C'mon digital ad networks, stop following me around with these retiree ads. I'm only 52!

That feeling when Google autocomplete morphs into a George Saunders story in miniature:

Pretty insane that this single "behind-the-meter" gas power plant for a data center in Texas will have a bigger carbon footprint than the entire country of Jamaica:

This is an excellent piece about the surprising similarities between the U.S. and China in AI race: the winner-take-all divide between AI industry and the "NPCs" who will have our jobs automated away. Also, "AI beef noodle makers?" www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/o...

Thanks to @jessehirsch.bsky.social for shepherding the piece through

"Not every shiny robot is a solution." I talked to farmers, engineers, executives, and food scientists to ask why 18 ag tech startups failed last year - even when the machines did amazing stuff. Please check out the answers and let me know what you think:

THE POCALYPSE NOW - dashare.zone ADMIN

The winds of change are blowing (sorry, still on first cup of coffee)

Truly wild reporting by Antonio Regalado on the hypothetical creation of brainless human "organ sacks" to create replacement organs. "For the moment, [George] Church says, brainless human bodies are “not very useful, in addition to being repulsive.”

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

the types of podcasts: a guide

"Who, exactly, is making all of the solar panels, wind turbines, battery packs, and electric vehicles enabling this transition? In a word: China." www.canarymedia.com/articles/cle... via @danmccarthy.bsky.social 🔌💡

This is crazy and unfair

This actually works.

This IP-theft-as-service play is not going well:

Yes everything is terrible but let’s not lose sight of the fact that someone has written the Headline to End All Headlines.

This is both impressive and scary for anyone trying to stay anonymous online, whether for whistleblowing, political dissidence, or if you just love shit-posting

So what's really driving up electricity prices? Basically everything but renewables, according to LBNL and CATF.

Judge ruled fed gov’t can’t blow up its own agreement to protect salmon by replacing aging hydro equipment w other renewables www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

X's algorithm is in fact doing what you think it's doing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Superwood may sound like a groove band, but it's actually a wood chemically-manipulated to be stronger than steel -- not to mention 6x lighter. As a potential carbon-sequestering replacement for steel, it's the Best of What's New: Engineering in @popsci:

This is really horrific. How is this not litigable?

Why are data centers so thirsty? Fresh water disperses waste heat through evaporation. And to cool power plants that produce electricity through natural gas or coal. Partial mitigation possible through use of solar, wind, or geothermal:

This is bizarre

This is a spirited defense of face-to-face learning and "slow thinking" about physical books in the face of AI fads and the appification of education:

I have a new piece out on biotech companies brewing up alternatives to palm oil in the lab. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

"LLMs are simply tools that emulate the communicative function of language, not the separate and distinct cognitive process of thinking and reasoning, no matter how many data centers we build."

My grad school friend "LT" Rease Miles has put her wisdom, humor, & intellect into "Smart Girl: A First-Gen Origin Story." She's the 1st person in her family to go to college, & she then got a Ph.D. & now mentors other "first gen" students: www.smartgirlbook.com

61 kids, ages 12-18, talk about harvesting produce in California--adults are not protecting them from pesticide exposure, below minimum wage earnings, triple digit temperatures. Proud to serve as fact-checker on Robert J. Lopez's bravura investigation:

I couldn't find the Observer coverage of this incident, but the NYT mentioned it in February 2002:

Hey @nytpitchbot.bsky.social -- I saw this and immediately thought of you...

"Beauty is not just a means of escape; it is, above all, an invocation; When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console but challenges." Pope Leo on why cinema and theaters are worth preserving.

the decision to really just abandon moderation and let it rip suggests that this is what meta wants for its platform. this is the final, idealized form of the product

It is disturbing to see the administration trying to erase the contribution of the roughly one million Black Americans who served in WWW II

Geneticists fear "designer babies" because of the risk of unintended cuts changes that enter the gene pool - also that failures will discredit the "somatic" genetic editing of non-heritable cells for conditions like sickle cell anemia:

Good science lesson here on correlation vs causation. If only I could go back in time to tell my younger self that it wasn't my watching on T.V. that caused my sports teams to be so damn bad.

Regulators investigating 6 cases of Teslas with full-self-driving going full speed through a red light and causing a crash. Sometimes "disruptive" is just bad: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.

It has happened! 200 days of 100% WindWaterSolar on CA's main grid in 2025 Including a record battery output of 47.69 GWh on 10/17 Gas down 18.5% v '24 & 37.2% v '23 PV up 14.6% v '24 & 43.5% v '23 Batteries up 56.8% v '24 & 202.7% v '23 Demand down 2.1% v '24 & 1.3% v '23

Reporting this piece drove home the value of generational turnover in politics. There's an energy that a 50-something Congressperson brings -- to jump in a car and track down their missing constituents -- that even an equally-well-meaning octogenarian is unlikely to match:

An actually hopeful climate story -- when you put time and money into cleaning up a polluted river...

This is a good take on why Open AI is stealing art and music under the banner of "fair use"

(solemnly) You've had mail.

cursed headline

Paul Kingsworth compares Silicon Valley technoutopians to the bloody cult of reason during the French Revolution. It's the Burkean conservative question: what fills the power vacuum when you dispense with the world people know? harpers.org/archive/...

As someone who once wrote a master's essay on Beckett, let me just say THIS IS MOST TRIUMPHANT www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/t...

Breaking: Record 380 GW solar PV installed globally first half 2025, 64% higher than first half of 2024 (232 GW) and only 13% less than all of 2023 (438 GW) China installed 67% (256 GW) India 6.3% (24 GW) US 5.5% (21 GW) Brazil and Germany 1.3% (7 GW) ember-energy.org/latest-updat...

Having read a lot of R.W. Emerson and the primacy of the individual conscience, I shudder to think what he would say about ministers using algorithms to data-mine their congregation: www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/19/1...

❌ NO CLANKERS ❌