The Fusion Headlines Are Skipping the Number That Matters
The DOE announced fusion ignition at NIF today, but the "net energy gain" headlines skip the part where the lasers themselves burn way more power than the reaction produced.
Tech News
Tech News
Fifty Fantasy Versions of Myself, Courtesy of Lensa
I finally tried Lensa's Magic Avatars this week and came away with fifty fantasy-novel versions of myself, some real questions about where the training data came from, and a warning about the subscription toggle.
Orion Buzzed the Moon Today and Almost Nobody I Know Noticed
While everyone's group chat was full of chatbot screenshots this week, NASA's Orion capsule quietly buzzed the Moon at under 80 miles and almost nobody noticed.
Watching Artemis I Finally Leave the Pad at 1:47 A.M.
I stayed up until 1:47 in the morning to watch Artemis I finally leave the pad after three scrubbed attempts and a run-in with a hurricane, and it was worth losing the sleep.
1:47 AM and the Rocket Finally Left the Pad
Artemis I finally launched early this morning after three scrubbed attempts. I stayed up to watch it, and it was worth losing the sleep.
Eight Dollars for a Blue Checkmark: 48 Hours Later
I paid $8 for a Twitter blue checkmark out of curiosity and watched it break the internet's trust signals in under 48 hours, fake Eli Lilly tweet and all.
Eight Dollars for a Blue Checkmark
Twitter's $7.99 Blue checkmark started rolling out this week and it's already impossible to tell who's actually verified versus who just paid. Some thoughts on trust signals, plus the Meta layoffs that landed the same week.
The Weirdest Balance Sheet I've Read All Year
A leaked balance sheet shows Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research is sitting on billions of dollars of a token it basically made up itself, and something about that number won't leave me alone.
Eight Dollars for a Checkmark
Musk's $8 Twitter Blue checkmark plan turns verification into a purchase instead of a fact — plus a weekend spent poking around a laggy Mastodon instance.
iPadOS 16 Showed Up, and So Did the M1 Catch
iPadOS 16 and iOS 16.1 landed today. Stage Manager is good, but its external display support only works on M1 iPads, and mine isn't one of them.
A Week With the Pixel 7 Pro
A week-later hands-on with the Pixel 7 Pro: the camera bar's weight, a genuinely good zoom shot, and a fingerprint sensor that's letting the whole phone down.
Pixel 7 Pro, Three Days In
Three days with the new Pixel 7 Pro: Magic Eraser is genuinely fun, the camera bar rocks on every flat surface, and I still haven't touched the Pixel Watch.