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What's making us stupid now?
Nicholas Carr writing for The Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing.
The
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Thing that everyone with a functioning brain said about tariffs is indeed happening
Tom Fairless writing for The Wall Street Journal: Americans Are the Ones Paying for Tariffs, Study Finds
By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between January 2024 and November 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the burden of last year’s U.S. tariff increases by lowering their
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Everyone experiments a little in college (or, should I say, experiments with Linux, and by college I mean in 2026)
Stevie Bonifield writing for The Verge: I spent a year on Linux and forgot to miss Windows
Customizing every visual element of my desktop has become one of my favorite parts of using Linux. It doesn’t offer any performance boost or practical benefit; it’s just fun.
Two quick things on this…
One, I
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I'm learning so much non-AI stuff by using AI
Casey Newton quoting one of his readers: Meta’s scam problem, UK edition
I did not know what an SQL database was, and GitHub’s interface used to give me hives. And through this process I have actually learned quite a bit about how to use them. That’s actually super cool! For whatever reason
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Fast track another one of those gold trophies!
Jeanna Smialek: After U.S. Reignites a Trade War Over Greenland, Europe Weighs Going All-Out
Europe has a trade weapon specifically created to defend against political coercion quickly and forcefully, and as Mr. Trump’s threats sank in, policymakers argued that this is the time to wield it.
The tool — officially called the “anti-
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Moving beyond consoles
This video from Brendon Bigley resonated with me. A PC is really the ideal gaming platform in 2026, and it's only getting better. I have a PS5 that I got back in 2021, but the only game I played on it in 2025 was Death Stranding 2. Everything else was played on my
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Trump raises taxes on Americans again
Shawn McCreesh: Trump Announces 10 Percent Tariff on European Countries in Standoff Over Greenland
President Trump announced in a social media post on Saturday morning his latest strategy to get control of Greenland: He is slapping new tariffs on a bloc of European nations until they come to the negotiating table to sell Greenland.
Put
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Let the ChatGPT enshitification begin!
OpenAI: Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT
Today we’re bringing Go to the U.S. and everywhere ChatGPT is available, giving people expanded access to messaging, image creation, file uploads and memory for $8 USD/month. In the coming weeks, we’re also planning to start testing ads in the U.
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Meet Apple's new AI model, Gemini
Joint statement from Google and Apple
Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.
My
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This post was almost angry, now it's just confused
Jez Corden: Jeff Bezos once said the quiet part out loud
Bezos thinks that local PC hardware is antiquated, and that the future will revolve around cloud computing scenarios, where you rent your compute from companies like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.
Corden links to an interview with Bezos where he talks about going
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It's just like Reddit 10 years ago!
Here's a post on Digg, which relaunched in beta today to everyone. I've been using it since July in their private beta, and it's pretty nice! Christian Selig, maker of the dearly missed Apollo, advised on the app design, so I guess that's not a big surprise.
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Back when the iPad didn't do files
Myself in 2015: iOS is 90% There, but That Last 10% Hurts
I know it's not happening, but I would pay a lot of money for a way to dual-boot iOS and OS X on my iPad.
I wonder if this is the first time I suggested this sort of thing. Amazingly,
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Elon Musk monetizes CSAM on X and Grok
Casey Newton: Grok gets blocked
On Friday, following days of mounting outrage over Grok generating sexualized deepfakes of women and children, X said it would restrict the feature to paying subscribers.
I know he's a ghoul, but what the fuck is Elon Musk doing?
This is absolute garbage. He's created a
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Apple could do the right thing. I’m not holding my breath.
Elizabeth Lopatto writing for The Verge: Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards
You know what’s “offensive and sexualized,” you worthless fucking cowards? Nonconsensual AI-generated images of women in bikinis spreading their legs, and of children with so-called “donut glaze” on their faces — which, by the way, were being generated at a
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My app defaults in 2025 (a few days late)
Robb Knight: App Defaults 2026
It's been a couple of years since my first post in this series. In 2024 I did an "updates only" list but I think it's worth going for a full list again this time.
It's back! I did mine back in 2023
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If anyone can do it in 45 minutes, it’s not special
This post on Twitter is notable:
This guy literally builds a full AI app from scratch in 45 mins
First off, the app is not super useful and there is a lot of work to be done before this is ready for production, but hey, it’s still quite a result for 45 minutes of
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Don't fall in love with the product, fall in love with the problem
Bryan Cantrill: Love your customers
At Oxide, we believe that the best companies—the most enduring ones—love their customers, and we have made this explicit in our mission.
I had a mentor years ago tell me, "don't fall in love with the product, fall in love with the problem" and
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That’s just how media discussions go
Reddit user jess77x made this comment about Pluribus:
The discourse around this show is so weird. It's either a masterpiece or a total slog. And everyone is just talking past each other and calling people illiterate/TikTok brained for disliking it or pretentious shills for liking it. And it's a shame