It’s Not Just Oil. The Iran War Is Disrupting Many Essential Goods.

I’m sure Trump considered all of this www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/b...

The laid-off lawyers and PhDs training AI to steal their careers Experienced white-collar workers are now part of a miserable gig economy.

My god this is a depressing and dystopian article from The Verge about the AI industry.

www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Iran’s Cheap, Plentiful Weaponry Puts US Military Under Unprecedented Strain As the conflict extends towards a third week, an arsenal of attack drones and ballistic missiles has helped make Tehran unlike any adversary the US has faced.

The US has burned through over 1,000 Patriot interceptors ($4 million each) to stop an onslaught of Iranian drones ($20k to $50k each).

Using my last gift link from Bloomberg, which is doing some of the best reporting anywhere on the war.

🎁 🔗

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Iran’s Control of Hormuz Means It’s Exporting More Oil Today Than Before the War Tehran is letting ships carrying its crude pass through the strait, while it scares off others that would dare.

lmao www.wsj.com/world/middle...

How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to War

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“Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.“ Free 2 Read.

MLS’s Polymarket deal looks even worse after players’ gambling bans | Leander Schaerlaeckens With its credibility swaying in the wake of a betting scandal, the very last thing the league needed was to be in business with a prediction platform

Who could have possibly predicted this?

Has AI Ended Thought Leadership? As generative AI and content platforms make it effortless to sound authoritative, organizations are being overwhelmed by polished insight that rarely translates into real change. The growing gap betwe...

Well, if it has, then pat AI on the back.
Has AI Ended Thought Leadership?
hbr.org/2026/03/has-...

The Final Days of an Iranian Navy Crew Before the U.S. Torpedoed Their Ship Sailors on the IRIS Dena sampled Indian food and visited the Taj Mahal before being attacked near Sri Lanka.

www.wsj.com/world/asia/t...

This is a very fine piece of reporting, about death, food and XL clothing.

America Is an Oil Exporter. Why Does a Mideast War Raise U.S. Gas Prices?

For all of us asking this question, here is more than a one word answer...

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/b...

Revealed: UK’s multibillion AI drive is built on ‘phantom investments’ Exclusive: Rented datacentres and unrealised supercomputer site raise questions for Starmer’s push to ‘mainline AI into veins of economy’

“Investment” is one of the most abused words in the English language, particularly in government press releases. This great piece by @aishadown.bsky.social shows how a number of AI data centres announced by ministers and big tech don’t even exist: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

OpenAI’s IPO Hopes Face Skeptical Investor Community OpenAI is likely at least six months away from going public, and possibly longer. But as the company takes steps toward an initial public offering, investment banks trying to get a piece of the busine...

www.theinformation.com/articles/ope...

Notice how investors are not as taken in as OpenAI's boosters want the general public to be...

India’s tech sovereignty is built on digital dependence In his new book, “Computing in the Age of Decolonization: India’s Lost Technological Revolution,” researcher Dwaipayan Banerjee argues that a focus on technical solutions has made the country dependen...

India once sought technological autonomy. A new book argues its strategy has instead entrenched reliance on global tech firms https://restofworld.org/2026/dwaipayan-banerjee-india-technology-book/?utm_campaign=row-social&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1773067863

"The objective of the development of the productivity of labor within the context of capitalist production is the shortening of that part of the working day in which the worker must work for himself, and the lengthening, thereby, of the other part of the day, in which he is free to...

Fire department turns down $250,000 Google donation amid data center fight An Oklahoma fire department turned down a significant donation from Google.

I follow the news around local data center resistance fairly closely. This one stands out.

Gen Z’s ‘Financial Nihilism’ Finds Outlet in Prediction Bets, Crypto Being financially “behind” is fueling moves into higher-risk and speculative assets as a way to catch up, according to a survey.

@dancassino.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Early Iran strikes cost $5.6 billion in munitions, Pentagon estimates The figure, accounting for the war’s first two days, is likely to intensify concerns in Congress that U.S. forces are churning through a scarce supply of advanced weaponry.

