themarginalian.org

The True Purpose of Tarot

Just as the primary function of prayer is to clarify our own hopes and fears, to hone our priorities and reassert our values, the primary purpose of tarot is not to give us a telescope aimed at the frontiers of the future but a microscope aimed at the most elusive intricacies of the self.

whyisthisinteresting

The Monday Media Diet with Emma Näpänkangas

I'm also not aboard the culture of quickly abandoning books or articles when they do not interest you - I think it's good to be challenged, and I've found absolute gems of ideas when I've continued to read pieces with an open mind.

noahpinion.blog

AI keeps stubbornly refusing to take our jobs

But of companies that did report a change, more reported an increase than a decrease! And here's the breakdown by sector... Among firms using AI, 44% say it supplemented or enhanced work an employee already does. Ten percent say it performed a task an employee used to do. Eleven percent say it introduced a task no one had been doing.

honest-broker.com

Amazon is Polluted

Before the advent of the worldwide web, I sometimes searched bookstore shelves for years before finding a desired volume. But Amazon made it possible to acquire those hard-to-get books with just the click of a mouse.

readtheprofile.com

The Profile: Apple’s new CEO & The financier who wants to save America

Seventeen years ago, Elizabeth Stein started making muffin mix in her Upper West Side kitchen for a handful of nutrition clients. She had no business plan, bootstrapped, and waited years to take outside money. Last month, she sold Purely Elizabeth to Ferrero for an estimated $850 million while also remaining CEO.

themarginalian.org

How to Relate to Your Worst Mistakes: The Life-Shaping Difference Between Regret and Remorse

Regret is a turbine of self-destruction, remorse an engine of renewal. Drawing on the etymological and cultural heritage of both words, historian Tiffany Watt Smith offers a revelatory distinction between the two, both subtle and profound.

wired.com

There May Not Be an iPhone 18 This Year

Apple is expected to announce several products at its September event next week—including a folding phone—but the iPhone 18 might not be among them. It would be a first for the company.

whyisthisinteresting

The Saturday Selection, Vol. 119

Every trade has a small number of items so entrenched that they've become the de facto tool that nearly everyone in that trade uses.

themarginalian.org

The Art of Choosing Love Over Not-Love: Rumi’s Antidote to Our Human Tragedy

It is heartbreaking enough that we do lose everything that exists, everything and everyone we love, until we lose life itself — for we are a function of a universe in which it cannot be otherwise. But it is our singular human-made heartbreak that we often cope with our terror of loss — that deepest awareness of our own mortality — by losing sight of just how precious we are to each other, squandering in less-than-love the chance-miracle of our time alive together, only to recover our vision when entropy has taken its toll, when it is too late.

noahpinion.blog

America is still beating China in the AI race

Imagine if China were to gain a big lead in AI models that gave it the power to easily hack into American banks and brokerage accounts and erase people's wealth. It would cause absolute chaos in American society, but how could the U.S. retaliate? Launch nukes?

stratechery.com

2026.36: Friction and Feedback

That conversation ultimately echoed a very early Stratechery riff on the society-altering implications of tech that removes friction; 13 years later, our generation is still catching up.

honest-broker.com

YouTube Videos I’m Recommending Right Now

But a much more intriguing idea is to solicit responses from living legends who know the music better than anyone else—because they helped make it in the first place. This is my type of reaction video, and shows what happens when you go straight to the source. And you should always go straight to the source.

ftav

Is Stephen Miran... right?

Real gross domestic product per American rose less between 2007 and 2019 than it did between 1929 and 1941. The Great Depression is typically viewed as having been more severe because the initial downturn was sharper, but the stagnation in living standards following the financial crisis was roughly as bad.

notboring.co

Weekly Dose of Optimism #209

"If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn't know ahead of time who you were going to be — what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you'd be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into — you wouldn't choose 100 years ago. You wouldn't choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You'd choose right now."

whyisthisinteresting

The Prisencolinensinainciusol Edition

Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything.

upstartsmedia.com

SCOOP: Conflict With Instinct Knocks Index Out Of Town’s Buzzy New Raise

Index Ventures, reported by Newcomer last week to be leading the raise, is no longer investing at all in Town, per the sources, despite reaching a signed term sheet in recent days. The about-face comes after another AI assistant startup in which Index was reported to be co-leading a large-sized investment round, Instinct, complained to the investor about potential conflict of interest, the sources add.

whyisthisinteresting

The ‘50 First Dates’ Edition

In an obviously less extreme way, I have always felt that my own days start twice. The first comes as soon as I wake up, groggy and typically with racing thoughts following a bizarre dream, or due to some latent anxiety concerning my to-do list for the coming day. The second beginning comes about an hour later, once I've showered, walked, eaten, and either talked to someone, or listened to a great song or podcast.

jefftweedy

GEAR TALKIN’™ #24: Analog Outfitters

Ben lived as if he had an obligation to these old instruments, like a responsible hunter who uses all the parts of their kill; the meat, the fat, the blood, the hide, and the bones. Every bit has a use. Every bit has a purpose.

themarginalian.org

The Creative Power of Uncertainty: Polish Poet Wisława Szymborska’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

All sorts of torturers, dictators, fanatics, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs, and they too perform their duties with inventive fervor. Well, yes, but they "know." They know, and whatever they know is enough for them once and for all. They don't want to find out about anything else, since that might diminish their arguments' force. And any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.

ai-supremacy.com

Visions of AI: An Inflection Point in Robotaxis in 2027

At a time when robotics is being hyped but lacks real world demand, the space economy is being built by a NASA with big promises, and U.S. datacenters and manufacturing is being pushed (even on other parts of the world and with trade tariff diplomacy) - the advent of the American robotaxi is being a little, overshadowed. But it's actually a big deal.

noahpinion.blog

Why you won’t get a flying car

If we had flying cars, we'd enjoy the thrill for a few weeks, and then we'd be back to tweeting on our phones and wondering when the trip would be over.

wired.com

Smart Toilets Are Already Using AI to Analyze Your Poop

While companies promise they can help users monitor gut health, experts suggest that smart toilets provide little in the way of benefits to the average person.

lennysnewsletter.com

Grok Bot vs. OpenClaw: How I replaced my entire agent stack

Holly Helpdesk started getting five-star reviews from customers who had no idea they were talking to a bot.

themarginalian.org

The Invention of Zero: How Ancient Mesopotamia Created the Mathematical Concept of Nought and Ancient India Gave It Symbolic Form

The disquieting question of whether zero is out there or a fiction will call up the perennial puzzle of whether we invent or discover the way of things, hence the yet deeper issue of where we are in the hierarchy. Are we creatures or creators, less than – or only a little less than ― the angels in our power to appraise?

honest-broker.com

Wendell Berry’s Nine Rules

What makes this especially revealing is the fact the public intensely dislikes AI— surveys make this absolutely clear. So tech companies are destroying the environment solely to increase their dominance and control—not to please you and me.