Weekend Reading #272

This is the two-hundred-and-seventy-second weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 15th June 2024

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What we're thinking.

Despite all the prognosticators of doom and gloom (including ourselves) a positive outcome has unfolded in the South African elections which is wonderful. A coalition government has been agreed between the ruling ANC and the opposition Democratic Alliance (pro business, good governance) including the IFP and some other parties. This is a massive development. The ANC has somehow ended up swapping out the radical elements of the party and effectively replacing them with the DA in a government of national unity with other smaller parties. This means surely increased accountability and at the margin a more pro-business, merit-based system for the moment. There is still the Zuma wildcard but for a country so devoid of hope and positivity the difference this can make is enormous. And in no place do things happen faster than in the stock market. When the facts change, change your mind! I don’t even think those living in SA realise how much things may be about to change. If Turkey can do it with Erdogan still in charge, why can’t SA? Big gains are often made when things go from very bad to just plain bad. In South Africa they are going from desperate and hopeless to something better and for the first time in fifteen years there are seeds of optimism and hope.  

Elsewhere in our race for the largest company on earth label, a resurgent Apple has taken the crown (as of Thursday close) but there is no more than 3% or so in it with Microsoft now a hair’s breadth behind and Nvidia a further 3% adrift. By next week we could have a new leader! All lots of fun but yes, this frivolous entertainment is ringing warning bells all over in a fast-narrowing market. Cyclicals have collapsed and crypto is weak; there are not too many left standing. Don’t get clever. 

What we're doing.

For anyone that wants to try their hand at making a film, the latest product off the shelf of AI land is here, with Luma Labs’ Dream Machine. Instructions: go to page, click try now, sign in with google, type a prompt for a video, wait for the output, and now start wondering if you’d be able to direct the next Oscar winning production. The only shortcoming (so far) - there’s no sound (yet). Depending on the prompt, the acting can come off pretty good, so the natural question that follows is – what's next for actors? And even studios? Samples are showing up all around Twitter, so take your pick, but for convenience here’s one discussing how to best write prompts. As important as prompting was with ChatGPT, it is now for videos. And it works even better if you know the actual professional filmmaking terms. EL 

What we're watching.

Hackers usually have a bad rep – stories about them typically involve them stealing your passwords and subsequently doing some serious damage. Sometimes they even show up on video in a Guy Fawkes mask. So, it’s not every day you come across a video featuring someone that’s immensely grateful to a hacker who hacked time (it’ll make sense) and recovered $1.6m of Bitcoin locked up in a software wallet by a forgotten password. Of course, in this case the “hacker” in question is none other than Joe Grand aka Kingpin, who aside from his Discovery Channel fame was also the one who successfully hacked the Trezor One hardware wallet in 2021. As it happens, he also has a business called offspec.io specialising in... recovering lost crypto passwords. It’s a satisfying short clip documenting the entire process – obviously revealing a security vulnerability in the process, and while representing hope for those who have lost access to their crypto, also serves as a reminder that your passwords are never truly completely safe. And no, most “random” security keys – including google authenticator – aren't random at all. Their main vulnerability: time. EL

Roger Federer gave a really lovely commencement speech at Dartmouth this week. While clearly not as polished in the public speaking arena as the tennis court, this was just beautiful. So many great nuggets but especially the one that despite all his success on the court, the margin of victory is always so small. Of all the points he played on the court, his win ratio was only 54%. The difference between the greatest and the rest is small margins. Makes you think doesn’t it. Really enjoyed it. DC 

What we're reading.

This is an awesome article from a guy named David Sedaris. It’s titled “Notes on a Last-Minute Safari” and is a piece about his trip to Kenya and Tanzania. Most interesting is his choice not to take any photographs at all but rather to write things down instead. It’s an absolute treat to read. 

Another rather fascinating article came in the form of this piece in The Jerusalem Post, in which reporter, Brian Schrauger, travels to Saudi Arabia in search of the real Mount Sinai, testing a hypothesis that it is indeed in Saudi rather than Egypt. What he found was pretty astonishing! 

This is pure gold. Freya India writes about how little strangers actually care about your life so please don’t waste it documenting things for external consumption. Spend your time living! Enjoy the moments, by all means take a snap or a video now and then but seriously just get your shit together. Superbly written and needless to say I’m already onboard this train. DC 

What we're listening to.

Geopolitical experts are a dime a dozen and in recent times most have been exposed for being completely clueless in terms of working out what comes next. One exception to the rule has been Velina Tchakarova, who runs her business, FACE (For A Conscious Experience), with so much aplomb she attracted the interest of Tyler Cowen. Their conversation is very much worth listening to. Her view which resonates with my own is that China seeks to take Taiwan through “death by 1000 cuts” rather than brute military force and interestingly on the nuclear weapons question she doesn’t believe the Russia/Ukraine war has increased the risk of use of nuclear weapons at all. She think Putin is after ALL of Ukraine and he doesn’t mind how long it takes. There is much more too in this chat along with Cowen’s usual probing questioning style. DC