The secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Jens Stoltenberg, reacts to Emmanuel Macron’s stark warnings about the future of the alliance. Daniel Franklin, The Economist’s diplomatic editor, asks Mr Stoltenberg how NATO’s members can overcome their differences—should Europe have its own defence force and is Turkey at risk of drifting away from the alliance? Also, how should Article 5 be enforced in space?
Monthly Archives: November 2019
Interviews: Anthony Hopkins On The “Nature Of Existence”, Having Fun In “The Two Popes” (WSJ)
From a Wall Street Journal Magazine online interview:
“The script is about questioning the nature of existence. I think about that every day of life. What is the purpose of life? As I get older, I look back on my own life as if it’s a novel written by someone else. To me it’s all a mystery. I started out over 60 years ago. My first job was, my God, 62 years ago and here I am. I don’t understand any of it. They gave me work, and I continued to work. It’s only just recently looking back, I thought, ‘My goodness, who designed this life? I certainly didn’t.’ I don’t know what’s life or destiny or kismet or God. I don’t want to get too philosophical about it. I’m fascinated about the mystery of life, about how we get through it, how we survive. I have no answers and I can’t take credit for any of it.”
Anthony Hopkins, who plays Pope Benedict XVI in this month’s Netflix movie The Two Popes, has a personal philosophy of not taking anything too seriously. “When I was younger, I was much more intense,” he says. “I got to a certain age, maybe 10 years ago, and thought, ‘Come on, just relax. Have some fun with it. Let’s have a ball!’” Hopkins’s surprising approach to playing the pope was to be as laid back as the actor, 81, appears on his lively Instagram account: He captures himself singing, dancing in his Thor costume and playing the piano with his cat perched on his lap.
To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-anthony-hopkins-doesnt-research-his-roles-11574343089?mod=read_more
Future Of Eating Out: Chef Eric Rivera’s “Addo: Incubator” Maximizes Tech To Serve Better Food
From a Wired.com online review:
Every possible step is done online, and for most meals customers must reserve—and often pay—in advance, essentially buying tickets through a service called Tock that’s mostly used only by high-end restaurants. This means no host manning a podium, no reservation or PR teams, no extra staff on a slow night, almost no food waste, and better guest communications. It also allowed them to go from 20 employees to four full-time and three part-time workers.
Within moments of arriving at Seattle’s Addo restaurant, I was handed a Nintendo Switch controller and a can of Georgetown Brewing Company’s Bodhizafa IPA.
While chef Eric Rivera shuttled back and forth to the kitchen to bring out Puerto Rican snacks, Addo’s director of operations Ingrid Lyublinsky took another controller, jumped into a game of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on a giant projector screen hanging inside the front window, chose Pink Gold Peach, and shot down the track riding a Bone Rattler while someone shouted Pew! Pew! Pew!
To read more: https://www.wired.com/story/eric-rivera/
Art Videos: Mary Osborn’s “Nameless And Friendless” Captured Women’s Rights Movement In 1850’s (Tate)
‘Nameless and Friendless’ was painted in 1857 by Emily Mary Osborn. It captures a single woman trying, and failing, to earn a living as an artist in Victorian England. In a trade traditionally occupied by men, she becomes nameless and friendless.
Osborn was actively involved in the campaign for women’s rights during the mid-19th century. She was supported by wealthy patrons, including Queen Victoria. But she used her position of power to help improve the lives of women like those depicted in her paintings.
Website: https://www.tate.org.uk/
Medical Diagnosis: 56-Year Old Woman Had Heart Attacks, But No Heart Disease? (New York Times)
From a New York Times Magazine article:
It was all horribly familiar — a rerun of an episode 15 months earlier, when she was with her family in River Vale, N.J. Back then, the burning pressure sent her to the emergency department, and she was told the same thing: She was having a heart attack. Immediately the cardiologist looked for blockages in the coronary arteries, which feed blood and oxygen to the hardworking muscles of her heart. That was the cause of most heart attacks. But they found no blockage.
Since childhood, she had frequent terrible canker sores that lasted for weeks. Sometimes it was hard to eat or even talk. Her mother, a nurse, told her everybody got them and thought she was being dramatic when she complained. So she had never brought them up with her doctors. Now the woman saw that her answer somehow made sense to the rheumatologist.
Indeed, that was the clue that led the rheumatologist to a likely diagnosis: Behcet’s disease. It’s an unusual inflammatory disorder characterized by joint pains, muscle pains and recurrent ulcers in mucus membranes throughout the body. Almost any part of the body can be involved — the eyes, the nose and lungs, the brain, the blood vessels, even the heart. Behcet’s was named after a Turkish dermatologist who in 1937 described a triad of clinical findings including canker sores (medically known as aphthous ulcers), genital ulcers and an inflammatory condition of the eye.
Automotive Trends: Tesla Unveils “Cybertruck” With “Ultra-Hard 30X Stainless Steel”, 500+ Mile Range
From the Tesla website:
- Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.
- With up to 3,500 pounds of payload capacity and adjustable air suspension, Cybertruck is the most powerful tool we have ever built, engineered with 100 cubic feet of exterior, lockable storage — including a magic tonneau cover that is strong enough to stand on.
- Space for your toolbox, tire and Cyberquad, with room to spare. Utilize 100 cubic feet of exterior, lockable storage — including the under-bed, frunk and sail pillars.
- Seat six comfortably with additional storage under the second-row seats. Complete with an advanced 17” touchscreen with an all-new customized user interface.
It’ll do 0-60 mph (0-98 km/h) in 2.9 seconds, and a quarter mile in a ridiculous 10.8 seconds in its highest performance variant. In top spec, it’ll go as far as 500 miles (800 km) on a charge, making it a genuine option for multi-day off-road adventures, and its 250-plus kilowatt charging capability means fast top-ups are on the cards, too. Towing capacity is over 7,500 lb (3,400 kg), which Musk happily demonstrated in an uphill tug of war against a hapless F150.
Website: https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
Healthcare Surveys: Nursing Shortage Threatens System As Baby Boomers & Nurses Retire
From a Healthcare Finance news article:
A third of the nurses who took the survey are baby boomers and 20% of survey takers said they planned to retire in the next five years. More than a quarter, 27%, said they were unlikely to be working at their current job in a year.
The shortage threatens to collide with the impending retirement of the baby boomers, all of whom will be 65 years old by 2030, said the survey titled “A Challenging Decade Ahead.” People over 65 are hospitalized three times as often as middle-aged individuals, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Amid a nursing shortage, hospitals are struggling to hire and keep nurses, with burnout and workplace violence cited as contributing factors, according to a new survey.
Flexibility and work-life balance had the most influence for 39% of nurses in whether they decided to stick with a job, though 31% say compensation and benefits were the biggest driving factor, according to AMN Healthcare’s 2019 Survey of Registered Nurses.
To read more: https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/node/139458
Animated Videos: “David Attenborough On Spiders, Mortality, And Nature’s Resilience” (New Yorker)
Animated and Directed by: Joe Donaldson
Senior Producer: Yara Bishara
Editor: Christopher Hwisu Kim
Composer and Sound Designer: Ambrose Yu
Executive Producer: Soo-Jeong Kang
The celebrated naturalist discusses the resilience of nature and his optimistic outlook on mortality.
Future Of Homebuilding: Prefab “Sunset BUD LivingHome” By Douglas W. Burdge Architects
From a PlantPrefab.com online review:
The idea for this ADU was conceived in the wake of the 2018 Woolsey Fire, as a way to help families reinhabit their properties while rebuilding their primary residence. All “BUD” designs provide beautiful living spaces that can be delivered quickly and enjoyed for generations as a valuable addition to almost any property.
This innovative accessory dwelling unit (ADU) offers four different size and layout options to fit almost any property. From a compact studio, to a two-bed, two-bath home with garage, all configurations meet California ADU size allowances and are designed for fast and efficient prefabrication at Plant.
To read more: https://www.plantprefab.com/models/19
Art Book Of The Year: “Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist” By Elizabeth Goldring (Apollo)
From an Apollo Magazine online review:
One of the most impressive aspects of the book is the wealth of contextual material, which never feels digressional but illuminatingly sets the scene for Hilliard’s remarkable life and achievement. His early life in Exeter; the family networks of goldsmiths in Devon and London; the political, religious and cultural worlds he would have encountered in London, Geneva, Paris and also – usually overlooked – in Wesel and Frankfurt; all make for compelling reading. This book is not just the definitive biography of Hilliard but essential reading for anyone interested in late 16th- and early 17th-century England.
This year was the 400th anniversary of the death of the miniaturist, medallist, illuminator and painter Nicholas Hilliard, arguably the first internationally acclaimed English artist. This art-historical biography is both timely and exemplary. It presents Hilliard as a man and an artist, exploring his life in unprecedented depth but also with remarkable breadth. It creates an endlessly fascinating context for his extraordinary works, which are lavishly illustrated and perceptively analysed, and it casts new light on all sorts of other issues, events and individuals connected with Hilliard’s life and artistic output.
To read more: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/book-of-the-year-winner-apollo-awards-2019/
Boomers Daily 