Ged Carroll

Category: legal | 合法的 | 법률학 | 法的

Legal is defined as everything connected with the system of law within a country or area. The definition Law is a system of rules created and enforced to regulate behaviour, usually it belongs to a country or an area.

Online and innovation have often evolved way in advance of laws and the legal system’s ability to cope.

The emphasis that different systems have produces a number of challenges. China’s systems are locked down under their view of cyber sovereignty to avoid a contagion of western ideas. Yet they and other authoritarian regimes treat the open western systems as a battle space to destabilise other countries and attack their critics.

The US system favours free speech over privacy, which directly clashes with European values. Much of these European values were shaped in the aftermath of having lived under Warsaw Pact era authoritarian regimes.

There is a clash of the ages undertaken over ethics and power and what’s legal. The law offers up more questions and ethical traps than answers. It’s into this legal morass that my posts tend to land, usually at the point of intersection between ethics, the law and technology.

When I started using the web I believed that it was a unique extra-legal space similar to what John Perry Barlow outlined at the start of the ‘web’ as we now know it.  The reality is that the net has already been staked out by businesses that look rather similar to the robber barons of the gilded age. Authoritarian regimes found it surprisingly easy to bend to their will and now sell their expertise around the world.

  • Supply chain disruption + more news

    Supply chain disruption

    Is there an end in sight to supply chain disruption? | Financial Times -There are major barriers to ending supply chain disruption by decoupling from China. Japan is trying to reduce supply chain disruption by replicating Chinese factories in other countries like Thailand and Indonesia. Here are some of things stopping multinational corporations from making that happen. In order to end supply chain disruption, I would imagine that a higher degree of automation is key, which will require corresponding improvements in automation technology. This doesn’t just mean software but also in mechanical engineering. The main issue for fine motor control in robots is the design and price of harmonic drives. This doesn’t operate on a Moore’s Law speed and scale of innovation. Increased automation also likely means major changes in approach to product design. Back in the golden era of consumer electronics just prior to the consumer adoption of the internet, circuit boards were less dense because they were designed for automated ‘pick-and-place’ machines. Nokia had a similar approach to its phones prior to the pivot to Windows and Qualcomm chips. The reason why Apple needs iPhones made in China is because a lot of the final assembly is closer to the work of a watchmaker servicing a mechanical watch than you would credit. So lots of cheap, (younger, smaller, delicate, usually female) hands are required. Our financial system’s obsessive, narrow focus on shareholder value will curtail these movements. Look at how Apple crows about how green they are and yet makes the virtually unrecyclable Air Pods by the million. Until that changes and the computers are assembled from modular boards, closer to their home market the supply chain won’t change despite the political, economic, national security and moral imperatives otherwise. Which is why Apple amongst others point out that they have an inability to move production out of China. This will get even harder as China moves up the semiconductor value chain. Once they are building memory modules and modern silicon fab processes, its game over for manufacturing elsewhere in the electronics sector. China is also the sole provider for many of the ingredients in multi-vitamins and pharmaceutical products. They process and mine just under 90 percent of the world’s rare earth metals – key for a large swathe of technologies from magnets to chips and batteries. They have a similar position in solar cell polysilicon and lithium ion battery ingredients. 

    https://flic.kr/p/2mcN31J
    JAXPORT promises less supply disruption

    So ending supply chain disruption would mean replicating whole ingredient manufacturing chains and industry knowhow that multinationals had migrated to China decades ago. All of these actions to reduce supply chain disruption may not be received very well by China itself. China has bought key infrastructure around the world: power generation, ports, water supply, rail networks and more. All of which means that they get a greater say in how the world’s supply chain works. Xi Jingping has been straight forward in saying that he wants the world to rely on China more, and China to rely on the rest of the world less. Decoupling from Chinese supply chain disruption has taken on even more importance with the rise of Chinese secondary sanctions. More on nearshoring to avoid Chinese supply chain disruptions here: China’s economic woes: An opportunity for U.S. manufacturing? 

