The right always knows how to exploit the excesses of the left. It happened in 1968, when the campus takeovers and the street battles between anti-war activists and cops at the Democratic convention in Chicago helped elect Richard Nixon. Republican politicians are already exploiting the chaos on campuses. This summer, the Democrats will gather again in Chicago, and the activists are promising a big show. Donald Trump will be watching.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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When consumers are lured into debt with offers to buy that shirt in four easy payments, that’s financialization at work. When you can’t keep track of all the subscription services needed to follow your favorite N.B.A. team, that’s financialization, too. When you’re no longer allowed to record your own child’s hockey game because an investment group bought the rink, that’s financialization.
~ Oren Cass via The New York Times
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Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.
~ James Gleick
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via The New York Times:
Microsoft Says It Has Created a New State of Matter to Power Quantum Computers
by Cade Metz
published on February 19, 2025
Pull Quote
“Microsoft’s quantum technology could leapfrog the methods under development at Google. As part of its research, the company built multiple topological qubits inside a new kind of computer chip that combines the strengths of the semiconductors that power classical computers with the superconductors that are typically used to build a quantum computer.”
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