Month: August 2023

  • 25 years

    March 1998 – 25 years ago

    My consumer internet usage goes back 25 years as a celebratory email reminded me in my Yahoo! account earlier this year.

    Yahooversary
    25th Yahooversary

    had started using the internet back in early 1994. I had access to email whilst working as a research technician for Corning in their optical fibre manufacturing business. The account was for solely for professional reasons (for the most part).

    After Corning, I went to college and had access to the web for the first time. At that time, people in my year and the year above me mostly didn’t bother with the internet. I had found it useful for getting Mac software and researching material for college essays.

    I set up an Excite.com webmail account before leaving college, but it wasn’t that reliable. In the immediate aftermath of leaving college I worked long hours for the first few months in the call centre at MBNA the credit card company. So a rare day off was spent catching up on sleep or catching a video from the local Blockbuster store.

    Coffee, cake and email

    Over time, I got a temporary role in their marketing department. I was writing sales scripts for payment protection insurance and keeping a tally on salesperson performance. This meant that I moved to a role that was more 9 to 5 and I could start looking for my first career role. I even got to go shopping for sports cars that we were given away to the top performing sales person.

    (Aside: The Lotus Espirit Turbo and TVR Griffith were unpleasant driving experiences; the Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205 and fourth generation Toyota Supra were great cars to drive.)

    Yahoo in 1998
    What Yahoo! looked like in early 1998, about the time when I set up my email account.

    So one wet Saturday morning in March I set up a Yahoo! account in a cyber cafe around the corner from James Street station in Liverpool. I had found the address for Café Internet on North John Street in the Yellow Pages directory – there were only a couple of cyber cafes at the time in the Merseyside area and this one was the easiest to get to. Of course that would all change a year later with the launch of the easy group’s easyInternetCafe chain.

    (Aside: in the process of writing this article I found out that Café Internet was the first cybercafe in the North West of England, originally opened in 1995.)

    The connection that I enjoyed at Cafe Internet was slow and expensive.

    I had a weekly ritual of working during the week and then heading over to Liverpool on Saturday morning to do a bit of record shopping, check my email and apply to jobs with some of the best coffee and carrot cake available at the time. I used to bring my emails that I needed to send, pre-written up a floppy disk as plain text files, along with a copy of CV to send as an attachment for jobs.

    Eventually, I got my friend Andy online with his first email account and showed him the basics of web browsing. I don’t drink and we got accustomed to doing a spot of web surfing with good coffee and carrot cake prior to going window shopping in Liverpool city centre while chatting about everything and nothing. While we were online this was 25 years ago, so there was no UK e-commerce beyond shareware software on Tucows, so going shopping was not ironic.

    My front door to the web

    Yahoo! and other web portals like Lycos and Excite borrowed design cues from a newspaper page with their multiple columns of news snippets, horoscopes and weather forecasts. But it lacked the salacious content and gaslighting of the modern web.

    Yahoo in 1998

    My job search weekly cycle

    Week day evening: Monday looking at The Guardian for marketing jobs. At the time The Guardian was a good source of entry level agency roles. Thursday meant going through Campaign and PRWeek. By going through, I mean looking at their print copies.

    The library had a network that allowed PCs to do printing to a laser printer. In addition there were terminals that the librarians used to arrange inter-library deliveries. This ran on a command line interface connecting to a common database shared by all Wirral libraries. So my job search was analogue.

    Saturday morning: over to Liverpool to check for email responses and send new applications in.

    Given that most people applying for the jobs would be sending applications through via post, using email even on a weekly provided me with an advantage as a job seeker.

    The internet in print

    Given that it was expensive to get online. I spent more time reading MacWorld, Byte magazine and Wired magazine talking about online life than I spent online at the time. I noted down websites to check out next time I visited the cyber cafe, after I had sent my emails.

    My internet consumption mirrored a wider consumer patten 25 years ago, many people were excited by the idea of the internet before they had managed to get online. Getting online would follow a year or two later, partly due to the heavy direct mail campaign by early ISPs including AOL and CompuServe who sent CD-ROM discs to my parents every six weeks.

    Even by pre-internet standards that was a direct mail campaign of unprecedented scale.

  • Switching off + more things

    Switching off

    Switching off as a choice is a relatively new phenomenon. A few blogposts ago I talked about how consumer internet usage started for me 25 years ago. Back then going online was an active choice. In my case I would have to travel to an internet café. Later I would have to dial-in to an ISP or log into a wi-fi network.

    Confluence of always-on elements

    Wireless home broadband allowed seamless connectivity around the house or the workplace. The next thing that changed was laptop battery battery life improved to the point that one could realistically work for a 8 hours on writing or emailing at a conference or coffee shop without a power cable. Social media became a thing, first it was a positive influence, but gradually it had a more complex social impact.

