Human behaviour, technology and power. Since 2014.

Human behaviour, technology and power. Since 2014.

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Three ways into the world

Mind

Human behaviour, attention, identity, performance, and the choices that shape everyday life.

  1. Epictetus: Your mind disturbs you more than reality ever will
  2. Adults who use emojis often pick up on emotional nuances others miss
  3. Why some people become quieter as they move through their 60s and…
  4. Childhood criticism leaves nervous system stuck in constant alert for mistakes

Technology & Power

Technology, AI, business, money, and politics, read as parts of the same system.

  1. Satellite detects forest decline two years before it becomes visible to human surveys
  2. EU AI Act mandates human oversight for high-risk systems, but not in the way many expected
  3. From playing cards to the NES: how Nintendo reinvented itself in 96 years

Curiosities

Science, history, nature, and revealing stories that resist a neat box.

  1. Solar makers test nickel tape to replace silver solder in panels
  2. Grace Kelly and JFK's White House lunch sparked rumors that still linger today
  3. In 1998, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek donated 74 Hollywood Hills acres…
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The hidden machinery of money and power — the secret owners, staggering fortunes, and frauds behind the companies and institutions you think you know. Every film is built on court records, regulator filings, and original investigative reporting.

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Technology

Canal Letter

SoftBank is putting $200 million into the excavator-automation startup…

Gravis says its retrofit kits deliver "up to a 30% boost" against peak manual operation. It also told Inc. the machines have delivered "about 30 percent on multiple projects" against human-operated equipment. The specialist Inc. asked wants to know what was measured.

  1. Cambridge Aerospace was just valued at $3.4 billion, less than two…
  2. Fresh disclosures revealed separate containment failures at two of…
  3. A federal judge ruled one Pentagon action against Anthropic…
All in Canal Letter →

Politics

Cabinet

Across 37,073 European Research Council applications, the same proposal…

Two economists contracted by the ERC's own executive agency compared how a single proposal was scored by reviewers who matched the applicant and reviewers who did not. Sharing both citizenship and country of work moved the first-stage project score by 0.164 of a point on a five-point scale. The link to actual funding decisions is weaker, and correlational.

  1. The company behind Singha beer removed one of its heirs from every…
  2. South Korea approved single-stock leveraged ETFs, then banned new…
  3. The EU’s AI Act starts requiring chatbot and deepfake labels on…
All in Cabinet →

Mind

Field Notes

How well couples talk about money matters more than how often

Two relationship researchers followed 136 couples through a single November, asking both partners every Sunday how often they had discussed money and how well it had gone. Conversation quality showed a link to how satisfied each partner felt at the end of the month. Frequency showed no such link. The study was not preregistered, and its authors call the analyses exploratory.

  1. Adults who see singlehood as growth stay more satisfied being single
  2. Thinking it over tends to improve how people judge your character…
  3. A new study suggests the person who left your message unanswered…
All in Field Notes →

Free field brief

The Empire File

How money, ownership, and power actually move behind the companies you think you know. Built for people who watch our documentaries. Sundays you also get The Undercurrent.

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