The $68 Million Whisper The $68 million settlement Google agreed to pay last week for allegedly spying on users through its voice assistant feels both shocking and inevitable. Shocking because the sum represents millions of private conversations potentially transmitted without consent. Inevitable because, well, haven't we all suspected
The best art happens when the mask slips. Whether it's mascara running down a queen's face or a vocalist's voice cracking on a high scream, the moment performance fails is the moment it becomes real. I've been chewing on this since stumbling
Meta Killed Its Metaverse. Star Trek Knew Better All Along. Meta killed Horizon Workrooms, and the timing couldn't be more perfect. While Mark Zuckerberg's virtual office fades into the digital void, Paramount+ drops Star Trek: Starfleet Academy into our laps like the universe saying "maybe
We've entered the era where the ultimate status symbol is a device that refuses to bother you. This tells you everything you need to know about where we went wrong. The mui Board exemplifies this absurdity perfectly. When inactive, it's wood grain. Touch it, and subtle
There's something distinctly American about treating caution as inefficiency. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that xAI’s Grok will join Google’s AI engine inside Defense Department networks, and that Grok is expected to go live later this month. Watching this unfold feels like observing a national
The kid from Oklahoma dropped a bomb on the music industry's glass jaw. Zach Bryan, that gravelly-voiced prophet of the working class, released an acoustic version of his entire new album With Heaven on Top shortly after the original dropped, and his reasoning cuts deeper than any Nashville
Remember when skipping commercials felt like sticking it to The Man? When pausing live TV made you feel like a time-bending wizard? That was TiVo's gift to humanity. A brief, shining moment when we thought we'd outsmarted television itself. Now, in October 2025, TiVo has stopped
Remember when nuclear power was the boogeyman of the energy world? The thing that made environmentalists chain themselves to fences and inspired a thousand disaster movies? Well, plot twist: Big Tech just swiped right on atomic energy, and Meta's leading the charge with enough nuclear deals to power
The first time I saw a digital tribute to art history, I was sitting in a café, watching an American tourist photograph her latte art. She spent more time arranging the foam than drinking the coffee, and I thought about how we've always been creatures who make meaning
The greatest trick LEGO ever pulled was convincing the world that plastic bricks were about architecture when they were really about possibility. Now, at CES 2026, they've done it again, embedding a computer smaller than a single LEGO stud inside what looks like an ordinary 2x4 brick. The
The walls of Pompeii hold over 11,000 messages that nobody meant to preserve forever. These weren't monuments or official inscriptions—just everyday Romans scribbling their thoughts, jokes, and frustrations on whatever surface was handy. Sexual boasts, political complaints, simple declarations of daily activities—all mixed together in
In a small office in Costa Rica, a phone buzzes at 3 AM. A journalist in Myanmar has discovered suspicious activity on their devices—the kind that makes their sources vulnerable and their work impossible. Within minutes, a digital security expert is analyzing the threat, guiding them through immediate protective