Why Solarpunk is already happening in Africa:

What’s happening across Sub-Saharan Africa right now is the most ambitious infrastructure project in human history, except it’s not being built by governments or utilities or World Bank consortiums. It’s being built by startups selling solar panels to farmers on payment plans. And it’s working.

Over 30 million solar products sold in 2024. 400,000 new solar installations every month across Africa. 50% market share captured by companies that didn’t exist 15 years ago. Carbon credits subsidizing the cost. IoT chips in every device. 90%+ repayment rates on loans to people earning $2/day.

And if you understand what’s happening in Africa, you understand the template for how infrastructure will get built everywhere else for the next 50 years.

Really, really cool.

Quoting HN user yanhangyhy’s comment about Kimi K2 Thinking:

[…] China’s open-source strategy has many significant effects—not only because it aligns with the spirit of open source. For domestic Chinese companies, it also prevents startups from making reckless investments to develop mediocre models. Instead, everyone is pushed to start from a relatively high baseline. Of course, many small companies in the U.S., Japan, and Europe are also building on Qwen. Kimi is similar: before DeepSeek and others emerged, their model quality was pretty bad. Once the open-source strategy was set, these companies had no choice but to adjust their product lines and development approaches to improve their models.

Moreover, the ultimate competition between models will eventually become a competition over energy. China’s open-source models have major advantages in energy consumption, and China itself has a huge advantage in energy resources. They may not necessarily outperform the U.S., but they probably won’t fall too far behind either.

(Emphasis mine.)

Wild Wild Space: “HBO Original Documentary that chronicles the fierce competition to tackle humanity’s next great frontier and the dark side of capitalism’s insatiable appetite for profit”

A cool documentary to watch if you’re interested in the current commercial space race (like I am), showing some key players, and telling the story how it came to be. Based on Ashlee Vance’s book “When the Heavens Went on Sale” which I’ve yet to read.

BBC Radio 5 Live - Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game

A loving look at the GTA series by BBC’s Chris Warburton and UK rapper Bugzy Malone. “It’s the game that shocked and thrilled the world: Grand Theft Auto. Its rise to domination is an incredible story." They look at how GTA came to be, how it grew, its controversies, and what it meant to different people. They talked with ex-Rockstar devs, modders, games journalists, players. Seven episodes, nicely produced, ace little treats right before bed time.

Peter Leyden: Why 2025 is the single most pivotal year in our lifetime

That was an interesting 15 min watch. What I liked a lot was that it briefly touched on massive inequality, too, it didn’t just ignore it – in fact, I think inequality’s very much part of Mr Leyden’s prediction:

The economic system […] that has worked for essentially the top 10% for sure and certainly for the top 1% has not been working for 80%. And it’s gotten to the point where they just have had it.

Japan pharma startup developing world-first drug to grow new teeth

Most people have “tooth buds” that have the potential to become a new tooth, in addition to baby and permanent teeth, although the buds usually do not develop and subsequently disappear.

The team created an antibody drug that inhibits the protein that suppresses the growth of teeth. The drug works on these buds and stimulates their growth.

Krautreporter Rico Grimm:

Wir erleben gerade den ersten großen Moment der Klimakrise: Inflation, Hunger, Wahlen – die Klimakrise greift tief in unsere Gesellschaft ein. Zum ersten Mal ist das wirklich für jeden sichtbar.

Guter, wichtiger Text.

German climate law is partly unconstitutional, top court rules:

Germany will have to improve its emissions targets from 2031 following a complaint by a coalition of climate activists, including Fridays for Future.

I can’t overstate how important this ruling is. Young climate activists sued against the law, basically saying “Stop offloading this shit on us”, and our supreme court agreed. So great.

How small satellites are radically remaking space exploration is a nice quick overview about the ongoing small-sat and small-rocket space industry revolution. 🚀

Now, two emerging technologies may propel NASA and the rest of the world into an era of faster, low-cost exploration. Instead of spending a decade or longer planning and developing a mission, then spending hundreds of millions (to billions!) of dollars bringing it off, perhaps we can fly a mission within a couple of years for a few tens of millions of dollars. This would lead to more exploration and also democratize access to the Solar System.

