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The Fatal Flaw in Indias China Strategy - Foreign Affairs In October, China and India reached an agreement on patrolling a stretch of their long-disputed shared border. The deal brought an end, for the time being, to a four-year standoff in the high mountains of the Himalayas that had severely strained ties between the two countries. It also allowed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping to meet in Russia and hold talks for the first time in five years. In 2020, a bloody confrontation in the Galwan Valley had left dozens of soldiers dead and led to a deep freeze in bilateral relations between the two Asian giants. The Indian public fumed at what it saw as Chinese aggression, and Modi’s government canceled direct flights between the countries and banned the social media app TikTok, among other measures meant to punish China. Now, many analysts see the possibility of a reset and a return to normal ties.
But China and India have no desirable “normal” status quo to return to. Challenges abound in the bilateral relationship, and China’s ambitions continue to circumscribe India’s ability to act at the regional and global levels. Many flash points remain along the border and could be reactivated at any time by Xi’s aggressive regime. Although Modi has tried harder than his predecessors to hold a strong line against Chinese expansionism, India’s economy remains hugely dependent on China. Even as India’s exports to China have dropped somewhat in the last five years, its imports from China have ballooned. India relies on China for sophisticated technology, such as personal computers, laptops, and the components used in making telecommunications equipment and mobile phones. When the Indian government moved in August 2023 to institute licensing controls on the import of laptops and personal computing devices in the hope of stemming the influx of Chinese technology, a swift backlash from Indian industry groups forced it to scrap its plans.
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WorkGenerative AI Could Generate Millions More Tons of E-Waste by 2030 - Scientific American Every time generative artificial intelligence drafts an e-mail or conjures up an image, the planet pays for it. Making two images can consume as much energy as charging a smartphone; a single exchange with ChatGPT can heat up a server so much that it requires a bottles worth of water to cool. At scale, these costs soar. By 2027, the global AI sector could annually consume as much electricity as the Netherlands, according to one recent estimate. And a new study in Nature Computational Science identifies another concern: AIs outsize contribution to the worlds mounting heap of electronic waste. The study found that generative AI applications alone could add 1.2 million to five million metric tons of this hazardous trash to the planet by 2030, depending on how quickly the industry grows. Work
WorkDid Trump win in 2024 because of racism? Its complicated.Our mission could not be more clear and more necessary: We have a duty to explain what just happened, and why, and what it means for you. We need clear-eyed journalism that helps you understand what really matters. Reporting that brings clarity in increasingly chaotic times. Reporting that is driven by truth, not by what people in power want you to believe. WorkWhy Trump's Message Worked on Latino MenMuch has been said about whos to blameor whos to thank, depending on your political persuasionfor Trumps resounding election win. Hispanic men, who flocked to him in unprecedented numbers, might have made the difference in Pennsylvania, giving Trump the shiniest jewel in his crown. Many hoped (myself included) that after calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage, and promising to deport millions of immigrants, the Hispanic vote would help lift Kamala Harris to victory. But as I take stock of my feelings, its the role that Latino men played that stings most.
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WorkMatt Gaetzs nomination to be attorney-general is an ill omen - The Economist ONE LESSON Donald Trump took from his first term is that personnel are everything. That could explain the blistering pace of nominations to his administration in the week since he won re-election. Unfortunately, that same insight could also explain Mr Trumps choices to become his most important lieutenants, including the nomination for attorney-general of Matt Gaetz, a cartoonishly divisive Florida congressman, who is despised even by many in his own party. Too many of them seem to have been selected mainly because their personal loyalty to Mr Trump will be unbound by any scruple. Work
WorkMark Zuckerberg Records Get Low Cover For His WifeFeaturing T-Pain - Forbes Mark Zuckerbergthe 40-year-old billionaire founder of Metahas recorded an acoustic cover of Lil Jons Get Low alongside T-Pain, the latest eyebrow-raising moment as the worlds fourth-richest man recasts himself in the public eye, donning trendy clothing and a gold chain and showing off his personal life on social media platforms. Work
WorkWhat Trumps Second Term Could Mean for DEI - Harvard Business Review Proponents of DEI face an enormous struggle over the next four years. The incoming Trump administration has signaled it will escalate the already virulent anti-DEI backlash in the workplace. Leaders who want to build just and inclusive organizations amid these challenging conditions can look to a framework developed eight years ago to help multinational corporations support LGBTQ+ inclusion in countries that are hostile to LGBTQ+ rights. Companies can follow: 1) the When in Rome model, in which they adhere to local norms and laws, even if that means diluting some of their DEI commitments; 2) the Embassy model, in which they adopt DEI policies internally but do not push for larger societal change; or 3) the Advocate model, in which they seek to shift local laws and social norms in a pro-DEI direction. Work
WorkTrump vs media moves back to the White House - WSJ Donald Trump has filed lawsuits against Disneys ABC and Paramount Globals CBS, railed against fake" and failing" news organizations, and called for the government to revoke some broadcasters licenses. WorkSonos begins a very long road back - WSJ The maker of premium wireless speakers and other audio products issued an ambitious overhaul to its app in early May. Too ambitious, as it turns out. Bugs left many customers unable to connect or use their speakers. The severity of the issue was made clear in the companys fiscal third-quarter call in August, when Sonos slashed its forecast for the fiscal year and put a hold on new product launches while working to resolve the issue.
