A newsletter about Pop Culture, Software Studies, Business Strategy, Media Platforms, Algorithmic Management, Game Design, and everything in between.

FEATURED

Essays

Retrograde

Like water, gold simply can’t tell you what it used to be.

Essays

Free money

Bankers and prophets seem to be driven by an almost poetic compulsion to push further.

  • Israel’s Tech Boom & the Economy of Genocide

    Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur, joins Naomi to discuss calls for her removal and her latest report documenting the ‘corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project.’ https://zeteo.com/p/israels-tech-boom-and-the-economy?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=2325511&post_id=167856162&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=cfk9&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email more ›

  • Art Basel Qatar names Wael Shawky as artistic director of unconventional inaugural edition

    In a left-field move, Art Basel has appointed the Egyptian artist Wael Shawky as the artistic director of its inaugural Doha fair. Art Basel Qatar (ABQ), a partnership between the Swiss fair brand and two Qatar state-owned enterprises, QC+ and… more ›

  • Big Take: China’s Got Big Plans for AI — In the Desert

    Listen: https://ift.tt/sSQcgRZ In a remote part of China's northwestern Xinjiang region, dozens of data centers rise from the desert. A Bloomberg analysis of investor and tax documents and company filings found Chinese companies plan to buy more than 115,000 high-tech… more ›

  • The Take: What would happen if coral reefs disappeared?

    Listen: https://ift.tt/k1M7r8q Coral reefs are dying at a record speed, putting a backbone of global food chains at critical risk. More than 80 percent of coral reefs are now hit by mass bleaching. Reefs feed millions, protect coasts and shape… more ›

  • Primitive

    The accumulation is called primitive because it predates the new world. more ›

  • JS: The iconic magazine which ‘invented’ the Indian teenager

    When JS exploded onto the scene in February 1967, featuring The Beatles on its first cover, it quickly captured the zeitgeist of the urban youth of a nation grappling with shortages, rising prices, and joblessness. It was a grim and… more ›

  • To Dream of Beauty: On the Possibility of Afrofuturism as a Solution to Climate Catastrophe

    Biologists and environmentalists dedicated to studying the natural world may say that hope is a scarce resource of late. Human-driven shifts to the climate have increased the frequency and severity of extreme climatic events, including droughts, heat waves, flooding, and… more ›

  • Childhood’s End

    The digital revolution progressed through five stages: the repurposing of war-surplus analog vacuum tube components into the first generation of fully-electronic stored-program computers; the era of large central mainframes; the era of the microprocessor and personal computer; the advent of the Internet;… more ›

  • The Coder ‘Village’ at the Heart of China’s A.I. Frenzy

    As China vies with Silicon Valley for primacy, Hangzhou, home to DeepSeek and Alibaba, is where its aspiring tech titans mingle and share ideas. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/technology/china-artificial-intelligence-hangzhou.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UU8.Zt5D.FVQnb5CVGnvt&smid=url-share more ›

  • Past Present Future: The History of Bad Ideas: Value-Free Tech

    Listen: https://ift.tt/CamAIsW For today’s episode in the history of bad ideas David talks to philosopher Shannon Vallor about the myth that technology can be value free. It’s easy to see why Silicon Valley is so keen on the idea that… more ›