In recent years, a new generation of companies is developing new rockets for small satellites that cost roughly $10 million for a launch. […] The concept of interplanetary small satellite missions also spurred interest in the emerging new space industry.

Cancel Culture and the Problem of Woke Capitalism - The Atlantic:

If you care about progressive causes, then woke capitalism is not your friend. It is actively impeding the cause, siphoning off energy, and deluding us into thinking that change is happening faster and deeper than it really is. When people talk about the “excesses of the left”—a phenomenon that blights the electoral prospects of progressive parties by alienating swing voters—in many cases they’re talking about the jumpy overreactions of corporations that aren’t left-wing at all.

Good article, not a condemnation of activism but a call for actual change, and a better direction for all our energy.

“Die nächsten 20 Jahre werden leichter für Menschen, die Unsicherheit aushalten können” (📦)

Krautreporterin Esther Göbel hat ein sehr interessantes Gespräch über Unsicherheit, Angst und Zukunftsplanung mit der Philosophin Natalie Knapp geführt.

The Segway’s Inventor Has a New Project: Manufacturing Human Organs (📦)

Dean Kamen went into biotech? Whoa, that’s huge. I’ll watch that space!

The Foundation teaser/trailer for the upcoming TV series (2021) looks good. Maybe now is a good time to pick up the books? 📚

Two sick children and a $1.5 million bill: One family’s race for a gene therapy cure

Both exciting and depressing AF. But to be honest, these days that rings true for many a topic, doesn’t it?

One day, gene therapy may help with the rarest of diseases. Some parents aren’t waiting. […]

I asked [neurologist Christopher Janson] if he thought it was fair that the Landsmans’ kids could end up getting treated while some other family without a surprise GoFundMe success would not be. “Unfortunately, there are a lot of things in society that are not fair,” he said. “There are parents who want to see me in my neurology clinic and can’t because they don’t have insurance. We have a problem in society.”

Yes, we absolutely do. It’s not as prevalent here in Germany as it is in the US, but still.

Actors are digitally preserving themselves to continue their careers beyond the grave

Being a dead actor/singer doesn’t mean anymore you have to stop working:

Some actors and movie studios are buckling down and preparing for an inevitable future when using scanning technology to preserve 3-D digital replicas of performers is routine. Just because your star is inconveniently dead doesn’t mean your generation-spanning blockbuster franchise can’t continue to rake in the dough. Get the tech right and you can cash in on superstars and iconic characters forever.

I’ll be honest: I’ve no idea how to feel about this. I can see the reasoning behind scanning and preserving actors for legitimate purposes¹ but I won’t be surprised when (not if) some of those scans are leaked to seedy underground porn producers. If you think Rule 34 is bad now, you just wait.

The Pentagon’s Push to Program Soldiers’ Brains

Within decades, neurotechnology could cause social disruption on a scale that would make smartphones and the internet look like gentle ripples on the pond of history.

Most unsettling, neurotechnology confounds age-old answers to this question: What is a human being?

A lengthy read giving a short history of DARPA with a focus on their (published) neurotechnology research and its challenges. While I don’t think the agency’s goals are quite as benign as it makes them out to be, I find the entire field utterly fascinating and am well in favor of what they are trying to accomplish.

Why You’re Probably Getting a Microchip Implant Someday

Interesting article in the The Atlantic about subdermal microchips, discussing a few health-focussed implants and related research.

I got myself chipped a few years back because my phone didn’t have a fingerprint reader but NFC capabilities. I used the chip in my hand to unlock the phone all the time for a year or so.

These days, my RFID tag carries some emergency data but nothing else (name, birthdate, blood type, city of residence). I wish it could do more, tho.

The Moon Is Open for Business

There’s a commercial soft landing planned for early 2019! 🌖

The Moon Is Open for Business: Commercial companies are proposing lunar missions at a pace the world hasn’t seen since the Apollo program.