Materials are as important as technology and innovation. Without access to hydrocarbons you wouldn’t just lose access to the car as transport, but the foundational products of modern life.
Added to the materials list of importance would be the likes of:
Lithium – current battery technology and in some alloys
Helium – inert atmosphere for chemical reactions and lighter than air craft including blimps, airships and weather balloons
Silicon – semiconductors
Cobalt – a key material in batteries
Titanium – similar applications to steel but with a higher weight to strength ratio. Also hypoallergenic in nature
Carbon fibre – high strength light weight materials
Rare earth metals and key materials including:
Dysprosium- magnets, lasers, nuclear control rods
Erbium – lasers, particularly in telecoms fibre optics cables and optronics
Europium – interest in using it to develop memory for quantum computers
Holmium – magnets, lasers and quantum computer memory
Neodymium – high strength magnets
Praseodymium – magnets
Yttrium – catalyst in some chemical processes
Thorium – future safer nuclear fuel source
Thulium – portable x-ray devices, ceramics used in microwave equipment
Scandium – high strength lightweight alloys
Ytterbium – manufacture of stainless steel, atomic clocks
Uranium – nuclear fuel
In addition to innovation in material science and chemistry with these raw materials. There is also the benefit of recycling and reusing existing stuff once it has finished its useful life. The Tokyo olympics of 2020 saw an unprecedented peace time effort to find precious metals in e-waste and junk that could then be processed into the winners medals.
A desire to lower the carbon footprint will require ingenuity in systems, design and materials use for it to be successful
Suzume no Tojimari is the latest anime from Makoto Shinkai. Suzume no Tojimari seems to share the same universe as some of Shinkai-san’s other films: Your Name and Weathering with You. Suzume no Tojimari goes from a rural town in the South, through the modern ruins that punctuate modern Japan.
Everyday footage of Japan in the 1990s
One of the great things about Japan being at the forefront of high-definition video standards is that you get a good deal of high quality footage of what everyday looked like in the 1980s and 1990s covering the bubble era and the immediate aftermath.
This seems to be footage for a demonstration recording, that I presume was commissioned by Sony. (Mainly because none of the other consumer electronics manufacturers would feature the Sony buildings front and centre in the footage of the opening shot). I suspect that the shots might be relatively short due to storage considerations on the cameras being used.
By contrast, here is a modern constant stream of street life in present day Tokyo, Japan.
https://youtu.be/S_bxc_AFUZU
Original jungle samples
I have been fascinated by the YouTube channel original jungle samples for a while. They track down the constituent samples that made up many drum and bass tracks, putting the original sources up against their use so you can see how they were transformed. This one profiling M-Beat is a great example of the work that they do.
Obesity science
BBC’s current affairs programme Panorama scratched the surface on the public health challenge of obesity. I know a fair bit about the subject area as I have been working on a global launch for Novo Nordisk’s obesity franchise. What quickly becomes apparent from the programme is the misalignment between scientific understanding of obesity as a complex chronic condition, current treatment techniques and government policy.
Song Lim Shoemaking
I am a big fan of videos that show how something is made. This is a video of how hiking boots are made as a bespoke process by Song Lim Shoemaking.
Creativity. Its what makes us
I am a big fan of going to see exhibitions and museums. It refreshes me and helps me have a clean slate in terms of thinking. It is interesting to see the V&A lean into this with a two minute film to get creatives back into museum visits.
Steroids as a popular drug
Vice digs into why steroids has become popular. It comes back to visions of modern masculinity and self image. Maybe because I came up in Liverpool during the late 1980s and early 1990s steroids were a common thing back then, rather than the more recent development that Vice seems to think that it is.
An interesting essay on the nature of scientific slow down that applies as much to applied innovation as well – Scientific slowdown is not inevitable – Works in Progress – The most popular version of the low-hanging fruit model is that we are picking fruit at a slower rate because the higher-up fruit are harder to get to. You can only invent fire, the wheel, or a flint axe once. This story says that declining research productivity is inevitable. The fact that we once saw increasing scientific progress is because we were continually increasing inputs: adding more researchers, more research tools and technology. But now research is getting so much harder that even this is not enough. But another explanation for falling innovation ‘yields’ is that we are getting worse at picking it, despite the progress in picking methods that has happened. We’ve handed in our stepladders for footstools, without realising it. Our recent decline in innovation vibrancy might be explained by ideas becoming inherently harder to find, but it may just as easily be explained by us becoming worse at finding them. – The scientific slow down is real and is occurring across disciplines:
Pharmaceutical research is taking longer and there is a patent cliff on blockbuster drugs
Each process change in semiconductors costs more money and takes more time
Software takes more lines of code
But the scientific slow down might also be down to problems with incentives. Technology executive and engineer Judy Estrin talked about the way ‘hard innovation’ is no longer invested in compared to ‘soft innovation’. Innovation itself has become financialised with blockchain being like a snake eating its tale. The scientific slow down could be as much related to the incentives and choices that drive research. The scientific slow down could also be down to the divorce between developing and making things. Silicon Valley is no longer making silicon. So it is harder to foster an eco-system to deal with scientific slow down.