    China

    Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab – but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’ – An email from Dr Ron Fouchier to Sir Jeremy said: “Further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.” Dr Collins, former director of the NIH, replied to Sir Jeremy stating: “I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence-inspiring framework is needed or the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony.” Institutions which held the emails have repeatedly resisted efforts to publish their content. The University of Edinburgh recently turned down an Freedom of Information request from The Telegraph asking to see Prof Rambaut’s replies, claiming “disclosure would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health and safety of individuals”. – this is going to turn into a dumpster fire

    Beijing’s South China Sea claims ‘gravely undermine’ rule of law | Al Jazeera 

    Half of international students did not feel completely ready for courses – poll | Evening Standard – Nearly three in four (72%) international applicants wanted more information about what their year would look like.- and this is probably deliberate by the institutions

    Dutch university gives up Chinese funding due to impartiality concerns | Netherlands | The Guardian – Amsterdam’s Vrije Universiteit (VU), the fourth largest university in the Netherlands, has said it will accept no further money from the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing and repay sums it recently received. The announcement came after an investigation by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS last week revealed VU’s Cross Cultural Human Rights Center (CCHRC) had received between €250,000 (£210,000) and €300,000 annually from Southwest over the past few years. According to NOS, the CCHRC used Southwest’s money to fund a regular newsletter, organise seminars and maintain its website – which has published several posts rejecting western criticism of China’s human rights policy

    Economics

    Buy Things, Not Experiences — harold lee – long term benefit

    Did macroeconomics fail us on inflation? – by Noah Smith 

    Ethics

    The soft bigotry of America’s cultural left | Financial Times 

    Why is it still considered OK to be ageist? | Financial Times – A study by academics at Yale found that people with a negative approach to ageing deal with it worse mentally and physically and die seven and a half years younger. To put this in context, mild obesity shortens life by three years, extreme obesity by 10. Hardly surprisingly, this has prompted a great deal of fuss at government level. Policymakers and health professionals obsess over obesity. But what about the damage done by poor attitudes to ageing? Until I read about the survey I had no idea it was even a thing: the fact that ageism can actually kill you is a well-kept secret. It is also a costly one. According to the WHO report, the resulting ill health places an additional annual burden on the US healthcare of $63bn. I realise that health policymakers have been busy since the report came out last March, but still there hasn’t been a peep out of them

    FMCG

    Short sellers tuck into Beyond Meat | Financial Times 

    Spilling the Beans on Political Consumerism: Do Social Media Boycotts and Buycotts Translate to Real Sales Impact? by Jura Liaukonyte, Anna Tuchman, Xinrong Zhu :: SSRN – on the contrary, they create a short term sales bump and your customers stick with your brand, so long as you keep your advertising spend up

    Hong Kong

    Xinjiang anti-terror general to lead China’s Hong Kong garrison | Hong Kong | The Guardian – things are going only one way like a ratchet. This especially interesting as the Hong Kong government’s national security apparatus has been making steady progress despite high profile government failures in other areas such as COVID social distancing that further undermined trust with citizenry, more here Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam vows to bring in new security laws | The Guardian 

    The Big Pigture: Life Lessons from the World of Mcdull | Sotheby’s – interesting that Sotheby’s is auctioning off McDull artwork.

    Hong Kong democracy activist Edward Leung released from prison | Reuters – Edward Leung was involved in the ‘fishball revolution’ where police took action against food stalls, he was the person that made ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time’ popular as a slogan

    Britain’s newest immigrants are showing a flair for protest | The Economist 

    Innovation

    Why is the Nuclear Power Industry Stagnant? – Austin Vernon’s Blog – interesting discussion on the economics and need for innovation

    America needs more basic research – by Noah Smith 

    I love this 60 Minutes Australia film about an Australian inventor

    Equations built giants like Google. Who’ll find the next billion-dollar bit of maths? | David Sumpter | The Guardian – The PageRank story is neither the first nor the most recent example of a little-known piece of mathematics transforming tech. In 2015, three engineers used the idea of gradient descent, dating back to the French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy in the mid-19th century, to increase the time viewers spent watching YouTube by 2,000%. Their equation transformed the service from a place we went to for a few funny clips to a major consumer of our viewing time.

