Two days ago, Netflix posted its first quarter results for this financial year. The share price plunged 31,5% — the biggest one day fall in over a decade.
If you want to know why, consider these headlines:
When I was a kid, someone told me that “a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a tactful way in such a way that that you’ll look forward with pleasure to making the trip.”
Got a shared video today via WhatsApp (as one does); security cam footage shows the inside of a barbershop, patrons having their haircuts.
Two gunmen enter, ten shots are fired into the head of a customer, they flee the scene.
“This jst happened in Umhlanga” said the forwarder.
Within minutes, I can see this is going viral. It’s popping up on people’s WhatsApp status messages. Meanwhile, I’m checking it out because forwarding videos without fact-checking is something I try not to do.
This has been at the back of my mind ever since the Will Smith / Chris Rock incident last week. This is an except from Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" which remains one of the most influential books in my life to this day,
Seven years ago last night, I got on a plane from Johannesburg to London. I landed the morning of 1 April, launched this amazing product I had co-designed with the BBC, did this panel discussion as well as two TV appearances, and flew back that night.
The idea of a news bulletin targeting an educated young audience with a short attention span seems like a crazy idea today. But BBC Minute (or #TWISS — The World in Sixty Seconds as my then team dubbed it) has thrived.
The news earlier today that Vinny Lingham was backing an interesting new startup triggered an entire thought process rabbit hole. Let me take you down through it.
Today's from Moneyweb : "Take note if you are conducting a business from your private residence — Ratepayers must comply with their zoning provisions."
So I hop across to Moneyweb. Story reads:
Multichoice has come under flack lately from keyboard warriors after Russia Today fell off the company's DSTV offering.
“Sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union [EU] have led to the global distributor of the channel ceasing to provide the broadcast feed to all suppliers, including MultiChoice,” Multichoice was quoted as saying.
Hmmm, I thought, so why not simply downlink the Russia Today signal directly via satellite?
It turns out Russia Today uplinks to two satellites.
Two things of significance for me today:
1. Russia called an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council claiming that the United States was funding research to create biological weapons in Ukraine.
2. YouTube blocked access to the biggest Russian media channels including Russia Today and Sputnik.
I'm not going to dwell too much on these other than to point out a couple of things.
This from Elon Musk last week: "Why is the 'traditional' media such a relentless hatestream?"
He went on:
Most news outlets attempt to answer the question: “What are the worst things happening on Earth today?”
It’s a big planet! Obviously, some bad things are happening somewhere at any given time, but focusing relentlessly on those does not give an accurate picture of reality.
