AI progress over the past year has been incredible. Plenty of people are thrilled, but none more so than businesses, which can now save money on workers. On us, in other words.

A huge number of people are about to be put out on the street. These damn AI agents really can replace a large share of office workers. Unfortunately, it turns out that knowledge work is the easiest kind to automate. Robotics isn't yet capable of replacing electricians or plumbers. But the huge number of people whose output is just information, like business reports and analytics, will be the first to go. It's already happening right before our eyes this year.

There's nothing good about this. It's a massive social problem that will hit every country, no matter which continent it's on. We haven't fully grasped it yet, but it's already underway. AI is going to take jobs from real people. People with families.

In the end, this will only save money for businesses while making things worse for the economy as a whole, and for all of humanity. A person who loses their paycheck stops taking part in the economy in any meaningful way. They get poorer, and so does their family. They stop going out to restaurants or taking expensive vacations. The economy suffers. Businesses get richer, and ordinary people get poorer.

Then there's another question: who's going to use what businesses produce if people have no money? Who's going to buy all of it? Who needs a new smartphone or new furniture when unemployment has left people broke?

In my view, the only solution is universal basic income. That's when the government pays every citizen a fixed sum every month. The state pays it always, to absolutely everyone, in exactly the same amount. The payment doesn't depend on the recipient's social or financial status.

UBI should go to everyone, from infants to the elderly. Things will only get worse as robotics becomes more capable. Then absolutely everyone will be affected. We won't even need plumbers and electricians anymore. A humanoid robot will show up and fix everything. But who's going to pay for it? People won't have anything to pay businesses with.

We're already seeing society split apart. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It's awful. The world is becoming more unjust. We need to start thinking about this now.

We should start now, even with a small UBI. It can be modest, but governments need to get used to the idea. That would ease social tension. And as AI and robotics keep advancing, UBI can be raised. Otherwise, we're headed for a social catastrophe straight out of the worst dystopias.

These are just my thoughts for now, but I can already see people being laid off. They're being laid off because these damn AI agents are far more efficient. Society has been through many crises in its history, and this one won't be easy. We need to prepare in advance.

In fall, a ficus can sometimes start dropping leaves one after another. And it took me a long time to realize just how much light has to do with it.

My ficuses handle summer heat just fine, even on a southeast-facing window. They also don't mind it when the soil dries out now and then. I've noticed something interesting, too: plants seem to get used to whatever watering routine they're on. If someone has spent years never letting the soil dry out even a little, a sudden dry spell can really stress the plant. But mine are perfectly fine if the soil stays dry for a while. Of course, I'm not talking about leaving them without water for weeks. I just don't rush to water the moment the top layer dries out.

The 2013 dystopian action thriller Snowpiercer somehow flew under the radar. It got decent reviews and even turned a profit, but these days, hardly anyone seems to remember it. Which is a shame, because the movie has some genuinely clever touches - and, more importantly, a fantastic villain in Minister Mason.

The 2016 film Maudie, which tells the biographical story of the remarkable Canadian artist, naturally takes a number of creative liberties. Films like this are never shot exactly as events unfolded in real life - otherwise the story would be dull to watch.

However, I was intrigued to learn that Richard Nixon actually bought paintings from Maud Lewis. The film highlights this fact twice. First, Maud Lewis (played by Sally Hawkins) says she received a letter from Vice President Nixon:

Next in the film, journalists film a news report near Maud Lewis's house. And the reporter says:

There are places on Earth where nature truly tests human endurance. The village of Oymyakon in Yakutia is one of the coldest inhabited places on the planet, where winter temperatures drop below -50°C, with a record low of -67.7°C. On the other side of the world, the Danakil Depression near the Dallol volcano in Ethiopia is one of the hottest places on Earth, with an average annual temperature of around 34-35°C, while daytime temperatures can often exceed 50°C.

Oymyakon

Can you read the text in the video? You'll need to actually play it.

I uploaded the video to Claude and asked it to read the text. All settings were left at their defaults.

We spent a long time comparing hotels in Belgrade based on price versus quality, and Mona Plaza turned out to be the best fit. We stayed four nights in a Standard Double Room.

The area is quiet - no traffic noise, no restaurants or bars nearby, and it was silent at night. It's a 15-minute walk to the tourist center.

The bed is wide and long. I'm 6'1" (1.85 m) tall, and I was very comfortable. The bedding is excellent.

There are theories that sound like nonsense at first, and then make you rewatch a beloved movie notebook in hand, checking every little detail. One such story concerns the popular film "Fight Club." It's the idea that Marla Singer isn't a separate character at all, but another personality of the Narrator himself.

It sounds wild, since in the plot the main character's split personality gives rise to Tyler Durden, a charismatic character and ego who lives life to the fullest while the Narrator himself suffers from insomnia. But if you look closely at the details, the parallels between Marla and Tyler start standing out too insistently to be dismissed as coincidence.