    Japan

    ‘Society was volatile. That spirit was in our music’: how Japan created its own jazz | Jazz | The Guardian

    Murata’s Thailand move heralds Japan tech shift from China | Financial Times – “The most populous country today may be China, but in 2030 that will be India, and further down the road it will be Africa,” Nakajima said. “Will those economies be aligned with China or the US? We don’t know. We should be able to respond to both scenarios.”

    Hong Kong: how colonial-era laws are being used to shut down independent journalism – police recently told reporters that opinion articles aren’t the only ones that can be regarded as seditious. Media interviews with exiled activists and features on clashes between protesters and riot police can also be considered seditious if the content is deemed by the government to be “fake news” or inciting hatred towards the government and endangering national security

    Hong Kong independence activist Edward Leung released from jail, told to stay silent — Radio Free Asia – Hong Kong barrister and former lawmaker Siu Tsz-man said supervision orders are sometimes issued to released prisoners involved in violent crimes, including murder and manslaughter, and require the former prisoner to maintain contact with supervision officers and remain at a stable residence. But Siu said the order to stay away from the spotlight was unprecedented. “I have never heard of this happening before,” Siu said. “My staff have never heard of a supervision order under which the person isn’t allowed to give interviews to the media.” Siu declined to comment on whether the order was appropriate without knowing the details of the case. “The point of a supervision order isn’t to confine someone at a certain location and not let them leave,” he said. Some drew parallels between Leung’s release and the continuing controls on released political prisoners in mainland China – similar in nature to an ASBO but inherently political in nature

    Korea

    Young Koreans Lose Interest in Chinese Studies | Chosun – this Korean example shows a wider decline in Chinese soft power

    Media

    ‘Industry Challenges’ Blamed For DriveTribe’s Demise 

    Brand collaborations with TikTok content creators drive big results | TikTok For Business Blog – social media platform claims that marketing on their social media platform delivers business results, honest….

    Facebook’s Vast Wasteland 

    Retailing

    Gen Z and Millennial Shoppers Are Less Likely to Return Unwanted Online Purchases

    Shein adds US listing plans to its cart – that the founder is looking to change citizenship is very interesting and I am sure won’t go down well with the Chinese government

    Security

    Chinese Police Hunt Overseas Critics With Advanced Tech – The New York Times

    Virginia burglaries work of ‘crime tourists,’ authorities say – The Washington Post  – Authorities call them “crime tourists.” Law enforcement experts say cells of professional South American burglars, particularly from Colombia and Chile, are entering the country illegally or exploiting a visa waiver program meant to expedite tourism from dozens of trusted foreign countries. Once here, they travel from state to state carrying out scores of burglaries, jewelry heists and other crimes, pilfering tens or hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of goods each year, the FBI estimates. Experts said the groups often operate with impunity because they have found a kind of criminal sweet spot. Bail for nonviolent property offenses is often low, so an arrested burglar often quickly gets bond and skips town for the next job, experts said. The crimes often don’t meet the threshold for the involvement of federal authorities. And they attract less attention at a time when U.S. authorities are contending with a rise in homicides. Dan Heath, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s criminal investigations division, said “South American theft groups,” as the agency calls them, are a growing problem across the United States — and in countries including India, Britain and Australia, where they often employ similar tactics. “They represent an enormous threat right now in our country,” Heath said. “They are tending to thread the needle in avoiding both state and federal prosecution.”

    Hacker Claims to Have Seized Control of Teslas Around the World

    Dutch athletes warned to keep phones and laptops out of China -media | Reuters

    Team GB athletes offered temporary phones over China spying fears | The Guardian

    Video Appears to Show Drug Cartel Using Drone to Bomb Enemies | Futurism

    FedEx Asks Permission to Install Anti-Missile Lasers on Its Cargo Jet | Futurism

    Revealed: UK Gov’t Plans Publicity Blitz to Undermine Chat Privacy – Rolling Stone and more here: The United Kingdom authorities launch a new campaign against the social media apps encryption / Digital Information World 

    WhatsApp ordered to help out U.S agencies to spy on Chinese phones / Digital Information World – tracking metadata, US agencies looking to carry out supply chain disruption of fentanyl

