How the NSA Can Use Metadata to Predict Your Personality | DefenceOne – Despite assurances that metadata is free of content, new research shows that it can be highly personal. This debate on metadata reminds me of three examples. The first one was by AOL Research, which back then was headed by Dr. Abdur Chowdhury. AOL Research released a compressed text file on one of its websites containing twenty million search keywords for over 650,000 users over a 3-month period intended for research purposes. The New York Times was able to locate an individual from the released and anonymized search records by cross referencing them with phonebook listing. The second is research done on library metadata by UCL researcher Anne Welsh. Finally, cipher operators used to be able to recognise each other by their morse code style: a form of analogue metadata. More related content here.
Official Google Blog: Updating our privacy policies and terms of service – a confluence of events are affecting Google’s privacy policies. The fact that Google has over 70 different privacy policies implies a whole range of issues with version control and updating. Secondly there is the regulatory pressure to simplify privacy policies so that consumers can understand them if they read them. The consolidation of privacy policies also foreshadows a consolidation of services as well.
Economics
How China’s Boom Caused the Financial Crisis – By Heleen Mees | Foreign Policy – title is misleading as it was a factor, but needs more nuance. Low interest rates and the decline of middle class income led to a need for refinancing. Blaming China is simplistic – it was China, not the U.S. economy, that prospered on Americans’ spending binge. The world’s most populous country grew at double-digit rates for much of the 2000s. And while the U.S. savings rate hovered around 15 percent of GDP, China’s savings rate increased from 38 percent in 2000 to 54 percent in 2006. China’s savings are heavily skewed toward risk-free assets, perhaps because the Chinese are culturally more risk-averse, but also because the country’s financial markets are still underdeveloped and not fully liberalized. The large buildup of savings in China and other emerging economies (mostly oil exporters) depressed interest rates worldwide from 2004 on, as too much money was chasing U.S. Treasury bonds and other supposedly risk-free securities, driving up the price of bonds and driving down interest rates. Thus, by the time the Fed startedto worry about rising inflation by mid-2004, leading the Fed to try to put the brakes on the economy, it was already too late
Why the feds smashed Megaupload – interesting timing around SOPA | PIPA protests and the MegaUpload versus Universal Music dispute over the MegaUpload advert
A post on AI sovereignty came out of one of those times when a casual conversation suddenly has you seeing the theme in your news feeds. I was having one of them conversations with a friend over a paper cup of coffee, mentioned I’d been embedded at Google and they said ‘we can’t trust the Americans with AI, the way we did with social’.
That opens opportunities. Chinese open source models are working in Singapore government data centres, Korean cloud computing company Naver is looking beyond its own country for clients who want an alternative to US big technology. France has gone it alone with its own defence AI – as the ultimate expression of AI sovereignty.
The All-Star Chinese AI Conversation of 2026 | ChinaTalk – Interesting discussions on China based AI platforms on their successes and challenges. By their nature, the give China defacto AI sovereignty. Risk taking and GPUs or TPUs performance seem to be the main sources of concern. A good deal of focus on squeezing out the maximum intelligence per watt rather than scaling to infinity and beyond. Tonality wise it’s refreshing down to earth in comparison to Altman et al.
‘South Korea’s Google’ pitches AI alternative to US and China | FT – Korea has built up positive relations in the Middle East since the 1970s when they helped on major construction and engineering projects. They would be viewed positively and as a good hedge to both the US and China from a technology dependency point-of-view. Their offer is greater AI sovereignty for Middle Eastern countries in particular, you might also winning business in Central Asia as well.
It comes as a growing number of brands are moving into the children’s, teenage and young adult skincare market. In October, the first skincare brand developed for under-14s, Ever-eden, launched in the US. Superdrug has just created a range for those aged between 13 and 28.
A number of brands have surged in popularity among very young social-media users, creating a phenomenon known as “Sephora kids”. These children share videos showcasing beauty products from Drunk Elephant, Bubble, Sol de Janeiro and similar brands.
A Theory of Dumb: Why Are IQ Scores Suddenly Falling? | Intelligencer – a century ago, if you asked someone what dogs and rabbits have in common, they might answer “Dogs hunt rabbits,” not “They’re both mammals.”Maybe, then, all the noise and novelty wasn’t rotting our minds but upgrading them. (Studies suggest that better nutrition and reduced exposure to lead may have also helped.) In any case, the Flynn effect held steady for so long and through so many apparent threats that there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t last forever, even if, someday, somebody invented a chatbot that could do homework or Theo Von started podcasting.
