Charlie Hebdo, Kappo Masa, Media Trends, Amazon, Apocalypse Food
Why Al-Qaeda Attacked Satirists In Paris
Juan Cole | Informed Comment | 7th January 2015
The massacre at Charlie Hebdo is a "strategic strike" intend to polarise French society. The aim of the terrorists is to provoke pogroms and discrimination which will radicalise French Muslims, who have until now been relatively apolitical. "Europe’s future depends on whether the Marine LePens are allowed to become mainstream. Extremism thrives on other people’s extremism, and is inexorably defeated by tolerance" (900 words)
Restaurant Review: Kappo Masa
Pete Wells | New York Times | 6th January 2015 | Metered paywall
Withering review of the restaurant newly opened by art dealer Larry Gagosian and chef Masayoshi Takayama. "The cost of eating at Kappo Masa is so brutally, illogically, relentlessly high, and so out of proportion to any pleasure you may get, that large numbers start to seem like uninvited and poorly behaved guests at the table." Stars: Zero. Service: "The staff makes all the motions of excellent service without actually providing it" (1,500 words)
Some 2015 Predictions
John Herrman | Awl | 5th January 2015
The end of the web site is nigh. "In 2015, notable (choose your definition) publications will declare their intentions to go fully distributed — or some other term that means the same thing — effectively abandoning their websites and becoming content channels within Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or Vine or Instagram. 2015 will be the year that a large magazine company folds a major lifestyle brand into a Pinterest page" (1,250 words)
Fire Alarm At Amazon
Austin Carr | Fast Company | 6th January 2015
Amazon's Fire phone has been a fiasco. Customers don't want it at any price. But why was Amazon even trying to make a phone in the first place? Because Jeff Bezos insisted. "We were not building the phone for the customer — we were building it for Jeff". The failure says bad things about Amazon. It says that Bezos has lost his focus, that he wants to be Steve Jobs, and that nobody at Amazon can check his mistakes (6,460 words)
What To Eat After The Apocalypse
Joshua Pearce | Nautilus | 18th December 2014
Assume a nuclear war and a nuclear winter. Most people survive, but soot fills the upper atmosphere; the skies go dark for five years; temperatures plummet; crops fail. What to eat? Here's the menu: Chew leaves for nutrients, but spit out the fibre. Brew tea from pine needles. Grow mushrooms on dead trees, and eat the mushrooms — or feed them to rats, and eat the rats. Lots of insects. And fish, if there are still fishing boats (1,770 words)
Video of the day: Sparked, By Cirque Du Soleil
What to expect: A flying dance performance by ten quadrocopter drones (5'24")
Thought for the day
Man is ready to die for an idea, provided the idea is not quite clear to him
Paul Eldridge