Muzzled, frazzled and fizzled
Artist, Gloria Vanderbilt's words are a phantasmagoric balm, "I like the idea of showing that you can go through a lot, still be on your feet, and still think the best thing is around the corner."
Silent actors: Scarlett Johansson says ‘big tech guys’ have ‘muzzled’ the film industry. #outofline
“Ben & Jerry's said those actions violate its 2000 merger agreement, which created the independent board and gave it "primary responsibility for Social Mission Priorities and the Essential Integrity of the Brand." The company has a well-documented history of outspoken advocacy, supporting causes from racial and climate justice to campaign finance reform through what it calls its "progressive, nonpartisan social mission."”
Source: NPR
Forged in crisis: When the captain is frantic, the entire crew is at risk of drowning. #outofsorts
“I don’t think most people are putting on the kettle and thinking ‘I’m so glad they’re meeting, all is going to be well with the world,’” said Nancy Koehn, a historian of leadership at Harvard Business School, who has written about the relationship between presidents, prime ministers and monarchs.
“I don’t think most people look at these leaders and say these are the right guys with their hands on the helm working together for the well-being of the world,” she said.
Source: WaPo
Pass muster: Compensation hits $1 trillion. #outofwhack
“The study of corporate climate performance looks at disclosures from 2,000 publicly traded companies, which together represent three-quarters of publicly listed equities worldwide and $87 trillion of market capitalization. The authors find that only 2% have disclosed plans to shift capital away from high-carbon assets or to align their spending with their long-term decarbonization goals.”
Source: Bloomberg
The McNamara fallacy: It is comical that the industry once seriously took something as pathetically simple as “Lines of code per day” as a serious metric. #outofstep
“There is another subtle effect at work, something called “quantification fixation”. A study published last year by behavioural scientists Linda Chang, Erika Kirgios, Sendhil Mullainathan and Katherine Milkman invited participants to choose between a series of two options, such as holiday destinations or job applicants. Chang and her colleagues found that people consistently took numbers more seriously than words or symbols. Whether deciding between a cheap, shabby hotel or an expensive swanky one, or between an intern with strong management skills or one with strong calculus skills, experimental subjects systematically favoured whatever feature had a number on it, rather than a description such as “excellent” or “likely”. Numbers can fixate us.
“A key implication of our findings,” write the researchers, “is that when making decisions, people are systematically biased to favour options that dominate on quantified dimensions. And trade-offs that pit quantitative against qualitative information are everywhere.”Source: FT
Future shock: Uber Safari explores South Africa wildlife. #outofplay
“Kosovskiy, a 22-year-old marketing professional from New York, wanted to test his skills while indulging his curiosity about new artificial intelligence tools that can turn a few sentences of instruction into realistic-looking short videos. Reflecting on the timeless appeal of cute, furry animals, as well as his generation’s insatiable attraction to unscripted moments caught on camera, he entered a few prompts along the lines of: Create a grainy nighttime security video of a pack of wild rabbits bouncing on a wooded backyard trampoline. To spark discussion and tip the invisible hand of AI, he added: “bunnies are jumping and one disappears.”
He posted the eight-second clip to TikTok late on July 26 under the profile “rachelthecatlovers.” The caption read: “Just checked the home security cam and … I think we’ve got guest performers out back!” The internet did the rest. Over the next few weeks, it was viewed 237 million times (roughly double the live audience of the Super Bowl). Thousands of armchair sleuths took to the comments section to debate its authenticity and the improbable physics of how six bunnies suddenly became five. Kosovskiy watched it all with a sense that monumental change was coming for Hollywood. “This is just a starting point,” he says. “I think of this like the Industrial Revolution. It’s democratizing creation.”
Source: Bloomberg
ICYMI - "I made history today, the first Tanzanian gold medal at a world championships," Simbu said after his victory. "I remember in 2017, at the world championships in London, I won bronze. Then I ran many times but never got any medals, so finally it is here. When I arrived here, I told myself I was not going to give up. I just stayed with the group; it helped me, and it ended really well. Just look at the finish and the kick."
“The paper calendar is not in contest with the electronic calendar, any more than a cashmere sweater is competing with an undershirt. They share a task—they do not share emotions or textures or dreams. Or loyalties.
The very unpaperlike aspect of technology has fueled and fertilized an industry of note-taking, writing, and drawing.
The customers want very good paper, often the best paper, and they want a choice of grids, lines, and blanks. They plan to keep what they have sketched, written.
For both the calendar and the notebook, it is the literal entry of words and drawings that have created a passion. The touch of a pen or a pencil to a surface is the ignition. There is a physicality of muscle and brain and intuition and memory that exists only on this stage, on point.
The actual is being revived and restored by digital.”
—Peter Miller, Shopkeeping | Stories, Advice, and Observations, 2024
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