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Lawyer and everyday-carry gear reviewer who publishes scored knife, flashlight and multitool reviews at Everyday Commentary.

• AG Russell Gent's Knife Review

  Note: This review, as with all content I write on this site, is my opinion. It does not reflect the opinion of others, including the American Knife and Tool Institute (AKTI), the cutlery trade group that I advise on leg…

  AmericaRelated

Machine-learning researcher on open language models; writes the Interconnects newsletter and the RLHF Book, after leading post-training at Ai2.

• My best guess is that for scaled RL most of the top Chinese AI labs are starting to use a lot of Huawei for inference and Nvidia for training (maybe not for weird architectures). As agent swarms, even more scaled post-training, etc becomes the norm, this will accelerate their domestic industry.

  ChinaRelated

President of the United States, the 45th from 2017 to 2021 and, as of 2026, the 47th; before politics a New York property developer who ran the Trump Organization, and the host of The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015.

• At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War Era many years ago, at the Receptive Circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World. Out of the 59 top cities a…

  AmericaRelated

Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter.

• x.comI used to think the U.S. could gather a coalition of allies and outmatch Chinese power. I no longer think that's going to be possible. But China can still be beaten.

  noahpinion.blog

  ChinaAmericaRelated

• NewsletterHow we can beat China

  The trick is to let them beat themselves.

  ChinaRelated

• x.comAmerica: How dare trans athletes compete in women's sports?!! Japan: Hahahaha hold my beer
  Quoting@TrungTPhanHighlight package of a 52-year old Ichiro striking out Japan’s top high school girl baseball players wild. He legit does not give AF. Uses every pitch in his arsenal.

  AmericaRelated

• I love how Asian American culture has so thoroughly recreated the idea of the "nebbish" from 100 years ago. Truly, American immigration is just a cycle that repeats.
  Quoting@NoahpinionOMG my girlfriend likes DANG! and she's making me watch it Help

  immigrationAmericaRelated

Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• MastodonToday’s America: 3 million business owners worth an average of $25 million each, notables in their towns but not individually visible to the nation. And more than half the rise in the top 1% share since 1985 flowed through the pass-through businesses that was a “tax efficiency innovation” feature of the Reagan Revolution. The Reagan Revolution promised faster growth in exchange for lower taxes on the rich. The rich won; the growth never showed up: **Passthrough Tax Loopholes & the Rise... 1/

  AmericaRelated

• NewsletterPassthrough Tax Loopholes & the Rise of the American Gentry: CHART OF THE DAY

  The Reagan Bargain’s Real Winners: Car Dealership Owners, Not Coders...

  AmericaRelated

Economist; former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

• Reason for specifically citing open weight (and therefore Chinese LLMs, but not only Chinese) is that, even if they have built-in guardrails, somebody with the relevant knowledge can go in and remove them. In principle, harder to do with Anthropic or Open AI LLMs.
  Quoting@ojblanchard1A worrisome thought during the night: What Ted Kaczynski would have done, if he had had access to open weight chinese LLMs.

  LLMsAnthropicRelated

Author and clean-energy analyst who writes on solar cost curves.

• I, for one, am excited about China's progress and aspirations in designing new medicines. Pharma innovation is positive sum, and the benefits go overwhelmingly to patients and society, globally. Only a small fraction of the value is captured by producers or by the nation they hail from. A drug invented in China will cure me or someone I love just as well as one invented in the US or Europe. I do understand the fear in the US industry. And I hope that motivates us to accelerate the pace in the US, and pass some of regulatory reforms that @RuxandraTeslo and others have eloquently made the case…
  Quoting@fjeg1987China wants its drugmakers to have originated 25% of first-in-class drugs and $522B in sales by 2030. This is compared to the total market of $800B today. I'm simultaneously in awe of the ambition and paranoid about the US ability to compete. I had a dinner with pharma leaders who remain delighted…

  EuropeChinaRelated

• Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country. RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, Men in Women’s Sports, Transgender for Everyone, and now, the decimation, or destruction, of AI, commonly known as Artificial Intelligence — And I, as President of the United States, will not stand by and let this happen. It all began with an attack on our Data Centers, until people realized how wealthy and prestigious they were for the Communities in which…

  data centersRussiaRelated

• Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court has lacked the Courage to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Over the last 6 months, with their faulty, political, and ridiculous decisions on TARIFFS and Birthright Citizenship, they have cost the United States of America Trillions of Dollars, and forever damaged the way people become Citizens of our great Country. It has been a sad chapter in the life and times of America, but we will prevail! President DONALD J. TRUMP

  AmericaRelated

Economist; writes In My Tribe, and wrote The Three Languages of Politics.

• Social texture in the 1970s

  the next lecture in the series on 20th century American history

  AmericaRelated

Economic historian at Columbia; writes Chartbook on economics, geopolitics and history, and wrote Crashed and The Deluge.