    VW fired senior employee after they raised cyber security concerns | Financial Times – A senior Volkswagen employee was dismissed weeks after raising the alarm about alleged cyber security vulnerabilities at the carmakers’ payments arm, which is soon to be majority-owned by JPMorgan. The manager alerted bosses in September 2021 to concerns that VW’s system in the region was “open to fraud” following an attempted cyber attack, and maintained that $2.6m sitting in the company’s accounts could be stolen, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. The staff member, who also told superiors that VW could face regulatory action if the vulnerabilities were not addressed, was then fired in October. – not terribly surprising

    Software

    After ruining Android messaging, Google says iMessage is too powerful | Ars Technica – “Google clearly views iMessage’s popularity as a problem, and the company is hoping this public-shaming campaign will get Apple to change its mind on RCS,” writes Amadeo in closing. “But Google giving other companies advice on a messaging strategy is a laughable idea since Google probably has the least credibility of any tech company when it comes to messaging services. If the company really wants to do something about iMessage, it should try competing with it.” – if this wasn’t an admission of failure by Google I don’t know what is. Google has a history of failed or closed communication services Google Talk (GTalk) (which was retired when Google decided to move away from an open messaging standard , Google Hangouts (which was spun out of Google+ messaging functionality), Google Allo and Google Wave

    Once billed as a revolution, IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts 

    Taiwan

    Christine Lee and Foreign Interference: what the UK can learn from Taiwan | China Dialogues – As part of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy, Taiwan retooled its political commissar system (zheng wei 政委) – formerly responsible for policing political loyalty toward the regime – into an institution that safeguards democracy by working to identify Chinese influence at all levels of Taiwanese politics and society. Political commissars (PCs) not only receive extensive military training but also develop a deep understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s political warfare tactics. Most major government departments and private sector organisations in Taiwan will have PCs operating within their ranks, monitoring and reporting evidence of foreign interference. As many democracies facing Chinese influence and interference do not have such well-established systems in place, Taiwan’s zheng wei system may provide a starting point for how anti-foreign influence institutions can work effectively within democratic societies

    Technology

    EETimes – Arm Predicts Stagnation if Nvidia Deal Fails – without investment from Nvidia, Arm would be seriously disadvantaged in its bid to grow in data center markets and compete against Intel Corp. and x86 incumbents. The filing also explains why an Arm stock offering is a non-starter while noting that Arm faces stiff competition from emerging RISC-V competitors – interesting that they don’t mention ARM China crisis at all. Nvidia have now walked away from it and Softbank is supposed to be preparing a public offering for ARM

    Web of no web

    How Shopify is moving closer to bricks-and-mortar retail – Latest Retail Technology News From Across The Globe – Charged – retail shop automation software a la China’s automated convenience stores

    Connected Health Station | Body Scan – Withings

  • The Dragon and The Snakes

    The Dragon and The Snakes

    David Kilcullen wrote a number of books on the strategic challenges faced by the west in the war on terror. His book The Dragon and The Snakes looks at the challenges that the west faces from China (the dragon), Russia and Iran (the snakes). I was finishing reading this book as the Ukraine | Russia crisis broke this month, dominating the news headlines.

    https://flic.kr/p/2mUHY2z

    Out of the cold war

    The Dragon and The Snakes starts with what shaped the modern world. The modern world was shaped out of the cold war. Western doctrine was defined by meeting a numerically superior force with superior technology. At the time, China and Russia were in dispute over a number of issues. At the chime of Chairman Mao, the death of Stalin and changing posture of the Soviet Union led to a fissure that widened over time. In the cold war was not only a war for influence between capitalism and communism; but also evolved into a war between Soviet communism and Maoist communism. China and Russia both supplied North Vietnam, but China invaded Vietnam partly due to it being more in the Soviet camp than the Chinese camp (this is is somewhat simplifying a multi-causal conflict, but has a truth in it).

    China and US had limited cooperation with regards Russia which was brought in by Nixon’s famous visit to China and the machinations of Henry Kissinger who believed in systems and the ends justifying the means.

    The flat topography of Kuwait and Iraq, together the latest 1980s weapons systems from the cold war made the first gulf war quick and provided an eye-raising demonstration of modern warfare. The campaign was just 42 days long.

