   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S69Change Management Requires a Change Mindset   Every organization of every size struggles with change in some way. While midsize companies are no exception, their size offers a competitive advantage. Unlike small companies with limited resources, or large companies saddled by bureaucracy or “this is how we do it” norms, midsize companies are in the sweet spot for rethinking how to relate to change and uncertainty effectively. Helping your team develop and strengthen their change mindset should be a priority. Team discussions about one’s orientation to change could unlock hidden superpowers and create new pathways for internal mobility. This article discusses how to integrate scenario mapping into your strategic planning process to boost your “flux capacity” (your tolerance for change) and contribute to the kinds of futures you’d like to see.
Continued here
|
| ? |
 |
S1Taupo: The super volcano under New Zealand's largest lake  Located in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, the town of Taupo sits sublimely in the shadow of the snow-capped peaks of Tongariro National Park. Fittingly, this 40,000-person lakeside town has recently become one of New Zealand's most popular tourist destinations, as hikers, trout fishers, water sports enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies have started descending upon it.The namesake of this tidy town is the Singapore-sized lake that kisses its western border. Stretching 623sq km wide and 160m deep with several magma chambers submerged at its base, Lake Taupo isn't only Australasia’s largest lake; it's also an incredibly active geothermal hotspot. Every summer, tourists flock to bathe in its bubbling hot springs and sail through its emerald-green waters. Yet, the lake is the crater of a giant super volcano, and within its depths lies the unsettling history of this picturesque marvel.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S2Why Do We Forget So Many of Our Dreams?  We only remember a fraction of our dreams, and even those slip away if we don’t try to remember them—here’s whyIf you’ve ever awoken from a vivid dream only to find that you can’t remember the details by the end of breakfast, you’re not alone. People forget most of the dreams they have—though it is possible to train yourself to remember more of them.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
|
| ? |
|
|
|
S35 Ways to Work Remotely (and Effectively) for the Long Haul  Covid-19 made remote work a reality for a lot of people, but for me, it was business as usual. I haven’t worked in a physical office in a long time. In fact, for several years, I’ve worked from anywhere but a physical office. Across three continents and a few employers (including myself), I’ve dragged my workplace with me, and along the way I’ve managed to stay on top of things despite the many distractions that have popped up to challenge my productivity. Here are just a few things I do to stay organized and make remote work a workable option for me.There’s an old saying that beds should be used for just two things. Work is not one of those things. Your sleeping space should be a sanctuary, a place of relaxing and unwinding, and if you’re spending your days propped up against pillows with your laptop, you’re not relaxing. In fact, you’re teaching yourself that the bed is a busy and possibly stressful space.
Continued here
|
S4'The Creator' Review: It's AI That Wants to Save Humanity  robots have been depicted in movies for more than a century, but the anxieties about artificial intelligence that they used to convey are no longer theoretical. There’s a bill in US Congress right now to stop AI from gaining control of nuclear weapons, and roughly a dozen militaries around the world are investigating the possibilities of autonomous weaponry. That’s why watching The Creator, a movie set roughly 40 years from now, feels surreal, jarring, and oddly welcome. From Metropolis to Terminator, sci-fi has taught us to fear the AI revolt. This one opts to wonder what would happen if AI got so empathetic to humanity it wanted to save people from themselves.In writer-director Gareth Edwards’ latest, war has laid waste to both humans and robots. In an attempt to eradicate AI, both sides see and feel the toll of war. Enter Alphie, an android savior and weapon that looks like a little girl. Human reactions to Alphie’s appearance (early on, she comes under the care of pseudo-father-figure Joshua, played by John David Washington) evoke author and futurist David Brin’s warning of a “robot empathy crisis,” which predicts that as droids become more humanlike in appearance and mannerism, people will begin to defend their rights.
Continued here
|
S5Lego Is a Company Haunted by Its Own Plastic %20copy.jpg) Lego has built an empire out of plastic. It was always thus. The bricks weren’t originally made from wood, or metal, or some other material. Ever since the company’s founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, bought Denmark’s first plastic-injection molding machine in 1946, Lego pieces have been derived from oil, a fossil fuel.The fiddly little parts that the company churns out—many billions every year—are today mostly made from acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS. This material doesn’t biodegrade, nor is it easily recycled. If a smiling mini figure gets into the environment, it will likely very slowly break down into highly polluting microplastics.
Continued here
|
S6A revelation about trees is messing with climate calculations  Every year between September and December, Lubna Dada makes clouds. Dada, an atmospheric scientist, convenes with dozens of her colleagues to run experiments in a 7,000-gallon stainless steel chamber at CERN in Switzerland. “It's like science camp,” says Dada, who studies how natural emissions react with ozone to create aerosols that affect the climate.
