China crackdown + more things

MACAU DAILY TIMES 澳門每日時報 » Hong Kong | Thousands flee for UK, fearing China crackdown – What’s surprising is not the content of the article itself. There are plenty of pieces in the English language media around the world about the fear of a China crackdown due to the Hong Kong National Security Law driving Hong Kongers away. (The reality is less likely to be a China crackdown and more likely to be a progressive anaconda-type squeeze.) I am surprised to see this article in the usually tame Macau media. Which left me with the question why? My initial thoughts were that space constrained Macanese could take up some of the slack in Hong Kong as locals vacate? If so it would solve problems in the housing market and the need to build additional infrastructure in Macau.

Hong Kong Bar Association’s new chair on national security law and China | Apple Daily – I can’t see Mr Harris’ tenure ending well, given his lack of alignment with the line of travel on Hong Kong’s national security law. We might see a more forceful China crackdown on the legal sector, than just the mainland media criticism so far

Next generation of horseshit | The Ad Contrarian newsletter – more on why life stage is more important than generations

Merrick Garland Wants Former Facebook Lawyer to Top Antitrust Division | Prospect – this could be good for Facebook

Majority of B2B advertising is ‘ineffective’ | Marketing WeekOf the 1,600 B2B ads shown to a sample of 6 million people worldwide over the past four years, 75% scored one star or less on System1’s FaceTrace emotional measurement tool – so ineffective in brand building, but potentially effective in terms of performance marketing? We don’t know

QAnon Is Alive and Well in Japan – The Diplomat 

China-Australia clash may be more about Beijing’s economic fears than a coronavirus probe | South China Morning Post 

Today’s jet fighter designers don’t get the point – Asia Timesthe cockpit itself is “beautiful,” full of screens that allow you to bring up an incredible amount of information about the fighter with just a few finger swipes, and customize the data to tailor it for the particular mission. The F-35 is the first to use touch screen technology. Unlike switches, which take up permanent cockpit space, touch screens allow the same LCD screen space to be instantly repurposed, the report said. One minute, a display could be used to pull up data on an aircraft’s fuel reserves, and the next, it could help target an enemy position on a mountainside. That goes a long way toward simplifying the cockpit and not overwhelming a pilot with wall-to-wall physical switches, dials, and single-use displays, the report said. But the problem with touch screens, the pilot explains, is a lack of tactile feedback. Switches have a nice, satisfying click that instantaneously lets the user know they were successfully flipped, the report said. The anonymous pilot reports failing to get a result from a touch screen about 20% of the time – the need for haptics has never been clearer

China Raises Threat Level Over Rare Earths — Radio Free Asia“Rare earth ore exports are limited in value, and the global demand for raw materials is relatively low,” said Liu Enqiao of Anbound Consulting. But Liu added that the decline “might be partly due to China’s tightening of regulations on strategic resources” under the country’s new export control law, which took effect on Dec. 1.

Asian Fans Turn Their Back on Korean Pop Culture – The Chosun Ilbo – a lot of the problem seems to be down to overexposure and the Black Sun club scandal

Mystery surrounds huge rise in Huawei executives’ social media followings | Financial Times – they aren’t the first corporate to be apparently caught astroturfing and won’t be the last. The New York Times tackles this from a different angle point out how accounts like this were used to lobby against 5G decisions against Huawei in Belgium – Inside a Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign – The New York Times 

Facing the Jackpot with William Gibson | Ploughshares at Emerson College 

The EU must protect the right to privacy and not attack end-to-end encryption – interesting that so many vendors came together on this. Its also interesting that its missing big tech names

US-China tech war: former Google chief and others call for action to handle ‘asymmetric competition’ from Beijing | South China Morning PostUS tech group, formed in July 2020 to tackle ‘the most difficult questions regarding US competitiveness with China on technology’ also includes Jared Cohen. Report calls for determined action to tackle tech competition with China and says a certain amount of ‘bifurcation’ is inevitable

Elderly woman DJ becomes online sensation in China | South China Morning Post – to be fair she’s about the same age as a number of big name DJs in the west. Pete Tong is 60, Carl Cox is 58, Junior Vasquez is 71, DJ Hell is 58 and Georgio Moroder is 80.

Artificial Intelligence Will Define Google’s Future. For Now, It’s a Management Challenge. – WSJmost of Google’s problems related to AI are rooted in the company’s approach to managing staff, adding that science, and not ideology, should guide ethical debates. “Google is the coddler-in-chief,” he said. “Their employees are so coddled that they feel entitled to make more and more demands” regarding how the company approaches AI and related issues. – TL;DR – millennial and gen-z Googler snowflakes preventing the company from creating amoral shareholder value