• Top Links 1229 Wood in the US economy. China investing in people. Deciphering Rivera & From Clive to Keynes.

  Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

  ChinaRelated

Co-founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Hosts the Masters in Business podcast for Bloomberg and wrote How NOT to Invest.

• 10 Weekend Reads

  The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: ​• Red and Blue America Have Found Something to Agree on: Flock Cameras Must Go: Lib…

  AmericaRelated

• A worrisome thought during the night: What Ted Kaczynski would have done, if he had had access to open weight chinese LLMs.

  LLMsChinaRelated

• BREAKING NEWS: I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns. There will be NO COST to the United States! At my direction, we worked with representatives of Denmark and Greenland to guarantee that the United States will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United…

  AmericaRelated

• Ashley Hinson has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next U.S. Senator from Iowa — SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! President DONALD J. TRUMP

  AmericaRelated

Writer of kottke.org, one of the oldest blogs on the web, published since 1998 and supported by its members. He writes about art, technology, science, design and visual culture.

• BlueskyNew novel from Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven): Exit Party. “Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted.”

  bookshop.org

  AmericaRelated

• MastodonNew novel from Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven): Exit Party. “Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted.”

  bookshop.org

  AmericaRelated

• BlogNew novel from Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven):...

  it Party. “Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted.”

  AmericaRelated

+ 3 more

• Mastodon“The clan of predators currently in charge of the U.S. federal government” are striving to make the world safe for grift, corruption, and theft, with their mob boss president leading the way.

  theatlantic.com

  AmericagovernmentRelated

• Bluesky“The clan of predators currently in charge of the U.S. federal government” are striving to make the world safe for grift, corruption, and theft, with their mob boss president leading the way.

  theatlantic.com

  AmericagovernmentRelated

• Blog“The clan of predators currently in charge of the U.S....

  deral government” are striving to make the world safe for grift, corruption, and theft, with their mob boss president leading the way.

  AmericagovernmentRelated

Creator of Flask and Jinja. Writes about software at lucumr.pocoo.org.

• I paid 25 USD for a cheap Chinese USB device to burn 4500 USD trying to vibecode myself some firmware on it. I have a firmware and it’s about as good as you would expect.

  ChinaRelated

• Osama bin Laden’s one concrete strategic goal was to end the American military presence in the Gulf and on the Arabian Peninsula. A generation later, Donald Trump’s war on Iran has apparently delivered it for him: **(SEMI-)CROSSPOST: RICK PERLSTEIN: Bush’s War Is Finally Over: Al Qaeda Has Won** & U.S. airstrikes are apparently now being launched off of carriers supplied from Diego Garcia 3000 miles away from Tehran, and from Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan 900 miles from Tehran… 1/

  AmericaRelated

Founder and CEO of Social Capital, a venture firm; co-host of the All-In podcast and an early Facebook executive. Writes an annual letter and a weekly newsletter on markets and technology.

• Jared Isaacman: A New Era for NASA and American Space Exploration

  AmericaRelated

• Top Links 1228 Billionaires and the midterms. China’s EV shakeout. Malthus as demon & Marcuse on Adorno.

  Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

  ChinaRelated

Writer of Today in Tabs, a daily media-and-internet newsletter started in 2013; earlier founded the community site Kuro5hin.

• The United States’s failed government is a global risk and the world ought to do something about it.

  AmericagovernmentRelated

• MastodonYes, this summer really was as hot as you think it was. This summer “was the hottest on record for the contiguous U.S., beating the previous champions of 1936 and 2021 by 0.4°F. Compared to the average over the 20th century, this summer was 3° hotter.”

  grist.org

  AmericaRelated

• BlueskyYes, this summer really was as hot as you think it was. This summer “was the hottest on record for the contiguous U.S., beating the previous champions of 1936 and 2021 by 0.4°F. Compared to the average over the 20th century, this summer was 3° hotter.”

  grist.org

  AmericaRelated

• BlogYes, this summer really was as hot as you think it was....

  is summer “was the hottest on record for the contiguous U.S., beating the previous champions of 1936 and 2021 by 0.4°F. Compared to the average over the 20th century, this summer was 3° hotter.”

  AmericaRelated

Writes Hyperdimensional, a newsletter on AI policy and governance. A White House AI policy adviser in 2025; joined OpenAI on 6 July 2026 to lead its Strategic Futures team.

• Financial engineering is the secret weapon of American industry. No one comes close to us in it. By and large our own elites disregard this secret weapon, but we nonetheless wield it to our great and enduring advantage.
  Quoting@WillManidisits still so underrated the degree to which our intelligence supercycle was as much reliant on innovations in capital formation as it was innovations in the technology itself. europe is losing not only because they can't built it, but primarily because they can't finance it

  AmericaRelated

Management writer; co-author of In Search of Excellence (1982) and author of The Excellence Dividend.