Continued here
|
S7The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs  The author, whose biography of Steve Jobs was an instant best seller after the Apple CEO’s death in October 2011, sets out here to correct what he perceives as an undue fixation by many commentators on the rough edges of Jobs’s personality. That personality was integral to his way of doing business, Isaacson writes, but the real lessons from Steve Jobs come from what he actually accomplished. He built the world’s most valuable company, and along the way he helped to transform a number of industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. In this essay Isaacson describes the 14 imperatives behind Jobs’s approach: focus; simplify; take responsibility end to end; when behind, leapfrog; put products before profits; don’t be a slave to focus groups; bend reality; impute; push for perfection; know both the big picture and the details; tolerate only “A” players; engage face-to-face; combine the humanities with the sciences; and “stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Continued here
|
S8S9How Brand Building and Performance Marketing Can Work Together  To achieve performance- accountable brand building and brand-accountable performance marketing, firms must create metrics that measure the effects of both types of investments on a single North Star metric: brand equity. That is then linked to specific financial outcomes—such as revenue, shareholder value, and return on investment—and deployed as a key performance indicator for both brand building and performance marketing.
Continued here
|
S10What Does "Stakeholder Capitalism" Mean to You?  Business leaders are being urged to adopt a multistakeholder approach to governance in place of the shareholder-centered approach that has guided their work for several decades. But through hundreds of interviews with directors, executives, investors, governance professionals, and academics over the years, the author has found wide differences in how those leaders understand stakeholder capitalism. That lack of clarity can put boards and executives on a collision course with one another when decisions requiring difficult trade-offs among stakeholders’ interests arise. It also creates expectations among stakeholders that if unfulfilled will fuel cynicism, alienation, and distrust.
Continued here
|
S11Case Study: When the CEO Dies, What Comes First: His Company or His Family?  Shortly after the sudden death of her beloved husband, Priya Gowda learns that the company he built from a small dairy farm into a major Indian conglomerate is in deep financial trouble. Unbeknownst to her and his investors, her husband had taken on a lot of short-term, high-interest loans, and the company is struggling to make its payments. As sole heir to his majority stake in Splendid Ice Cream, Priya is now its de facto CEO. Her creditors advise her to sell or liquidate the company, but Priya is determined to preserve her husband’s legacy. Her daughters, however, worried that the business is taking too high a toll on her, beg her to let it go. Should she give in to them or keep trying to save Splendid? Expert commentators weigh in.
Continued here
|
S12The Leadership Odyssey  A paradox of business is that while leaders often employ a hands-on, directive style to rise to the top, once they arrive, they’re supposed to empower and enable their teams. Suddenly, they’re expected to demonstrate “people skills.” And many find it challenging to adapt to that reality.
Continued here
|
S13Innovation Doesn't Have to Be Disruptive  For the past 20 years “disruption” has been a battle cry in business. Not surprisingly, many have come to see it as a near-synonym for innovation. But the obsession with disruption obscures an important truth: Market-creating innovation isn’t always disruptive. Disruption may be what people talk about. It’s certainly important, and it’s all around us. But, as the authors of the best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy argue, it’s only one end of the innovation spectrum. On the other end is what they call nondisruptive creation, through which new industries, new jobs, and profitable growth are created without social harm. Nondisruptive creation reveals an immense potential to establish new markets where none existed before and, in doing so, to foster economic growth without a loss of jobs or damage to other industries, enabling business and society to thrive together.
Continued here
|
S14How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward  According to an analysis led by Ranjay Gulati, during the recessions of 1980, 1990, and 2000, 17% of the 4,700 public companies studied fared very badly: They went bankrupt, went private, or were acquired. But just as striking, 9% of the companies flourished, outperforming competitors by at least 10% in sales and profits growth.
Continued here
|
S15Maya Feller's Rastafarian ital stew  In Jamaica, there's nothing more comforting than a bowl of ital. The popular island stew eaten by the Rastafarian community is a medley of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, all simmered in coconut milk.Rastafarians are practitioners of Rastafari, a religion founded in Jamaica in the 1930s. It is also classified as a social movement to oppose systems of oppression by the country's then-dominant British colonial rule. Historically, as Rastafarians continued to challenge Jamaica's colonial society by expressing themselves through their African roots, they wore their hair in dreadlocks, which represented a connection to Africa and a sense of pride in African physical characteristics. They smoked marijuana because they believed its use was directed in biblical passages, and they played reggae music as a voice of the oppressed.
