Wait, has Rotten Tomatoes been the rotten one all along? Vulture published a new report that alleges a PR firm manipulated the critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes to lift a movie from rotten to certified fresh. The firm allegedly paid small and self-published critics $50 to write positive reviews. So far, it appears the allegations apply to just one movie, so we can all take a deep breath — the integrity of Puss in Boots 2’s 95% remains untouched.

In today's edition:

• China cracks down on iPhones

• Florida man tries to run to London

• Person of the Week: John Warnock

 🔑 Key Stories

China Restricting iPhones

China ordered employees at several government agencies to stop using iPhones at work

• Apple produces 95%+ of its iPhones in China and accounts for ~17% of China’s annual smartphone sales. China accounts for ~19% of Apple’s revenue

• For years, China has banned some government workers from using iPhones at work. The US has also banned some Chinese smartphone imports and banned TikTok from federal government devices

• Last month China expanded its iPhone ban to employees at ministries overseeing investment, trade, and foreign affairs

Dig Deeper

• In related news, last week, Huawei released its new “Mate 60 Pro” smartphone, which is faster and more powerful than previous models and is built with computer chips produced in China. The US and its allies have limited chip sales to China for years in an attempt to prevent it from developing its own chip industry, and following Mate 60’s release, some analysts suggested that China is progressing faster than expected at doing so despite that

Embryo Model Created

Israeli researchers successfully created an embryo-like model without using sperm or eggs

• Embryos are the earliest stage of development of a multicellular organism. Scientists are banned from working with them past 14 days of development

• On Wednesday, Israeli researchers published a study in Nature in which they claimed to have created a nearly identical embryo model. They grew it with stem cells and reported that it was just like a real embryo, although it couldn’t produce a living child

• Scientists could legally work on such embryos past 14 days, although none have or have said they will

Dig Deeper

• The researchers reprogrammed “naive” stem cells – which can become different cell types – into four different types of cells necessary for embryonic development. They mixed 120+ of those together in a dish, ~1% of which spontaneously began forming into an embryo-like structure. The end result was a “textbook image of a human…embryo,” the lead researcher told the BBC

Trump Liable for Defamation

A judge ruled that Trump is liable for defamation in a second case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll

• In 2019, Carroll, a prominent writer, accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in an NYC store in the 1990s. Trump denied that and said Carroll wasn’t his type. In response, Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2020

• Last year, Carroll sued Trump again. In May, a jury found Trump liable for $5M in that 2022 case for defamation and sexual assault. Trump appealed

• On Wednesday, a judge ruled that the May verdict means Trump is also liable for the 2020 case. A jury will decide in January how much more he has to pay Carroll

Dig Deeper

• Trump’s lawyer said that he remains “very confident that the [2022 Carroll verdict] will be overturned on appeal, which will render this decision [void].” Lawyers for Carroll said they “look forward” to the trial this January. Trump had not publicly commented on the ruling as of publication

Proud Boy Leader Sentenced

A judge sentenced Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, to 22 years in prison

• Tarrio joined the Proud Boys in 2017 and became a “fourth-degree” member, a designation awarded to those who got in a fight “for the cause.” When the Proud Boys’ leader left in 2018, Tarrio replaced him

• Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy – trying to overthrow the government – in May over the January 6 riot, which he didn’t personally attend. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 22 years in jail

• The Justice Department has charged 1,100+ people over the January 6th riot. Tarrio’s sentence is the longest yet, surpassing the 18 years given to both the leader of a different far-right organization and the leader of the Seattle chapter of the Proud Boys

Dig Deeper

• Prosecutors requested a 33-year prison term for Tarrio, arguing he used his skills as a “savvy propagandist” to organize and motivate the Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol. Tarrio’s lawyer requested 15 years, arguing Tarrio hadn’t intended for the riot to occur

• The judge ultimately sentenced Tarrio to the 22 year sentence, arguing he was the “ultimate leader of that conspiracy” to overthrow the government and was “motivated by revolutionary zeal”

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Dig Deeper

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🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Divorcin’ up: Singer Joe Jonas and actress Sophie Turner have divorced after four years of marriage and two children. The couple called it a “united decision” in a joint statement

• Jenni asks for red card: Spanish soccer player Jenni Hermoso filed a criminal complaint accusing Luis Rubiales of sexual assault for the kiss he gave her after the Women’s World Cup final

• Hottest summer ever: The World Meteorological Organization reported that Earth has experienced its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer on record

Wildcard

• And the grammy goes to… AI! TikTok user ghostwriter977 submitted his AI-generated song “Heart on My Sleeve” – featuring the voices of Drake and The Weeknd – for Grammy consideration

• Rescue down under: Three men en route from Vanuatu to Cairns, Australia, were rescued from their partially sunken inflatable catamaran following multiple shark attacks

• Florida man tries to run to London: The US Coast Guard intercepted a marathoner ~70 miles off Georgia’s coast as he attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a “Hydro Pod,” or a large hamster wheel-like contraption powered by him running

👇 What do you think?

Today's Question:

Sponsored by Incogni

Have a question about how Incogni’s personal data removal service works?

Reply to this email and we’ll pass along your questions to Incogni to get as many answered as possible!

See yesterday's results below the Wrap! 

🌯 Roca Wrap

A

Warnock – born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1940 – loved math but struggled at it, failing ninth-grade algebra. When he told a high school guidance counselor he wanted to become an engineer, she told him to consider another career.

Warnock didn’t quit on mathematics, though, and went on to receive an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master’s and a PhD in electrical engineering. After starting his career at IBM, he worked at a series of companies before ending up at a division of Xerox, where he met Charles Geschke – a coworker who would become his best friend.

Warnock and Geschke developed a mechanism that allowed computers and printers to communicate, however Xerox decided not to release it. That led the friends to leave their company and start their own out of Warnock’s garage in 1982.