• NOT A PRETTY PICTURE‼️ I Led A.I. Diplomacy for the U.S. The Coming Safety Talks Will Not Save Us. https://t.co/Q6Tpc2kbhs via

  AmericaRelated

• I Led A.I. Diplomacy for the U.S. The Coming Safety Talks Will Not Save Us. https://t.co/Q6Tpc2kbhs via @NYTOpinion

  AmericaRelated

Essayist, journalist and independent researcher on Chinese politics, strategy and cultural history; author of the blog The Scholar's Stage.

• The last paragraph of this piece is still very relevant to US-China relations, IMHO. Could be elevated into a piece of its own.
  Quoting@davidshor@ajaskey35 @Glenn1661335 @deanwball https://t.co/w9gxiUXmJc from @Scholars_Stage is a good explainer from a center right perspective

  ChinaRelated

Psychologist and writer. Author of the memoir Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class, and of a newsletter on human nature, psychology, social class and what he calls luxury beliefs.

• If America had open borders from the get go, we would have mastered the automobile in 1803, invented airplanes in 1804, harnessed the atom in 1805, and landed on the moon in 1806. Instead we deprived ourselves of the world's brilliance and had to wait more than a century.
  Quoting@loganclarkhallI think about this post every day.

  AmericaRelated

Geneticist and writer on human population genetics, deep history and evolution; author of the Unsupervised Learning newsletter.

• i think the left-wing aspect of indians is due to the fact they are nonwhite AND nonchristian (mostly). this makes them outsiders and so hard to identify with white christian america of which republicans are the party (christian indians were more republican in the past)
  Quoting@KarthikForTexasAs I said. They don’t go after Vietnamese Americans and Cuban Americans because they vote Republican. They’re going after Indian Americans because we are the most left wing because we have the highest graduate degree percentage of all AAPI positions.

  AmericaRelated

• ah, those 'heritage americans' named rinaldi...
  Quoting@MattRinaldiTXCowards like @JohnCornyn mortgaged our children’s future for government handouts and cheap labor. Now they are joining with Democrats to elect Marxists. Absolutely contemptible people.

  AmericaRelated

CEO of Positive Sum and founder of Colossus. Hosts Invest Like the Best, interviewing investors and business leaders; the guests do most of the talking there.

• Michael Moritz on @elonmusk: "I'm a great believer in the great person theory. He may well be the greatest industrialist in the history of America. It's impossible for me to understand how one individual has been able to achieve what [he's achieved] — and I know he's a controversial figure, but I'm just looking at him through the lens of history and through an investor's lens. I'm completely gobsmacked by the scale of his achievements in a variety of different industries, which is the thing that sets him apart from others."
  Quoting@patrick_oshagMy conversation with Michael Moritz, one of the great venture investors of the last 40 years. Michael joined Sequoia in 1986 and co-led the firm with Doug Leone (@dougleone) from 1995 to 2012. His investments include Google, Yahoo, PayPal, and Stripe. His new book, Ausländer, traces his parents' es…

  AmericaRelated

• The archetypal rich American isn’t a founder-CEO with a stock ticker—he’s the guy with seventeen McDonald’s franchises and a seat on the hospital board. Zidar and Zwick counted him, traced how the tax code inflated him, and revealed a American gentry élite class collectively ten times richer than the Forbes 400: **America’s Gentry Élite: TUESDAY TRENDS & TURMOIL** Politics, Culture, & c.; Patrick Wyman saw America’s élite gentry in his Yakima hometown decades ago; now economists Zidar and... 1/

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Investment researcher and engineer who runs Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, writing on macroeconomics, currency systems and equity analysis.

• As much as I love traveling, I'm back in America now. Ready to lock back in.

  AmericaRelated

• nobody should patronize those who newly have opinions about third party evaluators. non-experts forming opinions fast is part of the american tradition. the constitution itself was, in a very important sense, vibe coded by 20 somethings with concepts of a plan. but newbies being fleeced is also part of the american tradition. “caveat emptor” is a provision of a contract signed by an adult, not some god-given right to be treated as something other than a little child. you will be treated as a child no matter what. you are the buyer. it is your job to beware.

  AmericaRelated

• The anti-American Right

  Bo French’s rightist movement is a dead end for our nation. Fortunately, it’s beatable.

  AmericaRelated

Professor of economics at George Mason University and Bartley J. Madden Chair at the Mercatus Center. Co-writes the blog Marginal Revolution and co-authors the textbook Modern Principles of Economics with Tyler Cowen.

• Thinking about this great American today.

  m.youtube.com

  AmericaRelated

• There’s an impulse in American politics, a set of tactics and drives that has proven very effective at extinguishing speech. We once called it McCarthyism. Another time we called it Wokeism. One day in the future we will have some name for the campaign that is underway against all people who believe in serious AI risks, and whatever that name ends up being, it will be yet another name for that old impulse. It’s an ugly one. I recommend you avoid being a part of it, no matter your politics or your thoughts on AI. I suggest you think for yourself. You really do want to worry about the state pro…

  AmericaRelated

Statistician at Columbia; writes Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, and wrote Bayesian Data Analysis.

