The New York Times: What Are Companies Getting for All That A.I. Spending? The New York Times reports on a new field of economics — “tokenomics” — that studies what companies are actually paying for AI use and what they’re getting for it. There’s still no standard way to compare cost and value, so some firms are inventing […]
links: 02.08.2026
The New York Times: How China Keeps Tabs on Foreigners The New York Times describes an unsecured Chinese police surveillance platform in Zhangjiakou, found openly accessible online by cybersecurity researcher Marc Hofer — who spotted his own photo and passport number in it. The system tracked more than 700 foreign residents of the city, but held nearly 12,000 […]
links: 02.07.2026
PBS News: Defying Pope Leo XIV, traditionalists go ahead with bishop consecrations in Switzerland PBS News reports that the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, in open defiance of Pope Leo XIV, consecrated four bishops without papal consent in Écône, Switzerland — an act that under church law brings automatic excommunication for both the new bishops and the […]
links: 28.06.2026
NPR: What you ate in 1776 depended on who you were NPR, marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, describes how in 1776 food was a marker of social standing: wealthy upper-class families and the country’s founders emulated European — especially French and English — cuisine and even imported food from there, while the table of the […]
links: 18.06.2026
Wired: Silicon Valley’s Elite Financial Advisers Say This Era of Wealth Is Different WIRED talks to two wealth advisers serving Silicon Valley’s high-net-worth tech clients about how the new generation of tech millionaires handles its sudden fortune as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic head toward liquidity events. The very scale of wealth has shifted — the average client is […]
links: 17.06.2026
NYT: The Cloud Has Sound: The Unrelenting and Unseen Cost of A.I. Data Centers The “heartbeat” of the AI economy is a low-frequency vibration produced by the giant cooling fans and diesel generators of data centers. The US already has more than 3,000 of them; some residents living nearby, whose health and homes are being wrecked by the […]