Jen Podany moved her family from California to Arizona. Courtesy of Jen Podany Jen Podany raised her three children in a busy Los Angeles neighborhood where traffic limited their independence. After moving to a small Arizona town, her kids can ride bikes and play with neighborhood friends. She says their new lifestyle reminds her of the freedom children had growing up in the 1980s. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jen Podany, founder of Bluestone Sunshields. It has been edited for length and clarity. Near the end of 2024, my family of five had once again escaped Los Angeles for the quiet we found 10 hours south in Snowflake, Arizona. We'd been doing it for years, renting an Airbnb in Snowflake, a town of 6,000 in the middle of nowhere, switching off amid the miles of empty land. It had started as a stopover on our way to visit my husband's family in New Mexico. We fell in love with the town, and from then on, we'd visit whenever we needed to get away from the busyness of LA. In Snowflake, we felt like we could catch our breath. Our souls calmed each time we arrived and ached to stay each time we left. We put an offer on a house Back in LA, specifically Burbank, the five of us — my husband and our three children, whom we homeschooled — lived in a duplex made up of two connected apartments. We lived in one of them, which had two bedrooms and one bathroom. From the other apartment, my husband and I ran our two separate businesses. Jen Podany put an offer on a house in a small town. Courtesy of Jen Podany The duplex was in a neighborhood near a busy street, and we had to be cautious about letting the kids go outside to play because of the cars. I was always holding someone's little hand when we were out, just in case. You could hear planes flying back and forth into Burbank Airport. As our kids and businesses grew, we felt increasingly confined. Then we saw a house on the market in Snowflake, and I felt in my bones that we should put in an offer. It was a four-bedroom house surrounded by land, chickens, cows, and a crazy turkey. We could buy it and have our own place to stay when visiting, rather than always renting an Airbnb. We bought the house for about $500,000, and on our first visit to stay in it in January 2025, none of us wanted to go back to Burbank. We knew then that we'd make Snowflake our home. And so we did. We moved from Los Angeles to a town of 6,000 people In so many ways, our life looks exactly like life in LA. Our routines have remained the same. Every morning, just like in LA, we start our day at a coffee shop. Except in Snowflake, there's only one place to go instead of 20 choices. We work, we homeschool, we eat our meals, and we go to sleep — just like we did in LA. Jen Podany moved her family from California to Arizona. Courtesy of Jen Podany But by transplanting our lives to a quiet town, we all feel calmer and more peaceful. Personally, my nervous system has regulated. In LA, I felt like the world was constantly coming at me, like I was being bombarded and reacting to everything around me. Here, I feel like I'm in the driver's seat, with a clear head. Not only has it been good for my well-being, but it's also been good for my business. The move has given me the mental space to think bigger. It's led to greater creativity, paving the way for business growth. My kids have an 80s childhood My kids love Snowflake, too. I didn't have to convince them about the move. They have the freedom to be out of the house without worrying about cars and crime. Just a bike ride away are other kids with whom they are often found playing. I think kids grow up quickly in cities, and living here, I feel like my kids get to just be kids. It's like going back to being a kid in the '80s, and I love that for them. The house is bigger, so we aren't living on top of each other, but they've also got endless outdoor space to explore. Even though I lived in LA for 20 years, we never experienced friendship and community as we have in just over a year in Snowflake. Jen Podany says life in "mountain time" is slower. Courtesy of Jen Podany We can't leave the house without seeing someone who wants to stop and talk. Everyone here is on "mountain time" — slowing down. No one is rushing around, head down, looking at their phones, too hurried to have a conversation. Everyone is present and friendly. My husband and I still occasionally have to go to LA for work, and each time we come back home to Snowflake, I take a deep breath and know we made the right decision to relocate our family. Read the original article on Business Insider

