The booze market is both heavily regulated and fragmented by state, which makes for interesting market dynamics. “The middle tier is the crucible of the American bev-alc industry, and California, a frequent harbinger of its broader tectonic shifts. So it’s worth teasing out the themes animating Tito’s RNDC-to-RBG defection, and putting them in historical context to examine the changing nature of power in the booze business, and how it’s reshaping…
Two founders in Austin teamed up for a health experiment. Cheryl Sew How of Tiny Health provided the lab tests and Scott Hickle of Throne was the n=1 subject. “For one month, he swapped his balanced, high-protein meals for an all-junk diet—frozen pizzas, fast food burgers, donuts, and packaged snacks. His goal was to isolate the impact of food on his gut and his overall well-being.” ~ learn more
This is a story about Grok 3, which has come from behind not because of the constraints (see: Deepseek), but because of their huge fleet of the latest GPUs. The author’s point is that constraints breed creativity, but its still better to take advantage untapped resources. “But more than just a win for xAI, Grok 3 represents yet another victory for the Bitter Lesson. Perhaps the clearest one so far.…
Ben Evans does a lot of research, and would like to use OpenAI’s Deep Research, but he can’t really. Here, he explains why: “This table looks great - hours of work compiling this data all done for for me by a machine. Before we give it to a client, though, let’s just check a few things. First, what’s the source? Ah. …” ~ learn more
First, they helpfully clarify that most things people call agents are really just workflows. Also, they were not able to reference actual agents in production yet. Yet, I think there remains cause for hope. “Anthropic’s Barry Zhang (Applied AI), Erik Schluntz (Research), and Alex Albert (Claude Relations) discuss the potential of AI agents, common pitfalls to avoid, and how to prepare for the evolving landscape.” ~ learn more
“Figgie is a card game that was invented at [trading firm] Jane Street in 2013. It was designed to simulate open-outcry commodities trading. Most of the skill in Figgie is in negotiating trades that benefit both the buyer and seller. Like in poker, your objective in Figgie is to make money over a series of rounds.” ~ learn more
“As you look through his images below, you may find yourself realising that all of those faces once belonged to people whose lives were as rich and varied as your own. It may occur to you that nothing besides remains of their stories, except perhaps these images and Monsen’s scrawled captions. Who were they? What were their hopes and dreams? Did they live full, happy lives? We can only guess.”…
“Imagine the world as a street ordered by income. Everyone lives somewhere on the street. The poorest lives to the left and the richest to the right. Everybody else live somewhere in between… A team of photographers have documented over 264 homes in 50 countries so far, and the list is growing. In each home the photographer spends a day taking photos of up to 135 objects, like the family's…
What started as a fundraiser for medical research ended up with a whole lot of that and more, thanks to weird crypto stuff. ~ learn more
“But despite severe economic stagnation, Japan is still a desirable place to live and work. The major costs of living, like housing, energy, and transportation are not particularly expensive compared to other highly-developed countries. Infrastructure in Japan is clean, functional, and regularly expanded. There is very little crime or disorder, and almost zero open drug use or homelessness. Compared to a peer country like Britain, whose economic stagnation over the…