2020
The GSMA is putting restrictions on Mobile World Congress attendees from China as big companies, including Ericsson and – reportedly – Amazon, pull out. - lightreading.com
I’ve switched my podcast player from Castro.fm back to Overcast on the iPhone. Castro has advantages in its user interface – it’s much easier to decide on which order you’re going to listen to podcast episodes – but the audio clarity on Overcast is just plain clearer, particularly at the 2X+ speeds I listen to podcasts at. That means I can get through my massive podcast queue faster.
However, when you have 260+ unlistened podcast episodes, as I do, switching between podcast players is tedious. Fortunately, there is some part of my brain that finds that kind of fussywork soothing.
Zappos has quietly backed away from holacracy.
Aimee Groth at Quartz:
Six years ago, Amazon-owned Zappos began upending its traditional management structure. In lieu of a typical corporate structure, with power concentrated at the top, the online shoe retailer would adopt a decentralized system with “no job titles, no managers, no hierarchy.”…
But in the last few years, Zappos has been quietly moving away from holacracy. It has done away with its at-times rigidly (and ironically) bureaucratic meetings and brought back managers, while retaining its circular hierarchy, a key artifact of holacracy.
Reagan and Gorbachev Agreed to Pause the Cold War in Case of an Alien Invasion. The Gipper was a bigtime science fiction fan. [Danny Lewis/Smithsonian Magazine]
Amid Layoffs, Xilinx Warns of Pause in 5G Activities - Mike Dano/Light Reading
Xilinx, once a darling of 5G bulls on Wall Street, has hit hard times. The company said it will cut 7% of its workforce partly due to an unexpected slowdown in its critical 5G business.
Canary in a coal mine?
Forget self-driving cars. We already have technology that can transform cities and help save the planet: Buses
Missing the Bus on 99% Invisible:
If you heard that there was a piece of technology that could do away with traffic jams, make cities more equitable, and help us solve climate change, you might think about driverless cars, or hyperloops or any of the other new transportation technologies that get lots of hype these days. But there is a much older, much less sexy piece of machinery that could be the key to making our cities more sustainable, more liveable, and more fair: the humble bus. Steven Higashide is a transit expert, bus champion, and author of a new book called Better Buses Better Cities. And the central thesis of the book is that buses have the power to remake our cities for the better. But he says that if we want the bus to reach its potential, we’re going to have to make the experience riding one, a lot more pleasant.
These days when I hear about proposals for light rail or trains, I ask, “What about buses?”
Why the wrong movies win Oscars - Today, Explained
Amazon wants to depose the President and Secretary of Defense as part of its lawsuit to fight losing the lucrative government JEDI contract.
The Justice Department indicted four members of the Chinese military for the Equifax breach.
This will be a buzzkill for making relations between the two countries more friendly.
Advice from Medieval Monks on Avoiding Digital Distraction
Bloomberg plans to go after Trump’s business record
Others have tried this tactic without success — remember Hillary Clinton? — but Mike Bloomberg plans to attack President Trump on his business record.
One difference: Trump’s pre-White House career can now be linked with his decisions as president. Another difference: Bloomberg will be making this argument as a multibillionaire who built a multinational company.
How women left the GOP and became Democratic partisans: Blame the Gipper
None of the movies nominated for an Oscar deserved to win, because none of them has Luis giving exposition or an ant playing drums.
I’ve been on a nostalgia kick the past couple of days. This morning, I hit YouTube and found and listened to the theme song to a kiddie TV show I adored when I was 5: Winchell Mahoney.
The good news is it drove the F Troop earworm out of my brain. Hooray, hooraw!