    Finally there was smartphones. Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm and Microsoft smartphone attempts gave way to a duopoly of Apple and Alphabet’s respective eco-systems. I went back to an old presentation that I did a number of years ago. Here’s a chart from it, that I pulled together of publicly available active user numbers by time from December 1997 to April 2016.

    Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and Gmail users over time

    The dramatic take off in Gmail email accounts in 2011 and beyond is down to the rise of the Android operating system. By 2013, smartphone users were engaged by a series of compelling always-on applications to counter switching off.

    Strategising for a winning mobile social formula at IMM Conference, Hong Kong
    Ged Carroll for IMM Conference, Hong Kong (August 2013)
    Strategising for a winning mobile social formula at IMM Conference, Hong Kong
    Strategising for a winning mobile social formula at IMM Conference, Hong Kong
    Strategising for a winning mobile social formula at IMM Conference, Hong Kong

    Switching off became important. ‘Crackberry‘ – a light hearted take on smartphone addiction and an ability to turn off peaked as a thing as far back as September 2009 according to Google Trends. 12 months later the Crackberry book advised us on how to put down our smartphones. Four years later, the self-help books became more strident in their exhortations: Put Down Your Damn Phone Already: A (loving) rant about your obnoxious cellphone use being a case in point.

    The biggest concerns now, seems to be about two things where correlation if not causality supports beliefs about:

    From a professional perspective and increasingly a personal perspective, consumers have become smartphone human cyborgs.

    Class as a determinant of switching off

    Switching off is also about culture and behaviour. A discussion that I had with a friend about phones being turned off and put in a box before a night at the opera, reminded me of how ‘class’ in its widest sense can be one of the biggest determinants of switching off. You see it in homes that put phones away before a family dinner, or cinema-goers who are happy to turn their phone off before the main feature starts.

    The bulk of people may have the devices as always-on pacifiers. This quietens children and is seen as a continued source of confidence and validation rather than switching off.

    Secondly, we’re also seeing a small proportion of people choosing to use feature phones as a way of disconnecting. This might happen all the time or at the weekend, when they don’t want to be bothered by Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp messages.

    How not to influence behaviour

    EE Phonesmart – how not to design a PSA website

    China

    Politics crippling innovation: China notes, July ’23: on technological momentum | Dan Wang

    Culture

    Jamie Morgan on the next-gen of Buffalo kids – The FaceBuffalo will never die

    Economics

    How Saudi Arabia is buying the world – New Statesman – the unlikely links of Saudi Arabia and DC’s fictional country of Wakanda

    Energy

    Will there be enough cables for the clean energy transition? | Financial Times

    FMCG

    Why Rajiv Jain is betting on an Indian yoga televangelist | Financial Times – plans on growing market share rather than margin share for Patanjali Foods could put pricing pressure on Hindustan Unilever and Nestlė India

    Bubble tea, probably the biggest FMCG breakout in the past decade and its convoluted origin.

    How to

    Gwern on ‘How to search’ – how to make Google work harder for you

    Japan

    In France, Japonisme has turned into Japanmania – The Japan Times 

    In America, “Barbenheimer” is a success. In Japan, it’s a scandal.

    How homogeneous is Japan really? (repost) – by Noah Smith

    Korea

    Tech cold war: South Korea pivots from China to US | Financial Times

    Luxury

    Aspirational shoppers are cutting back. What next? | Vogue Business – also notable for a new acronym that I hadn’t heard before HENRYs (high earning, not rich yet)

    Media

    Streaming and podcasts are the most popular audio media formats | WARC 

    Online

    The world’s last internet cafes – Rest of WorldInternet cafes were more than just places to log on. They emerged in the waning years of the 20th century — a post-Cold War moment full of techno-optimism. Sharing a global resource like the internet “was going to bring different people in different cultures together in mutual understanding,” historian and author Margaret O’Mara told Rest of World. It was an era in which, both physically and digitally, “people were moving across borders that before were very difficult, if not impossible, to cross.” 

    Security

    City investors putting UK security at risk over ESG, ministers warn | Financial Times – the capitalists won’t even buy the rope to hang themselves

    Software

    Bloomberg on ethics in technology companies and artificial intelligence.

    Technology

    SK Hynix and Samsung’s early bet on AI memory chips pays off | Financial Times

    Intel’s AI bullishness shows its anxiety on catching Nvidia | Quartz

    Telecoms

    Software engineers dedication to getting Taylor Swift Tickets – Blind – judicious use of VPN connection

  • The politics of Prada + more stuff

    The Politics of Prada

    The politics of Prada challenged what I knew about the luxury brand. I knew that Prada started off as a handbag company that then pivoted into apparel. I also realised that some Prada items probably borrowed from military clothing design and fabric technology, such as Prada’s iconic black Pocono fabric backpacks.

    prada

    This is pretty common across Italian design with Stone Island CP Company being prime examples. If you would have asked me about the politics of Prada, I would have expected it to be part of the wider anarcho-far left hatred of all prestige brands.

