Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

About 50% of the 2,200 employees at TSMC's Arizona plant are from Taiwan, seeding a cultural and demographic shift at the edge of Phoenix and the Sonoran Desert (New York Times)

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Law enforcement officials worldwide say Chinese mafia boss Wan Kuok-koi, aka Broken Tooth, has played a central role in the emergence of "pig butchering" scams (Wall Street Journal)

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As Tether says it is on track for a record $10B net profit in 2024, banks around the world are exploring launching their own stablecoins for payments (Bloomberg)

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Sources detail the IDF's Unit 8200, which identifies human targets as candidates for elimination amid the Israel-Hamas war; one source calls it an "AI factory" (Elizabeth Dwoskin/Washington Post)

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Bitcoin's rally, fueled by Trump's reelection, has lost steam near the end of 2024; bitcoin hovers at ~$93,500, around $15,000 below its mid-December record (Sunil Jagtiani/Bloomberg)

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Netflix's foray into live sports caps off a strong year, with its share price up 90%+ in 2024, but the stock's rich valuation sets a high bar for follow-up act (Dan Gallagher/Wall Street Journal)

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Mexico plans to launch an app in January 2025 that will let Mexican migrants warn relatives and alert the nearest consulate if US immigration agents detain them (Russell Contreras/Axios)

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US politicians fully embraced influencers in 2024, blurring lines between punditry and journalism and paving the way for lawmakers to become creators themselves (Makena Kelly/Wired)

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Sources and documents detail OnlyFans' journey from an obscure, porn-free site to an adults-only platform fueled by erotic performers and celebrity influencers (Reuters)

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How Donald Trump went from backing a TikTok ban in 2020 to backing off in 2024, as he became a political star on the platform, where he has 14.7M+ followers (New York Times)

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Three industry groups sue the IRS, challenging a rule that would require some DeFi brokers to report users' personal information to the agency starting in 2027 (Zack Abrams/The Block)

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RWA.xyz estimates the total value of tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, is $13B, as Opimas says just 0.003% of global asset value is tokenized (Bloomberg)

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AT&T and Verizon say their networks are now clear after the Salt Typhoon intrusion; AT&T says a few "individuals of foreign intelligence interest" were targeted (Kelcee Griffis/Bloomberg)

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The US plans to update HIPAA with new cybersecurity rules to protect patients' private data, including mandatory encryption and multifactor authentication (A.J. Vicens/Reuters)

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Trump supports H-1B visas, saying "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B", siding with Musk in the MAGA debate on the issue (Jon Levine/New York Post)

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Finland, Canada, the US, and other countries are testing tech for passport-free travel, including facial recognition and a "digital travel credential" (Matt Burgess/Wired)

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A look at Google's pressure-filled 2024 under Sundar Pichai, notching some AI wins with new Gemini models and navigating product mishaps, layoffs, and more (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)

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Analysis: mentions of deepfakes or AI-made content in X's Community Notes were more correlated with new image generation model releases than elections in 2024 (Clara Murray/Financial Times)

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What to expect in 2025: increased hype around AI agents, new generative AI-powered gadgets, better weather forecasts due to Google DeepMind's GenCast, and more (Wall Street Journal)

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Analysis: 50%+ of the US households showing highly-distorted power readings from February to October were within 20 miles of significant data center activity (Bloomberg)

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