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The Whole Earth Catalogue
The Whole Earth Catalogue was a publication that sat at the centre of so many movements over the past six decades and its influence is still with us today. The publication was founded by Stewart Brand in 1968. Brand had been a participant in the counterculture and environment movement that sprang out of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. Brand was particularly interested in a strand of counterculture that saw hippies follow in the footsteps of pioneers in America and go back to the land.
In order to do this and become more self sufficient, Brand looked to collate and share knowledge on how to do things and the best products to get in order to facilitate it. This became The Whole Earth Catalogue which provided access to tools and knowledge.
The marble in space
The first issue published in 1968 featured a NASA satellite picture of the earth in space, the first picture of its kind.
The publication of the photo of the earth floating like a marble in a black void gave emphasis to how fragile the earth was to environmentalists.
The Whole Earth Catalogue stopped publishing on a regular basis in 1972 and instead went to a sporadic mode of publishing until 1998 including related publications like Coevolution Quarterly, various Whole Earth Catalogue compilations and Soft Tech which predicted the empowering role of technology that influenced early netizens including The Grateful Dead. While The Whole Earth Catalogue stopped, its influence lived on through The WeLL, the Global Business Network (acquired by Monitor Deloitte), Wired magazine and The Long Now Foundation.
Stewart Brand revisited some of the underlying philosophy around the environment that begat The Whole Earth Catalogue with his 2009 book Whole Earth Discipline. Now The Whole Earth Catalogue lives on as an almost complete online archive of its issues and related publications.
Consumer behaviour
The importance of handwriting is becoming better understood – “Studies have found that writing on paper can improve everything from recalling a random series of words to imparting a better conceptual grasp of complicated ideas.”
Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter – The Verge – “Thinking is an active pursuit — one that often happens when you are spending long stretches of time staring into space, then writing a bit, and then staring into space a bit more. It’s here that the connections are made and the insights are formed. And it is a process that stubbornly resists automation.”
Opinion | Why Does Everyone Feel So Insecure All the Time? – The New York Times – “Where inequality encourages us to look up and down, to note extremes of indigence and opulence, insecurity encourages us to look sideways and recognize potentially powerful commonalities.”
How Amazon, Apple, and Facebook Made America Lonelier Than Ever
Culture
30 Years Ago Myst Introduced Us to an Unforgettable Abandoned World – Paste Magazine – I got to enjoy Myst at college thanks to my friend Stuart whose parents had managed to get him a Mac desktop thanks to education discounts provided to teachers.
Design
1963 – the year that changed motorcar history | Financial Times – the Porsche 911, The Aston Martin DB5 and the Jeep Grand Wagoneer
Economics
Global foundry revenues to see CAGR of 11.3% from 2023–2028, says DIGITIMES Research – this looks good for forward-looking economics forecasts.
How Weight-Loss Drugs Like Ozempic Will Alter the Stock Market’s Outlook | Business Insider – I find it more difficult to believe when Walmart claims significant declining food sales due to GLP-1s. For example Pepsi’s CEO is keeping an eye on weight-loss drugs, but shakes off fears voiced by Walmart that they could hurt the bottom line | Fortune.
Energy
Toyota partners with Idemitsu to commercialize all-solid-state batteries for BEVs
Ineos CEO Lynn Calder: 2035 is a more realistic target | CAR Magazine
What Is a Heat Pump? – IEEE Spectrum
Private EV Sales Are Nosediving In The UK | Jalopnik – expensive – especially for private buyers who don’t enjoy the tax benefits of company car fleets, range-related issues, spontaneious fires. Read also – The Chinese Government Is Subsidizing Nio’s $35,000 Loss On Every Car Sold
Ethics
They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie? | The New Yorker – “‘When you look at [Gino’s paper], it just makes no sense,’ [one professor] said. But, he added, ‘even in safe spaces in my world, to bring up that someone is a data fabricator—it’s, like, ‘Our friend John, do you think he might be a cannibal?’” – on Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino’s research
Finance
Vanguard funds invest in China military groups, report says | Financial Times – Vanguard is opening itself up to regulation and ESG related issues.
Neil Shen plots global expansion for Sequoia’s China spin-off | Financial Times – venture capital giant HongShan, which announced its split from Sequoia Capital this year, is establishing a global footprint as a slowdown in the domestic economy pushes it overseas. Neil Shen, the group’s founding partner, who led Sequoia’s China business for 18 years until it was forced to separate under political pressure in June, is seeking business opportunities and investments worldwide to benefit HongShan’s Chinese portfolio companies, according to seven people familiar with his plans – expect regulatory roadblocks in the west
Gadgets
‘Dumbphones’ make a comeback: ‘No one calls me anymore’ | Technology | EL PAÍS English
Health
Churches Using Mushrooms, Psilocybin for Religious Use – Mushrooms in Religion | Esquire
GSK signs £2.5bn shingles vaccine deal with China’s Zhifei | Financial Times – a huge deal for GSK. Shingles vaccination is one of a number of vaccines aimed at older adults (50+) which is a Vx growth opportunity
Hong Kong
Then Suddenly It Was Gone | ChinaFile – first slowly and then all of a sudden
Macau Legend is pulling out of gaming projects in offshore markets | Macao News – interesting pull back from resorts and refocus on non-gaming areas. More Macau-related content here.