Or so thought Elizabeth Dworak, now an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s medical school, when she chose the topic of her 2023 master’s thesis. She decided to analyze the results of 394,378 IQ tests taken in the U.S. between 2006 and 2018 to see if they exhibited the same climb. “I had all this cognitive data and thought, Hey, there’s probably a Flynn effect in there,” she says. But when she ran the numbers, “I felt like I was in Don’t Look Up,” the movie in which an astronomy grad student played by Jennifer Lawrence discovers a comet speeding toward Earth. “I spent weeks going back through all the code. I thought I’d messed something up and would have to delay submitting. But then I showed my adviser, and he said, ‘Nope, your math is right.’” The math showed declines in three important testing categories, including matrix reasoning (abstract visual puzzles), letter and number series (pattern recognition), and verbal reasoning (language-based problem-solving). The first two, in which losses were deepest, measure what psychologists call fluid intelligence, or the power to adapt to new situations and think on the fly. The drops showed up across age, gender, and education level but were most dramatic among 18-to-22-year-olds and those with the least amount of schooling.
How Hustle Culture Got America Addicted to Work – Business Insider – in America, the long, steady march toward a more leisurely future came to an abrupt halt. Today, according to the international economic database Penn World Table, the German work year is an astonishing 380 hours shorter than ours — which means that Germans work almost 10 weeks less than we do every year.
Even stranger, Americans began to glamorize their lack of free time. As the boomer generation reshaped society in its own image, it brought its ’60s, countercultural ethos to the workplace — transforming the staid, conformist office into a vessel of self-expression. Work became the central means by which you undertook to live your best life, follow your passion, and change the world. As Goldman bankers and Google idealists alike began to toil through the nights and weekends that previous generations had fought so hard to secure for them, mental-health professionals bemoaned the rise of what became known as “hustle culture.” Working long hours was suddenly the ultimate status symbol, a peculiarly American form of humblebrag. In 2017, a clever marketing study found that if you told an American you worked long hours, they assumed you were rich. If you told an Italian the same thing, they assumed you were poor.
Waymo Has Come for the Kids in Los Angeles – The New York Times – “Here, it is not unusual for families to have multiple children attending different schools far from home. School buses, if you are deemed eligible, are limited to dropping off and picking up children at locations and times that are often unhelpful. The city bus, if there is somehow a direct route to school, comes with its own set of risks that can make parents uneasy.
Ms. Rivera, a psychiatric social worker, is stuck at work until 6 p.m. most days, while her husband, who installs and repairs glass, comes home even later.
The couple struggles to coordinate their jobs and their three children. They tried Uber, and Lyft, but found that those drivers tended to cancel after discovering their riders were minors. They turned to HopSkipDrive, a service geared toward students, but the drivers had to be scheduled in advance, and would leave if children were late.
Then, a few months ago, Ms. Rivera and Alexis did a test run with Waymo.
“It was the only option where I was like, ‘Oh my God, she can order a car, nobody’s in there, she can unlock it with her phone,’” Ms. Rivera, 42, said. “I know she’s going to be safe and she’s going to get home.” – interesting use case
Chinese luxury goes local | WARC – High-end Chinese brands are stealing a march on their Western rivals with homegrown labels that appeal to more discerning local consumers who are looking for luxury items that feel tailored to them. China’s $49bn luxury market is “changing fast”: ecommerce sales at jeweller Lapou Gold, for instance, have surged more than 1000% in the first three quarters of this year compared with two years ago. Songmont, a Chinese brand that claims to have ‘experiential’ designer bags, has grown its online sales 90% while Gucci online bag sales in China have fallen 50%, according to the Business Times. – This was inevitable when you had so many talented (and a number of mediocre) Chinese people being brought through the likes of Central St Martins.
Coca-Cola CMO Manolo Arroyo on WPP, AI and a new era for media | The Drum – Coca-Cola’s marketing ecosystem was sprawling and complex. The business was working with approximately 6,000 agency partners globally, while the majority of its multi-billion-dollar media budget was allocated to traditional channels. Arroyo wanted fewer partners, deeper integration and a shift towards digital-first execution at scale.
That ambition led to the consolidation of Coca-Cola’s global advertising account into WPP and the creation of Open X, a bespoke unit designed to manage the brand across markets and disciplines. Nine studios were established in key regions, housing a mix of Coca-Cola employees, WPP staff and specialist partners.
“It’s a marketing factory,” says Arroyo. “There are more than 2,000 employees of Coca-Cola and more than 2,000 employees of WPP […] and ultimately it’s enabled us to move from a company that in 2019 was investing close to 75% of our paid media on traditional TV, to a company that’s going to end up this year putting 70% of all our paid media on digital, particularly social and influencer led, marketing. For us, it’s our new TV.”