A new MapQuest feature allows users to find license plate reader cameras in their area. St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Contributor/Getty Images; Business Insider MapQuest is pulling the curtain back on automatic license plate readers. Users can now locate Flock Safety and other surveillance cameras on MapQuest's app. Critics of the tech have raised privacy concerns and potential misuse. MapQuest, the OG software to find your way from point A to point B, is taking on the surveillance state. The free mapping service unveiled a new feature for its mobile app on Thursday that allows users to turn on a "surveillance layer" on a map to locate known automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, along their route. MapQuest says the app can identify cameras developed by Flock Safety, Axon Enterprise, Motorola Solutions, and PlateSmart, among others. "The Roads Have Eyes!" the company said in its BlueSky post announcing the new feature. The Roads Have Eyes! 👁️ Turn on the Surveillance Layer in Map Options to see known license plate readers from Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions (Vigilant), Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon, Leonardo (ELSAG), Neology, Rekor, PlateSmart, Ubicquia, Verkada, and other outdoor surveillance cameras. [image or embed] — MapQuest (@mapquest.com) October 15, 2026 at 6:49 PM MapQuest's General Manager Doug Berger said drivers using the service inspired the company to add the feature. "We build around what drivers ask for, and showing surveillance camera locations is one of our users' top three requests," Berger told Business Insider in a statement." License plate readers capture images of vehicles and then use machine learning to turn details such as license plate numbers, car make, color, and model into searchable data. They're commonly found at intersections, parking lots, roadways, highways, and neighborhood entrances, businesses, and private properties. Law enforcement agencies initially embraced license plate readers to help them locate vehicles and identify suspects. Retail outlets have also used Flock cameras as part of their security efforts. A major backlash against the cameras, however, has led stores, police, and towns to dial back their use. Critics say the cameras raise privacy concerns and that the data they collect can be misused or shared with federal immigration officials. Some people who've opposed the cameras have staged protests, launched petitions, and even forcibly removed them. The city of Tempe in Arizona said in August it shut down its Flock Safety camera network and planned to terminate its contract. Other towns followed suit. "These cameras have helped our police officers do their jobs, and we don't discount that," Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said in a public statement at the time. "But the risk of misuse is too great. We have to be able to provide public safety in a way that maintains the trust of our community. For Tempe, that means taking these cameras down." Flock says its license plate readers do not use facial recognition and that customers — meaning the ones putting up the cameras — can control access to and sharing of the data collected. Amid growing backlash, the company has tightened its privacy safeguards, including reducing the time data is retained from 30 days to 7 days. "They are built to focus on the vehicle involved in an incident and the details that can help distinguish it from other vehicles on the road," Flock told Business Insider in August. MapQuest first launched in the late 1990s, allowing users to map out a route and print directions. The release of Google Maps eventually obliterated the service. As it tries to stay relevant, it has jumped at opportunities to leverage prevailing public discourse. In August, MapQuest briefly topped app stores after it — unlike Google — rebuffed President Donald Trump's executive order to rename "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America." Read the original article on Business Insider

Elon Musk is spending big on Republicans this midterm cycle. In 2025, he said that he had "done enough" political spending. Bloomberg/Getty Images Elon Musk is giving reams of cash to Republicans. Most of that dough is ending up in Texas, according to financial disclosure forms. In Texas, Ken Paxton is running a tight race against James Talarico. Elon Musk is forking over generational wealth to Republicans facing tough midterm elections this cycle. Over two donations in September, Musk gave a combined $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Republicans, which has, in turn, given reams of cash to funds supporting the Republican candidate in Texas. The money, shown in new federal disclosure forms, cements Musk as a major player in Republican politics over a year after he publicly split with President Donald Trump over the latter's handling of the Epstein files (though the two have since reconciled). Republicans are facing serious headwinds over the Iran war, rising inflation, and sky-high gas prices. Polls show that American voters are largely dissatisfied with Trump's leadership and handling of the economy. All told, Musk has given about $276 million since July. Much of Musk's political donations have ended up in Texas, according to federal disclosure forms, where embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton is engaged in a mudslinging battle for the Senate with state representative James Talarico. One day after Musk notched a $75 million donation to the Senate Leadership Fund, the Super PAC gave a $75 million donation to the Texas PAC, a group aligned with Paxton. Then, also in September, another $83 million donation by Musk was matched the next day by an identical donation to the Texas PAC, according to federal disclosure forms. Talarico's campaign, meanwhile, has raised about $129 million. Musk's companies are already investing billions in the Lone Star State, as the business magnate builds SpaceX's terafab semiconductor facility outside Houston. In 2024, Musk announced that he was moving SpaceX's headquarters from California to Texas in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom's policies on gender identity. Representatives for Paxton and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, said last year that he had probably "done enough" political spending, though he left the door open. "Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I'll do it. I don't currently see a reason," he told Bloomberg at the time. Read the original article on Business Insider

Terrence O'Brien / The Verge: Meta removes ToS language that suggested it could scrape websites “associated with” business accounts, saying it applied only to “ads and business products”  —  Language that experts say allowed the scraping of news sites to train its AI has been removed from Meta's terms.

