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Tech

Where the industry's tools, platforms, and infrastructure get taken apart — what's actually happening under the hype.

Plain language guides to money, markets, and investing. We explain how the tools work, what they cost, and where they can hurt you, with verified sources and no "hot tips". Educational only, not financial advice.

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Social · Psych

Field notes on attention, identity, and the internet's slow reshaping of how people think and connect.

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Software

The craft side of building software — architecture, process, and the decisions that hold up once real users show up.

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Culture

Stories, ideas, traditions, and creative expressions that shape how we understand the world. From ancient rituals to modern subcultures, from forgotten art to the quiet ways people live, this is a place to explore the human imagination and the worlds it creates.

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Latest from this column

Featured 04

Anthropic Quietly Built a Biology Lab to Test Its AI Drug Ideas in Real Life

Two weeks after warning that AI could contribute to human extinction, Anthropic quietly opened a real biology lab to put its AI to work inventing medicine.

Hayk Baroyan

1 min

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All Minis Shelf

The Shelf Long-form writing, essays and pieces worth returning to.

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Finance 02 13 min

Tech

Where the industry's tools, platforms, and infrastructure get taken apart — what's actually happening under the hype.

Featured 04

Anthropic Quietly Built a Biology Lab to Test Its AI Drug Ideas in Real Life

Two weeks after warning that AI could contribute to human extinction, Anthropic quietly opened a real biology lab to put its AI to work inventing medicine.

Hayk Baroyan

1 min

mini · SEP 07 · 1 min

A Tiny Team Wants to Send a Spacecraft to Alpha Centauri It Will Arrive in 80,000 Years

A small nonprofit wants to launch a probe toward Alpha Centauri within three years, funded almost entirely by public donations. It will arrive in about 80,000 years, and the team behind it already expects a faster, later spacecraft to beat it there. They're going anyway.

Spacealpha centauriexplorationTech Culture

Hayk Baroyan

1 min

mini · SEP 07 · 1 min

Chinese Banks and Phone Carriers Are Now Giving Away Billions of AI Tokens

In China, opening a new credit card or phone plan increasingly comes with free AI tokens thrown in a sign of just how cheap running AI has become there, whether or not customers know what a token is.

Tech CultureWorld NewsBusiness

Hayk Baroyan

1 min

shelf · SEP 07 · 8 min

What AI Has Actually Done in Science, Not What People Say It Did

Forget the bubble debate. Here are six things AI has actually done in math, biology, and cosmology, all checked by real experts, none of them arguing with you about it.

ScienceMathematicsCosmologyBiologyAI

Hayk Baroyan

8 min

mini · SEP 07 · 1 min

Tesla's Cybercab Has No Steering Wheel. Total Recall Predicted It in 1990.

A childhood memory of Total Recall's robot taxi driver, and the strange feeling of watching Tesla's real one show up in Austin thirty-six years later.

CultureNostalgiaTech

Hayk Baroyan

1 min

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Column 01 2 posts

Finance

Featured 02

Investing 101, Part 2: Index Funds, What You Actually Buy

Everyone says "just buy an index fund". Nobody explains what that means, who sells it to you, or why the same fund has three different tickers. Let's fix that.

Hayk Baroyan

13 min

shelf · OCT 09 · 11 min

Investing 101, Part 1: What Investing Is and Every Tool You Can Choose From

Before you pick a broker, a stock, or a "hot tip" from a friend, you need the map. Here is every major investment tool, what it is, what it is for, and where it can hurt you.

InvestingInvesting 101Finance

Hayk Baroyan

11 min

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Column 02 1 posts

Social · Psych

Field notes on attention, identity, and the internet's slow reshaping of how people think and connect.

Featured 01

Early Retirement, Explained by Three Different Rulebooks

"Early retirement" usually means two unrelated things: a government-set pension age, and a personal savings target under the FIRE movement. This piece separates them, walks through the actual math (with real numbers for the US, France, and Armenia), and looks at what the research says leaving work early really does to your health and identity.

Hayk Baroyan

18 min

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Tech

Finance

Social · Psych

Software

Culture

Anthropic Quietly Built a Biology Lab to Test Its AI Drug Ideas in Real Life

Investing 101, Part 2: Index Funds, What You Actually Buy

Investing 101, Part 1: What Investing Is and Every Tool You Can Choose From

Early Retirement, Explained by Three Different Rulebooks

What AI Has Actually Done in Science, Not What People Say It Did

Anthropic Quietly Built a Biology Lab to Test Its AI Drug Ideas in Real Life

A Tiny Team Wants to Send a Spacecraft to Alpha Centauri It Will Arrive in 80,000 Years

Chinese Banks and Phone Carriers Are Now Giving Away Billions of AI Tokens

What AI Has Actually Done in Science, Not What People Say It Did

Tesla's Cybercab Has No Steering Wheel. Total Recall Predicted It in 1990.

Investing 101, Part 2: Index Funds, What You Actually Buy

Investing 101, Part 1: What Investing Is and Every Tool You Can Choose From

Early Retirement, Explained by Three Different Rulebooks