Welcome to the weekend.
Here's my November playlist: all newly released music, including tracks from U2, John Mayer, Leon Bridges, The Temper Trap and more.
Prime Numbers
265,600,000,000 - Anthropic disclosed about $265.6 billion in future fixed or minimum purchase commitments as of June 30, primarily for cloud hosting and infrastructure services, with terms ranging from one to twenty years.
16,300,000,000 - Anthropic reported $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2026, up from about $1.2 billion a year earlier, while its operating loss narrowed to $693 million.
11,900 - Anthropic had more than 11,900 customers generating at least $100,000 each in trailing annual revenue by September 30, up from more than 950 a year earlier.
Vulnerability
The internet runs on software most of us never see, and we have little idea how vulnerable it leaves us. Researchers using OpenAI tools uncovered serious flaws in PHP, a language that powers websites from online shops to Wikipedia. The bugs had been there for years. Under certain conditions, they could let attackers take over servers and steal data. Once details leaked, developers rushed out patches and organizations temporarily took services offline. That’s the unsettling part: ordinary life depends on layers of software whose weaknesses may remain invisible until someone finds them. A.I. is getting better at exposing those weaknesses, but attackers have access to better tools too. How much of our digital security rests on flaws nobody has discovered yet? BBC (9 minutes)
A.I. Made a Virus. What Could Go Wrong?
An A.I.-engineered virus has reportedly treated a bacterial infection in a human. That sounds like a medical breakthrough. It also invites an obvious question: what could go wrong? Radical Numerics says it designed a bacteriophage, a virus that attacks bacteria, to treat a patient’s infection. If confirmed, the result could point toward treatments tailored to infections that conventional antibiotics struggle to clear. But the company announced the treatment on its own website without peer review and declined to share clinical details with the New York Times, citing patient confidentiality and the trust of its clinical partners. That leaves outsiders unable to assess what happened, whether the treatment worked as claimed or how its safety was evaluated. Engineering a virus to fight an infection is an extraordinary possibility. The evidence needs to be extraordinary too. Futurism (2 minutes)
Hookup Culture Gets Ghosted
Young people are having less sex, showing less interest in casual hookups and more interest in marriage. That may seem surprising amid all the conversation about polyamory and gender fluidity. One possible explanation is demographic: women tend to date slightly older men, so falling birth rates leave fewer younger women relative to older men. That gives women more room to insist on commitment. During the baby boom, the imbalance ran the other way, giving men more options and potentially helping casual sex become the norm. This is a partial explanation, but a provocative one. What looks like a generational shift in values may also reflect a shift in who has the power to set the terms. Works in Progress (6 minutes)
Probability Is Not a Promise
Prediction markets can be accurate even when the favorite loses. If events given a 70% chance happen seven times out of ten, the forecasts are doing their job. The other three outcomes belong in the picture too. A study of roughly a million resolved contracts and questions across Polymarket, Kalshi, Manifold and Metaculus found that their probabilities generally matched how often events actually occurred. The analysis covered twelve domains, with forecasts made hours to years ahead. There were weaknesses: some areas showed systematic overestimation or underestimation. But the overall finding suggests these platforms offer a useful measure of uncertainty. That changes how we should read their numbers. A 70% chance is a meaningful advantage, but it leaves plenty of room for a surprise. When the unlikely outcome happens, that alone doesn’t tell you the forecast failed. The test is whether those surprises happen as often as the probabilities suggest. Marginal Revolution (1 minute)
A Little Friction Helps
Writing by hand doesn’t have to mean a cramped fist and a sore wrist. Neal Stephenson has drafted novels with a fountain pen for twenty-five years, including a manuscript of The Baroque Cycle that stacked up to 42 inches. His practical argument is that comfort depends on the right amount of friction. A pencil or thick-ink ballpoint makes you press harder; a stylus sliding across glass can require extra effort to control. A good pen on compatible paper moves easily while giving your hand something to work against. His advice is refreshingly unprecious: use plenty of paper, don’t obsess over perfect penmanship and start with inexpensive equipment. A gel pen can do most of what a fountain pen does. You don’t need to write a novel, either. Keep a notebook for stray ideas, meeting notes or a grocery list. The point is to make writing a comfortable habit rather than another elaborate project to get ready for. Neal Stephenson (9 minutes)
The Flipbook of the Rings
More than a thousand artists have spent over a year turning The Fellowship of the Ring into a hand-drawn flipbook, shot for shot. Led by animator Andy Bailey, the project spans the movie’s three hours and 120,000 individual pages. One contributor spent thirty to forty hours on 108 drawings, enough for about ten seconds of animation. The first eleven minutes are available to watch, with the shifting styles and small imperfections making the familiar scenes feel newly handmade. The full project hasn’t been released online yet. For now, enjoy a very patient way to revisit Middle-earth. Kottke (1 minute)
Change What You Notice
Changing your experience can begin before the moment when you try to exercise willpower. Lisa Feldman Barrett explains perception as a relationship between the world, your senses and what you’ve learned to expect. Even a rose’s color depends on light, the receptors in your eyes and your brain’s interpretation. Our readings of other people are shaped by experience too: a scowl doesn’t carry one fixed emotional meaning in every context. That creates an opportunity to change the habits through which we encounter the world. Instead of repeatedly fighting the urge to choose chips over an apple, Barrett suggests cultivating an interest in apples, trying different kinds and learning to appreciate them. New experiences change what feels familiar and appealing next time. Her broader point is that self-control includes shaping the experiences that form our future expectations. We don’t choose every circumstance, but we can influence what we learn to notice and how we respond. Big Think (4 minutes)
Most Read Last Week
Dawn on Mars Curiosity captures morning light on wind-carved Martian cliffs.
Your Ten-Minute Life Where you live shapes your life by making some things easy and others a project.
When A.I. Takes Your Purpose Mathematicians confront what happens when A.I. can do work that gives their lives meaning.
Should We Work Together?
Hi! I’m Kyle. This newsletter is my passion project. When I’m not writing, I run a law firm that helps startups move fast without breaking things. Most founders want a trusted legal partner, but they hate surprise legal bills. At Westaway, we take care of your startup’s legal needs for a flat, monthly fee so you can control your costs and focus on scaling your business. If you’re interested, let’s jump on a call to see if you’re a good fit for the firm. Click here to schedule a one-on-one call with me.
Weekend Wisdom
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. - Henry David Thoreau