Welcome to the age of the hermit consumer | Israel Is Stretched Thin and Hezbollah Knows It | How Isaac Newton Discovered the Binomial Power Series | Quanta Magazine | Joshua and Vernon on Seventeen’s Super Silly, Sincere Career

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� � � � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Welcome to the age of the hermit consumer - The Economist    In some ways the covid-19 pandemic was a blip. After soaring in 2020, unemployment across the rich world quickly dropped to pre-pandemic lows. Rich countries reattained their pre-covid gdp levels in short order. And yet, more than two years after lockdowns were lifted, at least one change appears to be enduring: consumer habits across the rich world have shifted decisively, and perhaps permanently. Welcome to the age of the hermit. In the years before covid, the share of consumer spending devoted to services rose steadily upwards. As societies got richer, they demanded more in the way of luxury experiences, health care and financial planning. Then, in 2020, spending on services, from hotel stays to hair cuts, collapsed owing to lockdowns. With people spending more time at home, demand for goods jumped, with a rush for computer equipment and exercise bikes. Three years on the share of spending devoted to services remains below its pre-covid level (see chart 1). Relative to its pre-covid trend, the decline is even sharper. Rich-world consumers are spending on the order of $600bn a year less on services than you might have expected in 2019. In particular, people are less interested in spending on leisure activities that generally take place outside the home, including hospitality and recreation. The money saved is being redirected to goods, ranging from durables such as chairs and fridges, to things like clothes, food and wine. Continued here Israel Is Stretched Thin and Hezbollah Knows It -     NAHARIYA, Israel - The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continues to escalate what so far have been small-scale attacks against Israeli positions along the hotly contested border, signalling its willingness to confront Israel in a significant way for the first time since 2006, according to regional diplomats, Lebanese security officials, and Israeli military spokespeople.  That comes as Israel prepares its awaited ground operation into Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israeli towns, settlements, and military bases that killed about 1300 Israelis and led to at least 220 hostages.  Security officials and politicians across the region, Europe, and the U.S. are deeply concerned that Hezbollah and other well-trained and equipped groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen–largely backed by Iran and Syria– might militarily enter the fray on behalf of Hamas..   “We have seen some very alarming attacks by Iranian proxies with rockets and missiles fired by Lebanon-based Palestinian militant groups, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen,” said a senior U.S. diplomat, who spoke anonymously because of the complex diplomatic effort underway.  Continued here Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium How Isaac Newton Discovered the Binomial Power Series | Quanta Magazine - Quanta Magazine    Isaac Newton was not known for his generosity of spirit, and his disdain for his rivals was legendary. But in one letter to his competitor Gottfried Leibniz, now known as the Epistola Posterior, Newton comes off as nostalgic and almost friendly. In it, he tells a story from his student days, when he was just beginning to learn mathematics. He recounts how he made a major discovery equating areas under curves with infinite sums by a process of guessing and checking. His reasoning in the letter is so charming and accessible, it reminds me of the pattern-guessing games little kids like to play. It all began when young Newton read John Wallis' Arithmetica Infinitorum, a seminal work of 17th-century math. Wallis included a novel and inductive method of determining the value of pi, and Newton wanted to devise something similar. He started with the problem of finding the area of a "circular segment" of adjustable width $latex x$. This is the region under the unit circle, defined by $latex y=\sqrt{1-x^2}$, that lies above the portion of the horizontal axis from 0 to $latex x$. Here $latex x$ could be any number from 0 to 1, and 1 is the radius of the circle. The area of a unit circle is pi, as Newton well knew, so when $latex x=1$, the area under the curve is a quarter of the unit circle, $latex\frac{Ï€}{4}$. But for other values of $latex x$, nothing was known. If Newton could find a way to determine the area under the curve for every possible value of $latex x$, it might give him an unprecedented means of approximating pi. That was originally his grand plan. But along the way he found something even better: a method for replacing complicated curves with infinite sums of simpler building blocks made of powers of $latex x$. Continued here Joshua and Vernon on Seventeen's Super Silly, Sincere Career - Vulture    A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers. A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers. If Joshua hears a Seventeen track playing in a restaurant, he might sneak a glance to see if staff noticed him walk in. “Most of the time it’s not because of that, it’s because they’re genuinely fans of our songs, so it’s pretty cool,” the singer says with a slight nod. That’s a fairly humble reaction, considering that eight years into the lively 13-piece boy band’s career, they’re playing (and eating) in restaurants around the world. Seventeen — made up of members S.Coups, Jeonghan, Joshua, Jun, Hoshi, Wonwoo, Woozi, The 8, Mingyu, DK, Seungkwan, Vernon, and Dino — don’t just sell out international shows, they set records. Their tenth mini album, FML, is currently the best-selling K-pop album of all time, with more than 6.2 million copies sold as of July. (It also holds the record for the highest first-day sales in K-pop, with 3.99 million copies). “We hit numbers we never thought we’d achieve before,” adds rapper Vernon. “We were just really surprised. Nobody expected FML to do that well. Those kind of achievements always just give us a sense of responsibility to give Carats a better experience.” Emphasizing his point with a thumbs-up, he adds, “We’re super grateful.” Continued here

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