Category Archives: Previews

Previews: The Economist Magazine – May 27, 2023

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The Economist Magazine– May 27, 2023 issue: The race to become the Republican nominee for the presidential election in America next year is properly under way. And Donald Trump has a huge, perhaps insurmountable, lead. 

Ron DeSantis has little chance of beating Donald Trump

Hopes of depriving the former president of the Republican nomination are fading

Belatedly and nervously, the would-be assassins have been lining up. On May 22nd Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, became the latest Republican to announce a run for president. Greater fanfare accompanied the official declaration (on Twitter) on May 24th that Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is joining the race for the Republican nomination. He has been widely heralded as the candidate with the best chance of defeating the favourite, Donald Trump. But even as more plotters step forward, the chances of a successful coup to overthrow Mr Trump are growing slimmer by the day.

What would humans do in a world of super-AI?

A thought experiment based on economic principles

In “wall-e”, a film released in 2008, humans live in what could be described as a world of fully automated luxury communism. Artificially intelligent robots, which take wonderfully diverse forms, are responsible for all productive labour. People get fat, hover in armchairs and watch television. 

Hungary is becoming more important to China

Viktor Orban and Xi Jinping bond over their anti-Americanism

To ears accustomed to a swelling chorus of China-scepticism in the European Union, the language of Hungarian diplomats is striking. Not for them the common talk of European officials about the need to “de-risk” relations with China and to treat it as a “systemic rival”. Co-operation between Hungary and China presents “opportunities rather than risks”, said Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, in Beijing on May 15th. Wang Yi, China’s foreign-affairs overlord, told him that relations between the countries had entered their “best period in history”.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – May 25, 2023

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nature Magazine – May 25, 2023 issue:  In this week’s issue, Wenzhu Liu and colleagues present a way to make foldable silicon wafers that can be used in flexible solar cells. The secret to success was to blunt the edges of the silicon wafers, thereby stopping them from undergoing brittle fracturing. As a result, the researchers were able to make 15-centimetre solar cells with a bending angle of more  than 360°.

Oldest known ‘blueprints’ aided human hunters 9,000 years ago

Prehistoric engravings depict vast hunting traps with extraordinary precision.

Photograph of a stone engraved with zig-zag lines.

The oldest blueprints ever found might have been used to prepare for large-scale hunts1.

Engraved lines on a stone in Jordan might depict landscape features near a large-scale hunting structure.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – May 26, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (May 26, 2023) – Alan Jenkins on Martin Amis, Young Russian fascists, The Rossettis at Tate Britain, Writers at the Hay Festival, Seamus Perry on ‘Byron’s Voice’.

Taking life sentence by sentence

Martin Amis, a talent for our time By Alan Jenkins

Martin Amis, 1995

In the Foreword to The War Against Cliché: Essays and reviews 1971-2000, a career-spanning collection of his journalism (literary and other), Martin Amis recalled how, when they started out in the early 1970s, he and his friends and colleagues touchingly assumed that literary criticism was as essential to civilization as literature itself was. Furthermore, “the most fantastic thing about this cultural moment” was that, in the debate between the Two Cultures, Art vs Science, “Art seemed to be winning”.

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – May 26, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (May 26, 2023) – Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s surprise turn at last weekend’s G7 meeting in Hiroshima was the climax of a round of shuttle diplomacy in which the Ukrainian president secured yet more funds and equipment from western nations. 

Patrick Wintour ponders the complex wider issues at stake for western leaders who realise that more constructive relations with the global south could also be the key to containing an increasingly belligerent China.

E-cigarettes have been seen as useful and less health-damaging devices for weaning smokers off tobacco. But there are growing international fears at the rise of disposable e-cigarettes, which are fuelling a boom in vaping among children. Michael Safi looks at how different countries are responding, from sales curbs to outright bans.

Politics: The Independent Review – Spring 2023

The Independent Review - Spring 2023 https://scientificmagazines.top/the -independent-review-spring-2023 | VK


Independent Institute (May 22, 2023) – In this issue: A tongue-in-cheek playbook for the national-security elite on how to run wars; monetary policy during the Great Depression and Great Recession; a critical review of child support enforcement; the history of labor rights in Brazil; and more.

