China built a 40-story tower that stores wind power by stacking concrete - https://boingboing.net/2026/07/06/post-china-built-a-40-story-tower-that-stores-wind-powe.html "Nine more towers are planned across China, totaling over 3.7 gigawatt-hours. Unlike pumped hydro, a gravity tower needs only flat ground."
Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia – Episode 1 – 2
A beautifully-rendered, heartbreaking double premiere about the horror and tragedy of war and invasion… and one girl’s grasp for her own agency in the middle of it all.
https://www.animefeminist.com/jaadugar-a-witch-in-mongolia-episode-1/
I think Judith Levine is my favorite Guardian writer by quite a bit.
This is perfect and accurate; literally a "no notes" share.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/07/supreme-courts-trans-ruling-bodily-autonomy
I want someone to make a Jason Voorhees and the Argonauts movie.
Nebulae, comets, and aurorae, oh my! See the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/07/zwo-astronomy-photographer-of-the-year-2026-shortlist/
Eswatini:
We meet in Geneva at a defining moment in humanity. AI is no longer a distant innovation.
For countries like Eswatini, AI governance must begin with ‘technology must serve the people’.
AI must not narrow the world into a single identity or values or homogeneity. This is especially important for small developing states, who must not become mere consumers of technology made elsewhere, technology made without regard for their needs.
Algorithms must be required to adhere to human rights, safety and public interest standards. AI systems must not be permitted to self regulate. Human oversight must remain at the center. Children must be protected from addictive design and manipulation by systems they cannot understand.
Voluntary enforcement is not enough.
Maria Ressa talks about how in an Eritrean language, AI changes ‘smallpox’ to ‘syphilis’, and sometimes confuses ‘medicine’ and ‘insecticide’, which obviously has public health implications.
This type of work ‘AI performance and safety issues in other languages and its impact on people’ is 50% of the work I do.
I’m glad Maria Ressa is involved in this work. She’s now talking about chatbots, teenagers, suicide.
“Civil society has been saying this for years. You now have more evidence now for what you’ve been saying.”
https://www.un.org/independent-international-scientific-panel-ai/en/preliminary-report
Kind of don’t even care if I see people apologizing for backing Platner, because they didn’t consider the things we all knew about him back in October to be immediately disqualifying. Covering your ass at the last minute because the political winds have shifted is not indicative of ethics or integrity so they can all GTFO.
6 years of research: "The only trait that consistently predicted objections to remote work was narcissism—the tendency to be self-centered & entitled. The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status—& the more they favored return-to-office mandates."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597826000300
A message for the class of 2026: We need more friction!
And I mean okay, as a poet turned programmer, I think every word matters a whole lot. And also, the joy in these tasks is from putting the right word in the right place. Even formatting is an important decision. I get that not everyone feels this way, but for those that don’t, why are you doing this job?
As someone who habitually tries out new stuff just so I don’t drift slowly out of touch, I still haven’t figured out anything I’d use an LLM for. Like I just can’t find a single scenario where I would benefit from a words-generator.
Disappointed that they failed at the sky portal.
I guess the next step for the DC swamp is to be ground zero for a West Nile outbreak.
If you ever want to experience absolute post-apocalyptic desolation, take a walk near Wall St. at midnight.
They call NYC the city that never sleeps but I can tell you with confidence that 99% of that city sleeps too.
The curse of being a night person in a world constructed by day people.
I was never much of a naps person or really even a sleeping at all person but then I got long covid which gave me no choice in the matter and now I find them pretty nice.