Continued here
|
S16The incomparable Bombay sandwich  If there is one thing people in India never tire of debating, it is whether Mumbai or Delhi is the better city. More accurately, the argument centres around which metropolis has the better food. Delhi often comes up tops with its incredible range of street eats, but Mumbai trumps any competition when it comes to the sandwich.The sandwich may have come to India through the British, but the people of Mumbai (as Bombay is now called) have added their own fillings and spices to make it their own.
Continued here
|
S17S18S19From pests to pollutants, keeping schools healthy and clean is no simple task  Parents send their children to school to learn, and they don’t want to worry about whether the air is clean, whether there are insect problems or whether the school’s cleaning supplies could cause an asthma attack.I’m an extension specialist focused on pest management. I’m working with a cross-disciplinary team to improve compliance with environmental health standards, and we’ve found that schools across the nation need updates in order to meet minimum code requirements.
Continued here
|
S20Sci-fi books are rare in school even though they help kids better understand science  Scientists and engineers have reported that their childhood encounters with science fiction framed their thinking about the sciences. Thinking critically about science and technology is an important part of education in STEM – or science, technology, engineering and mathematics.Of the 59 elementary teachers and librarians whom I surveyed, almost a quarter of them identified themselves as science fiction fans, and nearly all of them expressed that science fiction is just as valuable as any other genre. Nevertheless, most of them indicated that while they recommend science fiction books to individual readers, they do not choose science fiction for activities or group readings.
Continued here
|
S21The fight for 2% - how residuals became a sticking point for striking actors  Streaming disrupted the entire entertainment industry, upending the DVD-purchasing, film-renting, moviegoing model of decades past.That shift has also changed how actors get paid. And some of the gains actors made through prior labor struggles – particularly through residuals, which are a small percentage of shared earnings from film or television – have vanished.
Continued here
|
S22S23S24US Supreme Court refuses to hear Alabama's request to keep separate and unequal political districts  For the second time in three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Alabama’s attempts to advance its legislature’s congressional maps that federal courts have ruled harm Black voters.The court had first rejected the maps in its stunning June 8, 2023, decision that upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in an act of defiance, Alabama lawmakers resubmitted maps that didn’t include what the court had urged them to do – create a second political district in which Black voters could reasonably be expected to choose a candidate of their choice.
Continued here
|
S25S26S27Soccer kiss scandal exposes how structural sexism in Spain can be a laughing matter  Amid expressions of outrage and disgust over a nonconsensual kiss between the male head of Spanish soccer and a Women’s World Cup-winning player, there was also laughter.Luis Rubiales, the now ex-president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and former vice-president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), was forced to resign from those leadership positions as a result of the forced kiss on Aug. 20, 2023, which took place in front of a packed stadium in Australia and a global audience. He is also under investigation by prosecutors in Spain for sexual assault and coercion.
Continued here
|
S28South Africa has one of the strongest navies in Africa: its strengths and weaknesses  The deaths of three members of the South African Navy (SA Navy) on 20 September 2023, when a freak wave swept them off the deck of the submarine SAS Manthatisi, has put the spotlight on the organisation and its work. André Wessels is a military historian; his latest book is A Century of South African Naval History: The South African Navy and its Predecessors 1922-2022. The Conversation Africa asked him for insights.The South African Navy has always been one of the strongest naval forces in sub-Saharan Africa.
Continued here
|
S29How the age of mammals could end  Throughout the past 500 million years, our planet has experienced a total of five mass extinctions. One of these – the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event – led to the demise of roughly 90% of Earth’s species. Most of these events have coincided with the formation of a supercontinent, where Earth’s tectonic plates slowly come together and combine.
Continued here
|
S30Three rules for adding weight to your backpack that will boost the benefits of exercise  Walking is a great exercise for keeping your physical and mental health in check. But if you’re looking to give your daily walks a boost, you might want to give “rucking” a try.Rucking is a military term used to describe a march or hike with weight. This is commonly done using a weighted rucksack or vest. It’s an extremely versatile exercise, meaning it can be done almost anywhere. You can also adjust the length of your walk, the amount of weight you carry and even where you walk (such as on level ground or hiking trails) depending on your fitness level.
Continued here
|
S31Labour set to win Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection - but only a thumping majority will herald big Scottish gains next year  More than three years after the COVID law-breaking that cost the SNP’s Margaret Ferrier her job as MP, voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be summoned to the polls on October 5 for a byelection to choose her successor. Why is Labour’s Michael Shanks very widely expected to win? And what would a Labour gain here mean?The first thing to say is that this is one of Scotland’s friendlier seats for Labour. Since the independence referendum in 2014, the party has been frozen out of 52 of Scotland’s 59 constituencies, including many of its former strongholds in Glasgow and the central belt. Rutherglen is one of the few seats that it has won in that period – albeit just once and very narrowly, during the SNP’s dip in 2017. Clearly the party can win there, given a little bit of national tailwind.