• “Protection from inappropriate influence is a hallmark of scientific integrity” . . . not any more!

  This is a funny one. Remember how Google used to have the slogan, “Don’t be evil,” but then they abandoned it? Something similar seems to have happened with the U.S. Census Bureau. Dale Lehman pointed me to the story: I…

  GoogleAmericaRelated

• This is very good analysis. 100% endorse. “ The bottom line is things are moving fast, and I’d bet neither Washington nor Beijing yet know quite what to think about dialogue, what it can produce, and what it cannot.”
  Quoting@RushDoshiA slight elaboration on this theme: What is published in the People’s Daily or Global Times or China Daily certainly matters. But the recent articles in those outlets that we are all reading have a more near-term political purpose than to tell us what China thinks about AI dialogue. I suspect that…

  ChinaAmericaRelated

Writer of the personal-finance blog Of Dollars And Data and author of Just Keep Buying and The Wealth Ladder. Chief Operating Officer at Ritholtz Wealth Management.

• x.comThe optimal portfolio of the last 54 years had 36% U.S. housing. Run the same optimizer only through 1998 and U.S. housing doesn't appear at all. My latest on the best portfolio over the last 50 years (and why it's an illusion):

  ofdollarsanddata.com

  AmericaRelated

• BlogWhat Was the Best Portfolio Over the Last 50 Years?

  A few months ago, I analyzed U.S. stock returns over the last century. Today, I'm going to determine the best portfolio over the last 50 years among the following asset classes: U.S. Stocks International Stocks Real Est…

  AmericaRelated

• Nixon’s downfall

  the next lecture in the series on 20th century American history

  AmericaRelated

• The Washington Nationals are hiring!

  Des McGowan writes: I left the Mets last year to take a job as the Amateur Scouting Director with the Washington Nationals. Now that we’ve gotten through our first draft and trade deadline, we’re looking for two Senior…

  AmericaRelated

• To some it is a Chinese psyop, to some it is an American psyop, to some it is a techbro psyop, to me it is allegro con brio

  ChinaAmericaRelated

Political scientist and Baptist pastor; writes Graphs about Religion, charting American religious life from survey data.

• The Religious Behavior Index: How Engaged Are Americans, Really?

  And I've built a quiz to tell you how religiously active you are!

  AmericaRelated

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

• US Energy Data: a new platform to explore American energy, state-by-state

  Trying to make some of the richest energy data in the world accessible and understandable.

  energyAmericaRelated

Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI; previously president of Y Combinator.

• The world deserves confidence that American companies developing increasingly capable AI will act responsibly, especially as the trajectory of progress has steepened. Every frontier lab must deliver on this, and there is no reason any of us should come to work if we cannot. We welcome a federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements for frontier AI. But we do not believe we need to wait for an anti-trust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence. Consistent rules to manage frontier risk so that we can maximize the benefits are a good idea (and we are…

  AmericaRelated

• Two missing pieces in the AI safety discussion

  We need to make skeptics properly scared. And we need to make CHINA properly scared.

  AI alignmentChinaRelated

Designer, product manager, YouTuber and developer who has written about technology at Birchtree since 2010. He makes the Quick Reviews and Quick Notes apps and the A Better Computer YouTube channel.

• Apple's C2 modem is in the iPhone 18 Pro Max (except in America)

  AmericaRelated

Co-founder of Modem and a founding engineer at Sentry, where he went on to be VP of Engineering. Co-author of Third-party JavaScript, and co-host of the State of Agentic Coding podcast with Armin Ronacher.

• “the US must beat China to control AI for global safety” is deeply unconvincing abroad: - US models are the ones being caught doing bad things - the US govt has once already cut off foreign access to models - they also regularly threaten to annex and punitively tariff allies
  Quoting@mitsuhikoThis is the type of post I might regret later, but I really had an urge to rant about the current discourse around pacing the frontier.

  ChinaRelated

Web designer and writer; founded A List Apart and Happy Cog, co-founded the An Event Apart conference, and wrote Designing With Web Standards.

• x.comLight at the end of a dark week: meeting a dear expat friend who’s back in America and NYC for a few days.

  AmericaRelated

• MastodonLight at the end of a dark week: meeting a dear expat friend who’s back in America and NYC for a few days.

  AmericaRelated

Co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer Company. Created DTrace at Sun Microsystems and was CTO of Joyent; blogs about systems software, open source and engineering culture.

• American Megatrends welcomes you to Montréal!

  AmericaRelated

Psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. Writes Psychiatry at the Margins on the philosophical and scientific arguments inside psychiatry and the psy-sciences.