Ideas
Goldberg: The fracturing of the U.S. political left over Israel, Hamas – San Jose Mercury News – Many progressive Jews have been profoundly shaken by the way some on the left are treating the terrorist mass murder of civilians as noble acts of anti-colonial resistance. These are Jews who share the left’s abhorrence of the occupation of Gaza and of the enormities inflicted on it, which are only going to get worse if and when Israel invades. But the way keyboard radicals have condoned war crimes against Israelis has left many progressive Jews alienated from political communities they thought were their own. – I am not surprised that this has happened. The left wing terrorists of the cold war era trained in the middle east and there is a latent sympathy on the left
Innovation
Honda wants to quell motion sickness by making EVs more ICE-like | CAR Magazine
France doubles down on microLED pioneer with €120 million | EE News Europe
Japan
The End of an Era: Update on the Johnny’s Idol Scandal | J-List Blog – TL;DR – Japan’s equivalent of Simon Fuller turns about to be Japan’s equivalent of Jimmy Saville. The Japanese media was complicit, but have so far come out unscathed, and hundreds of people in the entertainment industry are struggling to work. Johnny’s victims are still scarred.
London
Drumsheds, London – The Face – clubbing reduced to liminal spaces
Luxury
The Target Of Activists, Canada Goose Is Trying To Hold Itself To Higher ESG Standards | The Drum – gets on the ESG train.
The return of Mansur Gavriel | Vogue Business – Mansur Gavriel is launching MG Forever, a resale programme for customers to buy and sell used handbags and for the brand to sell off samples. It’s the first big launch since co-founders Rachel Mansur and Floriana Gavriel reclaimed the brand, resuming their roles as co-creative directors this year. And, it’s a statement: Mansur Gavriel is not trend-led, its products are timeless – this sounds like a definition of classic luxury rather than new luxury. Read with Platforms race to take a slice of the vintage jewellery market | Financial Times
The Vogue Business Spring/Summer 2024 size inclusivity report | Vogue Business – it’s not inclusive basically.
Marketing
Kia’s Big New EV9 SUV Fails to Appeal to Buyers – The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition) – market category ‘dead zone’?
Fewer Americans want brands to speak out on current events – Marketplace
Kazakh telco provider Altel gets AI-nnovative in new campaign | Analysis | Campaign Asia – Faced with dwindling market shares and an over-saturation of foreign imagery making up their key brand campaigns, Kazakhstan’s oldest telco provider revamps their brand persona by using AI to tap into the look, feel and desires of their national consumers. – this is going to be a problem with Image libraries (iStock Photos, Getty Images etc). When I think of the number of campaign assets I have worked on in the last 18 months alone that relied exclusively on image libraries rather than campaign photoshoots – the impact will be huge.
Driving Impact through Inclusive Advertising: An Examination of Award-Winning Gender-Inclusive Advertising: Journal of Advertising: Vol 0, No 0 – Theoretical and managerial contributions include (1) identification of how social impact is conceptualized in award-winning inclusive advertising and how impact functions through awards, (2) development in the definition of inclusive advertising to include social impacts as an outcome, and (3) a reimagining and expansion of the concept of inclusive advertising through a proposed Inclusive Advertising Spectrum, which encompasses representation
Materials
Adding spider DNA to silkworms creates silk stronger than Kevlar
Expensive Luxury Watches Are Out — Plastic Is In – an ode to the versatility of plastics as a materials class
Afghans accuse Chinese companies of ‘looting’ country’s mines | Salaam Times
Online
How the attacks in Israel are changing Threads | Platformer – In my dim and distant memory, I can recall how not being able to log into Friendster drove early social media users to MySpace and Facebook. Twitter has a similar issue, not in terms of being able to physically log-in, but in being able to discuss topics in a less toxic environment on other platforms. This could be Twitter’s Friendster moment.
Retailing
Authentic Brands Group offers text-based shopping for key banners | Chain Store Age – US catches up with African innovation in SMS marketing circa 2003. On a more serious note it shows how SMS is still the lingua franca of mobile devices
Consumers more likely to use virtual apparel try-on software if interactive
China’s ‘Lipstick King’ leaves Alibaba with a livestreaming dilemma – Nikkei Asia
How to use Japan’s new self-checkout supermarket carts | SoraNews24 -Japan News- – We found the system to be very convenient, but it doesn’t come without concerns for locals. One of the most glaringly obvious worries is the chance that some customers might fail to scan items, leading to a loss for the supermarket that might result in price hikes that would negatively impact all customers – but would still be far less prevalent than in the UK
Security
Group Attacking Apple Encryption Linked to Dark-Money Network The Intercept
Western leftists have lost the plot – by Noah Smith – can’t say that I disagree with this assessment
The Predator Files: European Spyware Consortium Supplied Despots and Dictators
Technology
Samsung takes on TSMC with advanced 2-nanometer fabrication push | DigiTimes – this is all happening while TSMC is under shareholder and customer pressure.
RISC-V is becoming China’s low-risk option amid chip war – RISC-V has long been the pacing threat to ARM.
Global notebook shipments to enjoy 3% CAGR from 2023 to 2028, says DIGITIMES Research
Report: Microsoft set to reveal own AI chip | EE News Europe
Web of no web
BMW’s Next Car Launch Is Happening In Fortnite | Jalopnik – alignment between buyers and channel is poor, BUT, if you think about this more as aspirational brand building its spot on. And probably a better decision than a motorsports programme nowadays