Discussion | Link

Meta has revised its pending Commercial Terms, which take effect October 30, 2026, to remove a sentence stating that the company could use content crawled from websites tied to business accounts to train Meta Company Products. The revised text was in place on Meta's legal website by October 17, 2026, after a day of public criticism of the original wording. What the Revised Terms Now Say The Commercial Terms govern access to or use of Meta Company Products for business or commercial purposes…

I've lived in Colorado for over 10 years. If you really want to get a taste of the state, try visiting the city of Golden. milehightraveler/Getty Images As a Colorado local, I love bringing first-time visitors to the state to Golden instead of Denver. It's a short drive from downtown Denver with beautiful mountain views and a walkable downtown. There are great places to eat alongside mountain views, hike, and enjoy the scenery in Golden. I've lived in Colorado for over a decade. If I had just a single day to show someone what I love about the state, I wouldn't take them to our capital city, Denver. Instead, I'd bring them to the much smaller city of Golden. Golden gives has a little bit of everything for visitors: mountains and hiking trails, a creek running through town, a historic downtown made for wandering on foot, and plenty of places to eat and drink. It's located just about 15 miles west of downtown Denver, or about a 25-minute drive, and typically less than an hour's drive from the Denver International Airport. Here's why I love bringing out-of-towners to Golden — and where I'd take them when they visited. I'd start the morning with coffee at a family-owned shop. Sogo Beans and Boards is one of my favorite morning stops. Courtesy of Lexi Marshall Golden has several coffee shops, but I'd start my perfect day here at Sogo Beans and Boards. The family-owned coffee and skate shop is just minutes from downtown. I love that Sogo air-roasts its fair-trade coffee and makes its own syrups and pastries. Its plant-filled room, free Wi-Fi, and garden patio make it easy to linger over a latte, and it's the kind of independent shop that makes a morning feel unhurried. We'd spend lots of time outside, which is easy to do in Golden Hiking North Table Mountain Park is one of my favorite ways to see the foothills around Golden Courtesy of Lexi Marshall The city makes it easy to go from a coffee shop to a trail without a long drive. For a leisurely morning, I'd rent an e-bike and follow the paved Clear Creek Trail, which winds alongside the water through parks and greenery. For more of a workout, I'd hike North Table Mountain, where the initial climb stings but rewards you with sweeping views of the city and surrounding mesas. Riding the Clear Creek Trail is a great way to see Golden by e-bike. Courtesy of Lexi Marshall In warmer months, tubing on Clear Creek is another way to take in the town's outdoor culture and scenic views. If I had more time, I'd take the short drive from town to visit Golden Gate Canyon State Park, a beautiful place to enjoy aspen groves and mountain scenery. Come winter, the same park is a serene place to snowshoe through snow-covered trails. The Golden Mill is my go-to for lunch The rooftop patio at The Golden Mill has mountain views. Courtesy of Lexi Marshall After working up an appetite, I'd head to The Golden Mill, a food hall and community gathering space along Clear Creek. It offers several food concepts — from sushi and tacos to fried chicken, barbecue, and New Zealand-style ice cream — which means a group with different tastes can all leave happy. More than 50 self-pour taps offer beer, wine, cider, and more. The best part is the setting. Large creekside and rooftop patios have mountain views, which makes it an ideal spot to settle in after a morning outside. My sister and I recently spent a morning there for rooftop yoga led by a local teacher, then walked around town afterward before returning for lunch. My sister and I spent a peaceful morning in Golden. Courtesy of Lexi Marshall It was peaceful, and it reinforced what makes the place work: It feels less like a traditional restaurant and more like somewhere you can spend a few hours eating, drinking, and watching Golden go by. The yoga is a summer series that typically returns in May, and the event lineup rotates with the seasons. Past offerings have included rooftop barre and Keg Conditioning, a workout that uses empty kegs as equipment. Downtown is made for wandering Washington Avenue is lined with locally owned boutiques, galleries, and Western outfitters, and a seasonal Saturday farmers market adds to the scene. Kayakers can play at Clear Creek Whitewater Park and beer fans can tour the Coors Brewery. Coors began brewing beside the creek in 1873. One year later, the Colorado School of Mines was established nearby. It's part of an industrial past you can still sense as you walk. I'd leave some of the afternoon unscheduled, too. Part of Golden's appeal is simply walking along the creek, looking up at the foothills, and stopping wherever something catches your attention. Golden is proof that the best trips aren't always the flashiest Golden is just as beautiful in winter as it is in spring, summer, and fall. Courtesy of Lexi Marshall All of the above is ultimately why I'd choose Golden for someone's first taste of Colorado. Denver has plenty to offer, but Golden gives you a concentrated version of the state I'd want to share with a first-time visitor: mountain views without a long mountainous drive; outdoor adventure alongside a walkable downtown; and enough food, beer, and local character to fill the day. Sometimes it's not the most extravagant destinations that create the most meaningful memories. Some of my favorites in Golden have been the simplest, like that quiet morning with my sister. After more than a decade here, that combination of ease and charm still feels like Colorado to me. Read the original article on Business Insider