China Will Be Deglobalization’s Big Loser by Minxin Pei – Project Syndicate – China was headed toward at least a partial decoupling with the United States well before Russia invaded Ukraine. And it has been seeking to ensure that this process happens on its terms, by reducing its dependence on US markets and technology. To that end, in 2020 China unveiled its so-called dual-circulation strategy, which aims to foster domestic demand and technological self-sufficiency. And yet, last year, China was still the world’s largest exporter, shipping $3.3 trillion in goods to the rest of the world, with the US its leading export market. In fact, overall trade with the US grew by more than 20% in 2021, as total Chinese trade reached a new high. Trade with the European Union also grew, reaching $828 billion, even as disagreements over human rights torpedoed a controversial EU-China investment agreement.
Cleaning Up Streetwear’s Act | High Snobriety – the European Commission are proposing new standards which would dictate how durable apparel would need to be in addition to bans on the destruction of unsold materials. This comes at a time when a cavernous dichotomy exists between the cohort of people who require their products to be sustainably minded and the growing number of consumers who succumb to the whims of fast fashion led by retailers like Shein mushrooming to a $100 billion valuation
Naked power politics is a challenge to the post cold war consensus. Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, like Ethiopia’s invasion of Tigray are two examples of naked power politics in action. Russia’s naked power politics approach isn’t new and was something that the Financial Times and others had been talking about for at least a decade and certainly since the invasion of Crimea.
In the case of Russia, uniting the west and drawing both Finland and Sweden into NATO shows that naked power politics can be counter-productive. Ethiopia seems to have fought itself to a stalemate after invading Tigray and then getting beaten back to Addis Ababa. Only close air support using drone from gulf states helped stave off a military collapse.
But naked power politics is also playing out in the uneven relationship between China and the European Union; despite the EU’s market power.
Even more so we can see naked power politics in China’s approach to Australia through trade.
Is Marcus Rashford working class? The answer depends on your age – New Statesman – “Younger people appear to identify membership of the upper class with power and social impact,” he said. “This reflects the social media which prioritises celebrity coverage by attention capital, rather than accent, schooling or parental occupation.” The findings also suggest that “class hierarchy is perceived by young people in the present tense, ie, the media and social media time that people have now: the more media time, the higher the class position,” Rojek added. “The historical relationship of class to ancestry may be waning. A ‘now perspective’, based in power, social impact and online recognisability, seems to be growing in importance.” This trend has been a long time in the making, he observed. “For many years, it has been evident to me that for most of my students ‘social media’ is ‘society’, ie, a source of belonging, community, identity and aspiration.” – this might be age related rather than cohort related
When Saying Gay Isn’t Good Enough | Adweek – The Walt Disney Company has been singled out by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for its opposition to Florida’s House Bill 1557, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Recently signed into law, the measure prohibits discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. The governor has vowed to revisit—and possibly rescind—Disney’s privileges and autonomy in the state. But even LGBTQ allies and activists haven’t been happy with how the entertainment giant has handled anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida. – which brings the question of what is the role of brands in societal norming?
Xi Focus: Xi orders building world-leading spacecraft launch site-Xinhua – “Xi noted that Wenchang is the launch site of China’s new-generation high thrust carrier rockets and the bridgehead of the country’s deep space exploration. The launch site should continue to eye the frontier of global space development and the major strategic needs of China’s space industry, and comprehensively improve its modern space launch capabilities, said Xi. China is scheduled to complete the construction of its space station this year. Tianzhou-4 and Tianzhou-5 cargo crafts, as well as Wentian and Mengtian lab modules will be launched from Wenchang. Xi said the launch site should make meticulous efforts to ensure the missions’ full success.”
Old Enough: Netflix show sparks global debate on parenting and child safety | Sora News – its interesting because it shows how much of a high trust society Japan is versus the rest of the world and how far we have moved away from the ‘latch key‘ generations in the west that allowed women to go out to work. Although my Mum was a homemaker, I was still expected to look after myself if she had to go out or was visiting a friend. As an only child I was very comfortable in this trust being put in me. It was also the same for many of my school friends. The show is unbelievably cute. Read the explanation of Japanese culture on children before watching the hyper judgemental TV segment below.