WorkWork WorkFans clash at football match between France and IsraelAmid international condemnation of the violence in Amsterdam last week, a report published by the city’s mayor, Femke Halsema, suggested the cause had been a “toxic cocktail of antisemitism, football hooliganism and anger over the war in Palestine and Israel and other parts of the Middle East”. WorkWorkTrump announces RFK Jr as his pick to lead US health departmentHakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, expressed skepticism that Kennedy was the right choice but said it was up to the Senate to confirm or reject him. “Is RFK Jr the best qualified person in the United States of America to lead us forward as we grapple with an enormous amount of health challenges in this country? The answer is clearly he is not,” he said in comments reported by Politico. WorkWorkChinese autonomous driving startup Pony AI seeks up to $224M in US IPO | TechCrunchRebecca Bellan covers transportation for TechCrunch. She’s interested in all things micromobility, EVs, AVs, smart cities, AI, sustainability and more. Previously, she covered social media for Forbes.com, and her work has appeared in Bloomberg CityLab, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, i-D (Vice) and more.Rebecca studied journalism and history at Boston University. She has invested in Ethereum. WorkWorkSales tax automation startup Kintsugi doubled its valuation this year | TechCrunch“We are the only company in the space that has a ‘get started’ button, that has a ‘we will do your sales tax analysis for free [button],’” Bhatnagar said. “And that’s not going to be just done once. You can create a free account, and every seven minutes the report is going to be updated for you. And that’s a value prop that we want to provide to founders for free, even if they decide to not pay a single dime for Kintsugi.” WorkWorkTeam-GPT raises $4.5M to offer suite of AI tools to companies | TechCrunchIt took them about three months total to raise. He counts OpenAI, Claude, Dust, and Langdock as competitors. He says what makes Team-GPT different is that it is seeking to serve mid- to large-size companies that are interested in some customization and are interested in adopting technology with their own data. WorkTesla, Rivian Drop on Report Trump Wants to End EV CreditWhile Tesla is by far the top EV seller in the US, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has said the company will be better positioned to deal with the potential pullback of incentives. The billionaire has become a member of Trump’s inner circle and accepted a role helping the incoming administration to reduce government spending. WorkA New Rallying Cry for the Irony-Poisoned Right - The New Yorker In 1970, a few years before Roe v. Wade, feminists agitating for abortion rights, at a Philadelphia protest, held up signs that said My Body, My Decisiona slogan that morphed, during the course of the next decade, into My body, my choice. This became the defining phrase of the pro-choice movement, a line toward which feminism moved aspirationally and asymptotically. Sexual assault was the next issue to enter the framework: in two decades, the argument that a wife had the legal right to choose when to have sex with her husband went from laughable to binding. The first spousal-rape trial occurred in 1978, and spousal rape became illegal throughout the United States in 1993. The sexual-assault reckoning of the twenty-tens attempted to give My body, my choice a ring of finality: it was a womans choice what to do with her body, even if she was drunk, even if the guy was famous, even if shed acted as if she wanted him before. At the time, I had the nave idea that something had permanently changed. I thought we had already seen the backlashthat it was represented by Donald Trumps first electoral victory, and that the idea that women are full people was at enough of a consensus that seismic, if messy, progress could still happen, as it did in 2017, with #MeToo. Now there is no more Roe and Trump is about to be President again, and it took less than twenty-four hours after his relection for young men to take up a slogan that could define the coming era of regression: Your body, my choice. Work'There Were Signs': How the Polls Anticipated Some of Trump's Key Gains “When you look at how Hispanic Americans voted, how younger Black men voted, and some other things, it ties in with the trends that we were seeing,” said Lydia Saad, a senior editor for the Gallup Poll. “Did we see this coming? The answer to a lot of it is yes.” She added, though, that there had been an open question heading into Election Day of whether Ms. Harris could claw back some support from these groups. WorkSpy Agency Memo Sets Rules for Artificial Intelligence and Americans' Private Data After inquiries from The New York Times, the White House has made the guidance public. A close read and an interview with Mr. Geltzer, who oversaw the deliberations by lawyers from across the executive branch, offers greater clarity on the current rules that national security agencies must follow when experimenting with using A.I. WorkBiden's Swan Song: A Diplomatic Trip Overshadowed by Trump's Victory Aides to the president say he is determined to keep pursuing that agenda until his last moment in office. In Peru, they said he would focus attention on his administration’s efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, especially when it comes to confronting Chinese aggression. Later, he will focus on the need to combat climate change, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon rainforest. And in Rio, Mr. Biden will have his last global opportunity to make the case for Ukraine and to champion the alliances he has advocated during his term. WorkLiberal Legal Group Positions Itself as a Top Trump Administration