The Agent That Asks Before It Answers
Agents now act for us and clones can sound like anyone. The most useful agent may be the one that slows you down. From my RTHK Radio 3 segment.
Two Brains, One Skull, and the Wrong Place to Start
Stanford found the brain is two organs grown from two different starting cells. Decades of failed lab work came from one assumption nobody went back to check. What that means for medicine, and for the times we keep trying harder at the wrong thing.
She Is Not the Person She Is Before She Walks In
Record crowds filled the MCG while malls fill with people who will not buy. Same instinct, opposite outcomes, and small retailers are the ones paying for it.
Still Running on 1569
The map on the classroom wall was drawn in 1569, and we were marked on how well we could reproduce it. Phil Whelan asked me the harder question on air: we can’t go through life re-examining everything, so how do we choose? Coffee is coffee and tea is tea. What varies is how far in you go.
The Map in Your Head Is Out of Date
The UN voted 164 to 1 for a world map showing countries at their true size. The harder question for leaders is which picture they are still deciding from.
We Stopped Queuing: Apple’s September and the End of the Surprise
Apple launched a foldable iPhone this month, split its release calendar into three, and started selling phones on instalments in Australia. None of that is the story. The story is a category that has quietly stopped surprising anybody, and what happens to a business when the only levers left are shape, price and timing.
