Life After Death

 

New Yorker - "The Dire Wolf Is Back"
By D.T. Max

"I asked Lamm when a university lab would have completed a comparable effort.

“Never,” he replied.

On March 25th, I went to meet the two older pups, named Romulus and Remus. (The third pup, named Khaleesi—for the light-haired protagonist of “Game of Thrones”—was not yet ready for visitors, I was told.) I was given directions to a one-acre enclosure at a location in the northern U.S. The dire wolves normally live on a two-thousand-acre property far from the spot where I was headed. “They live like kings there,” Lamm told me. As I drove up to the enclosure, I saw Church, looking like Gandalf, with a bushy white beard, and Lamm, who, with his luxuriant, glossy facial hair, resembles Jon Snow, Ghost’s master. Matt James was present, and a phalanx of animal-care officers stood in a corner, in case there were problems.

I suddenly saw two shocks of white—the young dire wolves. Both attentive and wary, the animals seemed not from this world. They were impressively large: roughly eighty pounds apiece, at five months old. Lamm told me that they would likely weigh about a hundred and forty pounds at maturity—at least twenty pounds more than a large adult male gray wolf."

Robert Rodriguez on The Genuis of Quentin Tarantino

2026 World Cup Host City Posters

 

FIFA - "Official Host City Posters"

The Home Depot's Secret Garden

WSJ - "Inside Home Depot’s $20 Billion Secret Garden"

By Ben Cohen

"“We have one purpose, and one purpose only,” McComish said. “We work with global breeders and regional growers to make sure we find plants so they have success in their gardens.”

To find those plants, Home Depot runs 25 trial gardens in nine climate zones across the U.S. and studies them in the field under a variety of conditions. After all, a plant that thrives in New Mexico might not survive in New Jersey. For security purposes, some of those experimental gardens are hidden in cornfields or through backyard donkey corrals, protected on secret farms before the plants are selected and patented.

Each year, the company vets roughly 800 genetic enhancements before 400 make it to the planting stage. As they monitor the trials, Home Depot and its partners focus on key attributes like disease resistance, drought tolerance and “flower power,” industry shorthand for color vibrancy and bloom size.

What they’re really trying to do is maximize your odds of a lush garden. They’re looking for the seeds of success. "

Global Migration According to Facebook Data

 

NYT - "To Understand Global Migration, You Have to See It First"

Claude Tries to Beat Pokemon

 

Ars Technica - "Why Anthropic’s Claude still hasn’t beaten Pokémon"

Robots Run Half Marathon in Beijing

 

WSJ - "Man Versus Machine as China Shows Off Humanoid Robots in Half-Marathon"

"The human male champion completed the race in one hour, two minutes and 36 seconds, followed by thousands of exhilarated human runners. Some were exhausted, resting nearby to catch their breath.

After two hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds, Tien Kung Ultra was the first robot to reach the finish line. A large crowd of spectators, including government officials, was eagerly awaiting the robots. Many surrounded Tien Kung Ultra to take photos. The robot maintained its blank expression.

In the end, only Tien Kung Ultra and Little Rascal N2 were able to meet the original cutoff time, and the organizers extended it to 4 hours and 10 minutes so that more robots could finish the race. Little Rascal’s sibling model Xuanfeng Xiaozi N2—or Whirlwind Kid—was among the robots that followed, state media showed. While team Tien Kung stuck with one robot throughout the race, others switched.

Hang Qian, a 29-year-old Beijing resident who ran the half-marathon, said he beat Tien Kung Ultra by about 10 minutes.

“For ordinary people, a half marathon is an extremely challenging sport and everyone gets exhausted. But robots can continue on by replacing the battery,” Hang said"