Japan, driven by labor shortages, is increasingly adopting robotics and physical AI, with a hybrid model where startups innovate and corporations provide scale (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/05/japan-is-proving-e…
"It starts, specifically, with the sight of working class people being used as weapons against themselves. Not by accident, not through some failure of communication or lack of the right messaging, but deliberately and with considerable skill" -- @… writing very much what I'm feeling today.
Worth a read.
COMING UP: next lecture in our series “Im Feuerwerk der Sonne” on May 7th, 7 PM. Natalie Krivova from MPS Göttingen will speak about the most violent solar storms of the past 11.000 years. In German.
More here: https://www.mps.mpg.de/im-feuerwerk-der-sonne
@…
Fucking around with a Sony A7S that was loaned to me ages ago. I'm finally at the point with the work that I do where I'm feeling the need to be able to run a camera myself, even if it's just to clearly communicate with people I work with.
It has a Sony FE 1.8/50 lens, that's all I've got to work with 😂
#photography
What do Ukraine and Japan have in common? They are leaders in robotics, and for the right reasons
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/05/japan-is-proving-experimental-physical-ai-is-ready-for-the-real-world/
America's 250 th anniversary coincides with sweeping rollbacks of civil rights,
deteriorating relations with traditional allies
and growing domestic opposition to the administration’s handling of immigration and free speech.
Against this backdrop, many Americans say they feel increasingly cynical about the country’s future.
For Laurie King, a Georgetown University anthropology professor in Washington DC, anxiety defines the moment.
“I’m very anxious.
T…
I am already starting to feel the winds of the enshitifaction with the AI providers. For someone who is deeply embedded with AI for coding and every day operational needs this is slowly bubbling up to the top of mind. It's your typical tech company story arc: a very generous and cheap functionality to get you sucked in and then they suddenly start tightening the noose. Be it the strength of the model or usage credits but I am feeling it. It's coming.
Servers operated by Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have been down for more than a day, following a "sustained, cross-border attack" (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/ubuntu-infrastructure-ha…
Donald Trump raked in more than
$1billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Monday shows,
giving a substantial boost to his annual income.
In his second term, Trump and his family have heavily invested in digital money and various crypto businesses
with Trump announcing at the start of 2025 that he wanted the US to be the “crypto capital of the world”.
Trump’s crypto earnings are in addition to profit from his legal settlements, real…