Outcry after French army chief’s ‘prepared to lose children’ warning | Le Monde – “We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to deter the Moscow regime from trying its luck by going further,” said Mandon. “What we lack, and this is where you have a major role to play, is the strength of spirit to accept suffering in order to protect who we are.”
Paying tribute to French forces deployed worldwide, he added: “If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept – let’s be honest – to lose its children, to suffer economically because defense production will take precedence, then we are at risk.” – I don’t think that the west is ready or able to face Russia or China because of this. The war is lost before its fought
SOF, AI, and Changing Western Conceptions of War | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University – Each generational shift in technology impacts military operations. Consequently, a shift in military training, command, and promotion structure should follow. Much of the conversation surrounding AI makes it seem like an unprecedented esoteric concept. While this is partly true, the same was said about steam engines during the Industrial Revolution. Simply put, AI is the next technological breakthrough and there will be more after it. As Clausewitz stated, the character of war changes, not the nature of war. A willingness to adapt while following strategic tenets will enable us to weather the storm and thrive in AI generation warfare. Failure to do so will only bring obsolescence while America’s adversaries gain global hegemonic status. Proper implementation of AI will result in faster decision making, more accurate intelligence, improved resource allocation, better spatial awareness, more effective messaging, and more impactful strategies. The key to reaching this level of success is SOF. SOF is uniquely equipped and trained to implement AI quickly and effectively, delivering results that can be scaled to the rest of the military.
A New Anonymous Phone Carrier Lets You Sign Up With Nothing but a Zip Code | WIRED – Phreeli, the phone carrier startup is designed to be the most privacy-focused cellular provider available to Americans. Phreeli, as in, “speak freely,” aims to give its user a different sort of privacy from the kind that can be had with end-to-end encrypted texting and calling tools like Signal or WhatsApp. Those apps hide the content of conversations, or even, in Signal’s case, metadata like the identities of who is talking to whom. Phreeli instead wants to offer actual anonymity. It can’t help government agencies or data brokers obtain users’ identifying information because it has almost none to share. The only piece of information the company records about its users when they sign up for a Phreeli phone number is, in fact, a mere ZIP code. That’s the minimum personal data Merrill has determined his company is legally required to keep about its customers for tax purposes.
Waking the Sleeping European Giant – by Matthew C. Klein | The Overshoot – “Europe” as a geopolitical entity does not exist. Instead of a strong and independent continent capable of securing the lives and freedoms of its citizens, Europe is divided into dozens of countries, all of which are too small individually to stand up to external threats. The problem is compounded by the mismatch between where the military resources can be found and where they are most needed. There is relatively little overlap between the places with the balance sheet capacity (mostly in the north), the places with the productive capacity (mostly in the center), the places with the largest populations of otherwise unoccupied fighting-age men (more in the south), and Europe’s front lines (largely, although not exclusively, in the east).
Bending Spoons raids the digital graveyard for paranormal returns | FT – businesses in the Bending Spoons stable: AOL, the dial-up internet service that had been most recently attached to Yahoo, and Evernote, the virtual scratch pad. – alongside Vimeo and Brightcove with Eventbrite due to join them
Hong Konger Andrew Tse explained the complex history of Eurasians in Hong Kong and the role of compradores. Eurasians were the offspring of Europeans and middle Eastern Jews with local women.
During the 19th century, Hong Kong was segregated. Mixed race couples couldn’t marry. Eurasians didn’t easy fit in with either the Chinese community or westerners. This segregation also had its advantages. Information didn’t flow between the communities.
Eurasian families looked more towards the Chinese community and over time built up status within it.
The compradores were people who acted as an agent for foreign organisations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation. They even helped finance deals when there was low trust. The compradore was a valuable person for western trading houses based in Hong Kong and the families built multi-generational wealth.
After the second world war, Chinese community understanding of English increased with education. China became closed off with the civil war and Hong Kong itself became a manufacturing hub. With the rise of Hong Kong manufacturing there would be a further decline in the need for compradores to help navigate business deals. Hong Kong also had the common law legal system for contract disputes. The compradore role faded away. Instead of becoming compradores, Eurasians worked within the major companies rising to senior positions. Mr Tse’s own career in the aviation sector is empirical evidence of their success.
They became prominent business people and philanthropists in their own right. The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals benefited from their philanthropy. Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is the oldest and largest not-for-profit organisation in Hong Kong.
