Men Know It’s Better to Carry Nothing – The Cut – Medium – women clean up because fashion allows it. She pointed to the size of women’s bags, which allow us — like sherpas or packhorses — to lug around the tool kits of servitude. A woman is expected to be prepared for every eventuality, and culture has formalized that expectation. Online, lists of necessities proliferate: 12, 14, 17, 19, 30 things a woman should keep in her purse. Almost all include tissues, breath mints, hand sanitizer, and tampons — but also “a condom, because this is her responsibility, too.” (A woman’s responsibility for everyone else’s spills extends to the most primal level.) – I don’t think that this ‘carry nothing’ mentality of men is true any more. One only has to look at the backpacks carried around. Or the whole EDC culture of over-engineered products to optimise the carry experience, making a lie of carry nothing as a concept. For a lot of men, the car is the handbag, but that’s a whole other discussion around the idea of carry nothing. More consumer behaviour related content here
Gender ad bans set ‘concerning’ precedent, say advertisers | FT – the publishing ban only applies to direct marketing: members of the public, media outlets and sites like YouTube can continue to share banned materials.
Amazon offered vendors ‘Amazon’s Choice’ labels in return for ad spending and lower prices – Digiday – shit meet fan….
REON POCKET | First Flight – personal cooling device using Peltier effect to cool behind the neck
Silicon Valley’s China Paradox | East West Center – the period from 2014 to 2017 as a time of “segmentation and synergy,” two words that on their face are opposites of each other. Their juxtaposition forms the core of what Sheehan labels “Silicon Valley’s China paradox.” While at a corporate level US and Chinese companies were entirely separate, the flow of money, people, and ideas reached an all-time high during this period. “This is when you saw a lot of investors from China showing up in Silicon Valley, some prominent US researchers and engineers joining Chinese companies in positions of leadership, and ideas flowing in two directions,” said Sheehan. He noted that the concept of shared bicycles, now popular in US cities, started in China, and both Chinese and US companies have been active in the development of autonomous vehicles. Even while the relationship between the two national governments was in many ways going sour, “the relationship at the grassroots level, the technology relationship, was still very free-flowing,” he noted. Sheehan suggested that the relationship has now entered a new and uncharted phase, which he termed the new “technology cold war,” with the US government asserting national policies in what was previously considered a private arena. This new phase has three dimensions, he said. The first is an effort to disentangle the interconnected technology com- munities that bind the two countries together. In 2018, the US Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review and Modernization Act (FIRRMA). This new legislation increases US government oversight and supervision of Chinese investment in Silicon Valley, Sheehan pointed out. The US State Department also began restricting visas for Chinese graduate students working in sensitive fields of science and technology. The second dimension is height- ened competition between US and Chinese companies in other countries. In general, “American companies know they can’t win in China, and Chinese companies know they can’t make a dent in the US market,” according to Sheehan. So US and Chinese companies are competing in markets such as India, Brazil, and Southeast Asia. (PDF)
Why Consumers Aren’t Buying Electric Cars | naked capitalism – no great surprise
US smart speaker update – (PDF)
Fake news and cyberwarfare from China in Hong Kong protests | Slate – really good analysis of some of the online events happening in Hong Kong
The big scoop: what a day with an ice-cream man taught me about modern Britain | Food | The Guardian – “Since Brexit, people have less money, and less confidence in spending money. They haven’t got the money in their pockets they had a few years ago.”
Apple and Samsung phone sales are down, and $1,000+ prices are one reason why – BGR – less convinced by this explanation – BlackBerry could have fitted into this format as well in its decline
In-house marketing ‘costing firms lost productivity and creativity’ | Netimperative – but is the pay-off worth it should be the question
US and China investors battle over Indian digital payments boom | Financial Times – so I think that Payments in India will turn out to be a White Elephant but the FT thinks that its a growth market
Revealed: Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network | Lynton Crosby | The Guardian – a lot positive advocacy campaigns can learn from this
Are Companies About to Have a Gen X Retention Problem? HBR – or why are gen-y self entitled snowflakes part 43
Taiwan primaries highlight fears over China’s political influence | Financial Times – Want Want China Times and Cti TV deny they take instructions from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office like good little United Front puppets. Who would you trust them or the FT?
TikTok creator ByteDance to enter smartphone market, following deal with Smartisan | SCMP – not convinced by this move
Boris Johnson to unveil biggest ad campaign since Second World War to prepare for ‘no deal’ – 100 million that realistically would need to be spent in 9 or so weeks. That’s a lot of gaslighting….
Filling hospitals with art reduces patient stress, anxiety and pain – imagine seeing those tiles whilst well medicated
Websites are (probably) making less money because of GDPR – MIT Technology Review – the caveats read so wide its hard to conclude anything from this really