The Death of Streetwear Culture is a Class Issue | High Sobriety – in its ‘80s and ‘90s heyday, by and large streetwear culture was driven by the kids from low-income neighborhoods in major American cities. The very term “streetwear” bears that notion—it’s a style born in the streets, in schoolyards, on handball and basketball courts, and on brownstone stoops. More often than not, streetwear heroes—athletes and rappers—came from the working class
Warner Bros. censors gay dialogue in Harry Potter movie for China release – CNN – the irony of this is that the Chinese internet is filled with homoerotic and even a lot of graphic homosexual content based around fan fiction from Sherlock to Harry Potter and even adaptions of Chinese literary classics where sword play takes on a vastly different meaning
In honor of Ramadan, meals appear on Tesco billboards after sunset – To mark the month of Ramadan — when Muslims refrain from eating and drinking between dawn and dusk — British supermarket Tesco turned to dynamic billboards. During the day, screens show four hands and a large number of empty plates and platters. Once the sun sets, food appears on the plates, just as Muslims start breaking their fast with an iftar meal. – nice bit of work by BBH that takes advantage of dynamic digital out of home advertising technology
REWE’s unmanned mini-marts bring daily groceries to rural Germany – German retail giant REWE is launching a new concept: nahkauf BOX. Operating under REWE’s nahkauf brand of neighborhood stores, nahkauf BOX is an unmanned, standalone convenience store that’s open 24/7. – this is similar to China’s automated convenience stores, but interesting that its aimed at rural villages lacking stores. I could see this shaking up rural Ireland as well
Security
Pentagon to meet top arms makers to discuss stepping up aid to Ukraine | Financial Times – fascinating detail from this. Ukraine has already had four years production worth of Javelin missiles or about a third of the US stocks. They had sent a quarter of their stock of Stinger missiles or about five years worth of production. The challenge will be scaling component manufacture, supply chain and system assembly
The Electronic Sheep Company was one of the startups that came and went during the last ‘metaverse boom’ or what was then called ‘virtual worlds’ back in the mid-2000s and early 2010s epitomised by Second Life.
China’s Choice for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Reveals Its Own Insecurity – The Diplomat – I thought that John Lee was likely to be Carrie Lam‘s successor when he was appointed her deputy last June. As others have observed, John Lee looked most likely to be the person in charge during vast parts of Ms Lam’s administration. While others said that CY Leung would want to run again (he probably does as his ambition knows no bounds). I didn’t rate CY’s chances, given how close he was to the Hong Kong business community. The only unknown had how many terms Carrie Lam might sit before John Lee took over. Now we know, despite Ms Lam wanting to spend time with her family since 2019, it wasn’t until Omicron infections increasing in the city that she was definitely a one term chief executive. John Lee’s appointment is a message to the city’s oligarchs as much as it is to the general populace of Hong Kong. Security isn’t balanced with commerce, John Lee will be focusing on a single dimension everything else is noise. John Lee is more likely to have strong connections with the 14K rather than CK Hutchison. There is a widespread concern expressed that the mainland government (with John Lee as its instrument) will take Hong Kong’s oligarchs assets away from them.
China Is Challenging NATO Over Russia’s Ukraine War: Jens Stoltenberg – The NATO chief said the attendance of Asia Pacific partners was important “because the crisis has global ramifications,” not least due to the role of China in giving tacit support for Moscow’s invasion. – this is some of China’s worst scenarios playing out
Jacky Cheung and Nicholas Tse Star in ‘War Customised’ – Variety – After the squashing of the pro-democracy protests that flared up and turned violent in the second half of 2019, a Beijing-imposed National Security Law has changed many aspects of Hong Kong society, ranging from education to elections and entertainment. This has caused cinemas to withdraw certain films from release, the passing of a film censorship law that specifically includes security concerns, and the self-imposed exile of some filmmakers and talent. – interesting footer that I suspect will feature on many future Variety coverage of Hong Kong movies
The Resignation of Britain’s Judges Is the Final Blow to Hong Kong – The Atlantic – The exodus of Hong Kongers and foreign city residents has reached such a level that even the city’s chief executive, who announced this week that she will not seek a second term, admits that Hong Kong is experiencing a brain drain. Her replacement will almost certainly be a former police officer who has been saddled with U.S. sanctions and who helped trigger the 2019 protests. His elevation would cement that, above all else, the authorities in Beijing view the issue of security as paramount, even at the cost of business interests, rapidly decreasing civil liberties, and professional accountability. If Hong Kong is to be thought of as a bridge linking East and West, Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said the infrastructure still exists, but the obstacles erected by Beijing have now rendered it a tough passage. “A bridge can be there, and people can use it and cross and mix and interact and benefit each other,” he told me. “Or a bridge can be there with barricades being put up by one side, and with people on one side not being allowed to use the bridge … I think that is what we are looking at in Hong Kong.”
