Writing Off The Worlda personal blog

September 28, 2026

Jim Chanos, the legendary investor who saw through Enron before anyone else did, returns, this time with AI researcher/professor emeritus Gary Marcus. The two join Dan Nathan to discuss AI's build-out technology, economics, and risks. Niether believe the technology nor the financing of the current day AI effort is on solid ground.

September 08, 2026

404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.

August 31, 2026

Gary Marcus on what the popular narrative gets wrong. I, personally, respect Patel's product and intelligence, but that doesn't mean that I can't disagree with his take in this instance.

August 28, 2026

Did OpenAI really do the best they could?

August 05, 2026

Police in Wisconsin used Flock to determine that a man “travels to Michigan frequently,” where marijuana is legal, then back to Wisconsin, where it is illegal.

July 28, 2026

A pitched battle in the Philadelphia suburbs provides a vivid illustration of this dynamic. Developer Brian O’Neill wants to build a 2 million-square-foot data center in a former steel plant. Under Pennsylvania law, Plymouth Township (in which the plant is located) cannot simply say “no” to any lawful land use, but it can enforce zoning rules and require project mitigations in the name of health and safety.

July 28, 2026

One of the most bizarre episodes in e-commerce history has come to a close. eBay and several former eBay employees have agreed to pay $56 million to a newsletter-writing couple who were targeted by the company’s former executives in a horrific targeted harassment campaign that took place in 2019.

July 27, 2026

In early 2025, Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick was on his way home following a trip abroad. After landing in the US, customs agents demanded access to his Pixel phone, which was running an alternative version of Android called GrapheneOS. Rather than hand over his data, Tunick used a clever feature of the software causing the customs agent to delete everything. Now, he’s facing federal charges.

July 22, 2026

The inside story of how one of film data's most trusted sites vanished overnight, and why every website you rely on is more fragile than you think. How bad AI bot scraping really is.

July 20, 2026

Texas DPS justified bypassing the normal procurement process by citing an urgent need to protect personnel, public safety, and operational readiness. Interestingly, the publicly released request provides no details explaining the emergency.

July 12, 2026

A writer for the car-news site The Drive describes how "a technological chain linking surveillance cameras, AI, and law enforcement... led to me and my wife being surrounded by police, hands on their guns, in a Kohl's parking lot in suburban Minnesota."

July 12, 2026

"Facial recognition technology in U.K. shops "will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders," reports The Guardian, "with civil liberties groups warning of a 'dangerous escalation' towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector."

July 12, 2026

"I tracked 100 once-successful blogs over four years to understand what happened after Google's Helpful Content Updates and the rise of AI Overviews. The results were striking: the median blog lost 85% of its organic traffic, while only 21 continued to grow. This study reveals the patterns behind the winners, the losers, and what it takes to build a blog that can survive in 2026."

July 05, 2026

Neuroscientists are uncovering how communication between different parts of the brain creates the experience of being "you."

July 05, 2026

Buttigieg writes personally about a family ordeal. Whatever you make of the politics, it’s a reminder these figures are people first. Even in today’s climate, there should be one fundamental principle everyone respects: whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave their kids alone.

July 05, 2026

The idea of AI being artifical human intelligence or being able to think like humans is a myth. Grant explains why the subtle actions that make up human intelligence will never be replaced by machines since they can't mimic emotions.

July 05, 2026

Here’s something no one but cops and the tech firms that love cops wanted: an Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) that can scoop up pretty much any information being broadcasted by cars and the devices carried by the people inside them. As if ALPRs weren’t already controversial enough, here comes a tech company offering that makes most ALPRs (including those sold by Flock!) look absolutely innocuous. License-plate readers meet fake cell towers in one tidy package. The surveillance-creep beat keeps finding new lows.

July 03, 2026

Your memories, identity, even your sense of self may be constructions your brain creates to navigate the world — not perfect recordings of reality

June 27, 2026

The Roberts Court has been turning anti-discrimination law upside down for years. In fact, slavery itself could conceivably be race-neutral—after all, one does not need to be a racist to seek cheap labor for a profitable business!

June 06, 2026

"I need my phone, but I don’t like it. Sure, I want GPS, all the music, and a better taxi service. But I do not want to disappear for sixty-plus minutes into a dark zone scarfing down infinite mental Twinkies." Keep reading until the Easy, Medium, Hard, and Boss Level strategy guide. This is where you'll find the diamonds.

June 03, 2026

"Here are five things I have been thinking about regarding markets, the economy, and investments – from the most bullish to the least – that are too easily misunderstood."

June 01, 2026

"I find many people reach a milepost or goal they set for themselves long ago, and that previous version of them would have been thrilled to be where they are today, but for some reason, they aren’t. So, they continue making decisions that trade more of their time for things that are less important.”

April 08, 2026

Darius Foroux belives that "the problems we face day to day, the majority are not physical." They "are the mental labels we use in our minds. They sound like facts, but they’re not. They’re interpretations. And interpretations can be changed."

April 08, 2026

Morgan Housel contemplates if we have the wrong perspective that our kids appear to be spoiled since they 'suffer' differently than we, the previous generation, did. Isn't that the point for every generation to work and create a better world for their kids?

March 23, 2026

Even though we are born enjoyment-mongers, we tend to overlook the greatest and most reliable source of enjoyment, which is our ability to consciously enjoy the stuff that happens anyway. We barely even talk about it. From David at Raptitude.com.

March 23, 2026

1000 Awesome Things is just a time-ticking countdown of 1000 awesome things. Launched June, 2008 by Niel Pasricha after his marriage eneded and his best friend killed himself.

March 04, 2026

From Nick Maggiulli, reinforement that real people producing real work (especially if you have a history of it) can stand out in this age of AI slop.

March 04, 2026

The blog post from Matt Shumer that went viral and caused a sell off in software stocks. My main takeaway...you better learn how to use the new tools to become a better you. I wasn't offended by this essay as some were.

March 04, 2026

From the Dwarkesh Patel YouTube Channel, one of the most balanced and reasonable takes on AI. Fact - I had to play it at .75x speed as they talk so fast and I understood maybe 50-60% of what they discussed. I hope to understand more as I learn more. Can also be found wherever Dwaresh's audio podcast can be found.