14 Oct 24 Monday Briefing

See you in Lanna!

Note: I’ll be in Chiang Mai for Edge City Lanna and the Seapunk Playshop & Symposium from 16 October to 5 November. Expect more ad-hoc picture posts!

News Roundup

Late-stage LinkedIn is for announcing new roles… as a prison inmate, in Japan, customers are not always right, more borrowing brings more hope for China investors, and more South China Sea drama – what’s new?

Watch/Scroll

I’ve only ever been to DC once, back in 2017 for a workshop hosted at Georgetown, and I regretted not being able to spend more time there. In about a month’s time, however, I will be spending a good long week at KM World 2024, with a lot more time to properly explore the city as a tourist. Why is its economy “broken”, though? Let the Aussie bloke over at Economics Explained tell you why (tl;dw – lobbying, mostly)

Read

Read all about the curious life of my favourite tropical fruit, soursop, in the UK.

The 1950s version of “inside thoughts that should’ve stayed inside” – diplomatic cables from the British ambassador in Thailand.

Ponder

Having grown up in the equatorial tropics, and then spending four years in the UK in adulthood, I can safely say that if you ask me if I would prefer to die from cold or from heat, the answer is very much the former. Increasingly warm temperatures sends chills down my spine, pun very much intended.

Every generation in recent memory has had some version of “brain rot” – penny dreadfuls, radio, TV, Friendster and forums and now, video shorts – so why are people going into a tizzy over TikTok? Are the kids ok? Answer: Probably – or, no more or less than kids were back in the 1950s.