    Pivotal moments of change

    Kilcullen goes on to discuss pivotal moments of change for both Russia and China in The Dragon and The Snakes.

    • The first gulf war. China noted that integrated satellite and aerial reconnaissance with associated command and control information systems; full spectrum jamming to ensure battlefield communications superiority; better coordination of naval and ground offensive forces than ever achieved before; highly accurate missile systems; integrated command, control, communications and intelligence for directing the battle. Mechanised units with air support then won the battle. But they also noticed the economics of war were not in favour of technology. Bombers and missiles were dubbed flying mountains of gold and used to attack targets worth less than the weapons system. Secondly more technology meant a shorter weapons system life. Weapons systems average service life went from 30 years to 10 years during the cold war due to technological obsolescence.
    • Kosovo – NATO’s intervention emphasised the nature of modern warfare to Russia. But it also emphasised the threat that the west posed. The Russians have a cultural connection to the Serbians. One incident in particular stuck out: the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The Chinese embassy attack showed a number of things. The bombing of the embassy was a demonstration of precision bombing. Unfortunately it was the right target, wrong building and was the sole CIA designated attack of the war. The CIA gave the military the wrong coordinates for a Yugoslav storage facility, instead they were the coordinates for the embassy
    1. It fuelled Chinese perceptions that the US and west were willing to attack them, this stoked nationalism at home and basically broke the Kissinger-era detente and trust with the US. Thus there was a common view from both Russia and China
    2. China realised that it needed to adapt from being an Asian land army to having an expeditionary component and defending against a likely American led expeditionary force
    3. It reinforced Chinese views about the technological nature of war
    • Russian invasion of Georgia. While the two Chechen wars had been a meat grinder that exhibited many of the Soviet era armies weaknesses and corruption, it was the invasion of Georgia that proved to be the emphasis to professionalise and improve. Russians learned and built doctrine from the experience. Air power had proved vulnerable to relatively cheap MANPADs (man portable air defence systems). Armour disrupted by anti-tank missiles. Neither of which would have been a surprise to students of the Arab Israeli conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s, but were relearned again. Out of this experience sprang a lot of the ideas around hybrid warfare and applying technology to area denial systems in an asymmetric way, from an economic perspective.
    • Afghanistan, Iraq. Both of these wars showed the limits of the western way of war-fighting. Weapons systems became expensive, the west didn’t have the stomach for deaths and insurgents were finding ever new ways of using consumer technology. Google Maps and Google Earth were used for planning, command and control of both terrorists and private military contractors. Consumer drones conducted surveillance and even delivered bombs. All of the western weaknesses were noted, most of all the perceived lack of western will. Afghanistan reinforced views in Russia and China that the west was in an accelerating slope of decline.
    • Ukraine and Syria. Ukraine and Syria have allowed Russia to refine its war fighting techniques from a communications and technological perspective, as well as testing asymmetric techniques and also defending against them.

    Wider parameters of war

    Kilcullen highlights the way hacking, espionage, propaganda, weaponised diaspora, elite capture online crime, organised crime, misinformation, bribery, soft power, sharp power and private military operators mean that we are in a war that western leaders currently refuse to acknowledge. This then further emboldens Russia, China and the likes of Iran and North Korea. It felt strangely prescient that I was reading the book when MI5 issued a security warning about Christine Lee and Russia threatened to invade Ukraine.

    Byzantine outlook

    Disturbingly in The Dragon and The Snakes, Kilcullen thinks that the best way that the west can handle China and Russia is learning from the Byzantine empire’s ability to forestall collapse. This implies a few things:

    1. He doesn’t believe that the west can find its way to effectively combatting China or Russia
    2. He doesn’t believe that western systems of governance will survive
    3. He believes that dragon and the snakes have more durable and effective systems of governance and war

    All of which indicates an increasingly dark dystopian future.

    In The Dragons and The Snakes Kilcullen provides a cogent well-researched and written picture of our current situation. If his work scares the crap out of enough people, we may even get answers to the multitude of problems that he outlines. More on the book here.