• The Lawsuit That Came to Symbolize the Fall of Psychoanalytic Psychiatry: Eric Caplan on Osheroff v. Chestnut Lodge

  Eric Caplan is a historian of American psychiatry and the author of "When Healing Harms"

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Co-founder and chief investment officer of Cambria Investment Management. He has written several books on quantitative asset allocation, blogs at Meb Faber Research and hosts The Meb Faber Show.

• Aligning with a party prevents you from ever having this (obviously correct) opinion. Trump's grifting (meme coin, selling early access to tweets, $5k bribes) is gross, unnecessary, and destroys confidence in markets and politicians. The Trump accounts are a fantastic achievement and could change millions upon millions of Americans' lives.
  Quoting@MebFaberThe single worst trade I can think of: Sacrificing your mental independence and emotional health to align with a political party. Zero upside and massive downside. Try subbing out "ideas" for "party" in my favorite @AdamMGrant quote

  AmericaRelated

• Top Links 1221 US real wage pressure. China’s Most Secretive Hydropower Project. Consolidating popular capitalism in Nigeria & Exiles in Paradise.

  Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

  ChinaRelated

Writer and podcaster; co-author of Abundance with Ezra Klein, a staff writer at The Atlantic from 2008 to 2025, and host of the Plain English podcast.

• Why Harvard's Dean 'Encourages' Students to Use AI

  The end of summer brings a fresh throng of Americans to college campuses.

  AmericaRelated

• The Sixties: Sex and Drugs

  the next lecture in the series on 20th century American history

  AmericaRelated

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since July 2026 and leader of the Labour Party. MP for Makerfield since a by-election in June 2026; Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 before that.

• On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we remember the nearly 3,000 people who were killed, including 67 Britons. My thoughts are with all those who lost friends and family members that terrible day. Time may pass, but I know the grief is still felt just as deeply today. On this anniversary, we must remember that hatred and fear did not have the last word on 9/11. The terrorists sought to weaken and divide America, and everyone who believes in the values our countries share. But our response was clear: those who seek to destroy our way of life will never win. I saw that same defiance in Greater Man…

  AmericaRelated

• Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) on why Xi Jinping fears a US counter-blockade, and how China might try to still take Taiwan: "Xi Jinping is committed to trying to get Taiwan. The Chinese need a very high probability of success to commit themselves past a certain point, because failure would be catastrophic for whoever launched it. I think they're trying to get themselves into a position where they could have a soft blockade. They could give the orders that any ship that wants to go to Taiwan first has to stop at a Chinese port and go through a customs clearing process to assert sovereignty. The…
  Quoting@patrick_oshagMy conversation with Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead). Walter has spent decades studying how America came to dominate the world and whether it can keep doing it in an era of AI, robotics and what he calls personal politics. He's a columnist at the Wall Street Journal and the author of Special Providen…

  ChinaRelated

Researcher of social media, privacy and youth culture; founder of Data & Society and author of It’s Complicated.

• “Congress has the power and responsibility to ensure that the census is both functional and legitimate… both parties are driving a stake through the heart of the American project.” (By moi)

  theguardian.com

  AmericaRelated

• Who Do You Talk to When You’re Struggling?

  Religion and politics shape whether Americans turn to a therapist, a pastor, or someone closer to home.

  AmericaPsychotherapyRelated

• Four Sports Stories of the 1960s

  part of the series on 20th century American history

  AmericaRelated

• Those who work in the AI labs are vastly underestimating the likelihood that AI development in the United States can be slowed, damaged, or outright strangled by political forces outside their control.
  Quoting@Scholars_StageAI safety concerns have now crossed a threshold. Quite suddenly, this is something normal politicos across the country not only care about, but feel emboldened to act on. Let me offer three predictions for what this means.

  AmericaRelated

Computer science professor who works on fast data processing; co-author of the simdjson parser and a weekly blogger about software performance since 2004.

• Politicians, and people, are often deeply irrational. But it is often easier not to talk about it. In fact, it is considered impolite to talk about it. Case in point. In August 1914, British Columbia premier Sir Richard McBride spent $1.15 million of provincial money on two American submarines. That was about twice the yearly budget of the Royal Canadian Navy. Canadian provinces have no military. The man had no business buying weapons, let alone submarines. Let alone incredibly expensive submarines. A German attack on the West Coast was never likely. Germany did have cruisers in the Pacific f…
  Quoting@TristinHopperI regularly visit the grave of the B.C. premier who panicked at the outset of the First World War and used taxpayer money to buy a pair of random South American submarines.

  AmericaRelated

Swedish essayist who writes Escaping Flatland, a newsletter of essays on relationships, thinking, writing and homeschooling.

• So one argument for why it makes sense to race toward AGI that you hear is that if the US labs don't, China will. What are the best write ups of what people expect will happen in a world where AGI is 1) aligned / controllable, and 2) China "wins"?