Foe Those issues include abortion rights, health care, climate, union protections, environmental protections and immigration. But the group has also given particular weight to Mr. Trump’s promises to weaponize the systems of government, particularly the Justice Department, against those he sees as foes along with his vows to dismantle federal agencies and fire thousands of government workers. WorkThe Onion Buys Alex Jones's Infowars Out of Bankruptcy Family members of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators, sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut Superior Court in 2018 after he spread the baseless claim that the rampage was a fabricated pretext for confiscating Americans’ firearms. WorkAmericans Have Regained Modest Trust in Scientists, Survey Finds About half of the survey respondents said experts should take “an active role” in policy debates about scientific issues, like childhood vaccines and climate change, while the other half said they should focus instead on “establishing sound scientific facts.” WorkWorkTrump may cede global climate leadership to China In Baku, Podesta said, "it's precisely because the IRA has staying power that I am confident that the United States will continue to reduce emissions - benefitting our own country and benefitting the world." WorkCSX CEO talks tariffs and manufacturing: 'As long as the economya??s growing, wea??ll be a part of it'Hinrichs also suggested that an increase in domestic manufacturing would be positive for CSX, something that could be bolstered by the Trump administration's tariff policies. According to Hinrichs, many corporations want to build big projects in the southeast, where he said CSX is a dominant player. He said the company has 500 industrial development projects in its network, with "another thousand sites, in our inventory as possibilities." WorkGoogle will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTubeGoogle's advertising and ad tech have been subjected to scrutiny by the European government in recent years. The company faced (but ultimately avoided) fines for "abusive" advertising practices in 2019, and last year was hit with antitrust accusations. And Google has also engaged in other eyebrow-raising behavior in the bloc. Just yesterday, the company began what it called a "small, time-limited test" to omit results from EU-based news publishers in search, Google News and the Discover feed. WorkGoogle is being targeted for oversight by the Consumer Financial Protection BureauThis department was created in 2008 in response to the financial crisis that year, and its objective is to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive financial practices. The CFPB primarily focuses on businesses such as banks and credit unions, but Director Rahit Chopra has voiced an interest over recent years in subjecting tech companies that offer financial products to similar oversight. For instance, the bureau began an investigation into app store payments systems from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, PayPal and Square back in 2021. WorkWorkWorkThe best Black Friday 2024 deals: Sales from Amazon, Best Buy, Apple, Anker and othersYou typically will not find cash discounts on Apple’s website for Black Friday, though it has offered various gift card bundles during Black Friday in recent years. You may be able to find local Apple store discounts on accessories, but Apple isn’t a retailer known for slashing prices on its products. However, you can find more traditional Apple Black Friday tech deals at other retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Target and Best Buy. WorkApple M4 iMac review: The best all-in-one gets a lot fasterI would still avoid the base model if at all possible, though. For me, the sweet spot is now the $1,499 option that comes with 256GB of storage, four Thunderbolt 4 ports (to easily add extra storage) and the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. That’s still not cheap, but gives you a very capable and expandable machine for $400 less than the minimum price we recommended last year. WorkBlack Friday Amazon deals include the Fire TV Stick 4K Max for a record low of $33Amazon's Fire TV Cube is also discounted as part of a larger sale on Fire TV devices for Black Friday. Right now, you can pick up the streaming device for 29 percent off, dropping to $100 from $140. The Cube is your pick if you want access to ethernet and hands-free use with Alexa. It's more powerful than the 4K Max, but, for the price difference, it's a tough call if it's worth it. WorkBlack Friday Anker deals: One of our favorite Anker power banks is 41 percent offThe power bank and charging base both offer one USB port and two USB-C ports so there's plenty of ways to charge your devices. The base also uses magnets to secure its pins to the power bank and charge it upright. Our biggest quip with the power bank was its high price, but with this sale it's definitely worth looking into. WorkIn an outcome beyond parody, The Onion has bought InfowarsThe Onion plans to rebrand Infowars as a parody of itself (more than it already was), poking fun at “weird internet personalities” like Jones, according to The New York Times. Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, hasn’t said how much it paid to transform Infowars’ destructive self-parody into constructive satire. (Collins reported extensively on Infowars when covering misinformation at NBC News.) He plans to launch the rebooted site in January. WorkWorkWorkWorkWorkGoogle now offers a standalone Gemini app on iPhoneEither way, it’s not surprising to see Google bring a dedicated Gemini app to iPhone. Ahead of WWDC 2024, Apple had reportedly been in talks with the company to integrate the AI agent directly into its devices. |
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