  • Vivienne Tam + more things

    Vivienne Tam

    Vivienne Tam hosted a video fashion show for her clothes in Hong Kong. The key difference between this and other shows is that the Vivienne Tam show took place in the iconic Ngong Ping cable car across Lantau island.

    Vivienne Tam has a range had the usual mix of western cut and Chinese design motifs.

    Buzz Lightyear origin story

    The original film Toy Story had the reality of Buzz Lightyear being a toy versus his own beliefs of him being a space hero coming into sharp contrast.

    Move forwards 26 years and the character gets an origins story, making his fictional story more real. Disney continues to raid its catalogue. The story has references to both the Star Wars and Marvel universes as well as Pixar’s usual humour and easter eggs. A lot of this is down to the fact that the geeks conquered and creatively own Hollywood now. In fact the film is as much about this subtext, where reality and fantasy have been subverted as it is about Toy Story.

    Chris Evans (who played Captain America) has replaced comedian Tim Allen as the voice of Buzz Lightyear, which gives an idea of the change in tone.

    Jho Low

    Vice Media interview the Wall Street Journal journalists who wrote some of the major stories breaking 1MDB and the financier who managed it Jho Low. In a weirdly parallel aspect to the story Low used 1MDB money to help finance The Wolf of Wall Street movie. Low is reputed to be hiding out in China’s greater bay area, moving between Shenzhen, Macau and Hong Kong. If this is true, then he is likely to be under the protection of powerful officials in China.

    Low’s back story in Penang is fascinating and proves that it is easier to pull a large con than a small one.

    Cyberpunk design cues

    Casio’s new premium G-Shock GMW-B5000TVA-1 Titanium “Virtual Warriors” has definite cyberpunk design vibes. Even though it is a premium watch, it is also at odds with Casio’s more connected G-Shock models.

  • Tom Ford + more news

    Tom Ford

    The panellists look back to Tom Ford, in particular his notorious, provocative advertising campaigns during his tenure as creative director of Gucci, while wondering whether his present day collections have the same impact. The glamour of the Tom Ford tenures at YSL and Gucci including the old collections is also dissected. The analysis of the Tom Ford legacy is timely as Gucci has looked to relaunch some of his old signature pieces.

    The debate doesn’t touch on Tom Ford and his impact on culture beyond luxury such film making. The outtake for me is that Tom Ford may have a longer and more relevant career than Karl Lagerfeld.

    Business

    Soho China shares plunge 40% after Blackstone deal collapses | Financial Times – this isn’t just about a property sector rout, but also about the founders wanting to be independent of China moving forwards

    Macau casino stocks shed $16bn as government seeks greater oversight | Financial Times – the Chinese territory opened a 45-day public consultation on revising its gaming law, which is expected to step up scrutiny of operators in the world’s biggest gambling hub. Casino groups’ 20-year concessions to operate in Macau are set to expire next year. The authorities’ move to tighten control of casinos is also proceeding as Beijing embarks on a broad campaign to reshape the country’s business, political and cultural landscape in a bid to stamp out inequality and promote “cultural prosperity”. Chinese regulators have imposed stringent conditions on the country’s biggest companies in the tech, online education and video gaming sectors, and authorities have targeted social behaviours perceived as harmful

    EXCLUSIVE Didi co-founder Liu told associates she plans to leave – sources | Reuters – Reuters claims that Jean Liu ‘told some associates that she expected the government to eventually take control of Didi and appoint new management, said the two sources.’ – its a shame Liu seemed to be one of a new breed of execs in China

    A decade of the Tim Cook machine — Benedict Evans – it will carry on making a certain kind of product for a certain kind of customer. That’s been the plan ever since the original Macintosh, and in some ways all that’s changed is how many more of those customers there are. The original Mac sold a few hundred thousand units in 1984, but Apple now sells half a million iPhones every day. Apple and the market grew into each other

    In Depth: How Evergrande Hid Its Debt – Caixin Global – A source familiar with the capital market in Hong Kong said that Evergrande had raised a lot of money overseas at interest rates higher than 15%, which one source found to be perplexingly high. “How could Evergrande make a profit borrowing at such high interest rates?” the source asked. – I don’t think Lehman Brothers is the right analogue, but maybe Enron or MCI Worldcom are?

