Twin peeks

Elon Musk's views on technology, David Lynch and cast on the return of Twin Peaks, Rory Sutherland on the benefits of spending, and a skew towards the moving image

According to Elon Musk, who made a fortune from PayPal, and now runs businesses from swanky electric cars to space travel, technology is overrated.

In fact, if not nurtured, developed and pushed, technological advances will decay and disappear, he says.

Take watching hit comedy Veep. There are dangers inherent in this too.

Rory Sutherland explores why ‘efficiencies’ can often have the opposite effect on your business.

Here's Rory again: “Every communications challenge to delivering the necessary bits of information to the required eyeballs at the lowest possible cost, this time in the BARB viewing report where he says TV advertising shows that the brand is valid because of the costs involved. Something seen on Facebook doesn’t convery this same validity.

The new Blade Runner 2046 trailer. It had 5 million views in less than 24 hours:

But even that's dwarfed by the trailer for creepy clown remake It, based on the Stephen King novel, which had even more.

Do women underplay their achievements, asks Campaign?

How can a love story prompt people to spit at the author in the street? When the story concerns the romance between an Israeli woman and Palestinian man.

You may remember the leather jacket wearing former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who had to deal with Brexit-like negotiations with Europe as Greece plunged into crisis.

He lists six ways in which he expects Europe to frustrate a Brexit deal.

His list includes elegant notions like The Penelope Ruse, after Odysseus’ wife who would pledge to marry one of her suitors once Laertes’ burial shroud was finished. She would weave diligently during the day, then undo her work at night. Varoufakis says May should expect similar tactics. His advice? Scrap Article 50 and opt for a bespoke arrangement for, say, seven years and take time to develop a position without the clock ticking…

Swearing makes you stronger. In tests, half the subjects were asked to, “choose a swearword to repeat in the studies, based on a term they might utter if they banged their head” and repeat it, compared to those repeating a neutral world like ‘brown’. The swearers were stronger.

Barclays goes to war on fraud in reputed £10m campaign:

P&G stirred the marketing world by asking for more rigour from digital advertising, but has it now gone too far, with its new Irresistable Superiority line asks Claire Beale? It has left analysts baffled and agencies worried.

The very public fiasco of Fyre Festivan was caused, in part, because the organisers splurged on planes and yachts months before the festival even began.

The leaked pitch deck should probably be used as something of a guide to what not to do and is, as many have noted, beyond parody:

Fyre Festival Pitch Deck by NickBilton on Scribd

Fyre used 'influencers' to sell itself. The FT examines influencers with a little more composure.

Would you sell your house to launch a social network aimed at sport fans? The Hughes family from Manchester would (and did).

If you have seen the 10 concerts I have been to... Facebook meme might reveal more about you than you realise and could pose a ‘moderate’ security risk.

With diversity still an issue, female Facebook engineers have their code rejected 35% more than their male counterparts.

The duopoly of Facebook and Google took $106 bn between them in 2016 (Google on $79 bn and Facebook $27 bn). This is as much as the next 19 companies combined.

For display media, TV remains the biggest channel, but one in four pounds spent on advertising in the UK goes on search, dominated by Google.

an of Guardians of the Galaxy? Then read this sad history of the creator of Rocket Racoon.

The story beind getting the new series of the greatest TV show ever made, Twin Peaks, back on air. And an interview with two of the stars and the director (who were also the team behind Blue Velvet):

Remember that new M&S ad? Dave Trott is not a fan, and suggests the retailer should concentrate on underpants.

Could profitability for news be simply a case of moving digital-only? It worked for the Independent but other papers will have very different audience needs.

Much ridiculed for his appointment, Raymond Snoddy is so far impressed with The Standard under George Osborne.

There is much speculation about the source of the Macron hack, released just before the French election. Whatever the source, it backfired, Macron’s results gained almost ten points compared to preliminary polls. Some even suggest that the hack and leak was a team Macron ploy – that they expected a hack and prepared a load of nonsense for it.

Finally, a look at The good fight, co-produced by Mother London which won the best documentary prize at the Tribeca film festival: