How loops turn capable AI into practical work This is the first of a three-post series on AI as an operating system rather than only a conversational tool. This post explains loops and the six elements that make them useful. The next posts will examine digital twins—connected representations that can…
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Humanity has more options than collapse or denial. But every solution changes the system—and usually reveals the next bottleneck. On July 2, 2026, the PJM Interconnection—the largest U.S. power-grid operator—came close to breaking its all-time peak-demand record during an eastern heat wave. PJM activated emergency conservation measures, including a demand-response program…
Comments closedAlphabet’s stock fell after another large increase in AI spending. But the same spending is creating demand across chips, data centers, cooling, networking, electricity, and construction. Alphabet reported the kind of quarter that usually lifts a stock: Revenue rose 24 percent to $119.8 billion. Google Cloud revenue rose 82 percent…
Comments closedFor years, tungsten cost the same in China and everywhere else. This period, that stopped being true. China requires a license to export tungsten, and it has cut the list of firms allowed to sell abroad. The result, spelled out this cycle by industry price reporters: two separate markets. Chinese…
Comments closedA twice-monthly systems read of the continent — twelve domains, one signal. Edition 01 June 2026 · covering ~16 May–18 June 2026 ~9 min read Subscriber edition How to read this. We track the African continent as one system across twelve domains — the big moving parts of development, from money and minerals…
Comments closedAn AI-ecosystem-model reading of today’s news Over the past few months, we’ve built something we call the AI ecosystem model, a map of how one jolt in the chain that makes artificial intelligence possible travels outward to everything else: the minerals, the chips, the data centers, the power grid, the…
Comments closedWhy studying abroad is infrastructure, not a vacation. This is the eighth post in a series on globalization, and the through-line has been simple. Nothing important gets built by one country alone. A Short History of Human Interdependence traced how far back that dependence runs. The Economics of Why explained why two countries both…
Comments closedEveryone’s still guessing A quick note before we start: this one runs a little longer than usual. I’d planned to come at this subject in smaller pieces over the next few weeks, but the news got ahead of me, so I’m covering the whole topic in one piece now, and…
Comments closedWhy a richer developing world is in everyone’s interest In 1990, about 2.3 billion people lived in extreme poverty. By 2025 that figure had fallen to roughly 830 million (World Bank, 2025), even as the world added more than two and a half billion people along the way (UN World…
Comments closedHow AI turns one question into a systems view A small business owner asks the model whether she should open a second café. The answer comes back with the cash-flow math, yes. But also with the lease timing, the staffing lead time, the risk that two locations split her customers…
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