Joseph Nye: “International relations is power politics. As Thucydides wrote more than two millennia ago, the strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must. Power, however, rests on more than bombs, bullets and economic coercion. Power is the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants, and that can be done through attraction as well as through force and payment. Because this attraction — soft power — is rarely sufficient by itself, leaders can find hard power more tempting…A nation’s soft power rests upon its culture, its values and its policies when they are seen as legitimate by others. That legitimacy is affected by whether a nation’s actions are perceived as congruent with or contradicting widely held values. In other words, attention to values enhances a nation’s soft power. A smart realist provides room for including some widely shared values in the definition of the national interest. There is an important difference between inclusive and exclusive nationalism. “America First” is a great slogan for American elections, but it attracts few votes overseas.”
WSJ: “Data centers last year spent an estimated $40 billion on storage devices, according to the consulting firm IDC, and that is expected to grow by 31% over the next two years…Hard disk drive makers, under pressure from faster rivals, hope a breakthrough will keep it the dominant data-storage medium…Enter heat-assisted magnetic recording, or HAMR, a technology Seagate has been developing for more than 20 years. The new drives use a laser to apply a nanosecond of heat to bits smaller than any used before, allowing them to be magnetically manipulated…New products arrive as AI is fueling a surge in demand for data storage.”
Azeem Azhar: “Today, many people see AI as a tool primarily for automation, assuming it works best with structured, defined tasks. But the reality is quite different: AI is reshaping how we turn fuzzy intuitions into tangible, powerful ideas. Your greatest notions are probably stuck in your head—too vague, too unstructured. Today’s AI will help you uncage them and turn them into reality. Welcome to the world of the vibe worker…Vibe working is using AI to turn fuzzy thoughts into structured outputs through iteration.”
FT: “Freestyle Chess is a new name for an old idea, a variant in which the pieces on the back row — king, queen, rooks, bishops and knights — start in a randomised position. The pieces on the other side mirror this arrangement. It’s also known as Fischer Random, after Bobby Fischer, the American chess legend, or as Chess960, after the number of possible starting positions…[In 2023], [Magnus] Carlsen was approached by a wealthy German businessman. Together, they developed a vision for invigorating the ancient game, loosening the machines’ grip and reintroducing the human element.”