Over time, mixed race marriage was no longer restricted and Hong Kong had its native-born entrepreneurs like Li Ka-shing to govern the old Taipan businesses like Hutchison-Whampoa.
A century after the Eurasian community had first formed in Hong Kong and became compradores their identity was still a sensitive subject. Peter Hall’s book In The Web that outlined this history was restrained from being published until after the death of certain prominent community members who didn’t wish to be ‘outed’ as Eurasian.
As a synopsis of the book puts it:
Peter Hall’s book, ‘In the Web,’ brings to light the mysteries that lay behind his family and the other Hong Kong Eurasian families intertwined with it. Because it attempts to lift the stone firmly left in place for over a century, this work will not be welcomed by those who prefer conjecture to be left to outsiders.
Hall himself came from a Eurasian background, was interned by the Japanese and worked for prominent property developer Hongkong Land.
The prominence of the Eurasian community has dissipated, for a number of reasons:
Some of them moved overseas, in common with many richer Hong Kongers in the run up to the handover.
Some family lines have became re-assimilated in the Chinese community.
Many of them died defending Hong Kong during the Japanese invasion.
Branding
Q&A: Juanita Zhang on How Chinese Brands Can Win Globally | Branding in Asia – One critical insight is the power of unapologetic differentiation, especially as Chinese brands move beyond the ‘outbound 2.0’ era. The initial wave of success often rode on e-commerce efficiency, providing commodity-level products and leveraging vast data insights. However, we’ve observed that many brands then dwell too much in ‘end-user insight,’ optimizing for existing demand rather than proactively building aspirational gravity. The brands that truly succeed don’t try to be all things to all people; they identify a unique, compelling value proposition and own it fiercely.
McDonald’s US sales drop by most since height of pandemic | FT – Kempczinski said his company had surveyed consumers in top global markets about their views on the US, American brands and McDonald’s.While there had been no change to public opinion on the McDonald’s brand, he said more people signalled they would be cutting back on buying American brands. The surveys also revealed an 8 to 10-point rise in “anti-American sentiment”, he said, notably in northern Europe and Canada.
The Death of the Amex Lounge: Why the Upper Middle Class Isn’t Special Anymore – There’s something happening to the upper middle class in the United States that no one is talking about. They are going through an existential crisis. I first noticed it at the airport. A line 20 people deep for the American Express lounge. Then, once you get inside, more lines for food/drinks and not an open chair in sight. Then I saw it in the housing market. I have friends with $10,000+ monthly mortgage payments on modest homes. Ten grand a month and they still don’t own a mansion. Today, buying a 3-bedroom apartment in Jersey City (where I live) would cost me anywhere from $9,300-$14,000 a month (all-in). I could rent the same unit for around $6,000-$7,000 a month.
Ethics
The 50something man has a PR problem | Influence Online – “Ageism is the last ‘ism’ we need to tackle. Anecdotally, I’m hearing a lot about the 50+ demographic struggling to find new roles because employers perceive them as being so old that they can’t learn new skills or that their tech isn’t up to scratch. All their knowledge is being lost – and because AI is replacing entry-level jobs – there’s a lack of new people coming in to learn from them. Acknowledging ageism exists would be a great start…”
Finance
Buy now, pay later, in debt forever? – The Face – or how generation Z credit rating is being impacted by Klarna, Affirm et al which are the digital equivalent of the ‘tally man’ of the early to mid 20th century. Reading all this reminded me of working at MBNA as a student and hearing people’s horror stories as they tried to transfer over scorecard debit to pay it down at a more rational rate.
The story of Nongfu water is the story of the wild, wild west of Chinese business. The health claims still shock me, despite everything I knew about the Chinese market.
What Is “Broke Man Propaganda?” | Cosmopolitan & Yes, it is classist to dehumanise ‘broke’ men | Dazed – “Poverty is not the fault of the poor,” she continues. “I find it very cruel to talk about John – a character who loves Lucy, a beautiful character being played beautifully by Chris – in such cruel terms as ‘broke boy’ or ‘broke man’.” She goes on: “I think that is a very troubling result of the way that wealthy people have gotten into our hearts [and convinced us] it’s your fault if you’re poor, or you’re a bad person if you’re poor. So, it doesn’t make me laugh, actually. It just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters [like that], and think about it in such classist terms.”
Poblacion is the old part of Makati, the central business district of Manila in the Philippines. I have been to Makati for work in the past and to my regret missed visiting Poblacion.
Otherwise Makati is full of anonymous office blocks, business hotels that look the same the world over and Starbucks coffee shops.