Continued here
|
S32Supreme Court justices' ideologies don't always fit 'liberal' and 'conservative' labels  When the Supreme Court is in the news for overturning a long-standing precedent or violating standard judicial ethics, the news is often accompanied by the description of one or more justices as liberal or conservative. You’d think it would be easy to tell the difference between the two, but judicial scholars will tell you it’s more difficult than you might think. There’s more to the story than who appointed those justices and the labels given in the media.
Continued here
|
S33Can Biden bounce back as the US presidential race turns nastier?  Antagonism between the two expected candidates for US president in 2024 is ramping up as the political battleground turns increasingly nasty. US president Joe Biden suggested that Donald Trump and his allies pose a threat to democracy, “our institutions, to our constitution itself”, in a recent speech honouring former Republican senator John McCain.
Continued here
|
S34Suella Braverman is wrong about the UN refugee convention being 'not fit for purpose' - here's why  The UK’s home secretary, Suella Braverman – the minister responsible for setting immigration policy – has said the United Nation’s refugee convention is not “fit for our modern age” and should be renegotiated.The refugee convention (formally, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees) was established by the UN to protect the millions of people displaced in Europe after the second world war. It was expanded beyond Europe with its 1967 protocol, which applied the convention’s protections to all refugees around the world.
Continued here
|
S35How to challenge toxic behaviour and help someone being bullied or harassed at work  The average person will spend more than 3,500 days at work, so toxic behaviour in the workplace can have a big impact on your wellbeing. Whether it’s the sexual assault of a theatre nurse by a senior surgeon, harassment at Westminster, or the allegations against Russell Brand (which he denies), workplace scandals arising from unacceptable behaviour are happening on an all too regular basis.
Continued here
|
S36Consciousness: why a leading theory has been branded 'pseudoscience'  Immediately, several other figures in the field responded by critiquing the letter as poorly reasoned and disproportionate. Both sides are motivated by a concern for the long-term health and respectability of consciousness science. One side (including the letter signatories) is worrying that the association of consciousness science with what they perceive to be a pseudoscientific theory will undermine the credibility of the field.
Continued here
|
S37Nagorno-Karabakh: the world should have seen this crisis coming -- and it's not over yet  As a result of the Azerbaijani attack on the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19 and the forced exodus that followed it, this region will soon be empty of Armenians – for the first time in more than two millennia. This was a tragedy that could have been avoided. The New York Times recently wrote about what’s now happening in Nagorno-Karabakh that “almost no one saw it coming”. Nothing could be more wrong. Armenians, as well as those who have followed the conflict, have warned for a long time that this was coming.
Continued here
|
S38Ukraine war: Russian shelling is taking a deadly toll on urban bats  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has given rise to a humanitarian crisis. More than 6.2 million people have fled Ukraine as a result of heavy shelling and fighting, and an additional 5.1 million people have been internally displaced. In 2022, shelling may have led directly to the killing of approximately 7,000 noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) – a species common throughout Europe. Nearly 3,000 more bats then became trapped inside damaged buildings, where many subsequently died. More trapped bats were found in Kharkiv in 2022 than in the preceding four years combined.
Continued here
|
S39Coffy: how Blaxploitation star Pam Grier helped lead the way for strong resilient women in film  When Pam Grier’s breakthrough movie Coffy was released in 1973, American International Pictures was clearly confident that her eponymous character was a supercharged heroine who would excite filmgoers.“She’s the ‘GODMOTHER’ of them all!”, exclaimed the poster, linking the African-American Coffy to Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone in The Godfather (released the previous year). More enthusiastically still, the poster also called her “The Baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad That Ever Hit Town!”
Continued here
|
S40Aziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond  Aziz Goolam Pahad, who has died at the age of 82, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the post-1994 government. Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy. We spent countless hours debating foreign affairs and the numerous crises and challenges government had to face as a relative “newcomer” in continental African and global affairs.
Continued here
|
S41Michael Gambon: an unshowy actor of enormous range and charm  Sir Michael Gambon, who died on September 28 at the age of 82, was a hugely versatile actor who enjoyed numerous and varied roles in film and television throughout the course of his long career. Gambon was also a titan of the theatre. His major theatrical roles include Shakespeare’s Othello, King Lear and Falstaff, and Brecht’s Galileo, together with starring roles in works by the finest contemporary playwrights of his era: Beckett, Pinter, Churchill, Hare, Gray and Ayckbourn.
