my story 🚀
🫠 Our daughter tried the joke “Is your refrigerator running?” on us, but ironically ours failed last weekend so the answer was a sad “No.” All of my life experience has reinforced the point that appliance repair is a terrible, no good, awful market to be forced into as a consumer. While our appliance is technically under warranty, the entire system has been set up to make that warranty hard to exercise (thanks for nothing Whirlpool, maker of pretty much every US fridge that isn’t a Sub-Zero). So, the mini fridge we bought at Best Buy last weekend is still the family’s MVP for keeping things cold. We’re living a European lifestyle with small and frequent shopping trips. And… I am pleased to report that after all these decades, Best Buy is still a great place for kids to demo some video games.
fun facts 🙌
A modern apartment is full of things that once drew awe. “If we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained.” A lovely little scroll-through apartment that reminds you how many daily conveniences would have looked like magic. ~ learn more
How trains led to time zones. “At best, people might miss their train; at worst, trains were more likely to collide when using a single track.” Railroads needed everyone to agree on the clock, so in 1883 US and Canadian companies adopted four time zones that still mostly stick today. ~ learn more
Take Google’s phishing test. “AI is already making phishing attacks more sophisticated, personalized, and common.” Google’s Jigsaw made a quick quiz to practice noticing the little tells before you click. ~ learn more
You can hear cauliflower growing. “That rapid expansion means the florets of the plant’s popcorn-like heads often rub against one another as they grow, creating a noise many farmers call “cauliflower creak.”” It can grow up to 1 inch per day, and the sound gets compared to a soft squeak or even Rice Krispies in milk. Sadly, the article doesn’t have an example of the sound. ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
Anti-drone chain gun with bullets that can chase targets. If you were wondering how defense tech was going to deal with drone swarms, here’s one option. It pairs the Bushmaster 50-mm chain gun with AI targeting and precision-guided rounds that can “course-correct in mid-flight” to handle swarms. ~ learn more
AI;DR is a new policy. “If you’re not bothered enough to review and edit it... ...then I’m not going to bother reading it.” Rick Manelius names the reflex many of us now have when someone drops unfiltered AI output into Slack, newsletters, or posts. ~ learn more
Patterns and problems in emerging multiagent systems. “What would have been isolated problems can quickly become systemic failures.” Anthropic shows how swarms can get weirdly conformist, like “18 out of 30 agents decided to create a git branch with the exact same branch name, “mvp-game-loop.”” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Teach them how to choose. “Teach them how to choose. Empower them.” The point is to stop picking every little thing for your kids, so they get real practice making decisions and living with the outcomes. ~ learn more
Getting old sucks. “I’m not that smart but these experiences have given me some powerful lessons to share to anyone in their 20s or 30s.” Tim Denning writes a big, messy life update on risks, standards, and why some hard paths are worth it anyway. ~ learn more
How do you ask an LLM a question? “They do not inform, they misinform.” Cremieux walks through a few real prompts where LLMs sound confident, cite “consensus,” and still miss the point, especially when the topic needs tacit or specialist knowledge. ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
Unlimited resources, daily progress. “Let’s see what can be accomplished if we give her the best care possible and we invest unlimited resources to restore her to life.” Bill Ackman describes his daughter Lucy’s catastrophic brain hemorrhage, the long odds, and why his family is funding a new brain research and recovery institute to share what they learn. ~ learn more
retail therapy 💸
A hairball rolls through Manhattan to sell supplements. “On Wednesday, August 12, hair-care brand K18 will unleash what it’s calling “The Tumblehair,” a larger-than-life rolling hairball that will make its way through several NYC neighborhoods before ending its journey in the Meatpacking District.” It’s meant to represent “the equivalent of 161 billion strands of hair” and will stop at Gansevoort Plaza outside Sephora Meatpacking. ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
A controversial Alzheimer’s surgery is said to reverse symptoms. “It basically started a frenzy of this surgery being performed left and right.” Nature follows the rapid spread of dcLVA, a neck microsurgery marketed as reversing Alzheimer’s symptoms, and why many scientists say the hope is outpacing the evidence. ~ learn more
Microscopic drug factories. “This tumor-seeking behavior allows the bacteria to act like microscopic drug factories.” UChicago researchers engineered a common probiotic to release an immune-stimulating molecule only inside low-oxygen pancreatic tumors, boosting T cell activity in mice. ~ learn more
teaching the kids 👩🏫
An ‘influencer’ degree. “To connect on camera, a person needs to have ‘good energy,’ he said. ‘That’s hard to teach.’” ASU just launched a bachelor’s degree in content creation, but even creators who like the idea admit the core ingredient might not fit in a syllabus. ~ learn more