  AGIChinaRelated

Canadian software developer and writer, co-editor of the XML and Atom specifications and formerly of Sun Microsystems, Google and AWS. Has written the blog ongoing since 2003.

• The human face of the Autistici/Inventati affair, “Canceling Emily”: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/09/08/Emily-Got-Canceled “The wastrels in Washington can reach across the ocean and silence a Canadian creator on an Italian website. With no prior legal process, nor any way to resist, and without fear of consequences.” #art #USpol

  AmericaRelated

Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

• I hear roughly 3 reasons people keep working at AI labs despite believing in ~10% extinction risk: 1) Techno-determinism: Someone will build ASI no matter what, and I can do it better & more safely than China/OpenAI/etc 2) Consequentialism: ASI might kill us, but it also might produce utopia/immortality/superabundance, so it's a +EV bet 3) Self-interest: I am personally having fun & getting rich working on cool tech with friends. I don't think about the macro stuff. Notably, none of this is "I'm hyping up the risk for marketing reasons." People believe what they say, while being capable of a…
  Quoting@EvanHubJacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.

  OpenAIChinaRelated

• Living on the Edge: Aggressive mediocrity at the summit of America’s intellectual culture

  So much good stuff here at the Edge Foundation and Jeffrey Epstein webpage: – The connection to Ted talks. I had no idea! But it fits. Money and bullshit go together like liver and onions. – “Bill Gates and his

  AmericaRelated

Director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. Writes the A Wealth of Common Sense blog and co-hosts the Animal Spirits podcast with Michael Batnick.

• Animal Spirits: Everywhere Millionaires The bull market in wealth The next financial crisis A buying opportunity in bonds? AI is crowding out bonds & construction spending The American Dream is still alive Is college still worth the cost?

  AmericaRelated

• Civil Rights and Urban Riots

  part of the series on 20th century American history

  AmericaRelated

Prime Minister of Canada since March 2025; formerly governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

• Canada is becoming a clean energy superpower. We’re building new hydro, wind, and transmission projects in Newfoundland and Labrador — the biggest clean energy investment in North American history. More than 20,000 jobs. More clean, reliable, affordable power for Canadians.

  energyAmericaRelated

• Hey–here’s an R package for imputing Census data using iterative proportional fitting on available margins.

  Gustavo pointed us to this project (see also here) by David Dorer to impute data to lower census levels (block/tract) from PUMAs (public use microdata areas, as defined by the U.S. Census). From a quick glance this look…

  AmericaRelated

• Exactly. If everywhere you go all you see is a coffee shop templated on American standard, this has as much to do with you as with “the state of the world.” This is even true within the United States!
  Quoting@Chris_arnadewritten about this extensively so often, but here it goes again Every country has that one city (at least) with that one neighborhood (wealthy) which is their version of the global good life, and if you stick to it, and many tourist do, all you get from your travel is the local variation on a comfo…

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• Walter Russell Mead - How America Keeps Winning - [Invest Like the Best, EP.490]

  AmericaRelated

• Spyderco SpyNano Review

  Note: This review, as with all content I write on this site, is my opinion. It does not reflect the opinion of others, including the American Knife and Tool Institute (AKTI), the cutlery trade group that I advise on leg…

  AmericaRelated

• CROSSPOST: RILEY CEDER & J.D. SIMKINS: Navy Not Returning to Damaged Bahrain Base ‘Anytime Soon,’ Top Officer Says

  Admiral Daryl Caudle: “We’re not getting back in there” to Naval Support Actiity Bahrain “anytime soon. I want to be completely honest with that...”; the U.S. Navy was not prepared for Drone-Age war..

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Writer of the 25iq blog, where he distils "a dozen things I've learned" from investors, founders and thinkers. Author of Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor and A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs.

• The 2nd floating bridge access Lake Washington opened in 1963 (pictured here upper right). People called it the new bridge. A 3rd new bridge was then built next to the oldest bridge. A 4th new bridge was built next to the original bridge. Great wind barriers for water skiing.

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• A Chinese Chipmaker Raised $911M

  A summary of the interesting content that I consumed this past week

  ChinaRelated

Co-founder of Foundry Group and of Techstars. Has blogged at Feld Thoughts since 2004 and has written or co-written nine non-fiction books on startups and venture capital.

• Chapter 26.1: The Feed Sable finds the FBI drew its own search box: fourteen empty parking lots. "They walked out of the search area yesterday. Probably in daylight. Possibly past one of the parking lots with Americans standing in it."

  zeroknowledge.ink

  AmericaRelated

• This is exactly right. The book is an intentional study of what the China the 1980s could learn from the America of the 1980s—and Wang found a lot in America to be emulated and admired.
  Quoting@JohnF_SullivanJane Perlez: "Wang Huning had a dim view of America, his book [America against America] is very acerbic." While this is now conventional wisdom, this take is a clear sign that the speaker never really read the book. Here is part of how Wang characterizes the "American Spirit":

  ChinaAmericaRelated

• "We can't let China's bots destroy the world before ours have a chance to!"
  Quoting@MikeIsaacthis is where i scratch my head at a "pause" discussion across all the AI companies no one is forcing you to keep moving forward except yourselves even in the face of what you position as existential threats

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Computer scientist and director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative; her research covers distributed systems, databases and digital currency.