The Franciscan monk helping the Vatican take on — and tame — AI | Financial Times – “Algorithms make us quantifiable. The idea that if we transform human beings into data, they can be processed or discarded, that is something that really touches the sensibility of the Pope,” – interesting that there is less concern about the effects of automation
How Putin aged into a classic oil state autocrat | Financial Times – On a visit to New York in 2003, Vladimir Putin pitched himself to investors as an economic reformer willing to engage western capitalists, telling us that Russia was more than just another petrostate and shared the values of a “normal European nation”. Those words ring hollow now that Putin is invading Ukraine, but he seemed sincere at the time. Having taken over a nation battered in the late 1990s by financial crisis and default, he was pushing privatisation and deregulation. – what’s really interesting is the degree of change over time. Everything seems to hinge on Putin’s great power internal narrative
JD.com/Richard Liu: another tech boss bites the dust | Financial Times – Antitrust regulators picked market leader Alibaba as their main target, allowing JD to increase market share. JD fully controls its supply chain, warehouses and transport. That means it offers a slicker experience for customers than peers dependent on third-party services. That also makes it a big employer, another plus in Beijing’s eyes. Unfortunately, an asset-heavy business model becomes a weakness when prices and wages are rising. In the fourth quarter, JD posted a quarterly loss. General expenses rose 89 per cent. Fulfilment costs rose more than a tenth. China’s slowdown amid lockdowns in Shanghai and other big cities is a further threat to sales. Alibaba has already reported the slowest quarterly growth since going public in 2014 – the increase in general expenses needs more probing, why is it so high?
The Death of Streetwear Culture is a Class Issue | High Sobriety – in its ‘80s and ‘90s heyday, by and large streetwear culture was driven by the kids from low-income neighborhoods in major American cities. The very term “streetwear” bears that notion—it’s a style born in the streets, in schoolyards, on handball and basketball courts, and on brownstone stoops. More often than not, streetwear heroes—athletes and rappers—came from the working class
When Nokia Pulled Out of Russia, a Vast Surveillance System Remained – The New York Times – Nokia said this month that it would stop its sales in Russia and denounced the invasion of Ukraine. But the Finnish company didn’t mention what it was leaving behind: equipment and software connecting the government’s most powerful tool for digital surveillance to the nation’s largest telecommunications network. The tool was used to track supporters of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. Investigators said it had intercepted the phone calls of a Kremlin foe who was later assassinated. Called the System for Operative Investigative Activities, or SORM, it is also most likely being employed at this moment as President Vladimir V. Putin culls and silences antiwar voices inside Russia. For more than five years, Nokia provided equipment and services to link SORM to Russia’s largest telecom service provider, MTS, according to company documents obtained by The New York Times. While Nokia does not make the tech that intercepts communications, the documents lay out how it worked with state-linked Russian companies to plan, streamline and troubleshoot the SORM system’s connection to the MTS network. Russia’s main intelligence service, the F.S.B., uses SORM to listen in on phone conversations, intercept emails and text messages, and track other internet communications. The documents, spanning 2008 to 2017, show in previously unreported detail that Nokia knew it was enabling a Russian surveillance system. The work was essential for Nokia to do business in Russia, where it had become a top supplier of equipment and services to various telecommunications customers to help their networks function. The business yielded hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, even as Mr. Putin became more belligerent abroad and more controlling at home. – SORM has been around in one form or another for almost three decades. It mirrors the surveillance system used by Sweden and GCHQ in the UK. The latest version of SORM is SORM-3 that uses deep packet inspection infrastructure. SORM seems to be based on a mix of Russian made infrastructure and equipment by the likes of Israeli vendor Cellebrite.
Trial of Australian Journalist in China on States-Secrets Charges Ends Without Verdict – WSJ – Cheng Lei’s detention in August 2020 coincided with a sharp downturn in diplomatic relations between Beijing and Canberra – this is likely to be better for Australia’s incumbent prime minister Scott Morrison as is shows progressive realism doesn’t work. That’s not so good for Chinese interests in Australia
Not an April Fool: Dyson announces apocalyptic filter-headphone combo | Ars Technica – if you told me that this was bought in the SEG Plaza in Shenzhen and was a fake Dyson product I would believe you. I don’t know why Dyson went there. Usually its product development is well-gated which is why its electric Range Rover analogue got shelved prior to going into production
Taiwan’s love motels are safe spaces for couples — Quartz India – Marco Hsiao, a private investigator, has frequented hundreds of love motels in an attempt to provide evidence of adultery for divorce cases—80% of his cases pertain to cheating spouses. He said the rooms are also used for drug deals, interviewing new workers entering the sex industry, and money-laundering meetings.
