Daily Picks

Thursday, 17 September 2026

10 new posts

Buddhist śramaṇas performing the traditional lamp-lighting ritual on Prabarana Purnima

Photorubel · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

404 Media
Tech404 MediaEmanuel Maiberg

For $3.75 a month, he filled a real band's Spotify page with AI slopI Hijacked a Real Artist's Spotify with AI Music. It Was Disturbingly Easy

TL;DR

Nobody in the music distribution chain verifies identity, so anyone paying a few dollars a month can hijack a real band's page, post AI songs under their name, and pocket the royalties.

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The Conversation
TechThe Conversation

A robot vacuum filmed an affair. The husband won damages, then went to jail.Your robotic vacuum is a witness: What home robots mean for evidence, privacy and the law

TL;DR

Robot vacuums and other home gadgets are producing evidence around the clock, while the law governing it is still a patchwork.

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After Babel
Society & IdeasAfter BabelCarmen Lim

Test scores have fallen for a decade — the phone is a fair suspectAre Phone-Free Schools Working?

TL;DR

PISA results keep sliding across countries, and the evidence from school phone bans suggests they help high-schoolers, slowly and in more ways than test scores alone.

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The Atlantic · Health
Science & HealthThe Atlantic · Health

Four deaths in four weeks, and they still say it wasn't measlesPennsylvania’s Measles Outbreak Is Enormous

TL;DR

Measles deaths do not become less real because the victim had an underlying condition, and once vaccine trust collapses, denial is harder to fight than the virus.

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Rest of World
TechRest of WorldDanai Nesta Kupemba

South Africans don't want to queue for water so AI can runSouth Africa joins the global resistance against American data centers

TL;DR

US companies building AI data centers in South Africa are competing with residents for scarce water and power, so local groups want construction paused until operators disclose what they use.

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Nautilus
Science & HealthNautilusJake Currie

Three days after a cold snap, heart attacks riseCold Weather Could Predict an Increase in Heart Attacks Three Days in Advance

TL;DR

Every degree the temperature falls nudges heart attacks up a few days later, and that delay gives hospitals and patients time to prepare.

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Works in Progress
Science & HealthWorks in Progress

Arab armies don't lack tanks, they lack officers who dare improviseWhy Arab armies don’t win wars

TL;DR

Arab armies keep losing not because of bad equipment or Soviet doctrine, but because of a culture that puts obedience and face-saving ahead of fighting.

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Quanta Magazine
Science & HealthQuanta MagazineMarlowe Starling

Sponges may not be our oldest relatives. Comb jellies might beCtenophores Aren’t Just Beautiful. They’re Biological Wonders.

TL;DR

Comb jellies may be the earliest branch of the animal tree, and if so, nervous systems and complex bodies evolved more than once.

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Construction Physics
TechConstruction PhysicsBrian Potter

SpaceX got a cleaner rocket engine by deleting its own scaffoldingHow SpaceX Streamlined the Raptor Engine

TL;DR

The Raptor engine did not get sleek because SpaceX reinvented it, but because it stripped out all the parts that existed only to debug an experimental engine.

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硅谷居士
Business & Product硅谷居士

He Took 100,000 Followers on X in Thirteen Months我在X上的粉丝数突破10万了

TL;DR

Treating finance writing as a long-running business, with a fixed platform, a fixed beat and a paywall, the author built 100,000 followers and 700 paying subscribers on X in just over a year.

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