Barron’s interviewed more than a dozen senior executives across the world’s most important tech companies. Here’s why they remain bullish on the long-term opportunity for AI. Plus, the stocks to buy now.
Monocle on Saturday (November 16, 2024): Georgina Godwin looks back at the week’s news including president-elect Donald Trump’s picks for his future cabinet, X (formerly Twitter) users decamping to Bluesky and the purchase of Alex Jones’s ‘InfoWars’ by satirical publication ‘The Onion’.
Joining Georgina is Isabel Hilton, founder of China Dialogue and current chair of the judges of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non Fiction. Plus: we hear from one of the judges of the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards, Vivian Godfrey, about British readers’ continued love affair with Japan. Finally, Monocle’s Michael Booth speaks to the Copenhagen-based publisher behind the Gold Medal winning “Most Beautiful Book in the World”.
DW Documentary (November 15, 2024): The 17th century was the zenith of painting, in the Netherlands. In no other era were artists so productive. Never before had so many painters tried to make a living from their art. Demand was huge.
People from all walks of life began to enthusiastically collect paintings. New genres were born. And both the art market and the profession of art dealer emerged. Exceptional artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer and Frans Hals created masterpieces that still inspire us today.
One reason for the cultural heyday and its glut of paintings was an enormous surplus of capital, generated by speculative money transactions and trade, which was also based on the exploitation of the colonies and the ideal conditions that shipping found in the Netherlands. The film traces a period in which art, too, became an economic factor. In a way, the 17th century can be seen as the origin of our current art system.
After all, this was when auction houses were first established, leading to emergence of professional art dealers and wealthy collectors. Art was democratized. This documentary film explores an era when business and art entered into a marriage for the first time. How did such an artistic flourishing come about? What art-historical innovations do we owe to this period? And what significance does it have for our view of art and our approach to art today?
The Week In Art Podcast (November 15, 2024):UK museums are at a moment of transformation with a new generation of directors taking the helm at several of the major national institutions in London. So for this landmark 300th episode, we felt it was a good moment to look at the challenges and opportunities for museums now and in the future.
We invited Gus Casely-Hayford of V&A East, Nicholas Cullinan of the British Museum and Karin Hindsbo of Tate Modern to join our host Ben Luke for a wide-ranging discussion.
Business Insider (November 15, 2024): The United States has had 60 presidential elections starting in 1789. New parties have come and gone, while new states expanded the electoral map.
Video timeline: 0:00 – Intro 0:28 – First Party System (1792-1824) 1:30 – Second Party System (1828-1854) 2:40 – Third Party System (1854-1895) 5:46 – The Early 1900s (Progressive Era) 7:14 – Fifth Party System – FDR/New Deal Coalition 9:48 – Sixth Party System (1964-present) 16:42 – Credits
Maps show us how each state has voted over time — and who have been the winners and losers along the way.
Monocle Radio Podcast (November 15, 2024): As Israel continues its bombardment of Hezbollah targets, those charged with bringing about a ceasefire suggest progress is being made.
We get the latest from Beirut as the region recalculates with the incoming Trump administration. Plus: Aaron Burnett on Germany’s elections and Karen Krizanovich brings us the latest from the world of film.
Oil palm plantations, pictured here in Thailand, have displaced native rainforests across Southeast Asia.PHOTO: OLEH_SLOBODENIUK ISTOCK
Oil palm plantations replace diverse tropical forests with monocultures, but restoration can bring biodiversity and ecosystem services back to these highly modified landscapes.
In a special edition of the Guardian Weekly, our Washington bureau chief David Smith and diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reflect on how Trump 2.0 is likely to play out for the US and for the rest of the world.
We look at the role played by the president-elect’s key supporter, Elon Musk, and ask what the world’s richest man can now expect back in return. We also trace the rise of the vice-president elect JD Vance, who is now just a heartbeat away from the presidency.
And senior US political reporter Joan E Greve considers the Democrats – bereft, broken and facing an internal civil war after a campaign that ended in disaster.
1 Spotlight | Odour of oil and return of Trump hang heavy over Cop29 As the annual UN climate summit got under way in Azerbaijan this week, Fiona Harvey sizes up the hopes for progressThe video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard
2 Science | Unravelling the paradoxes of plankton Scientists are sequencing the DNA of microscopic marine life – to help us learn more about ourselves, reports Brianna Randall
3 Feature | When adult children cut the cord Grownups who cut of f contact with their family are often trying to break away after a traumatic childhood. But sometimes the estrangement can be totally unexpected for parents. ByGaby Hinsliff
4 Opinion | Trump unleashed will be even worse than last time’s dress reherarsal From a public health crisis to the end of Nato, the threats are clear, writes Jonathan Freedland
5 Culture | Sportswriters and arts critics swap jobs How does the English National Opera compare to the Premier League … or the NFL to a West End musical? Our sports and culture experts found out
‘Being the party of normality has its appeal, but it reinforces precisely the wrong instinct. The polycrisis that is unfolding demands not a return to the status quo but urgent, progressive answers both at home and abroad. To formulate and articulate those, the Democrats need politicians, not algorithms. They need personalities capable of responding to the profound questions facing contemporary America.’
‘Would the army as a whole rise up against a government that made territorial concessions to Russia? Perhaps. But the more widely the recruiters spread their net, the more the army reflects a society that is starting to talk openly, if bitterly, about swapping land for peace.’
Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border by Ieva Jusionyte
Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason de León
Boomers Daily 