The biggest change about Ember's new mug is that you no longer have to open the app to adjust your drink’s temperature.

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: DeepSeek releases V4.1-Flash-1017, an update it says offers “stronger benchmark performance, faster task completion, and shorter outputs” than its predecessor  —  DeepSeek released an update of its AI model this weekend that it says is faster and leaner, ramping …

Bloomberg: Zelenskyy says Starshield restrictions remain and are affecting only Ukraine, leading him to believe they are a “planned operation” rather than technical issues  —  Restrictions on Ukraine's military use of SpaceX's Starlink system appear to be deliberate and not the result …

A gardener tends a flowerbed. cbarnesphotography/Getty Images Anthropic examined what might happen when AI and robots are combined. That could put more hands-on jobs, including gardening, in the path of automation, Anthropic warned. I'm skeptical that robots can handle the messy reality of pulling weeds. Remember when Anthropic's AI jobs report suggested gardeners were among the safest workers because AI couldn't pull weeds or tell a rose from a dandelion? I joked about that in AI Insider earlier this year. Well, Anthropic updated the research to freak us all out a bit more. This time it asks a bigger question: What happens when you combine AI with robots? That change pushes many hands-on jobs much higher on the disruption scale. On paper, it makes sense. In practice, I'm skeptical. For instance, anyone who's spent time working in a garden knows how hard it is to identify the right plant, kneel in awkward spots, and pull a weed out properly by the roots without damaging everything around it. Robots are improving. But if you've ever watched one tackle a messy real-world task, you'll know there's a long road between a research chart and reality. The chart below illustrates how adding robots could change job-task exposure across selected job categories. Cleaning & maintenance includes gardeners along with janitors and similar roles. Read the original article on Business Insider

Ten quantization guides, and not one threshold-dependent metric between them — what that gap hides, and the two numbers that close it. The post The Number Your Quantization Gate Doesn't Have appeared first on Towards Data Science.

DeepSeek released an update of its AI model this weekend that it says is faster and leaner, ramping up the Chinese company’s challenge to Silicon Valley rivals Anthropic PBC and OpenAI as well as domestic competitors like Moonshot Kimi and Z.ai

Jean Eaglesham / Wall Street Journal: As AI giants rack up potential legal liabilities of tens of billions amid safety incidents, insurers worry claims may outpace limits on existing coverage  —  The artificial-intelligence industry's phenomenal rate of growth means claims have the potential to outpace the limits on existing coverage

Archaeologists have discovered a puncture wound from a spear in the shoulder blade of a Neanderthal that lived 75,000 years ago, offering a possible glimpse of early interpersonal violence.

