1 Seventy years since Hiroshima (BBC) Residents in
the Japanese city of Hiroshima are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the
first atomic bomb being dropped by a US aircraft. The bombing - and a second
one on Nagasaki three days later - is credited with bringing to an end World
War Two. But it also claimed the lives of at least 140,000 people in the city.
A US B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay dropped the
uranium bomb, exploding some 600m above the city, at around 08:10 on 6 August
1945. On that day alone, at least 70,000 people are believed to have been
killed. Many more died of horrific injuries caused by radiation poisoning in
the days, weeks and months that followed.
Addressing those who attended a commemoration
ceremony at Hiroshima's peace park near the epicentre of the 1945 attack,
Japanese prime minister Shinto Abe called for worldwide nuclear disarmament. "Seventy
years on I want to re-emphasise the necessity of world peace."
2 Samsung’s glamour days are over (Khaleej Times) For
four years Samsung Electronics has basked in the success of its Galaxy
smartphones, making billions of dollars competing with Apple in the premium
mobile market. The coming years are set
to be more sombre for the South Korean tech giant, as it is forced to slash
prices and accept lower margins at its mobile division in order to see off
competition from rivals including China's Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi in the
mid-to-low end of the market.
Behind Samsung's reality-check is the fact it is
stuck with the same Android operating system used by its low-cost competitors,
who are producing increasingly-capable phones of their own. "The writing
has long been on the wall for any premium Android maker: as soon as low end
hardware became 'good enough', there would be no reason to buy a premium
brand," said Ben Thompson, an analyst.
Samsung remains the world's biggest smartphone maker
but it is Apple that is reaping most of the rewards. While the US giant's
smartphone sales in its last financial quarter fell short of market
expectations, it is still estimated by some analysts to earn 90 per cent or
more of the industry's profits.
Investors and analysts say Samsung will not be able
to compete with Apple in the premium market based on hardware and will continue
to trail the US firm in the absence of a major technological breakthrough. Nomura
analyst C.W. Chung says Samsung still has the economies of scale to outlast
rivals, adding the smartphone industry will face a consolidation similar to the
one in the memory chip industry that the South Korean firm now dominates.
"The ones that ultimately survive will then
have plenty to be happy about," said Chung. "When everybody comes out
to dig for gold, jeans and pickaxes are what make MONEY; that's what Samsung's
semiconductor business is doing through the smartphone market," said Chung.
3 Grappling with the ‘How do I quit my job?’
question (Peter Fleming in The Guardian) It turns out that things are not so
simple. When you enter “how to quit …?” into the Google search engine, the
number of results on how to quit your job are exceeded only by “how to quit
smoking” and “how to quit smoking weed”.
Entire websites are dedicated to helping us send
that special email to the boss. Philip Larkin nicely captured the futility that
often accompanies exit fantasies like these in his ode to the despondent office
worker, Toads: Ah, were I courageous enough, To shout Stuff your pension! But I
know, all too well, that’s the stuff, That dreams are made on.
The “how” part of the question is easy to answer.
Just resign. So that’s not the real issue. The real question being asked is how
we can quit an intolerable job or workplace without incurring all the risks
that this implies. According to a 2013 Gallup survey, around 63% of the global
workforce is disengaged (compared to 13% who are engaged). These people
definitely hate their jobs, and for whatever reason cannot leave.
To keep a society fixated and obsessed with work,
especially when the problem of collective material wellbeing has long been
solved, it is redelivered to the public in strict, black-and-white terms. The
rationale goes like this: if you are not willing to put up with your job the
alternative is complete penury.
This forces us into a false double-bind. You either
do the “right thing” and put up with your own private nightmare or, by default,
consider yourself a privileged whining snob who is just one step away from
social oblivion. The choice is yours.
In the end no one can tell you “how” to quit your
job. It might seem like a mere technical problem but it is really an ethical
one. However, it is worthwhile being aware of the ideological traps that lie in
wait, carefully designed to preserve a world of work that is slowly spinning
out of control.
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