Strangeness
Death by Admin
On the strange behaviour of empires as they near their expiration date. Empires rarely end in a single moment.There’s no dramatic curtain drop. No booming announcement. Just a slow, quiet drift from function to theatre, a system still going through the motions, long after anyone remembers why.Near the end, things don’t collapse so much as unravel.You’ll still see parliaments, palaces, ministries, and news briefings. But the decisions they churn out begin to feel oddly performative. Like the people running things are no longer addressing the problems, just responding to the performance of a problem being raised. History has seen this
Read moreAre We Too Dumb for First Contact? (And Is That a Blessing?)
We’ve spent decades preparing for a cosmic showdown.Every other film shows Earth heroically fending off hostile aliens with a laptop virus or a speech from Bill Pullman. But here’s a better question: what if the aliens aren’t coming to kill us, because they’ve already seen enough? And maybe, just maybe… they’re waiting for us to grow up. Why We Assume the Worst Humanity has a bad habit of assuming everything out there is just like us, territorial, competitive, quick to anger. So naturally, when we think about extraterrestrials, we imagine they’ll show up with lasers and unreasonable demands. But that
Read moreApple’s Phantom Tech: Three Patented Ideas That Could Still Break Out of the Vault
Every year, Apple quietly files patents for ideas that range from “world-changing” to “did an intern submit this as a dare?” Most never leave the vault in Cupertino, but occasionally one slips out, polished to perfection, ready to cost you as much as a small hatchback. Here are three of Apple’s strangest-yet-most-plausible patents that we still might see, and how they could subtly change the way we live, work, and break our gadgets. The Solar-Powered MacBook Apple’s patent describes a MacBook lid embedded with photovoltaic panels under electrochromic glass. Translation: a laptop that drinks sunlight while you work. You’re halfway
Read moreAutonomous Cars: When Nobody’s Driving, Who’s to Blame?
The future is here, apparently. We were promised a world without road rage, drunk drivers, or that bloke in the BMW who thinks indicators are optional. Autonomous driving is creeping from concept videos into reality, and manufacturers are selling it as the solution to human stupidity behind the wheel. But let’s fast-forward to the inevitable: two fully autonomous cars, both in self-driving mode, meet on a busy junction. The sensors twitch, the algorithms churn… and then, crunch. Who’s responsible when nobody’s holding the wheel? The Legal Grey Zone Current traffic laws are written for meat-based drivers. If you own the
Read moreFramework’s AI Beast vs Apple’s Polished Powerhouse, The LLM Showdown
It’s 2025, and suddenly, everybody is an AI expert. Your neighbour, your dog walker, your dentist, they’ve all got “thoughts” on large language models. But if you’re actually serious about running one locally, whether it’s for privacy, raw speed, or just the thrill of feeling like you’re in a cyberpunk novel, you’re probably looking at two very different kinds of machines: the new Framework Desktop with AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and the Apple Mac Studio with the M4 Max. One is the scrappy, modular, right-to-repair champion that looks like it could survive being dropped down a lift shaft. The
Read moreA Dystopian Future of the Global Supply Chain
The global supply chain is the most complex machine humanity has ever built, and right now, it’s still running with a very wobbly, very human cog in the middle. Ships stuck outside ports, warehouses miscounting inventory, trucks delayed because Dave overslept… the list goes on. The more we optimise, the more we realise that people, with their pesky tendency to get sick, take holidays, and not work 24/7, are the weakest link. Where the chains are headed Today’s supply chains are already getting upgrades: Predictive analytics forecast demand months ahead. IoT sensors track every box from factory to doorstep. AI
Read moreWill AI Save Us, or Just Make Us Better at Being Bad?
We’ve always pictured aliens as the threat, mysterious, advanced civilisations arriving unannounced with weapons we can’t comprehend. But here’s the uncomfortable twist: when first contact finally happens, we might be the ones they’ve been warned about. And if AI keeps evolving the way it is, that warning might come with a flashing red light. The case for AI saving us In theory, AI could finally help us outgrow our toddler-with-a-grenade phase as a civilisation. No ego, no grudges, no “he looked at me funny” diplomacy, just cool, calculated problem-solving. AI-led conflict modelling could identify dangerous escalations and stop them before
Read moreThe Message We Ignored:
On a quiet day in June 1976, 23-year-old student pilot Rafael Pacheco Pérez took off from Mexico City for what should have been a routine training flight. Somewhere over the countryside, radio chatter went silent. An hour later, his voice returned, only it wasn’t entirely his own. “He is speaking because he is ordered to do so… we are using him as a microphone. We don’t matter much, nor where we come from… just know we are beings from this universe to which you belong. Our planet is many light-years away, but we are physically the same as you. You
Read moreThe First Alien Signal
It starts quietly.A faint, repeating whisper from deep space, so small it could vanish into background noise. But it doesn’t.It keeps coming. Steady. Deliberate.And it is not natural. The moment we detect an undeniable signal from another civilisation, the illusion of permanence will dissolve. The internet will convulse, governments will scramble, and you will never look at the night sky the same way again. Hour 1 — The ping A deep-space radio observatory like FAST or SETI catches a narrowband transmission from a star 1,200 light-years away.The pattern is mathematical. Intentional. Intelligent.The scientists re-check everything, no satellites, no software bugs,
Read moreThe Great Firewall of London – Safety or Just Snooping Dressed Up?
The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 arrived with the kind of PR usually reserved for royal weddings: it’s here to make the internet “safer” for the kids. Critics say it may just as easily usher in a new era of centralised digital control, and judging by the rush to VPNs, plenty of people aren’t taking chances. What the Law Actually Does Signed off in October 2023 and coming into force in July 2025, the Act forces platforms to block under-18s from harmful content, anything from porn and self-harm to disordered eating. Ofcom can fine platforms £18 million or 10% of
Read moreMeet 3I/ATLAS, the Interstellar Visitor That Shouldn’t Be Here
In a universe full of things hurtling aimlessly through space, most of them have the decency to stick to their own star system. Not so for 3I/ATLAS, a shiny new cosmic interloper currently screaming through our Solar System at about 130,000 miles per hour. That is fast enough to get from London to Sydney in under two minutes, although you would still have to deal with Heathrow security. It is only the third confirmed interstellar object ever spotted. The first, ‘Oumuamua, appeared in 2017 and immediately split opinion between those calling it “a weird rock” and those leaning toward “alien
Read moreWhat’s Really Powering the EV Revolution? (Hint: It’s Not Elon’s Tweets)
Electric vehicles get all the headlines, fast, silent, zero tailpipe emissions, and occasionally, autopilot tantrums. But under the floorpan of every sleek EV lies the real MVP: the battery. And not all EV batteries are created equal. If you’re picturing some Duracells wired together under the bonnet, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most people talk EVs but couldn’t tell a lithium iron phosphate from a double espresso. So, here’s your jargon-free, BS-light breakdown of what’s really going on inside your future car. LFP vs. NMC: Tesla’s Favourite Double Act Let’s start with the two chemistries doing most of the heavy
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