Hello there, beloved learners,

Hold on to your socks - it's all going down in this edition!

Misinformation! Hostage negotiation! Self-fulfilling prophesies and dubious backstories! And you might even find out what happened to Tom and Jerry 😲

Who knew Weekend Reads could be quite this exciting?

Big love,
Chris & the 42courses team x 

• Freedom of Speech is a double Edged Sword: As Meta changes its stance on monitoring misinformation, opinions are flying. Dan Ariely is a particularly wise thinker, so his opinion on the matter is well worth a watch.
   
• The surprising skill you need to be a hostage negotiator: Our latest podcast is with a former hostage negotiator and who says that the most important thing to get right in high stakes situations is both easier, and harder than you think.
   
• How happy is your personality? New research suggests that adopting positive traits, like being agreeable and conscientious, is not only possible, but it will also put you on an upward path to greater well-being.
   
• NVIDIA - the envy of the world: It's not often we see a self-fulfilling prophesy in modern times, but when Jen-Hsun Huang named his company after the Roman goddess of envy, he was not wrong.
   
• That time a whole backstory was invented to sell more cheese: If you've ever heard of a "Ploughman's Lunch" - a well known meal in British pubs - you probably think of idyllic farm scenes, rather than an ad agency boardroom, but you would be mistaken...

And did you know...?

• 1524 - Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sets sail aboard the French ship La Dauphine to find a passage to China but discovers North America instead, to his mild disappointment 🌎
   
• 1773 - Captain James Cook becomes the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle (66° 33' S), which is pretty impressive, considering he'd already "discovered" Australia and mapped New Zealand. ❄️
   
• 1871 - Andrew Smith Hallidie patents the first cable car in the United States, revolutionising urban transportation when it begins service in 1873. 🚋
   
• 1920 - The prohibition of alcohol begins in the United States as the 18th Amendment takes effect, sparking the Prohibition era. 🍺
   
• 1928 - The first fully automatic photographic film developing machine is patented, representing a major breakthrough in photography. 📷
   
• 1929 - Popeye, the spinach-loving sailor, makes his first appearance in the comic strip Thimble Theater. 🥬
   
• 1978 - After a tumultuous final tour, the Sex Pistols break up, ending the career of punk rock’s most notorious band. 🎸
   
• 1984 - The US Supreme Court rules that private use of home VCRs to tape TV programs does not violate federal copyright laws, a significant win for media consumers. 📼
   
• 2024 - The UK royal palace announces that Catherine, Princess of Wales, is hospitalised for abdominal surgery, and King Charles III is receiving prostate treatment. It's a sick day for the royals 👑