Crisis and Credit Allocation: The Effect of Ideology on Monetary Policy during the Great Depression and the Great Recession

By James L. Caton

The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy

By Christopher Leonard

The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

By Nicholas Mulder

Preview: London Review Of Books — June 1, 2023

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London Review of Books (LRB) – June 1, 2023 issue: Rethinking 1848; Parfit’s Trolley Problem; Epictetus say ‘relax’ and reports from Istanbul.

At NatCon London

Peter Geoghegan

The British and American right differ in the weight they place on ideological purity. With a limited cast of characters – and an even smaller pool of funders – British conservatives can ill afford to divide their world into neoliberals and traditionalists. At NatCon London, the tirades about woke universities and pronouns often obscured political differences, but they can’t conceal them completely. 

The Arts: Brick Literary Journal – Summer 2023

BRICK LITERARY JOURNAL (SUMMER 2023)

  • Omar El Akkad swims from Doha to Orgeon
  • Hanif Kureishi rediscovers his subject matter
  • Rahul Bhattacharya on the greatest cricket photo ever taken
  • Kaiama L. Glover translates Haiti’s revolutionary poet
  • Eleanor Wachtel interviews Percival Everett
  • Lorna Goodison leaves the dinner party

The New York Times Book Review-Sunday May 21, 2023

Illustration by Dakarai Akil

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW – MAY 21, 2023

In This Satire, Televised Blood Baths Offer Prisoners a Path to Freedom

You can’t applaud Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s thrilling debut novel, “Chain-Gang All-Stars,” without getting blood on your hands.

The Martian Chronicles

Astronauts simulating a Mars spacewalk. As Matthew Shindell points out, our obsession with the planet is a relatively recent phenomenon.

In Matthew Shindell’s “For the Love of Mars,” perceptions of the planet reflect the changing culture of Earth.

Essential Neil Gaiman and A.I. Book Freakout

From the cult comic book series “The Sandman” to the giddy novel “Good Omens” (co-written with his friend Terry Pratchett) to the horror-tinged children’s story “Coraline” and beyond, the fantasy writer Neil Gaiman is so inventive and so prolific that you’ve probably stumbled across his influential work without even realizing it.

Arts & Culture: The New Criterion — June 2023

The New Criterion – June 2023 issue:

The diversity myth  by Peter Thiel
Emperor of chaos  by Gary Saul Morson
Pfitzner & the conservative artist  by Adam Kirsch
Vermeer in Amsterdam  by Benjamin Riley


New poems  by Dylan Carpenter, Karl Kirchwey & John Barr

Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – May 22, 2023

Magazine - Latest Issue - Barron's

BARRON’S MAGAZINE – MAY 22, 2023 ISSUE

10 Stocks to Play a Resurgent Energy Sector, From Our Roundtable Experts

Our energy roundtable predicts higher crude prices as global demand grows faster than supply. What’s ahead for U.S. shale, the majors, and the energy transition.

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL HOUTZ

Goldman Sachs Is Evolving. David Solomon on the Next Chapter.

Goldman Sachs Is Evolving. David Solomon on the Next Chapter.

The CEO sat down with Barron’s to discuss his critics’ complaints, the challenging climate for banking, his growth ambitions, and DJing side gig.Long read

Forget the Bud Light Mess. BUD Stock Is a Buy.

Forget the Bud Light Mess. BUD Stock Is a Buy.

The controversy over Bud Light’s transgender promotion obscures Anheuser-Busch InBev’s push to boost global sales and revenue growth

The 5 Stocks That Rule This Market—and Make Investors Nervous

Al Root

UP AND DOWN WALL STREET

The Market Shrugs off Doomsday Scenarios. It Just Might Be Right.

Ben Levisohn

THE ECONOMY

Why a Fed Hike Is Still on the Table for June

Megan Cassella