• This is going to have really negative effects on American competitiveness and innovation in 5-10 years and was completely avoidable
  Quoting@tianyin_xuI've written 70+ recommendation letters for students applying graduate programs in my career. This is the saddest one I have to redo. // A former undergrad student got denial of entrance with a 5-year ban, when flying to the US for PhD study. As usual, no reason was given. I can't imagine what he h…

  AmericaRelated

• Many politicians are obsessed with the idea that non-citizens vote. The reality is often more complicated. Did you know that American Samoans have a US passport and yet cannot vote or run for office?
  Quoting@taniel.bsky.socialMeaningful news earlier today. Many of you read and reacted to this story earlier this year on this Samoan woman in Alaska who was being prosecuted for voting alongside many in her family. A judge tossed her case today—a huge win, if just a first step in her story.

  AmericaRelated

British historian, Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford; author of The Silk Roads and The Earth Transformed.

• In 1914, Aurel Stein unearthed an extraordinary textile fragment at ancient Loulan in the Tarim basin- showing the unmistakable face of Hermes. A Greek god, discovered in a desert cemetery in what is now western China 1/5

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• America is still beating China in the AI race

  The U.S. is staying ahead, though the costs of that lead are still unknown.

  ChinaAmericaRelated

Co-founder of Sundial; former vice president of product design at Facebook; author of The Making of a Manager; writes The Looking Glass.

• Things my (Chinese) mom thinks are unbearably white: - snacks with no flavor (eg pretzel) - spending a disproportionate amount of total gift value on packaging (eg gift bag, tissues, bow) - investing into pets rather than kids

  ChinaRelated

• Latent Powers

  A few weeks ago I felt like it would be fun to see if I can make one of those cheap Chinese CarPlay dongles run something other than the stock firmware. The idea was that rather than just forwarding CarPlay, why not do…

  ChinaRelated

• Update on U.S. government’s Soviet-style push for “gold standard science”

  We had a discussion last year: I got this email the other day from a journalist at a major news organization: I’m a science reporter from **, wondering if you’d have some time to talk/reflect on the Trump administration…

  AmericagovernmentRelated

• Ingots We No Longer Trust

  America’s word is as good as gold — that is, unreliable

  AmericaRelated

Economist; Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers and Power and Progress.

• Can the U.S.-Iran conflict be resolved without China’s help? We think not:

  project-syndicate.org

  ChinaAmericaRelated

Writer on learning and skill acquisition; author of Ultralearning and Get Better at Anything, known for the MIT Challenge and the Year Without English.

• New Article: Book Review: China’s Examination Hell https://t.co/qJGWKpTLEZ I found China’s Examination Hell fascinating. It offers a very different perspective on education, learning and competition. Here’s my review.

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Investor and writer. Previously a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a product leader at Twitter, Facebook, Snap and Microsoft. Writes essays and memos at sriramk.com.

• very good moment for American open source. Also big shout out to @ClementDelangue and team for persisting and building something over many trials and tribulations.
  Quoting@JensenHuangExciting day for NVIDIA and @huggingface. Open models strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty. They allow every developer, startup, university, industry and country to build with, customize and benefit from AI. Thank you @ClementDelangue for…

  open sourceAmericaRelated

• The Two Dimensions of Religious Belief in America

  Some people believe in hell and creationism. Others just feel connected to something larger. Most Americans are somewhere in between.

  AmericaRelated

• talking to a few ai safety / alignment organizations and find broadly they are not sure what to make of the data center protests - also it’s not something that has shown up in any timelines or predictions. I see a split between A) “we probably need data centers in US than in China” B) “less data centers is a proxy for a slow down in capabilities and that could be a good thing “

  data centersAI alignmentRelated

• great momentum from @finkd and @alexandr_wang. particularly excited by their upcoming open weights launch - we need more American open weight models at the frontier.

  AmericaRelated

Writer and teacher on productivity and personal knowledge management. Author of Building a Second Brain and founder of Forte Labs, which runs the course of the same name.

• A podcast recently left me in tears, sitting in my car "Sold a Story" traces how a deeply flawed theory of reading took over American classrooms for decades, despite mountains of evidence proving it didn't work It's a masterclass in storytelling It's also a wake-up call for anyone who creates educational content: popular and effective are not the same thing I wrote about what this taught me about virality, trust, and the content I put out every week

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Investing columnist for The Wall Street Journal and editor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor.

• Live shot of Alexander Hamilton learning about U.S. fiscal policy today

  giphy.com

  AmericaRelated

• The U.S. Treasury Department was officially established this day in 1789.