    I didn’t realise that Miuccia Prada’s clothing designs reflected her own left wing, pro-feminist politics. The connections of Prada with yachting has less to do with the politics of Prada and more to do with the passion of her husband and business partner Patrizio Bertelli.

    One forgets how politics in Italy, had elements of the far left with the Communist Party and the Red Brigades pitted against reactionary right including the Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge and the Bologna central station bombing on August 2, 1980. The politics of Prada is by its nature Italian. More related content here.

    Aimé Leon Dore x DJ Stretch Armstrong

    Aimé Leon Dore got Stretch Armstrong in for a set playing sublime vintage soul 45s.

    Scott Galloway on the intersection of economics and technology

    Professor Scott Galloway on the intersection of economics, social trends, consumer trends and technology.

    Iran-Contra affair

    The Iran-Contra affair was how the president Reagan administration, specifically ‘rogue’ elements within it like Oliver North and John Poindexter, came to swap heavy weaponry with the terrorist sponsoring government of Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages, and how money from these deals came to be diverted to a secret and illegal war in Central America.

    Sean Munger provided one of the best accounts of it that I have seen outside of the Congressional report.

    The most Hong Kong thing I saw all week

    HKIB News – a cable and online TV news channel featured a news story about the first trip of local bus company KMB’s electric double decker bus. At the bus stop was a mix of young and middle aged (mostly) male business enthusiasts. In Hong Kong, bus enthusiasts is much more mainstream in the UK. There are shops that sell die-cast scale models of buses in different liveries, so you can get an exact period-correct bus. Bus enthusiasm and the continued popularity of radio controlled car builds as mainstream hobbies were two distinctive aspects of Hong Kong culture for me.

    Much of this is down to the limited size of Hong Kong and the public transport infrastructure. Generations of small children have enjoyed some of their happiest memories starting and ending with a bus trip. Buses are the first line of public transport. Hong Kong, (and Singapore) have a good number of young men and women for which it is the dream career. Which is remarkable given that these are part of the developed world and have a good education system.

    Instead in the UK, you have a job that pays minimum wage that no one dreams doing.

  • MLM + more stuff

    MLM

    MLM or multi-level marketing is where people who need to make money buy product from a company like Avon, Amway, Herbalife, Nu-Skin or Tupperware. Usually the franchisee doesn’t buy directly but through a contact. They may be a long way down in a chain of sellers, which means you end up with a pyramid scheme. Some have described the onboarding and seller communications as a cult. (Disclosure, I did a bit of agency work on Nu-Skin when I worked in Hong Kong, I got to see products, but not how they were sold).

    Financial freedom

    The real product of MLM seems to be hope. Discussing the downside of MLM at this time is important. Financial freedom is going to sound particularly appealing to struggling middle class households wrestling with the cost of living crisis and rising mortgage interest rates.

    These videos by Sean Munger give a really good insight into Amway.

    Ponzinomics

    Robert Fitzpatrick’s self-published Ponzinomics seems to be the most cited book talking about the underbelly of MLM. Here’s an interview with him.

    Soviet space programme

    Enough time has gone buy for us to know how innovative the Soviet space programme was. Some of the innovations were dictated to them by limitations in production campacity. I came across these films about it.

    And how Russian closed cycle rocket engines surprised NASA after the cold war.

    I, Claudius

    Robert Graves period drama novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God were remade in 1976 as a 13 part TV series. (The first two episodes are called 1a and 1b, presumably to avoid an episode 13, given that theatre as a whole is superstitious). In 1965, the BBC had done a documentary about the unfinished 1937 film version and had found bringing their version to television difficult due to production rights still tied into the 1937 production.

    I, Claudius was considered to be a high water mark from point of view of audience viewership of more high brow material and latterly critics consider it to be one of the best TV programmes ever on British TV.

    Hello Hong Kong

    I received post from friends in Hong Kong and the package had a large sticker highlighting the Hello Hong Kong campaign which the government has been using to paper over the cracks left by its authoritarian pivot.

    Hello Hong Kong
    Hello Hong Kong mandatory sticker.

    One part of me thought that ambient media such as the sticker might be a good side hustle for mail services everywhere. As I dug into it, I found out that the staff ‘had to’ put these stickers on the packaging and at least some of them were doing so reluctantly. At least some customers were reluctant for their packages to be ‘propaganda banners’ for the Beijing backed regime. Meanwhile 7/21 alleged government backed triad actions are still fresh in the mind of locals.

    YKK

    You don’t think about how YKK clothes zips work effortlessly, but this Asianometry documentary gives you insight into the Japanese zip manufacturer.