    Consumer behaviour

    Why Is America So Bad at Keeping People Alive? – The Atlantic 

    China cold war nothing to do with us, say European Union voters | The Times – heads in the sand

    Kids who grew up with search engines could change STEM education forever – The Verge – It’s possible that the analogy multiple professors pointed to — filing cabinets — is no longer useful since many students Drossman’s age spent their high school years storing documents in the likes of OneDrive and Dropbox rather than in physical spaces. It could also have to do with the other software they’re accustomed to — dominant smartphone apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube all involve pulling content from a vast online sea rather than locating it within a nested hierarchy. “When I want to scroll over to Snapchat, Twitter, they’re not in any particular order, but I know exactly where they are,” says Vogel, who is a devoted iPhone user. Some of it boils down to muscle memory.  But it may also be that in an age where every conceivable user interface includes a search function, young people have never needed folders or directories for the tasks they do. The first internet search engines were used around 1990, but features like Windows Search and Spotlight on macOS are both products of the early 2000s. Most of 2017’s college freshmen were born in the very late ‘90s. They were in elementary school when the iPhone debuted; they’re around the same age as Google. While many of today’s professors grew up without search functions on their phones and computers, today’s students increasingly don’t remember a world without them

    Finance

    Financial blogger crackdown leaves China investors scrabbling for data | Financial Times – it gives you an idea how opaque things already were that these blogs were a source of information to institutional users on management changes, regulatory investigations and arrests – key sources of information for institutions buying debt issues

    Germany

    Germans Demanding New China Policy. Will the Next Chancellor Deliver? | National Review – no matter who wins, German public opinion, pressure from the United States, and the strong possibility of having to partner with the Green Party in a coalition government make it likely the victor will be pushed in a more hawkish direction. The same hardening found among the German public is also happening in Parliament and the foreign ministry. Conservatives in the United States rightfully lament how bureaucracies often influence policy outcomes against the wishes of the principals leading them, not the other way around. When it comes to the future of Germany’s China policy, those bureaucratic exertions might not be such a bad thing

    Most Germans believe their ‘golden age’ is over, poll finds – “These findings suggest that, while Angela Merkel has cemented Germany’s position as a great European power, the cornerstones of her legacy – neutrality and consensus building – will not be enough to defend the unity of the EU, and its place in the world, in the years to come.” Germans will head to the polls on September 26 to elect a new parliament and choose a successor to Mrs Merkel, who has served as chancellor since 2005. Her own party, the Christian Democratic Union, is lagging its coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrat Party, in polls. Mrs Merkel’s SPD finance minister, Olaf Scholz, is likely to become the next chancellor.  

    More related content here.

    Innovation

    British Airways operates passenger flight using recycled cooking oil | The Guardian – biodiesel makes a lot of sense for jet turbines because of energy density

    Mossad Used Remote-Controlled Machine Gun to Kill Iran Nuke Expert: NYT 

    Japan

    Japan urges Europe to speak out against China’s military expansion | Japan | The Guardian

    Legal

    Hong Kong Police Arrest Three Student Activists For ‘Inciting Subversion’ – Police say snacks and personal items stored for donation to prisoners are intended to incite ‘hatred’ of the government.

    Foreign Office ‘warned UK-based Hong Kong critics about extradition risk abroad’ | Hong Kong | The Guardian – Hong Kong government figures list 19 extradition agreements with other nations including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Portugal. In response to the law, several countries including the UK, Australia, Germany, France and the US, tore up their Hong Kong agreements. Chinese authorities record at least 59 extradition agreements, including with countries across Asia and Europe, although not all are ratified. Several countries including France and Australia have indicated they will not ratify their agreements

    Luxury

    Explained: The Chinese take on DIY luxury | Vogue Business

    Marketing

    How China’s ‘996’ culture is changing | Advertising | Campaign Asia – brands should be “non-judgmental and show empathy and kindness towards the young generations.” By doing so, they can keep momentum going even after “lying flat” no longer trends. “If brands can even help young people to achieve their personal goals, that would help build the loyalty of the younger consumers in the long term,” she advised. brands should be “non-judgmental and show empathy and kindness towards the young generations.” By doing so, they can keep momentum going even after “lying flat” no longer trends. “If brands can even help young people to achieve their personal goals, that would help build the loyalty of the younger consumers in the long term,” she advised.

