A lot of construction work is still done by hand simply because the machines to automate it don’t exist. That’s become a bottleneck for building things like solar farms, data centers, and other critical infrastructure. @cosmic_robotics is building those machines. Their robots have already installed 11,000 solar panels, and they just signed a major contract with the largest construction company in the country. They’re building the construction robots we’ll need on Earth today, and eventually on the Moon and Mars. @JamesAEmerick

If you know anyone looking for a good and fairly AI-proof career, watchmaker (= watch repairer) seems a promising one. Every watchmaker seems to have more work than he can handle, mechanical watches are increasingly popular, and it will be a while before AI does this.

"piety escalation" is such a great phrase, and applies so broadly.

Using "think" to describe what an LLM does reminds me of the 16th century, when astronomers didn't really believe in the heliocentric model, but used it for calculations anyway because the math was simpler. We'll start by calling it thinking, then gradually acknowledge it is.

We're really deep into the banana republic zone here, Trump has hundreds of billions of dollars in superpac money to spend but he's still stealing your tax dollars to run extra campaign ads.

I highly recommned the essay on antedisciplinary science by Sean Eddy written 21 years ago. journals.plos.org/ploscompbi… It seems to me that we are currently experiencing the birth of a new discipline: mathematics engineering.

Very important report by Danish intelligence. ‘It added that there was "a low but growing risk" that Russia would launch a limited military attack against one or several NATO countries that border Russia. "A limited military attack would be a ‌desperate ⁠move on Russia’s part and, like the intensified hybrid attacks, could potentially take place in the coming months," it said. Such attacks could include isolated strikes with long-range weapons like drones or missiles on infrastructure supporting Ukraine, or false-flag operations using Ukrainian-made drones, intelligence service chief Thomas Ahrenkiel said at a press conference.’

We're missing out on the value of genomics in medical practice. The cost (not charge) to do a polygenic risk score for all these diseases (Figure) and more is only $20 and they are informative for high-risk (top 5%) across ancestries A new review @NEJM nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE…

Stuff is happening quite fast. When asked in September 2025, the best superforecasters put the chance of AI resolving a Millennium Problem by September 2026 at 1.7% and (the more optimistic) industry expert put the chance at 4.6% They also greatly underestimated AI Lab revenue.

This is a big enough problem that there's not just one startup idea here, but several. For example, there will probably be one variant meant to filter out agents, but another meant to welcome them in an orderly way. This also seems an idea you could build more on.

Lots of SWEs realizing the past few decades of their life pecking out code on a keyboard are no longer needed. I went through that in Dec and can tell you it’s much better on the other side. Takes about a month after it hits you to see all the possibilities.

This would make you a medium-sized Substack

Remember car break-ins? San Francisco is on pace to end 2026 with a small fraction of what *used* to be our City’s most pervasive crime. Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) have been a game-changer in ending that. Yet, incredibly, some activists want ALPRs gone… (1/2)

A supplier I was working with for an emergency stock piece informed me that the order is delayed because they “needed to understand the nest with another order for that material” It made me realize that there are still metal suppliers out there who have to hand nest orders. This is something that @noxmetals has solved months ago with cross-order autonesting. While the incumbent is still busting out paper, Nox has already distributed the plan digitally, cut, and shipped the order to an American that needs it yesterday. Metal at the speed of software

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Yesterday, I told you Mexico’s total fertility rate is at 1.2. Today, let me remind you that Argentina’s total fertility rate is at 1.05: screenshot from the Argentine statistical agency below. Yes, 1.05. Argentina, in 2014, was at 2.3: a drop of more than 50% in a decade. And before you tell me “it’s Milei’s/the Peronists’/Leo Messi’s fault,” remember the following: of the 236 countries and territories on the planet, 219 have a clear negative trend in fertility. Of the remaining 17, I’d say the trend is negative as well in probably 16, although statistical methods have a hard time picking it up for one reason or another. The remaining one? Israel. So, if you think fertility is going down in your country because of some country-specific reason X, well, you might want to think twice.

Salgado: We still have so many questions. What are the names of the ICE agents who killed our dad? It’s been two and a half months, and we still don’t have my dad’s belongings back. Aside from some change that he kept in his pocket, we don’t have his wallet or his phone… We have no idea where his things are or who might have them.