Category: materials | 原料 | 원료 | 原材料

  • Book Depository + more things

    Book Depository Online bookseller Book Depository is closing down with some three weeks notice. It wasn’t a topic at work and barely made a ripple amongst British friends. The Hong Kong part of my social media bubble shared the news and were sad about it. The company had been owned by Amazon since 2011. I…

  • Bob Hoffman + more things

    Bob Hoffman Bob Hoffman has been pointing out the problems with the way online advertising has been run for years. Bob’s book Adscam is probably one of the best critical examinations of the online media eco-system and the risks inherent in programmatic advertising. Bob Hoffman got to speak with the European Parliament. Bear with it…

  • Dow recycling + more stuff

    Dow recycling Singaporeans shoes Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them in Indonesia | Reuters – Reuters put trackers in usable secondhand shoes to see where they would end up. The main gist of the story is that Dow recycling effort was a failure, which is also embarrassing for their partner the Singapore…

  • Francis Fukuyama + more things

    Francis Fukuyama Political theorist and author Francis Fukuyama wrote one of the mis-understood books of the late 20th century. The End of History (And The Last Man) was written in 1989 and the title and Francis Fukuyama have been misquoted endlessly since. At the 2020 Munich Security Conference Francis Fukuyama gave a talk about the…

  • Patriotic Alternative + more things

    Patriotic Alternative Patriotic Alternative wasn’t a name familiar to me when I first heard about them instigating a riot in Liverpool on Saturday night. It doesn’t take that much to create a ruckus in some of the poorer areas of Liverpool. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the burnt out police van; it sounds like a…

  • Expat dissatisfaction + more things

    Expat dissatisfaction China reopening: companies try to lure back expat staff with bigger pay, allowances after pandemic exodus | South China Morning Post – the thing that most of these companies don’t get is that COVID was the catalyst for expat dissatisfaction to be crystallised around. In fact expat dissatisfaction runs far deeper: China Chartbook #194…

  • Illicit finance + more stuff

    Illicit finance RUSI put together a great presentation on the nature of illicit finance from the perspective of terrorism and terrorist states including Russia and the People’s Republic of China. The foundations of illicit finance seems to be the offshore financial structures that were build up by the United Kingdom in the post-war period to…

  • How an oil refinery works + more things

    How an oil refinery works Periscope films have managed to digitise a treasure trove of content. Back when I worked in an oil company I had to read around to learn how an oil refinery works a macro-level. I wish that I had seen this film How an oil refinery works put together by Shell…

  • Nepotism + more things

    Nepotism in the creative industries Is nepotism really that bad? | LinkedIn – Jed Hallam wrote an essay on nepotism and the effects that he perceives it as having on inequality. Jed tries to steer a line on nepotism somewhere between recognising that the people may have an interest and talent, whilst pointing out inequality related…