DAD SPACE? Is this anything? DAD SPACE??

The AI Great Leap Forward In 1958, Mao ordered every village to produce steel. The steel was useless. The crops rotted. Today's top-down AI mandates are producing the same pattern: ba...

Quite the jeremiad here from the director of machine learning at Moody's, who compares the AI transformation to Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward: "The backyard steel of 1958 looked like steel. It was not steel. Today’s backyard AI looks like AI. It is not AI." leehanchung.github.io/blogs/2026/0...

Japan’s Takaichi Cautions Akazawa Not to Comment Further on BOJ Japan’s trade chief was given a rebuke for making comments related to monetary policy, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi advising him to steer clear of such topics in the future.

A ministerial tiff in Tokyo has spilled into the open as the PM chides her own trade chief for stating the obvious—namely, BOJ hikes can boost the yen and mitigate import inflation. Hints at dissention in the ranks over Japan's monetary/fiscal trajectory www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Leave it to a philosopher to drop the phrase "there you go no buried lede" some 700 words--or roughly a quarter of the way--into an essay. It's a good essay, though. You should read it.

Here’s the story of one of them. Awful www.thestranger.com/forced-out/f...

7-Eleven IPO delay plays into Couche-Tard’s hands - tinyurl.com/mtuw9azf - @hudsonlockett.bsky.social

Bloody hell. Researchers invented a disease, published two fake papers to see if LLM’s would ingest them and kick them up as fact — and then it broke containment and all the major AI’s bought in. Information pollution.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Oh sweet nbd it's not like anything the US needs comes from Asia right??

Breakingviews - Japan’s takeover fears threaten record M&A boom New guidelines ⁠stoked a $400 ​bln deals boom, ​including hostile takeovers and activism at ​a pace ​that’s unnerving officials. The ‌perfectionist ⁠impulse to course correct now risks stymying nascen...

Japan is enjoying a $400bln private equity boom—not an experience popularly associated with PE, but business efficiency is a boon for its rapidly shrinking population. Now wary officials risk stymying a nascent economic revival. My deep dive @breakingviews.reuters.com www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

Breakingviews - Japan’s takeover fears threaten record M&A boom New guidelines ⁠stoked a $400 ​bln deals boom, ​including hostile takeovers and activism at ​a pace ​that’s unnerving officials. The ‌perfectionist ⁠impulse to course correct now risks stymying nascen...

Japan is enjoying a $400bln private equity boom—not an experience popularly associated with PE, but business efficiency is a boon for its rapidly shrinking population. Now wary officials risk stymying a nascent economic revival. My deep dive @breakingviews.reuters.com www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

AP plans staff cuts, restructuring amid broader business shift The Associated Press is restructuring away from hyper-local print coverage and toward video and national topics.

"The Associated Press plans dozens of U.S. staff cuts as part of a broader restructuring away from hyper-local print coverage and toward video and national topics"

7 minutes ago Helene Cooper, Pentagon reporter Trump has concluded speaking after 19 minutes. Nothing new was said tonight. This was a rehash of his Truth Social posts over the past month.

most helpful summary
www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04...

The Anti-Intellectualism of the Silicon Valley Elite How the self-styled know-it-alls atop the knowledge economy want to dismantle the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake

I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and now every time a Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Women's Day, Minus the Women  - Lingua Sinica On the eve of International Women's Day this month, China shut down at least ten WeChat accounts — part of a widening censorship campaign tied to Beijing's push to reverse a record-low birth rate.

On the eve of International Women's Day this month, China shut down at least ten WeChat accounts — part of a widening censorship campaign tied to Beijing's push to reverse a record-low birth rate. lingua-sinica.org/womens-day-m...

For me, this comes with a responsibility to raise awareness about the challenges of being trans in Singapore. So I wrote a short post about my own journey transitioning since 13 years ago, which you can find here: ztangent.github.io/blog/2026/td...

Excellent take. I had read hundreds of these stories but had not realized they are a type of story.

It would appear that the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library will not contain any books.