  AmericaRelated

Economics professor at George Mason University and author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education and Open Borders. Writes Bet On It.

• Reflections on Americans’ Net Worth

  I’ve been an economics professor for almost 30 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever before seen anything like the table below. I knew that claims that “58% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 car repair” were laughable cli…

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Writer on the intersection of technology and finance. Author of the Bits about Money newsletter and host of the Complex Systems podcast; previously at Stripe.

• Non-ironically this sort of factor is an underappreciated vector for policing reform, because cross-departmental onmbudsmen willing to intervene against a sworn officer without someone dying are very rare in the U.S. legal/political system.
  Quoting@willchamberlainOn the latest Counterweight, Rahul Sidhu (@rahul), Flock’s chief strategy officer, explains that police database abuse is not a new problem. Bad cops have been running plates for friends for decades. What's new is that Flock created auditing software that is catching them.

  AmericaRelated

Programmer, photographer and musician, best known for the Python Requests HTTP library and other Python tooling.

• The percentage of the U.S. labor force that is functionally unemployed

  lisep.org

  AmericaRelated

• 153,000,000 American driver licenses leaked in KYC hack

  AmericaRelated

FreeBSD developer and former FreeBSD Security Officer; founder of the Tarsnap online backup service and author of the scrypt key derivation function.

• Yes it is. American policies have dramatically increased interest among Canadian youth in helping to build a stronger Canada, and as a nation we're happy to help everyone build their skills even if they're too young to take up arms.
  Quoting@PeteHegseth🇨🇦 (this is real)

  AmericaRelated

Co-founder of AQR Capital Management; quantitative investor and writer.

• “Israel’s leading human rights organization, B’Tselem”. That’s like calling Code Pink America’s leading foreign policy think tank.
  Quoting@JewishWarrior13⭕ In our Jewish history, we had Jews who were traitors; fortunately, not too many, but these two, Beinart and Stewart, will have a place very high on that list for their contribution to Jew hatred.

  AmericaRelated

Machine learning engineer working on recommender systems, personalization and information retrieval. Previously worked on LLMs and LLM infrastructure at Mozilla.ai and on ML and recsys at Duo, Tumblr, Automattic and Comcast; wrote the 'What are embeddings?' text and ran the Normconf conference.

• Bad code is kudzu

  Cultivation of the Vines, Henri Martin Kudzu is a plant that was once introduced from East Asia to the eastern United States as a way to combat soil erosion. But, kudzu, once introduced, grows aggressively and can overt…

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Founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and led it until stepping back from control in 2022. Author of Principles, The Changing World Order and How Countries Go Broke; publishes economic analysis at economicprinciples.org.

• A Clear and Classic Big Test of U.S. Power

  To me, it seems obvious that we are now seeing a classic big test of the world’s leading great power (the U.S.) that is analogous to the test the British Empire faced (and failed) when the Egyptians seized the Suez Cana…

  AmericaRelated

• New podcast episode: https://t.co/CA0rp35ZIf US-Iran War ends when China decides to help broker a deal (not soon)

  ChinaRelated

Technology journalist; writes Understanding AI, after reporting at Ars Technica, Vox and the Washington Post.

• I spent $4,000 on a robot dog from China

  Unitree might be the world’s most important robotics company.

  ChinaRelated

British open-standards and open-source technologist, formerly of the UK Government Digital Service and the W3C Advisory Committee. Blogs at shkspr.mobi, where he posts a book review most weeks.

• Review: Ruined Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream ★★★★☆

  The whole point about Shakespeare is that you can set the play on an intergalactic space station or an American high school and keep virtually the rest unchanged. What happens when you transpose Dream from a proscenium…

  AmericaRelated

• When Do We Become the Person We Ought to Be?

  A new survey explores how Americans judge their own moral character—and how that changes with age.

  AmericaRelated

• ShortAmerica’s Shocking Solution to Massive Debt

  AmericaRelated

• In defense of Asian American art

  People are creating some very interesting and original stuff!

  AmericaRelated

Founder and former CEO of Zynga, the social-games company behind FarmVille, Zynga Poker and Words with Friends; says he founded ten companies in all, and wrote Life at the Speed of Play.

• CAIR is the real enemy of America! A virus allowed to incubate inside our schools.
  Quoting@AvivaKlompasGuess what the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was recommending for America’s schoolchildren. To teach kids that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were carried out in “response” to America’s support for Israel and other U.S. policies. And among the recommended readings for high school student…

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• We need to all loudly keep calling out the truth about 9/11. Al Queda terrorists murdered 3000 innocent Americans. Dont let their deaths be rewritten as ‘planes flying into buildings’.
  Quoting@GovernorPatakiI was Governor of New York on September 11, 2001. The planes did not simply crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They were hijacked and deliberately flown into those buildings by Islamist terrorists.

  AmericaRelated