Continued here
|
S42Self-driving buses that go wherever you want? How the UK is trying to revolutionise public transport  Futurology is littered with predictions that failed to materialise, not least in the field of transport technology. In Edwardian times, when public transport was largely powered by horse or steam, a number of new concepts emerged which were hailed as the “future of public transport”.In 1910, the Brennan Monorail was a gyroscopically stabilised, diesel-powered monorail train that ran on a circular test track at the White City in London. One of the early passengers on this 50-person prototype was then-home secretary Winston Churchill, who insisted on driving the train himself. The new technology reportedly “proved as interesting to the statesman as a new toy would to a child” – and Churchill is said to have told its Irish-Australian creator Louis Brennan: “Sir, your invention promises to revolutionise the railway systems of the world.”
Continued here
|
S43S44Every science lab should have an artist on the team - here's why  Despite their importance in education and society, science and art are often seen as distinct fields, which, in my opinion, stifles beneficial connections. I want to foster these connections by helping to make sense of scientists’ work for a wider audience through my own work as an artist. I have seen the enormous potential that exists when scientists and artists work together. Like advanced imaging specialists, I am fascinated by light, colour, lasers, technology and science. When I discovered the Wellcome Trust’s Sci-Art scheme in 1998, its ethos – to foster connections that produce art directly inspired by science – encouraged me to seek out life scientists to collaborate with, because the methods we employ to create images are connected.
Continued here
|
S45Jellyfish: our complex relationship with the oceans' anti-heroes  Ding! The courier hands me an unassuming brown box with “live animals” plastered on the side. I begin carefully unboxing. The cardboard exterior gives way to a white polystyrene clamshell, cloistering a pearly sphere-shaped, water-filled bag. Lightly pulsing, I spot them: three cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris). Each the size of a 50-pence coin. Cannonball jellyfish are an unusual pet choice. Whether stinging beachgoers, clogging power station intake pipes, or outcompeting more popular ocean wildlife, jellyfish are often labelled nuisances.
Continued here
|
S46Olivia Rodrigo, the Voice of Generation Z; Plus, Stephen Kotkin on Ending the War in Ukraine  The pop singer and songwriter Olivia Rodrigo’s rise to fame was meteoric. She talks with David Remnick about her models for songwriting, dealing with social media as a young celebrity, and how it feels to be branded the voice of Generation Z. Plus, the Russia scholar Stephen Kotkin says that, realistically, Ukraine must come to accept the loss of some Russia-held territory in exchange for security guarantees. But the U.S. must do more to threaten Vladimir Putin’s hold on power.The pop artist’s rise to fame was meteoric. She talks about her models for songwriting, dealing with social media as a young celebrity, and getting out from the shadow of Disney.
Continued here
|
S47The Powerful New York Law That Finally Brought Trump to Book  After a New York court ruled that Donald Trump had persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, the former President called Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who issued the ruling, “deranged,” and accused New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, whose office brought the case, of being a racist.Given that the judgment could bar Trump from doing business in New York and force him to cede control of some of his prized business assets in the state—including Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street—it’s not surprising that he’s enraged. But at least some of his fury should be directed at a fellow-Republican who died more than thirty-five years ago and is now best known for a convention center named after him: Jacob Javits.
Continued here
|
S48Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes with the Hard Right  The Washington Roundtable: Dianne Feinstein, who was the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, died on Thursday, at the age of ninety. The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos remember the Democrat from San Francisco, who leaves a legacy as an advocate for gun control and against the torture of detainees after 9/11. She fought to enable the release of the sixty-seven-hundred-page report of the C.I.A.’s interrogation program, though she worried about the effect on national security of criticizing the program, Mayer recalls on this week’s episode. “But she went with it on her own instincts,” says Mayer, “and then commissioned a study that laid out the guts of that program in a way that was incredible.”Also this week, President Biden, speaking at Arizona State University, called MAGA Republicans “a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions” and to the “character of our nation.” “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a President feel the need to say in the course of a speech, ‘I stand for the peaceful transfer of power,’ ” Osnos says. “But that’s actually what’s required at the moment.”