    Starbucks Rewards as massive bank

    I used to use the Starbucks pre-payment system back when I could use it in both the UK and Hong Kong, but a rupture came in when Starbucks removed its rewards scheme from stored value cards to an app. So I found this video by ColdFusion reframing the Rewards scheme as a large bank like pool of money more akin to PayPal’s float than Avios loyalty points.

    Apollo project astronauts off the record

    On everything from the context of Project Apollo through to their views on climate change.

    Restaurant of mistaken orders

    A Japanese pop-up retail project with restaurant servers who are suffering from dementia. I was sent the link by a friend of mine from Japan – the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders really brings the impact home.

  • LK99 & room temperature superconductors

    What is LK99?

    LK99 is some sort of lead phosphate compounds called lead apatite with small amounts of copper in it. Apatites are a class of mineral, found in everything from marble to bone and teeth enamel. In marble and other rocks apatites tend to be clear but soft crystals. However, these apatites usually are made of calcium or potassium rather than lead.

    The material was discovered by two people at Korea University in 1999.

    What’s happened about room temperature semiconductors?

    In March, a paper was put online by Korean researchers that proposed a theoretical model of room temperature semiconductors using LK99 as a material. A video was put online that is alleged to support a practical test of a room temperature superconductor.

    The theoretical paper was formerly published at the end of April in a Korean journal.

    In July, they put a paper online and submitted it for peer review claiming that LK99 had exhibited room temperature superconducting properties. EETimes Europe immediately picked up the paper and pointed out its current pre-publication, pre-peer review status. Early reactions to the paper from experts interviewed by Scientific American indicated a high level of skepticism.

    Some claims about about LK99, such as the material’s structure have been verified but at the time of writing the substantive claims of room temperature superconductivity have not been replicated.

    What’s a superconductor?

    A superconducting material allows electricity to pass through it without resistance. This will also exhibit magnetic properties as a magnetic field occurs at right angles to a flow of electricity.

    Superconductor

    Superconductivity usually occurs at temperatures near absolute zero.

    High temperature semiconductors

    In the mid-1980s, IBM Research got everyone excited when it did foundational work on creating special materials that allowed superconductivity to happen at higher temperatures. High temperature superconductivity meant that you could cool the materials with liquid nitrogen, rather than having to use liquid helium. So still extremely cold and often also under extreme pressure. The most common high temperature semiconductors operate at up to -163 centigrade, or 100 Kelvin. The jump from semiconductors operating at -270 centigrade to -163 centigrade bought a lot of hope at the time that a boundless future was just in front of us.

    Modern superconductors are used in hospital MRI scanners, which is where most people will get to see them. They are used in these machines to create powerful electro-magnets. High temperature superconducting materials have yet to be used widely in applications like this due to cost.

    Potential uses

    Cost effective superconductors operating at room temperatures open up a range of possibilities:

    • Much smaller and cheaper to operate hospital scanners
    • Improved efficiency for electricity generation and transmission
    • Improved electric vehicle performance such as practical magnetic levitation railways ushering in aircraft level speeds of travel
    • More efficient electric motors
    • Lower power consumption in electronic devices
    • Commercially viable nuclear fusion for power generation
    • Launching satellites via a rail gun rather than a rocket
    • Convention weapons of unimaginable speed and power

    If this sounds too good to be true, it might be because it is; or we can’t conceive of the technology to do it successfully yet. Think about how unrealistic an iPhone would have seemed to the boffins of Bletchley Park in the 1940s.

    If LK99 were real, it could herald in an exciting future.

    Best case scenario, commercialisation takes a long time

    Even if LK99 was proven to be a room temperature superconductor, it would take decades to make the technology commercially usable. For example, the forerunner of the modern lithium ion battery was invented by a researcher at Exxon in the early 1970s. They tried to commercialise the battery technology, but eventually stopped due to safety concerns. (Given that this was the 1970s, those safety concerns must have been real and reasonably harsh.)

    The Exxon work was built on by multiple universities including Stanford. In 1983, a Japanese team at a joint venture company between Asahi Kasei and Toshiba built an initial prototype, which they then modified and came up with a prototype of a battery close to what we use today in 1985. Sony went on to commercialise the batteries in 1991 and the Asahi Kasei-Toshiba joint venture did so a year later. Sony introduced lithium ion batteries on their Sony CCD-TR1 consumer camcorder in 1991. This was a small (allegedly ‘passport sized’ but more like a stout paperback book to read on holiday) high-end machine at the time featuring Hi-8 (high-band 8mm video recording).

    The Ericsson T28 cell phone was notable at the time for its use of a lithium ion battery when it launched in 1999.

    Worst case scenario

    LK99 adversely affects the reputation of Korea University, one of Korea and the world’s most foremost research universities. There is a lot at stake. You can find out more about materials here.