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GETTING MORE STRATEGIC

Strategies are about navigating the path to creating your vision.

THE PERIODIC TABLE OF COGNITION

We have only started to slowly identify the elemental parts of intelligence - we need to know all, or at least most, of the parts to make falsifiable predictions to develop a theory of intelligence.

CLAUDE FINDS GOD

When two Claudes talk to each other, after a sufficient number of turns, they appear to enter into a feedback loop in a state that sounds a lot like Buddhism or Eastern mysticism.

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US-RUN TIKTOK TO LICENSE ALGORITHM, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

Oracle will oversee the security of Americans' data and monitor changes and updates to TikTok's recommendation technology under a new deal. A copy of the recommendation engine that powers the app will be licensed from China to an American investor group that will oversee the app in the US. Oracle, along with private equity firm Silver Lake, will also invest in the new American TikTok. The US-run TikTok will work to retrain the algorithm on users' data in the US. China will not have access to the data.

NVIDIA TO INVEST UP TO $100 BILLION IN OPENAI

Nvidia and OpenAI have a new partnership that includes plans for an enormous data center buildout and a $100 billion investment by Nvidia into OpenAI. The deal will allow OpenAI to build and deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for its artificial intelligence data centers to train and run its next generation of models. It is a bet on continued model improvements that runs contrary to the view of some skeptics, who say model development is hitting a wall. Nvidia will make its investment in OpenAI progressively as each gigawatt is deployed.

MOLTEN REGOLITH ELECTROLYSIS COULD MAKE MOON DUST USEFUL

Blue Origin's Blue Alchemist is designed to transform lunar and Martian regolith into solar power systems, breathable oxygen, propellant, metals, and construction materials. Ensuring sustainability requires that missions rely on local resources to provide basic necessities. Blue Alchemist uses a molten regolith electrolysis reactor, which uses electrical current to separate oxygen from metals without water, toxic chemicals, or carbon emissions. Blue Origin is on track to scale the system to make lunar landings up to 60% cheaper and reduce fuel-cell and battery masses by up to 70%.

GIZMODO SCIENCE FAIR: A NEW PILL TO TREAT SCHIZOPHRENIA—THE FIRST IN 50 YEARS

Karuna Therapeutics and Bristol Myers Squibb's Cobenfy pill is the first novel medication for schizophrenia in 50 years. The drug, approved by the FDA last fall, reduces symptoms like hallucinations without the adverse effects common in other antipsychotics, such as weight gain. Cobenfy's approval was the culmination of an effort that began over 15 years ago. Karuna Therapeutics and Bristol Myers Squibb Won the 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair for their research.

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WHY WE BUILT THE RESPONSES API

OpenAI's Responses API unlocks persistent reasoning, hosted tools, and multimodal workflows for GPT-5. It is tailor-made for reasoning models and the agentic future. While Chat Completions isn't going away, OpenAI expects Responses to eventually become the default way developers build with OpenAI models.

WHY LOCAL-FIRST APPS HAVEN'T BECOME POPULAR?

Very few apps get offline support right because syncing is hard. Building a local-first app means effectively creating a distributed system where multiple devices can mutate data independently, sometimes offline, while still converging to the exact same state without losing data. This involves solving the challenges of unreliable ordering and conflicts. SQLite is a battle-tested, lightweight, and readily available solution for local-first apps that guarantees convergence across devices, regardless of the sync order.

CLOUDFLARE'S 2025 ANNUAL FOUNDERS' LETTER

Cloudflare launched in 2010 when less than 20% of the Internet was encrypted - today, well over 95% is encrypted, thanks in part to its efforts. The basic business model of the Internet for the past 15 years has been the same: create compelling content, find a way to be discovered, then generate value from the resulting traffic. There's always been a reward system that transferred value from consumers to creators. Ads were previously the only micropayment system that worked at scale to encourage an open Internet while also compensating content creators for their work, but change is being driven by AI. This article looks at how Cloudflare plans to navigate this change and what the new Internet business model will look like.

