#5245: Training a Model on 100 Phone Photos

One drawer of screws, a hundred phone photos, and a schema. When does a small custom model beat a fine-tuned VLM?

fine-tuningcomputer-visiontraining-data

#5244: Model C: Keeping Doers Doing Across a Career

What if learning and doing never had to be separate phases? A look at the career arc that burns people out at both ends.

professional-communicationwork-culturefuture-of-work

#5243: The Antenna on the Consulate Roof

When a host country cuts the water and the fiber, one thing still reaches London: the HF antenna bolted to the consulate roof.

diplomatic-immunityvienna-conventiontelecommunications

#5242: Two Neighbors, Two Invasion Plans

Canada drew up a plan to invade the U.S. in 1921. The friendly-neighbor story is only 80 years old.

political-historyinternational-relationsinternational-trade

#5241: How the Library of Congress Became a Universal Library

A fire, a retired book collector, and a copyright law nobody thought through — how three accidents built the world's largest library.

digital-preservationintellectual-propertyknowledge-management

#5240: Guns That Never Entered the System

Israel's gun leakage runs through three channels the licensing debate never touches — and one of them can't be sealed, audited, or bombed away.

israelsecurity-logisticsweapons-trafficking

#5239: What Happens When a Plane Dumps Fuel Over a City

Fifteen fuel dumps a year over US airspace — and nobody tracks where the fuel lands or what it does to the ocean.

aviationaviation-technologyaerospace-engineering

#5238: Robber Barons: Builders or Plunderers?

Rockefeller cut kerosene prices by 90% — and the top 1% owned half of America. Both facts are true. So why can't we agree?

political-historylabor-ethicstechnocracy
Monday, Sep 14

#5237: Drill Bits: Sharpen or Replace?

A dull bit needs 3-4x more force to cut — and it hardens the material it's failing to cut. Here's how to know when to sharpen and when to toss.

#5236: Who Gets to Hold the Gun? Three Models of State Force

Israel arms citizens for "distributed security," the U.S. treats guns as a right, Japan denies 90% of applicants. Three answers to one question.

israelnational-securitypolitical-history

#5235: Wiring Smart Patio Lights Through Home Assistant

Picking a Zigbee RGB controller is the easy part — sizing the power supply and keeping mains water out is where patio lighting projects live or die.

smart-homezigbeeelectrical-engineering

#5234: How Tribal Police, Beit Din, and Sharia Courts Share Power

Tribal police, rabbinic courts, and consensual arbitration all operate under one state — here's the legal plumbing that keeps it from fragmenting.

international-lawpolitical-historytribalism

#5233: One Tap Beats Eight Links: Designing a Digital Business Card

Most digital cards fail in ten seconds. Here's the design that actually starts a conversation.

usabilityhuman-computer-interactionqr-codes

#5232: Zello, PTT Buttons, and the Kitchen Intercom Question

Why your Bluetooth speaker ignores Zello's push-to-talk — and what to buy instead for a hands-full, phone-off fallback.

androidhome-safetyemergency-preparedness

#5231: Uranium: From Yellow Glass to Little Boy

Connecticut well water, Roman glass, and the isotope that changed the world — the strange story of element 92.

nuclear-physicsnuclear-proliferationmedical-history

#5230: Why Your Research Agent Won't Stop Searching

Most agent search runs add no new evidence — and 66-85% of the context window is just search snippets. Here's what actually stops the loop.

ai-agentsragai-orchestration

#5229: How Spies Actually Learn Social Engineering

The CIA spent decades not teaching its core skill. Then a case officer wrote it down — and the tradecraft got a curriculum.

social-engineeringhuman-intelligenceespionage

#5228: Why Israeli Road Signs Still Spell It "Tiqwa

Israel's Academy of the Hebrew Language is finally standardizing how place names get written in English — but the Q on the signs has survived every...

linguisticsisraelhistorical-linguistics

#5227: Who Decides What Hebrew Words Mean?

Israel's Academy of the Hebrew Language can coin words the state must use — but it can't make anyone say them. Why 10 million speakers might be the...

language-preservationhistorical-linguisticslanguage-evolution

#5225: Carving Paleo-Hebrew Into Everyday Objects

Custom metal stencils, the right vector files, and tasteful ways to bring an ancient script back onto everyday objects.

historical-linguisticslanguage-preservationdiy