Continued here
|
S49What to See in the New York Film Festival's First Week  The New York Film Festival begins Friday. As I noted last year, the festival's main slate is increasingly given over to movies by major Hollywood figures. (This year's opening night brings Todd Haynes's "May December," starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.) So, for now, I'll concentrate on films by independent and international filmmakers who don't yet have instant name recognition for most viewers but whose work deserves (and needs) the serious attention that a festival showcase brings. (One of the best films on display, "All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt," the first feature by Raven Jackson, premièred at Sundance this year; I wrote about it then and will reënthuse about it closer to its November 3rd theatrical release.)Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's latest film, "Evil Does Not Exist" (Oct. 5, Oct. 7, and Oct. 11), is both a great film in itself and a retrospective illumination of the filmmaker's previous masterworksâ"Happy Hour," from 2015, and "Drive My Car," which won the Oscar for Best International Feature in 2022. In the new film, Hamaguchi boldly stands cinematic dramaturgy on its head, starting the film with an extended sequence of images that don't tell much of a story and keep the audience guessing. The opening scene occurs in a snowy forest, where the camera seems to plunge from treetops toward the ground. Yet it gradually becomes clear that the forest is being viewed from the groundâthe camera looks upward fixedly while in relentless forward motion, in a way that no walker ever could. There is a walker, though: a girl is making her way through the woods, eventually accompanied by the sound of a power saw. The scene that follows could be considered absolutely pointless or absolutely sublime, a dichotomy that turns out to be at the moral core of the movie. A man with a power saw is cutting long logs into shorter pieces. Then he stands each piece on its end, atop the smoothed surface of a wide tree stump, splits it with an ax, and moves on to the next piece. This is all in one long take, at the end of which the man has a neat pile of firewood. He steps back, lights a cigarette, and takes a contemplative break.
Continued here
|
S50The Worrying Democratic Erosions in South Korea  Americans may not know much about the South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, but some will have noticed that he’s not a bad singer. In April, when Joe and Jill Biden hosted Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon-hee, for a state dinner in Washington, D.C., Yoon ingratiated himself, East Asian-style, by performing a nostalgic ballad. During a round of musical performances, he brought a microphone to his lips, at Biden’s invitation, and launched into an a-cappella version of one of his favorite tunes, “American Pie,” by Don McLean: “A long, long time ago, I can still remember / How that music used to make me smile.” Biden beamed and pumped his fists. Yoon looked the part of jovial statesman and ultimate U.S. ally.South Korea is widely seen as an American-made democracy that, along with Japan, supports U.S. efforts to counter China in East Asia—and around the world. This trilateral unity was exhibited publicly, in August, when Biden met with Yoon and Fumio Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan, at Camp David. But, since taking office last year, after being elected by a margin of less than one per cent, Yoon, a career prosecutor with no previous experience in politics, has started to scrape away protections for women, the right to associate and organize, and, most strikingly, freedom of the press.
Continued here
|
S517 Years Ago, Star Wars Jumped the Shark With an Iconic Scene That Made Zero Sense  In 2016, millions of fandom voices cried out in triumph, when perhaps they should have been expressing some concern. As Darth Vader sliced and diced his way through hapless Rebel soldiers in the climax of Rogue One the mood, for many longtime fans, was celebratory. Finally, Vader was unleashed! This was a level of badassery that had never been glimpsed in the faraway galaxy. And yet, seven years after releasing to almost universal critical acclaim, one has to wonder; was the big Darth Vader moment in Rogue One all that great? Or had Star Wars jumped the fanservice shark?Notably, Rogue One was directed by Gareth Edwards, who’s making a splash with his new science fiction film The Creator. It looks very much like a Gareth Edwards movie: as he did in Rogue One and the 2014 Godzilla, Edwards is good at bringing high concepts down to Earth. It’s something countless sci-fi movies and TV shows claim to want, but few pull off. In 2022, the prequel series Andor upheld Rogue One’s mantle by becoming Star Wars’ most realistic and character-driven series. Even if you don’t love Rogue One, no one can deny the film has a grown-up vibe.
Continued here
|
S52 Star Wars Needs To Learn One Classic Character Lesson From Star Trek  It’s lucky the most famous droids in the galaxy — C-3PO and R2-D2 — are always willing to do Luke and Leia’s dirty work. In Ahsoka, Episode 7, Hera narrowly avoided getting kicked out of the New Republic military, all thanks to C-3PO showing up and conveying a message on behalf of Senator Leia Organa. Why Leia didn’t come in person, and triumphantly confront Senator Xiono is somewhat obvious. At this point in the timeline, Leia is about 28 years old. And, clearly, Lucasfilm didn’t feel like doing a de-aged/CGI Carrie Fisher — not even as a hologram!Just like when R2-D2 ferried Grogu in Luke’s X-wing to Tatooine in The Book of Boba Fett — all to avoid another appearance from a de-aged Mark Hamill — the Doylist canon constraints of Star Wars are frequently at odds with the Watsonian reality of the faraway galaxy. In other words, it's time to just recast Leia.
