jackkessler.bsky.social
I write the newsletter, Lines To Take, bringing you one big story of the day, every day.
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I like human rights and French cuisine.
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It's not unlike the psychology that underpins those surveys which reveal music, film and football just so happened to peak when you were 13.
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Nah — blown it.
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Anyone for tennis?
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Once you go MagSafe you never go back.
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This is an impossible conflict of loyalties for me because I’m very pro portable charger.
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You can’t be doing this all summer.
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'has anyone taken my copy of FT weekend?'
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Did I tell you about the time I gave my email address to the Boston Globe to read an article?
Big mistake. Huge.
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On a similar note, Southwest ditching the free bags policy just exploded the brand identity.
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They will always give you water on request. The issue is how this works for hundreds of people on an 11-hour flight.
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It does save plastic though given BA's long history of cost-cutting and the way it's been rolled out, I'm sceptical that is their sole motivation.
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"Let's just go out and hire all those American researchers and scientists"
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Tbf it's hard to fault a winning strategy. IAG, BA's parent company, is doing *very* well.
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🚨 All-time favourite aviation cost-cutting anecdote 🚨
Back in the 1980s, Bob Crandall, then chief executive of American Airlines, suggested removing a single olive from each salad. It saved the company $40,000 a year.
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Instead, the bottled water decision fits neatly into a pattern of recent cost-cutting measures e.g. serving breakfast (the cheapest meal on a plane) at 1 or 2pm.
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If this were purely about the planet, alternative packaging — metal cans, cardboard cartons, as well as a pre-flight email encouraging passengers to bring their own bottle — might have been considered.
Also, you probably wouldn't run an airline in the first place...
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Airplanes have lower relative humidity than most deserts. The food is extremely salty as the lack of humidity, lower air pressure and even the engine noise combine to reduce taste bud sensitivity. Passengers need access to water!
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Flight attendants are busy people. You try cooking for, serving to and cleaning up after 200+ people in a small metal tube. The idea that they must traipse up and down the aisles pouring water into tiny cups for hours on end seems... odd.
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Going to be exhausting in the future hanging up on my mum and calling her back as if she were claiming to be from my bank.
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My pet theory is they pivot to government services/defence. Governments are usually good for the money, often prepared to pay for partial progress and are keen to support national champions.
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The other thing I struggle to wrap my head around is how network effects do and don't mirror social media platforms.
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I mean, it doesn't seem to be $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro subscribers.
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Reuters Institute report below. Alcohol advised.
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Fin.
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What is clear is that we're living in an extraordinary period of technological change, at the same time as citizens exhibit declining faith in government, media and other institutions.
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The future is contingent, I guess. Authoritarian regimes leveraged the wireless radio to hideous effect, but FDR used his fireside chats to bolster public trust, combat the Great Depression and defeat fascism in Europe.
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Also notable the gap between the US and the UK/France but especially Denmark/Japan.
You'd think this is having, erm, an effect on politics.
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The report finds that an astonishing 22% of Americans said they had come across Joe Rogan discussing the news in the previous week.
As you can see below, those with the largest media footprints tend to skew right-wing.
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Between 2016 and 2020, Americans flocked to social and video networks, but legacy media also flourished.
The Washington Post saw digital subscriptions peak at 3 million, while CNN had a damn good insurrection.
Under Trump 2.0, their fortunes have diverged.
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On the TV question, I wonder aloud whether it matters the difference between early/mid TV (two to four channels in the UK, network dominance in US etc) versus digital — a sort of non algorithmic, regulated precursor to internet fragmentation.