    Media

    An interview with Bella Poarch on her move from TikTok to… – The Face – social is an on ramp, not a replacement for the media industry

    Retailing

    FamilyMart preps 1,000 unmanned stores in Japan by 2024 – Nikkei Asia – this makes a lot of sense. A lack of young people to be part time staff, a high trust society and a clear use case from automated stores that were trialled in China by Mukbang

    Pandemic Shoppers Are a Nightmare to Service Workers – The Atlantic 

    Security

    Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns | Reuters – The National Cyber Centre’s report also said the Xiaomi phone was sending encrypted phone usage data to a server in Singapore. A security flaw was also found in the P40 5G phone by China’s Huawei (HWT.UL) but none was found in the phone of another Chinese maker, OnePlus, it said. – given the closeness of Russia and China, at least some of the concern will about their mutual help of each other in the cybersecurity realm

    Taiwan

    On TECRO’s proposed name change: China, Taiwan, and the ruse of pragmatic moderation – by Kevin Carrico – NSL can’t cancel me 

    Technology

    Report: Fake chips flood in to exploit supply shortage – Oki Engineering has opened a chip verification service. And after opening the service in June, Oki had received 150 inquiries by August. After studying about 70 cases it found problematic chips in about 30 percent of them. With constrained supplies customers are prepared to buy from “unconventional sources,” the report said. Industrial and medical equipment manufacturers are amongst those to have subscribed to Oki’s chip verification service

  • Walk Walk Walk Home + other things

    Walk Walk Walk Home

    Tokyo based digital experiential agency teamLab came up with an interesting installation in the basement of GINZA 456. But the exhibition was live-streamed so that viewers from around the would could enjoy Walk Walk Walk Home. Walk Walk Walk Home was designed to provide a COVID-safe experience, that still fostered community.

    Consumers were invited to colour one of a range of characters and upload it. The characters that consumers submitted walked in real time on the YouTube Live Stream. When a character is touched, the character reacts, sometimes stopping temporarily interrupting Walk Walk Walk Home. When a new character walked out, the name of the town where the character was contributed from is shown. teamLab did Walk Walk Walk Home for Japanese telecoms provider KDDI. It runs until the end of the COVID-19 epidemic. More related content here.

    Anita Mui biopic

    Anita Mui was a giant in the world of Cantopop, she was often considered to be its Madonna. But the Madonna analogue doesn’t really do Anita Mui’s career justice. Given that most things have become political in Hong Kong; it seems like the right time to reflect on Hong Kong’s historic role at the centre Asian popular culture for much of the 20th century and the Anita Mui biopic sits at the centre of it. Mui kept performing up until the last prior to her dying of cancer. Judging by the trailer the CGI of Hong Kong up to the early 2000s is amazing. Mui remained at the top of her game from 1982 to 2003, when she died at the age of 40.

    Greater Bay Airlines

    Cathay Pacific has been bleeding like a stuck pig due to COVID. But that also means now is an ideal time to set up a new airline. Greater Bay Airlines looks to connect Hong Kong with other cities in China and some parts of the belt-and-road. It looks like it might be a discount airline judging by the planes. The have started with a fleet focused on Boeing 737s. What is obvious is that there hasn’t been much money spent on the GBA brand. It’s almost like non-branding, see for yourself. That sea green looks its a tint lighter than Cathay Pacific’s palette but otherwise the same.

    Matrix Resurrectons

    Since the entertainment industry has been riding on the success of the John Wick franchise, it made sense for the media to return to The Matrix. Matrix Resurrections is the fourth instalment of the series. It is hard to judge from the trailer, but it doesn’t seem to be a neat take-up from the third instalment.

    Rethinking Chinese politics

    This is a great discussion with the author of the book Rethinking Chinese Politics. In his book and the interview the author Joseph Fewsmith discusses the challenge of power transition in China. He doesn’t discuss the rumoured assassination attempt against Hu Jintao during a PLA Navy inspection visit to Shanghai. More information on the book here.