Sep 17, 2024

He'll Be Kummin Round the Mountain

Flavored with cumin grown in the Trøndelag, Swedish cheese Kummin offers a sharp and fiery taste for a cheese. Its mild seasoning complements the cheese's acidity, gives character, and balances the flavor. It's also only 17% fat — just like this reasonably high-quality newsletter!

Speaking of anticipation, today's cheese pun should set you up for Fed Chair Jerome Powell's interest rate cuts looming on Wednesday afternoon. He'll cut rates by 0.25% and markets will respond by staying reasonably flat. That's my wager. Although yesterday investors were betting on a half percent cut. And anything could happen!

Meanwhile we have plenty of cheddlines to kick off your Tuesday:

Fax me!

—Matt Davis, N2K Chedditor

P.S. We've got wearable screens from Seoul Fashion Week on our Instagram!

Quote of the Day

"You have to find a higher purpose. You have to find something that's bigger than yourself, and it usually revolves around helping other people." — Ryan Hendrickson

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1. 🤔 20 Private Security Can't Stop Elon Musk Shooting Himself in Foot

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk deleted a tweet he made saying that "no one is even trying" to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.

Musk quote-tweeted an X post about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Sunday, asking, "Why they want to kill Donald Trump? And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala" — adding a thinking face emoji. 🤔

An X user suggested he reconsider the post. He replied, writing, "No one has even tried to do so is the point I'm making and no one will."

A former Republican congressman from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger, responded on Twitter: "What is wrong with this guy?!?! Can anyone who loves him have an intervention? I'm serious this is off the rails."

The White House said violence should only ever be condemned, not joked about. Musk deleted the tweet. Later he tweeted: "Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don't know the context and the delivery is plain text."

Musk, who lacks a corporate communications office, is accompanied by 20 armed bodyguards everywhere he goes. They code-named him "Voyager." The "phalanx" of security operates like a "mini–Secret Service," according to a New York Times story published late last week. I feel we all need more phalanxes in our lives to call us Voyager these days. Don't you? Watch Now

2. The Bear Cast Commit Seppuku As Shogun Dominates Emmy's

The Japanese-language TV series "Shōgun" achieved remarkable success at the Emmy Awards, setting a record with 18 wins in a single year for a drama series. It won best drama, best directing, as well as outstanding lead actor — Hiroyuki Sanada, portraying Yoshii Toranaga — and actress: Anna Sawai won in her role as Toda Mariko. The show was up for a potential 25 nominations, closely following "Game of Thrones," which had 32 nominations in 2019. I can also do a very good impression of English actor Cosmo Jarvis in the role of John Blackthorn saying "Mariko-san" and using the terms "pillowing" and "seppuku" if you're interested. No? You sure?

The novel on which the show is based was written by the Australian-born, British-educated, American-naturalized James Clavell in the 1970s. Some have criticized his work as Orientalist pulp, while others have praised his levels of historic research. I haven't read it. But I enjoyed the show a lot. I could have done without, say, half a dozen of the scenes of ritual suicide. (The other 27, of course, I'd keep.) Still, it took a decade to make and is part of a growing trend of successful Asian foreign-language series internationally, following in the footsteps of "Squid Game."

"Hacks" won best comedy, beating out "The Bear," an evidently miscategorized drama which is based on the non-seppuku suicide of a restaurant owner in Chicago. The loss did not prompt hot rodent actor Jeremy Allen White to ask for a second. Read More

From @cheddar

High tech meets reasonably high quality fashion. LG is merging the two by unveiling its "wearable screens" at Seoul Fashion Week.

The panels are designed to be bent, twisted, and folded, marking a world first for displays that combine high resolution with stretchability, according to the South Korean tech giant.

LG envisions these screens being "integrated into gadgets, displayed on the skin, and worn."

What I'm seeing is that somebody stuck an iPad onto the mother-in-law from Dune II and it is TERRIFYING. But it makes you think. Eh?

Follow @cheddar on Instagram!

3. Jerk CEOs Telling You to Fax Them Now

I once interviewed Spike Lee about his New Orleans documentary, and managed to get his attention by faxing his office after his team ignored repeated emails and phone calls. Fax it, baby! Do the right thing!

Now corporate bigwigs are embracing vintage tech as a status symbol. Being less available is like having a 1972 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak reference 5402. Page me if you need me! Call me on the landline! Dig?

They say it enhances their leadership abilities, allowing them to concentrate on important tasks and be fully attentive during meetings without the distractions of modern gadgets. I would buy that if they also encouraged their staff to delete Slack and do the same thing. Otherwise, they're just contrarian egotists flaunting their inaccessibility. Don't like my take? Dispatch a vellum scroll in the pneumatic tube, and I'll get back to you forthwith, likely by carrier pigeon. Watch Now

4. Army Veteran on Finding Peace After Being Blown Up

My friend Paul got blown up by a bomb in Afghanistan. Now he's blind, deaf, and walks with a cane. But my God, the man attracts romantic interest like you wouldn't believe. His "type," if you could call it that, is "explosive." Like, the more red flags the better. His simple explanation? "I can't help myself. I've always wanted to put myself into dangerous situations."

Meanwhile, retired U.S. Army Green Beret Ryan Hendrickson also stepped on a bomb, in an Afghan minefield in 2010, and thought he was going to die. He's since written a book about his struggles with mental health as he recovered from his injuries, as well as his time clearing landmines as a contractor in Ukraine.

"Every single veteran has a story," he said. "And if they would tell their story, somebody out there can benefit from that person's experiences. You've just got to tell that story. That's the reason why I wrote the book and told my stories."

The war in Ukraine has faded from the headlines, he said. But the war continues to rage there. "People are dying every single day in Ukraine and the crisis gets bigger and bigger as it goes on."

When it comes to overcoming mental health challenges as a veteran, Ryan's message is: "You have to find a higher purpose. You have to find something that's bigger than yourself, and it usually revolves around helping other people. Get out there and help some people because it's fulfilling. And then you start to you start to fill in that gap, that void that was left in your life, especially after our withdrawal from Afghanistan. You can find that higher purpose and it comes from helping others."

Seems like something we should all try, Ryan! I'm also going to tell Paul all about this while he's sleeping his way through the British isles. Watch Now

5. Oh, Dear: You Can Now Use Google Lens to Find Clothes From TV Shows

Stephanie Horton with Google showed us how you can use your phone to search for clothes while you're watching the show "Emily In Paris."

If you use the search bar in the Google App, you can use the lens push icon to find search results for things that look like the clothes on the show.

"Google Lens has been around a while," she said. "The technology has been available, but I think people probably are unaware that they can use it. One of the reasons why this partnership came about was to really promote that. You can technically do it with any show on TV because you do it through Google Lens."

"Emily in Paris" is "quintessentially a show that's all about amazing style," hence the partnership. But you're telling me I could Google Lens Burt Reynolds's jeans from Smokey and the Bandit II?

Brb.

[Disappears.] Read More