Gift article

The Pentagon burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions in the first two days of its Iran assault, according to U.S. officials, alarming some on Capitol Hill over how quickly the military has depleted scarce supplies of America’s most advanced weaponry.

wapo.st/4ufU1cV

The Scale of Billionaires’ Campaign Donations is Overwhelming U.S. Politics

“The billionaire families gave an average total of $10 million each in 2024, an amount roughly equal to what 100,000 typical political donors gave combined & that does not count dark money…”

The Scale of Billionaires’ Campaign Donations is Overwhelming U.S. Politics www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...

Trump and Big Tech’s PR Campaign for Data Centers is Too Little, Too Late Energy bills are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the costs of hyperscale data centers, writes Jenna Ruddock.

Last Wednesday, US tech companies gathered at the White House to sign a nonbinding, unenforceable pledge to offset data center energy costs. But energy bills are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the costs of hyperscale data centers people see in their backyards, writes Jenna Ruddock.

A new space race could turn our atmosphere into a ‘crematorium for satellites’ Planned ‘megaconstellations’ of satellites could cause unforeseen harm to the ozone layer and climate systems. Global regulation is needed before it’s too late.

The authors "estimate that a ... teragram (one billion kgs) of alumina accumulates in the upper atmosphere – enough, alongside launch emissions, to significantly alter atmospheric chemistry and heating in dramatic ways we do not yet understand."

theconversation.com/a-new-space-...

The Long-Feared Persian Gulf Oil Squeeze Is Upon Us Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a virtual halt, unleashing the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s.

“One week into President Trump’s war on Iran, the most severe shock to energy markets since the 1970s is cascading through the world economy. “ www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Iran Conflict Sparks Global Rush For Critical Fertilizers A third of global fertilizer supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, while gas from the region is crucial to production of nutrients for global agriculture.

If you, or one of your loved ones, are one of those people who likes to eat food, you need to read this story.

Because farmers from Poland to Australia to South Dakota are starting to freak out over the insane spike in fertilizer prices.

Gift link ⤵️

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Why the AI Boom Will Make Phones, Cars and Electronics More Expensive AI demand is triggering a historic memory-chip shortage. Meeting exponential demand for chips will be expensive and maybe even impossible.

Why the AI Boom Will Make Phones, Cars and Electronics More Expensive

It’s now compounded by SK & Taiwan not having LNG reserves bc Qatar was the supplier.

This is a great explanation if you don’t know all components of computer hardware & happen to be a visual learner.

It’s a gift link.

Study Finds That Execs Are Outsourcing Their Thinking to AI The same class of business executives who heaped AI onto us by the shovelfull aren't immune to its effects.

Outsourcing their what now?

Drains across the Iranian capital Tehran are continuing to explode after earlier Israeli and US strikes on oil depots and infrastructure.

Medical experts are warning the toxic smoke and runoff has increased the risk of deadly illnesses, including cancer.

“As rain poured down on the city of 10 million people on Sunday morning, authorities warned of toxic acid rain and many residents woke up with pain in their throat and eyes burning.”

Iranians describe scenes of catastrophe after Tehran’s oil depots bombed www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate ProPublica is releasing a trove of disclosure records that detail the finances of more than 1,500 Trump appointees, including former lobbyists, industry executives and at least a dozen officials who d...

Documents reveal a web of financial ties between Trump officials and the industries they help regulate:

ProPublica is releasing a trove of disclosure records that detail the finances of more than 1,500 Trump appointees who declined to identify former clients.

Nike Is Moving Jobs to Low-Wage Regions of Indonesia After moving manufacturing to the developing world to save on labor, Nike and other apparel brands are shifting employment in their Indonesian supply chain away from high-wage parts of the country and...

After moving manufacturing to the developing world to save on labor, Nike and other apparel brands are shifting employment in their Indonesian supply chain away from high-wage parts of the country and into less-developed areas.

With @oregonian.com

AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.

Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.

It turns out the U.S. did a “double tap” attack just as emergency responders were arriving at the girls’ elementary school. This is what the Russians do routinely in Ukraine.

That’s a war crime under international humanitarian law.

NTSB says Waymo robotaxis illegally passed stopped school buses in new incidents The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday it is investigating a new incident in ​January of Waymo self-driving vehicles passing a stopped school bus with its ‌lights activated in violation...

Note that these incidents occurred *after* Waymo did a recall to ensure its vehicles wouldn't keep passing stopped school buses.

The company doesn't seem to know how to fix this.