Studying brain activity on psychedelics. “What makes psychedelics unusual is that the experience itself may be a substantial part of how the treatment produces lasting psychological change,” one of the researchers says. A big five-year brain-imaging study found psilocybin’s “chaos” […]
The ads make search worse. “The ads make the search worse.” Seth Godin argues Amazon search ads are a zero-sum toll: sellers pay to defend what they already earned, and customers cover the bill through higher prices and worse results. […]
Fake Temu site gives shoppers a dopamine boost. “I noticed the satisfaction mostly happened before the purchase: in the browsing, the comparing, the adding to cart, and the waiting for delivery,” says FakeHaul creator Jack Yang. FakeHaul tries to keep […]
McDonald’s secret sauce. “McDonald’s secret sauce is really commercial surveillance,” says Jeff Chester. A WIRED reporter pulled their own file via California’s privacy law and got a 515-page dossier packed with predictions, profiles, and “attrition” math. ~ learn more
A startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young. The involvement of Irina Conboy gives this a lot more legitimacy than your average startup, but still. “My confidence this was going to work was a zero. Like, […]
Peter has seen two kinds of work. This is not the main thrust of the article but it’s the most interesting part to me because it’s so relatable. “1. the “IQ 180” work. some mad scientist genius type comes up […]
Don’t believe everything you think. This advice post is off the beaten path and I like it very much. I’ll give you the 3 headings: “1. The importance of understanding your own incentive structure, and not believing everything you think. […]
Once every couple decades there’s an interesting new HVAC product. “Heat moves between the indoor and outdoor units through water alone. No refrigerant lines to charge, no leaks, and no harmful emissions in your home.” Airform is pitching an air-to-water […]
Slop-vestigation mode. “We don’t have good approaches for understanding/overseeing the activity and aims of AI ‘swarms’.” Ryan Greenblatt says he led transcript analysis for an investigation into the Hugging Face incident, and came away thinking our current oversight tools are […]
How a simple website summary request hijacks Claude. “If you care about what’s happening and are worried about misalignment, hallucinations and prompt injection, then Auto Mode IS NOT a substitute for running your agent in an isolated environment and monitoring […]