Let's start with the small external details. Both Marla and Tyler barely ever take a cigarette out of their mouths, both dress in a similar aesthetic, both wear similar rings, and both have distinctive, slightly disheveled hairstyles. For a film where every costume and prop detail is thought out down to the millimeter, such a coincidence looks suspiciously deliberate.

Next comes the overlap with the Narrator himself. He and Marla share similar issues with self-perception, both are essentially homeless in an emotional sense and live in cheap hotels, both have a habit of simultaneously switching their wardrobe to something more worn-out, and they even attend the same support groups, pretending to be terminally ill people they aren't. There's a whole system of mirrored details here that's hard to chalk up to screenwriter's coincidence.

If you follow this logic to its conclusion, an intriguing picture emerges. Tyler Durden symbolizes the masculine, destructive, rebellious side of the hero - that image of strength and freedom the Narrator desperately lacks in his gray office life. And Marla, in this scheme, becomes the feminine side of that same personality - the chaotic, vulnerable, yet magnetic side the hero tries with all his might to suppress and keep at a distance.

Hence the strange dynamic of their relationship in the film. The Narrator either hates Marla or can't do without her, while Tyler regularly spends time with her while the hero himself supposedly remembers nothing. If Marla really is part of him, then the whole romantic storyline turns into a story about the hero trying to reconcile different sides of his own psyche, rather than an ordinary love triangle.

There's also a detail that usually seals the deal for supporters of the theory. In the plot, cars on the road literally don't notice Marla in some scenes, as if she physically doesn't exist for the world around her - just as Tyler doesn't exist for anyone but the Narrator. A small detail easy to miss on a first viewing, but one that fits perfectly into the bigger picture once you know where to look.

Officially, the creators of the film and the book have never confirmed this version, and in Chuck Palahniuk's original source material, Marla is described as a perfectly real, separate character. So this is more of a beautiful fan theory than canon. But that's exactly why "Fight Club" continues to live its own life decades after release. The film is built so tightly and in so many layers that almost any detail can turn into its own puzzle if you look at it from the right angle.

You can't really call the Kula Tower in Belgrade a skyscraper - the building has only 42 floors. Still, the observation deck is high enough for tourists to get great shots from up there.

The observation deck has a great location - you can see all of Belgrade in every direction. To get there, you don't need to go straight into the tower. We first tried doing exactly that, but those entrances only lead to the hotel and apartments. Access to the deck is through the neighboring shopping mall. Go into the mall, head up to the next floor, and walk toward the tower. The mall is connected to Kula Tower by a long pedestrian bridge - you need to cross it.

We stayed at Aspera Hotel Golden Horn, a 4-star hotel in Istanbul, for just one night, but that was enough to form a clear impression. We booked a Deluxe Double Room on the lower floor.

The room looked very nice, everything was fresh and not “worn out.”

In the British zombie flick 28 Years Later, a soldier shows the boy hero a photo on his phone - his girlfriend, all trout pout and fake curves:

For anyone who hasn't seen it: the kid grew up on an island version of Great Britain, locked down hard, zombies roaming everywhere, no real doctors around - so obviously nobody's getting lip fillers or a boob job there. Meanwhile over in Europe, life's carrying on like normal, no zombies in sight.

We arrived in Tivat from Belgrade. Although the airport is international, it's very small and can feel quite cramped. It likely wouldn't be able to handle two flights at the same time comfortably, as there simply isn't enough space in the terminal waiting areas.

As the plane approaches for landing, you can see mountains on both sides.

At a hotel, there was a sign next to the toilet that said:

Why is this nonsense?

First of all, how exactly do they expect people to flush the toilet less often? Leave urine sitting there so it can stink and create stains and buildup on the bowl?

Secondly, this kind of water conservation can actually make things worse for the environment. I once watched a TV program where sewer system workers explained that people nowadays use less water, which means there is less flow in the sewer pipes. As a result, blockages occur more frequently, waste is carried away less effectively, and maintenance costs increase. In the end, this drives up water prices for consumers. So there is no real financial benefit either.

Workers at wastewater treatment plants have made similar complaints. Because people use less water, treatment facilities receive more concentrated and polluted wastewater. It is harder to process, produces stronger odors, and can cause unpleasant smells to spread for miles around the treatment plants.

There is no real environmental benefit here. It's just the appearance of caring about the environment rather than actually helping it.

Daniel Roe (author of Nuxt) reports that a new npm package will now be used for route analysis:


https://github.com/nuxt/nuxt/releases/tag/v4.4.0

Performance improvements are always good. But what's happening under the hood? Looking at the GitHub changes:

Fans of Quentin Tarantino know that he has a foot fetish. For those unfamiliar with the term: it's when a man has a particular fascination with women's legs, and even more so with their feet. It's safe to say that Quentin Tarantino is the most famous foot fetishist in the world.

Let's start with Quentin Tarantino's first real film - Reservoir Dogs (1992). I'm skipping "My Best Friend's Birthday", as it was never officially released.

There's nothing related to foot fetishism in Reservoir Dogs: the film features only tough men. Women appear only briefly in a few background scenes. I found just one scene where a woman is shown in the foreground - the carjacking moment.