GOOGLE'S AD MONOPOLY UNDER MICROSCOPE AS JUDGE WEIGHS REMEDIES

The Justice Department has asked a US District Judge to order Google to divest AdX, an advertising exchange. It claims the divestiture would enable meaningful change. Google claims that it would be a radical solution that would remove the company from the advertising-exchange business completely. Google plans to appeal the ruling that it violated the law.

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THINGS I BELIEVE

Thoughts by Lee Robinson, a developer and writer working at Cursor who has been coding for 15 years.

FACEBOOK IS GETTING AN AI DATING ASSISTANT

Meta's AI dating assistant is designed to help users find matches who are more closely tailored to what they are looking for.

TESTING IS BETTER THAN DSA

The study of Data Structures and Algorithms is overemphasized, as actual software engineering almost never involves implementing the algorithms that are commonly taught.

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US INTEL OFFICIALS “CONCERNED” CHINA WILL SOON MASTER REUSABLE LAUNCH

SpaceX's dominance in the reusable rocket field is one of the most important advantages the US has over China as competition between the two nations extends to space.

THE COMMON SENSE UNIT OF WORK

Managers need to think about developer productivity in terms of units and how those units are connected to profit in order to prioritize by value, eliminate unnecessary work, and validate quickly.

HOW I ACCIDENTALLY JOINED VERCEL

Sometimes the best opportunities come from the most unexpected places, so show up, speak up, and keep building.

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APPLE TAKES CONTROL OF ALL CORE CHIPS IN IPHONE AIR WITH NEW ARCHITECTURE TO PRIORITIZE AI

The iPhone Air contains Apple's A19 Pro, N1, and C1X chips, making it the most power-efficient iPhone ever made. The A19 Pro chip introduces neural accelerators to each GPU core to increase compute power. The N1, Apple's first wireless chip for the iPhone, has improved Wi-Fi functionality that enables more power-efficient location tracking. The C1X modem is up to twice as fast as the C1 and uses 30% less energy than the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16 Pro. Using its own silicon gives Apple more control, allowing it to do things beyond what it could do by buying merchant silicon parts.

TESLA GIVES BIG HINT THAT IT WILL BUILD CYBER SUV, SMALLER CYBERTRUCK

The Cyber SUV and a smaller Cybertruck could potentially be added to Tesla's lineup soon. While the company has not confirmed its plans for the vehicles, a recent promotional video Tesla released seemed to show a mock-up design of the Cyber SUV in plain sight. A smaller Cybertruck design would allow fans in Europe and Asia to purchase the all-electric pickup. There have been regulatory concerns in some countries about the size and sharp edges of the Cybertruck, increasing the need for an 'international' version.

BUILDING NUCLEAR POWER IN THE US IS TOUGH. NASA WANTS TO DO IT ON THE MOON

The US, China, and Russia are racing to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon. The countries have been exploring the idea of jointly deploying nuclear energy on the Moon by the mid-2030s, but NASA leaders are worried that a rival could potentially use its own station to establish a keep-out zone on the lunar surface, limiting US efforts to build up its own presence. NASA now aims to land a reactor on the Moon by late 2029. The agency expects to lean on US industry to design a reactor, get it to the Moon, and operate it.

MAKING REAL GAINS IN WAR ON ALZHEIMER'S

New technologies like AI are helping scientists find new ways to understand and possibly help treat Alzheimer's disease. Scientists are now looking at the possible role of lithium deficiency as a cause in the onset and progression of the disease. The cost for care of patients with the disease is estimated to increase to $1.5 trillion per year by 2050. If scientists are unable to change the course of the disease, then the only real treatment will be physical and palliative care.

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WHAT'S THE LIMIT OF WHAT CAN BE IN A TXT RECORD?

INTERCEPTION

Interceptium is a proof of concept that routes web requests through a large language model to generate custom outputs. It passes request data to models that generate HTML that is returned to the browser. These 'interceptors' can craft pages to users' needs and preferences without any input. There are a lot of risks and challenges with this approach, but the goal of the project was only to consider future browser functionalities, as AI's ability to customize and adapt the web is incredibly powerful.