Continued here
|
S53NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio Just Accidentally Broke The Spaceflight Record  NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who returned home from the International Space Station (ISS) this week, has shattered the American record for the longest time spent in space.Rubio spent a whopping 371 days onboard the ISS. He traveled a staggering 157 million miles over the course of 5,936 orbits around Earth, which, according to NASA, is roughly equivalent to 328 trips to the Moon and back. This wasn’t how he had planned to spend his first mission to space, however.
Continued here
|
S54'The Boys' Finally Exposes a Dark Truth About Marvel's X-Men  Being a teenaged superhero has never been a walk in the park, but Gen V is exploring that reality from every angle.It’s hard not to see superheroes at school without thinking of the X-Men. As much as superheroes have dominated the zeitgeist in recent years, stories depicting their higher education are usually neglected in favor of more exciting endeavors. That makes Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters one of the definitive schools for supes. And even as pop culture turns a more cynical eye towards hero worship, Professor X’s academy still feels like a utopia.
Continued here
|
S55How to Join the Obligatory Evil Corporation Ryujin Industries in 'Starfield'  Starfield is full of endless possibilities for players to experience thanks to its expansive universe. While you can follow the main story, some of the best content is found in the three main factions. One is the seedy corporation, Ryujin Industries, which offers the perfect opportunity for players to get up to some of the more illegal activities Starfield has to offer. Ryujin is located in the cyberpunk city of Neon. Here’s to how to find it and get started on your next space-faring adventure.Once the main story of Starfield takes you to the central hub of New Atlantis, you can immediately head off to find Neon. New Atlantis is located in Alpha Centauri, so to navigate to Neon on the star map, plot a course to the right. Head toward Olympus and then keep moving right toward the Volii system. Once you have the course plotted, make the jump to the Volii system.
Continued here
|
S56'Gears 6' Release Window, Plot, Platforms, and New Game Director for the Anticipated Sequel  Gears 5 was a spiritual reboot to the 14-year-old Gears of War series that laid the foundations for more generations for many more years to come.Besides the obvious name change seemingly inspired by The Fast and the Furious' reduction to Fast & Furious and eventually just Fast, Gears 5 shifted its focus away from JD Fenix to make Kait Diaz its protagonist, experimenting with an RPG element during a pivotal moment of the story. This change in direction, coupled with sharpened controls expected from any modern sequel, made Gears 5 the uncontested best Xbox exclusive of 2019.
Continued here
|
S57S58'Picard' Season 3's Alternate Ending Could Have Given One Star Trek Character Justice  Despite the absolutely triumphant ending of Picard Season 3, even the most ardent advocate for the entire series would agree that taken as a whole, this Trek spinoff is thematically incongruent. Season 1 told a bold story about the rights of sentient AI, forced to live in secret. Season 2 was a psychological story about Jean-Luc’s trauma, wrapped up in a time-travel romp. And then, Season 3 was a classic Star Trek galactic action-adventure mystery with personal stakes for the entire Next Generation crew. Each of these seasons, essentially, had a different showrunner, Michael Chabon in Season 1, Akiva Goldsman in Season 2, and then, Terry Matalas, with complete control in Season 3. (Though Matalas worked on Season 2, also.)For most fans, the journey of Picard had an endpoint that very clearly stuck the landing: Seeing the Next Generation crew all together, playing poker, just like in 1994’s finale episode “All Good Things...” That said, it seems that there was one other ending in mind for Season 3, one which Sir Patrick Stewart himself suggested. And, within this alternate ending, it seems possible that one discarded character could have made a big comeback.
Continued here
|
S59Hands Down the 50 Weirdest, Most Clever Things on Amazon Under $35  If you’ve ever been scrolling and wondered how people find those clever products that instantly go viral, this is the list you’ve been hoping for. These 50 weird and clever things on Amazon range from a tap-to-dim nightlight shaped like an exhausted duck to a gadget that helps you carry in all the groceries at once. Not only are these the hands-down weirdest products out there, but they’re also all under $35 — with items starting at just $5.This sleek desk lamp is highly customizable because the LED light bars are adjustable. Simply push them together for a classic desk lamp look, or pull them apart to create two slim lights on each side (perfect to tuck behind your laptop). To make it even more customizable — it comes with a reading light setting and two different charging ports.
