSJ latest:

I had a story out Wednesday with my colleague Tripti Lahiri. The headline: Meta, Alphabet and Other Tech Firms Face New Data Rules in India. <— free link

And the lede:

India’s Parliament on Wednesday passed a data-protection bill years in the making that the government says is needed to regulate tech companies and protect citizens, but that rights groups say gives New Delhi too much power.

🎧 I discussed on the story on Wednesday’s WSJ What’s News podcast.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇪🇨 In Ecuador, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated — and now his friend, a prominent investigative journalist, is running in his stead. <— free link

2) ☢️ Scientists at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are making gains in achieving nuclear fusion.

3) 🏠 How two Canadian men discovered they’d been switched at birth 67 years ago.

4) ⛽️ For the first time since 1951, Oregonians can pump their own gas.

5) 🇩🇪 “This is an embarrassment, it is a cultural crisis for the German people”: Germany can’t make its trains run on time. <– free link

6) 📕 The 50 best book covers of the year.

7) 🧮 Here’s a gallery of gorgeous vintage calculators.

8) 📞 Adding to my “to watch” list: “Telemarketers,” a new HBO docu-series.

9) 🔊 This website lets you listen to Wikipedia edits as they’re being made.

10) 🐾 In which a man pays $14,000 to transform himself into a Collie.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Run.”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“With all the tribulations and evils of life, if you could see them in a large perspective, you’d probably find some reason or excuse for them. You’d adjust yourself to them, and you’d learn to be happy even in this world.” — Will Durant

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter July 31, 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:

Your faithful correspondent as a Ken doll. Via the endlessly entertaining BaiRBIE.me, a website that lets you upload photos to be transformed into Barbie or Ken. (Via EC.)

My WSJ latest:

I had two stories out last week.

🧵 The first, out Wednesday: Meta’s Threads Isn’t Labeling Propaganda Accounts From Russia, China State Media <– free link.

It begins:

State-backed news outlets from Russia and other authoritarian governments have rushed to join Meta Platforms’ new Threads microblogging service, posting propaganda such as a fake video purporting to show President Biden in a store perusing books on dementia.

Unlike on Facebook and Instagram, their verified accounts on Threads aren’t labeled as state-controlled media, raising questions over how the Facebook parent intends to police content on its Twitter rival that launched this month. Twitter, now being rebranded as X, in 2020 began applying labels to state-run news organizations; under Elon Musk, it removed them in April.

After inquiring about the Biden video, the post began showing a label describing it as “False information.” In a statement after the story was published, a spokesman said the labels would be added soon. (As of today the labels remain absent.)

🇭🇰 And the second story, from Friday: Hong Kong Loses Court Bid to Ban Protest Song Appearing on Google <– free link.

The lede:

A judge rejected a government bid to ban the dissemination online of a popular pro-democracy song, dealing a blow to Hong Kong’s efforts to extend a national-security crackdown to online platforms such as Google.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🪱 SHOT – file under “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about”: Scientists have revived 46,000-year-old Siberian parasitic worms.

2) 🌋 CHASER – also cool, no doubt: Magma under the earth appears to be causing a “gravity hole” in the Indian Ocean.

3) 💉 The “excess death rate among Republican voters was 43% higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters” after Covid vaccines became available to all adults in Ohio and Florida.

4) 💻 A look at some the world’s last remaining Internet cafes.

5) 🥎 A lack of unsupervised free play time is ruining kids’ mental health.

6) ✍️ What artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT can teach us about good writing…

7) 💼 …And how AI could change the way corporations are organized.

8) 👏 All foster children in California will now be able to attend a state university or community college for free.

9) 📺 My90sTV is a website that lets you watch TV from that decade, by year. You’re welcome.

10) 🇮🇪 RIP Sinéad O’Connor. She was 56.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“am trapped fren”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.” — Joan Didion

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

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.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Golden Retrievers celebrating their 155th anniversary in Scotland as a species.” Backstory is here. Thanks, Anasuya!

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“Doubt can only be removed by action.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter July 18, 2023. Not on my list? Join 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:

The powerful poster for a book festival that took place in Kyiv last month. Created by Art Studio Agrafka.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week

1) 🇸🇬 Huge news in Singapore, long known for its efficient government: Antigraft officials are investigating the transport minister.

2) ⏲️ Meta’s Threads is getting a lot of attention, but people might be running out of time for yet another social media platform.

3) 🇬🇺 A deep look at Guam, its people, and the territory’s strategic importance for the U.S. military as tensions with China rise.

4) 🍎 Quitting Apple’s ecosystem is neither easy nor cheap.

5) 🦦 Otters are straight up stealing surfboards in California.

6) 🌐 Las Vegas’s new $2 billion, 366-foot-tall, 1.2 million-LED orb/theater is bonkers‘.

7) 🤖 In which a New Yorker writer commissions an AI bot to try to do his job.

8) ⭐ Related: “How to Use AI to Do Stuff: An Opinionated Guide.”

9) 🐴 Excellent video from this year’s Finish Hobbyhorse Championships.

10) 🔗 Go to Wilby.me/surprise to visit a random Web 1.0 website.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Clever dog uses hot dog bun as bait to snatch fish out of water.”

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.” — Milan Kundera, RIP

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley

Sent as a newsletter July 3, 2023. Not on my 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 sunset here in Hong Kong.

My WSJ latest:

🥽 Just out, a story with my colleague Raffaele Huang: Zuckerberg’s Quest to Re-Enter China Faces Challenge: His Own Words <– Free link

The story begins:

HONG KONG—Mark Zuckerberg in late 2021 had a question for those working on Meta Platforms’ strategy for its virtual-reality headset: If Apple can sell iPhones in China, and Tesla can sell cars, why can’t we sell our devices there?

The question, posed on a video call, led to a push by Meta to restart its China business by selling its Quest headsets in the country, according to a person familiar with the matter, more than a decade after Facebook was blocked there.

The company held discussions with several Chinese tech companies and has made progress with videogame powerhouse Tencent Holdings, people familiar with the matter said. But the effort faces challenges, in part because Chinese executives worry that Zuckerberg isn’t seen as friendly to China, according to people familiar with the matter.

Here are 10 items worth your time this week:

1) 🇷🇺 In last week’s NN I pointed to several stories about Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against Putin. For more, check out this excellent WSJ documentary, available on YouTube: “Inside Prigozhin’s Wagner, Russia’s Secret War Company.”

2) 🤖 People may fear mass layoffs, but artificial intelligence just represents another another wave of automation, writes tech analyst Benedict Evans.

3) 📸 Here are the winners of this year’s Audubon Photography Awards.

4) 🍕 Is that a pizza depicted in a fresco from 79 A.D. that was recently discovered in Pompeii?

5) 🪧 Here’s a beautiful collection of street sign lettering in India.

6) 🌹 With crime, open drug use, and housing prices all rising, Portland, Oregon is losing its residents.

7) 🍴 The signature dishes at the world’s 150 most legendary restaurants.

8) 📞 What after work time was like for young people before cellphones.

9) 🗾 Everything you always wanted to know about amazing Japanese convenience stores.

10) 🐊 Extreme food, Taiwan edition: crocodile ramen.

•••

🦴 Dog-related video of the week:

“Sailor the Touchdown Dog Sets Record for the Longest Catch at a Live Sporting Event” (Thanks, Anasuya!)

•••

💡 Quote of the week:

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” – William James

•••

👊 Fist bump from Hong Kong,

Newley