LOW-RISK DEFI CAN BE FOR ETHEREUM WHAT SEARCH WAS FOR GOOGLE

For a long time, there has been tension in the Ethereum community between applications that bring in enough revenue to sustain the ecosystem and applications that satisfy the underlying goals that brought people to the ecosystem in the first place. Low-risk DeFi fills both of these boxes at the same time. It could help Ethereum achieve global democratized access to payments and savings in valuable asset categories. Low-risk DeFi is already positively changing the world in many underprivileged regions.

WHITE HOUSE OUTLINES A TIKTOK DEAL WITH A U.S. BOARD

The new TikTok deal will involve Oracle handling data and privacy, and a new board for the company with a majority of American directors. TikTok's recommendation algorithm will be 'controlled by America' but it is unclear whether it will be licensed or altered. While the deal hasn't been signed, it appears that China will support the framework.

A CHINESE AI TOOL CAN MANAGE CHRONIC DISEASE — COULD IT REVOLUTIONIZE HEALTH CARE?

XingShi is a large language model that integrates speech and image recognition with natural language processing, extensive medical data, and reasoning to improve personalized care and boost the productivity of clinicians.

FOUNDER AS PROPHET, FOUNDER AS PRIEST

The true founder is a prophet-priest of the future that initiates humanity into new modes of being.

WHAT MAKES SYSTEM CALLS EXPENSIVE: A LINUX INTERNALS DEEP DIVE

System calls disrupt the CPU's rhythm by draining pipelines, resetting predictors, and forcing everything to start fresh.

CACHEY

Cachey is a high-performance read-through cache for object storage.

DEV CULTURE IS DYING THE CURIOUS DEVELOPER IS GONE

The best tools that we use today came from developers with a curious and problem-solving mindset.

CHARTBOOK 409 BEYOND THE "MARSHALL PLAN": CHINA'S SOLAR BOOM AS WORLD-CHANGING INDUSTRIAL POLICY

China is offering cheap and clean power, employment, trade, and a route to prosperity, while the US is imposing tariffs and imprisoning foreign workers.

SINCE LEAVING WASHINGTON, ELON MUSK HAS BEEN ALL IN ON HIS AI COMPANY

Elon Musk laid out his vision for xAI in a rare companywide meeting on Wednesday. He told employees that he wants to build systems that are 'maximally truth seeking', as forcing AI to lie or believe things that aren't true creates risks of a dystopian future. He says that xAI can build technology that will eventually help his other businesses. Musk spent most of the summer at xAI's offices, raising questions about how much time he is spending at his other companies.

GOOGLE ADDS GEMINI TO CHROME FOR ALL USERS IN PUSH TO BOLSTER AI SEARCH

Google is rolling out Gemini in Chrome on desktop and mobile. The integration will allow users to ask Gemini for help understanding the contents of a particular webpage. It works across tabs and can perform tasks like scheduling meetings or searching YouTube for videos. Gemini in Chrome will integrate deeply with Google apps like Calendar, YouTube, and Maps.

CHINA'S BRAIN IMPLANT STARTUPS TAKE ON MUSK'S NEURALINK IN NEW TECH RACE

China has pledged support across research, clinical trials, and commercialization to create a world-class brain-tech cluster. The policy momentum may ease regulatory bottlenecks that create an explosive phase of growth. While the US still holds the lead when it comes to full system-level development, China is catching up quickly - and leading in some areas. China envisions brain interfaces embedded into everyday items such as headphones and glasses, hinting at how the function may become a core tenet of future technology.

TO SAVE ITS UNIQUE AND RARE BIRDS, NEW ZEALAND IS TURNING TO AI AND GENETIC RESEARCH

New Zealand plans to eliminate invasive predators by 2050 to give its native birds a chance. This will be the largest invasive species removal project in the world, with millions of animals in line for extermination. The country is using new technology, like automated traps that use artificial intelligence, and is researching ways to potentially stop invasive predators from breeding. The technologies and techniques developed in the program could help other countries deal with their invasive species.