Continued here
|
S60S61S6230 Years Ago, Gaming's Most Controversial Company Was Born -- And It's Still Pushing the Limits  Household names are not a meritocracy. Rarely is the thing you know and love surviving independent of some conglomerate. Ritz crackers? That’s Mondelez. NBC? That’s Comcast. Dairy Queen? That’s Berkshire Hathaway. On and on it goes. It feels sinister, but it’s just economics (unless capitalism itself is flawed hahaha no way). Successful companies buy other successful companies to be more successful. Be big or be bought, as the saying goes. And thirty years ago, one of gaming’s biggest companies got its start.Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. likely triggers some subliminal recognition among gamers who have seen its logo flash thousands of times as they booted up some of the biggest IPs in the business. Grand Theft Auto. BioShock. Sid Meier’s Civilization. These are just some of the brands in the Take-Two portfolio, a company estimated to be worth nearly $24 billion today. Thirty years ago, however, the future was far from certain.
Continued here
|
S63'Starfield' Is the Ultimate Bethesda RPG -- and That's a Problem  For years, the gaming industry has chased Bethesda’s specter, dutifully recreating (and sometimes evolving) conventions that built a role-playing-game empire worth billions. But with Starfield, the Microsoft-owned company has the rare chance to show the world what a modern Bethesda RPG actually looks like.Some have walked away flattening Starfield as just another Bethesda game, but to the developer’s credit, it’s tried to reconfigure how some of its genre conventions work in its latest release. The reimaginings don’t really pan out, though, and the more standard aspects of the Bethesda formula disappoint, despite their ubiquity in the genre at large.
Continued here
|
S644 Distractions that Derail Meetings -- and How to Handle Them  Most of us have had the experience of attending a meeting that veered off course, leaving us feeling confused or like we wasted our time. But meetings don’t have to be time consuming, unproductive, or otherwise painful. Understanding a few common dysfunctional behaviors can help managers turn meetings to instruments for team success. The author presents four dysfunctional behaviors that cause meetings to derail, as well as what managers need to know to make their team’s meetings more effective, efficient, and productive.
Continued here
|
S65Innovation Doesn't Have to Be Disruptive The era of international travel began in the mid-19th century, with the golden age of transatlantic ocean-going. The British company Cunard, a leader in the industry, transported millions of immigrants from Europe to the United States around the turn of the 20th century. By the end of World War II it had emerged as the largest Atlantic passenger line, operating 12 ships to the United States and Canada as it captured the flourishing North Atlantic travel market in the first postwar decade.That golden age came to an end with the advent of commercial jet flights. Whereas one million passengers crossed the Atlantic by boat in 1957, air travel caused that figure to fall to 650,000 by 1965, with roughly six people flying for each passenger going by sea. Ocean liners simply could not match the speed and convenience of jet planes.
Continued here
|
S66How to Build Wealth When You Don't Come from Money  The first step to attaining wealth — at least for people who are not born into it — is much more personal than building millionaire habits or investing wisely. Such approaches often fail to address the systemic and mental barriers faced by many of the marginalized groups who grew up without access to wealth. The author argues that changing your mindset, or building a mindset conducive to wealth, is the real first step.
Continued here
|
S67Conservatives Are More Open to Seemingly Inferior Products Than Liberals Are  Dartmouth College’s Nailya Ordabayeva and Arizona State University’s Monika Lisjak photographed the purchases of customers at a Boston farmers market and surveyed the shoppers about their political leanings. They rated each person’s items on aesthetics and mapped the results against the survey responses and found a correlation: Conservatives were more likely than liberals to have bought misshapen or blemished produce. Eight subsequent studies found a similar pattern with other goods. The conclusion: Conservatives are more open to seemingly inferior products than liberals are.
Continued here
|
S68Should You Launch Products During a Recession?  Economic downturns are frightening. Consumers curb spending, companies cut costs, and we all wait anxiously for the economy to recover. In such a climate, launching a product—an expensive and uncertain endeavor in the best of times—would seem to make little sense. But a new study finds that products launched during recessions outperform on several important measures.
Continued here
|
S70Marketing When Budgets Are Down  The general rule of enterprise finance is that marketing budgets drop like a stone at the first sign of trouble and rise like a feather once the environment is more settled. In mid-2023 we’re far from a settled state — projected GDP growth in western markets is depressingly flat, inflation is proving to be rather stubborn, and those disruptions just keep on coming. It’s tough to see a significant increase in marketing budgets in the near term. Gartner’s annual survey of hundreds of CMOs charts the evolution of marketing spending over recent history, offering guidance for how enterprise leaders can deliver results and build the capabilities to fuel growth in a time of less.
Continued here
|
 |
TradeBriefs Publications are read by over 10,00,000 Industry Executives About Us | Advertise Privacy Policy Unsubscribe (one-click) You are receiving this mail because of your subscription with TradeBriefs.
Our mailing address is GF 25/39, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110008, India |