ICE agents will be stationed outside Marine Corps graduation events in South Carolina As the U.S. continues to fight the war in Iran, the Marine Corps has boosted protection measures on bases, requiring everyone to present REAL IDs, passports or birth certificates to access any sites.

"ICE agents will be stationed outside graduation events for the nation’s newest Marines to identify whether any of their family members are undocumented, according to the Marine Corps."

China is run by socially conservative politicians

Economists Warn That Even Their Friend’s Son Who Went To Business School Can’t Find A Job NEW YORK—Raising the alarm about an increasingly unstable labor market, economists at Columbia University warned in a report published Wednesday that even their friend’s son who went to business schoo...

Economists Warn That Even Their Friend’s Son Who Went To Business School Can’t Find A Job

Sure. How much do you think you should pay me to use my name? It's really important to think about attribution and think about impersonation, and so on. As an expert, you have a trade you make on the internet. The idea is that when you put content out there, myself included, you hope people use it. You want to refer to other people's content. You want people to link to you. You really, really hope they attribute you when they do. When somebody uses your content, should they attribute you? Of course. And to attribute you, you have to use your name. There's a different line which is, should people be able to impersonate you? And I think that is a very different standard. And we saw the lawsuit. Respectfully, we believe the claims are without merit. The idea that the feature is impersonation is quite a big stretch. Every mention was very clearly, "This is inspired not only by this person, but also inspired by a specific work from this specific person, with a clear attributed link to get back to them." It's far from that test lof impersonation].

Here’s my interview with Shishir Mehotra, the CEO behind Grammarly’s “expert review” feature which attributed writing advice to people - including me lol - without permission. Or, as you will hear us talk about a lot, compensation. www.theverge.com/podcast/8987...

I’m happy to share my first book—At the Feet of a War Elephant: Land, Displacement, and Urbanization in Myanmar—is forthcoming with @cornellupress.bsky.social in Mar 2027. It explores the slow violence of urban growth under capitalism and how dispossession is normalized even without formal planning

Andreas and Werner next to a spit with upside down Bambi on it

Ex Libris page from Pentiment with a smiling line drawing of a person in the middle image

Andreas and pink Gernot stand-in talking to Gernot with a jester hat on

Andreas performing the lemon juice candle minigame revealing the words "Guy sux"

Placeholder assets in a game should look obnoxiously temporary, so obvious that no one would mistake it for the final asset. In past games we've used the doge dog (rip) as an icon, hot pink versions of characters, our CEO's head, etc.

If you use a temp asset that seems passable, it may stay there.

[Question] What’s one phrase that, the moment you hear it, tells you exactly what kind of person you’re dealing with?
Mine: “reverse #racism”.

#academia
#academicchatter

So, security cameras. Ineffective battery-powered security cameras that cost $300,000 a pop. The absolute credulousness of this writer: "These systems are able to navigate complex landscapes on their own, alert authorities about security threats, and can provide around-the-clock video surveillance."

Exclusive | Russia Is Sharing Satellite Imagery and Drone Technology With Iran Moscow has expanded intelligence sharing and military cooperation to help keep Tehran in the fight against U.S. and Israeli military might.

Russia has been expanding its intelligence sharing and military cooperation with Iran, providing satellite imagery and improved drone technology to aid Tehran’s targeting of U.S. forces in the region.

www.wsj.com/world/russia...

'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence...We are training our own death. We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.”

Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. Now, they're fighting back.

Half a year in jail! She lost her house and car! Zero consequences for those who had her arrested! Extradited from another state to one she'd never visited! Discharged in summer clothes on Christmas Eve in Fargo! This is what relying on AI does to your legal system!

China has spent years building what policymakers elsewhere are still debating, becoming the world’s largest laboratory for online child protection.

Before embracing similar measures at the cost of adults’ and businesses’ rights, we should ask a basic question: do they work?

The parents in the study were interested in the toy's potential to teach language and communication skills. However, their children frequently struggled to converse with it. Gabbo didn't hear their interruptions, talked over them, could not differentiate between child and adult voices and responded awkwardly to declarations of affection. When one five-year-old said, "I love you," to the toy, it replied: "As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed."

This is so tragic it's actually incredibly funny