Category: materials | 原料 | 원료 | 原材料

  • Decivilisation + more things

    Decivilisation President Macron The Threat of Decivilisation | Quillette – President Macron when having a Chatham House type discussion with sociology experts used the phrase processus de décivilisation – as a descriptor for the widespread civil and political unrest that has rocked France. On the face of it, decivilisation is an appropriate term if Macron believed…

  • OPEC + more things

    OPEC OPEC – the national cartel for oil producing countries is having a meeting this weekend. OPEC stands for Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. For me, OPEC is something from my childhood. I grew up in the aftermath of 1973 OPEC embargo. The 1973 OPEC embargo 1973, a coalition of Arab countries launch an…

  • Kier Starmer + more things

    Kier Starmer and new new Labour Starmer’s Britain – Portland – Kier Starmer is considered to be the most likely prime minister after Rishi Sunak. In some respects this feels like 1996, all over again. The then Conservative government back then was buffeted by scandals such as the Arms to Iraq affair report, the BSE crisis…

  • Yamato + more stuff

    Space Battleship Yamato Space Battleship Yamato goes back to one of the most creative periods in Japanese animation or anime as its known. It develops a complex plot and covers themes such as honour, sacrifice, death and loss. The show was originally made in three TV series and four movies from 1973 through to 1983.…

  • Hyundai + more things

    Hyundai Hyundai have pushed out a campaign to teach British people how to pronounce the companies name properly. This is a well trodden path for foreign brands like Hyundai. My childhood featured ‘Nestle’s Milky Bars’ as the advertising jingle ignored the é at the end of Nestlé. I can only presume that it would be…

  • UK economic hole + more things

    UK Economic Hole Will anything revive UK productivity? | Financial Times – I am not convinced that anything currently on the horizon will sort out the UK economic hole.  Verdoorn’s Law and Nicholas Kaldor If we go back to 1949 Dutch economics Petrus Johannes Verdoorn came up with a law – the long run productivity…

  • Apple and China + more things

    Apple and China Elliott Management wrote this opinion piece on Apple and China: Apple is a Chinese company | Financial Times – interesting assessment of risk exposure with a focus on the Apple share price. The Apple and China relationship started before China joined the WTO. Taiwanese contract manufacturers had built huge industrial sites in…

  • Hiro Protagonist & more things

    Hiro Protagonist Hiro Protagonist is the main character of Neal Stephenson’s iconic novel Snow Crash. In the novel talks about the rise of the corporation to become a quasi-nation state, a winner takes all economy, a vision of a future metaverse, hacker culture and service hyper-competition with Uber-like employees. Hiro Protagonist is a hacker who…

  • Quiller + more things

    Quiller Quiller came out of the cold war. The Quiller series were written under the name Adam Hall by Elleston Trevor who had actually been born Trevor Dudley-Smith. Elleston Trevor like most of the other writers had either served in the second world war or in the national service afterwards. Quiller features in 19 novels…