They named it Adobe, after Adobe Creek, a creek near their homes in California’s Silicon Valley, and they based their first product – PostScript – on lessons learned at Xerox.

PostScript was a coding language that allowed computer users to print documents as they appeared on-screen, including with graphics and multiple fonts. That task previously required a trip to a printing press and its release revolutionized publishing.

Apple was the first company to adopt PostScript, integrating it into its new LaserWriter printer. “When that first page came out of the LaserWriter, I was blown away,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said. “No one had seen anything like this before. I held this page up in my hand and said, ‘Who will not want that?’ I knew then, as did [Warnock], that this was going to have a profound impact.”

After Apple launched the LaserWriter printer with Adobe’s PostScript, Adobe received many letters of thanks.

“The first note we got was from these ladies who told us how excited they were to be able to publish their magazine,” one of Adobe’s first employees said. “It was a lesbian newsletter, kind of pornographic in nature. The second newsletter that arrived was from a fundamentalist Christian sect. It wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but we gave them the voice to present their point of view.”

Jobs wanted to buy Adobe outright, but “we weren’t quite ready to be subservient to Steve” Warnock later said. While Adobe’s founders refused to sell the whole company, they accepted an investment from Apple and earned royalties by licensing PostScript to Apple for its LaserWriter printers. In 1985 alone, Adobe generated $1.2M in revenue from PostScript.

Apple and Adobe didn’t stay friends, however.

Apple and Microsoft teamed up in the late 1980s to create their own language to challenge PostScript, a clash dubbed “The Font Wars.” Warnock recalled telling his colleagues they had only one way to save Adobe: “To out-invent the bastards.”

Both companies sought to control the standard font technology on computers and printers. Ultimately, the companies coexisted, with Apple’s becoming the standard on Windows and Mac platforms and PostScript remaining popular in the professional printing and publishing industries

Warnock’s next goal was to create a file format that could properly reproduce documents on any computer screen or printer. The resulting top-secret "Camelot Project” produced a product that Adobe released in 1993: The Portable Document Format, or PDF.

Unlike PostScript, however, the PDF failed to catch on.

Warnock said in 2013 that he met with IBM executives and “explained how it worked, what its advantages were and how, from any application, you could send a completely portable document across platforms,” but they didn’t buy it. He recalled thinking, “How stupid can the world be?”

Yet Warnock said he had “pigheadedness” in clinging to ideas. “We said, ‘This is the way the future is going to be. We are going to stick it out. To hell with the rest of the world.’”“ At certain times, you have to say, ‘Screw the stockholders.’”

In 1994, Adobe gave away its Acrobat Reader software for free, allowing anyone to open and read PDFs. That provided a large base of users, and as PDFs’ popularity boomed, Adobe gradually built up a major business.

Today, Adobe claims that over 3T PDF documents have been created.

John Warnock served as Adobe's CEO from 1982 to 2000 and then as Chairman of the Board from 2000 until his retirement in 2017. By the end of his tenure, Adobe had grown into an $86B company and launched many groundbreaking products, including Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

In 2002, Warnock was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he and Geschke received the highest presidential honor for American innovators.

Warnock passed away on August 20 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He leaves behind a vast legacy, including his wife of 57 years, three children, four grandchildren, and a company that’s now worth $255.5B.

Adobe announced his death in a PDF.

If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

Do you pay for cable?
Yes: 30%
No: 70%

Do you pay for a streaming service?
Yes: 83%
No: 17%

Yesterday's Question:

If you could pick any fictional world to live in for a year, which one would it be and why?

Kerry: “I mean it has to Barbie World at this point, right?

Kylee from Utah: “I would pick the Wizarding World. Since I was a kid the magic, friendship, and possibilities of the Wizarding World has enthralled me.”

Eric: “Hunting season. Just like every fall since 1980ish!”

John: “The fantasy world I would like to live in would be the 1980’s because at this point cheap gas, good music, and a more or less happy country seems like fantasy today.”

Macole from Memphis: “If we ever get them, cooler temps. 94º in September is NOT fun.”

Shawn from Bedford, Indiana: “Hobbiton village. Eating, drinking, smoking and making little hobbits. What more do you need?”

Wrap Replies:

In response to Tuesday’s Wrap:

FO from "in between continents”: “Here in Italy, loads of people watch soccer games through pirated sites, and while I'm vehemently against illegal streams, I fully understand why they do it. Watching soccer has become a notoriously expensive challenge, costing some 70/80 euros a month if you plan on watching the European cups as well (which most people do) . Prices just keep increasing, just as the number of platforms you have to sign up to. In a country where salaries have actually decreased since the 90s (https://www.conflavoro.it/salari-italia-europa/), many people are struggling to make ends meet. Given this situation, why shouldn't piracy flourish? Big media conglomerates keep dividing sports media rights amongst themselves, and prices just keep getting higher and higher.

It seems like this is starting to become a problem in the States, too. If the big leagues want fans to watch their games on "official" websites, they need to make sure the media companies are offering transparent and somewhat more convenient plans (Sky Sport has all but 16 games in the Champions League, and those are on Amazon Prime Video: why should I need to sign up to another service to watch maybe 2/3 games of my team?) finally putting an end to the total sports media rights fragmentation we have today. At least, these are my two cents. I'm a sports fan, not an economist!”

🧠 Final Thoughts

What is it about the letters P, D, and F that lend themselves to so many acronyms? There's the PDF, the PFD (personal flotation device), PFD (the Permanent Fund Dividend, a cash payment given to all Alaska residents), and DPF (diesel particulate filter), just to name a few. Perhaps we'll do a Wrap on the DPF next week.

Enjoy your Thursdays!

—Max and Max