Reading

Created
Wed, 19/11/2025 - 01:01
Elevated from Comments. Piece by KT Chong China is now entering the next phase of its economic-growth engine — humanoid robots. And just like with EVs, the shift is happening fast, quietly, and with the same pattern: Chinese companies industrialize before Western analysts even realize it’s begun. UBTech, Unitree, XPeng — they’ve all started mass-producing […]
Created
Wed, 19/11/2025 - 00:00

ME: Bluetooth, are you connected to something right now?

BLUETOOTH: Yes! All connections made.

ME: What’s connected?

BLUETOOTH: Let me do a system check.

WIFE (from kitchen): IS THAT PORNOGRAPHY? WHY IS THE BEATS PILL MOANING?

BLUETOOTH: Systems check complete. Status: stable!

- - -

ME: Bluetooth, can you please connect the phone to the car and call my mom?

BLUETOOTH: Yes! Here you go.

ME: Bluetooth, it sounds muffled.

BLUETOOTH: Ringing now!

ME: Bluetooth, it’s ringing in the other car. You hooked it up to the wrong car.

BLUETOOTH: I’ll tell your mother to yell louder.

ME: No, the other car is with my wife, at work. Move it to this car.

BLUETOOTH: Can’t do that.

Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 23:51
2 July 2025 David Howell’s thesis: The new anarchy is digital, not ideological. The microchip and information revolution have changed human relations everywhere, uprooted family ties, life patterns, local communities, world affairs. Microcircuit technology has compelled the need for a new type of democracy, a new pattern of world power, otherwise a slide to domestic … Continue reading Speech on the Book Launch of David Howell’s The Coming Anarchy and How to Avoid It
Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 19:08
This Tuesday report will provide some insights into life for a westerner (me) who is working for an extended period at Kyoto University in Japan but who over the years of working here has increasingly began to understand the language and local cultural traditions. Friday – tea break – where else? Friday’s weather was again…
Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 13:46
I’ll keep this mercifully short. One commenter in my Friday night econ news post asked, in a kind of oblique way, what would I do in this environment. Okay, I’ll play — but not without stating firmly and loudly that I am not dispensing investment advice, nor am I licensed any longer to do so. […]
Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 13:36

Nara, Japan – Sharp Europe detailed how it built a digital infrastructure for one of the world's most complex B2B operations on Drupal, managing 120,000 enterprise customers across 48 countries with 17 sites in 19 languages.

The electronics giant generates €13.5 billion in annual revenue, with 40% coming from B2B operations that serve vastly different audiences – from 110,000 small enterprises requiring low-touch transactions to mid-market companies needing sophisticated engagement.

"Big, complex, broad, deep," said Jason Cort, who leads European product management and marketing for Sharp. "That's what our martech stack has to support."

Sharp executives on stage in Nara
Image: Shigeru Kobayashi – COO Executive Officer, Head of B2B, Sharp

Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 13:36

Nara, Japan – Sharp Europe detailed how it built a digital infrastructure for one of the world's most complex B2B operations on Drupal, managing 120,000 enterprise customers across 48 countries with 17 sites in 19 languages.

The electronics giant generates €13.5 billion in annual revenue, with 40% coming from B2B operations that serve vastly different audiences – from 110,000 small enterprises requiring low-touch transactions to mid-market companies needing sophisticated engagement.

"Big, complex, broad, deep," said Jason Cort, who leads European product management and marketing for Sharp. "That's what our martech stack has to support."

Sharp executives on stage in Nara
Image: Shigeru Kobayashi – COO Executive Officer, Head of B2B, Sharp

Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 11:47
First, a lovely prelude to hint at the bigger and darker story. Then come the books that help unpack the black box: — Beckert, Jens and Matías Dewey, eds. 2017. The Architecture of Illegal Markets: Towards an Economic Sociology of Illegality in the Economy. Oxford University Press.— Binder, Andrea. 2023. Offshore Finance and State Power. Oxford […]
Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 05:15

Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 04:31

Every community has unsung heroes—people who show up, lend a hand, mentor newcomers, and make everyone around them better. In the Drupal community, we have a special way of recognizing these exceptional individuals: the Aaron Winborn Award

Nominations are now open for 2026. 

This isn't about code commits or issue credits as this award celebrates the human qualities that make our community truly special: service, integrity, kindness, and that rare willingness to go above and beyond.

Created
Tue, 18/11/2025 - 04:31
When visiting my children in Stockholm, I nowadays find myself unable to resist visiting Stefan Nilsson’s grave at Katarina Churchyard on Söder. Stefan’s brief, sorrowful tones have, over the years, become part of my everyday life. His music for Bille August’s and Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece The Best Intentions is among the most beautiful and evocative […]