My husband and I bought land, and are starting the process of building a house. Lisa Leslie When it comes to money, I'm a big budgeter, and my husband prefers taking risks. Now that we're building a house together, our differences are causing some disagreements. We've learned to stay flexible and balance each other's approaches. My husband and I have very different ideas about financial responsibility. When we're feeling stressed about money, my instinct is to run the numbers and account for every financial what-if. He's a big-picture dreamer who sees what something could become and is more willing to say, "We'll figure it out." His attitude has paid off before. He had the vision for our first home, which we bought for under $100,000 and recently sold for a decent profit after 13 years of renovations. I know some of the best things we've done together wouldn't have happened without my husband's willingness to take a chance, but our differences have still caused some friction over the years. Now that we're building a new home together, we're trying to balance my need to plan for the unknown with his belief that we'll find a way forward. After 13 years, we took a risk and sold our home We sold our home and bought land in a part of Maine we love. Lisa Leslie For 13 years, we'd lived in the same place. My husband had moved frequently as a child, and he wanted his two daughters to have a consistent place to call home. Leaving this house behind was bittersweet, but my oldest stepdaughter had just bought her own house, and my younger one was heading off to college. We were ready for what came next. We could have bought an existing house needing renovations. Instead, we found land in southern Maine that felt worth taking a risk on. We've always loved the area. My family has an annual reunion there, where we spend a week at the beach. Our new property will hopefully give us that lifestyle without the summer crowds: It's more than 2 ½ acres with hiking trails next door, a nearby kayak and paddleboard launch, and the ocean just a short drive away. We decided to go for it, and by the end of August, our old house was nearly empty. My younger stepdaughter left for college on a Wednesday, we moved the rest of our things to a rental on a Thursday, and officially sold the house that Friday. Every estimate comes with an 'unless' If excavators hit ledge, our costs could go up. Lisa Leslie In September, we began building our 1,500-square-foot house. We're now paying $3,000 a month for a rental home — with a construction loan on top of that — and keeping track of a lot of numbers, from lumber and labor to excavation, plumbing, electrical, permits, and finishes. My husband is doing most of the construction himself, which is what makes this project possible. If we had to pay for all of the labor, we probably couldn't afford to build right now. However, that's not to say this hasn't been a very stressful time. We think we've accounted for everything, but every estimate has an asterisk: Unless lumber prices go up. Unless a contractor's price changes. Unless we hit ledge — that is, solid bedrock beneath the soil that can be expensive to excavate. We might have to rethink the foundation or adjust the entire plan once we see what's underground. I find that uncomfortable, but my husband doesn't. We're leaving room to adjust We've made some compromises, and we'll likely have to make more. Lisa Leslie My husband can picture what this property could become over time, and has big dreams for it. He wanted a garage, a small cottage where our family could stay when they visit, a little more space, and nicer finishes in some areas. I kept bringing us back to what we could afford right now, and how much we wanted to keep in savings rather than put everything into the house. After a lot of discussion, we decided to start small. We're building for the life we have today, while — at his request — leaving room for the one we might want tomorrow. The garage and cottage can wait. For now, we're focusing on getting the house right without stretching our budget too far. That means staying flexible. For instance, my husband wants a finished basement, and I agreed, knowing this would give us the option to add a third bedroom down the road. Though the cost difference between a basement and an unfinished crawl space isn't huge upfront, hitting ledge could put us thousands — or even tens of thousands — over budget. We're willing to give the basement a shot, but if excavation costs start climbing, we may have to scale back to a crawl space and save the extra bedroom for another day. We have a plan, but we know it might change once we get further into the build. I'll keep making the spreadsheets and asking for the numbers. He'll keep looking at the big picture and reminding me why we decided to do this. This project, and my husband, have taught me that financial responsibility isn't necessarily about eliminating every risk, but knowing which risks are worth taking and staying open to changing course. Read the original article on Business Insider

<p><strong>Release:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/simonw/web-edit/releases/tag/0.1a2">web-edit 0.1a2</a></p> <p>web-edit (<a href="https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/12/web-edit/">previously</a>) is my tiny web app for browsing and editing files in a folder. I mainly built it for editing files on different machines via Tailscale.</p> <p>I added a "copy to clipboard" option for both text and image data. I needed this because I was running pelican prompts on a laptop from my phone (here's <a href="https://tools.simonwillison.net/markdown-svg-renderer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgist.github.com%2Fsimonw%2Fb1cec9726b6aa62d4de47100f90f0c1a">DeepSeek 4.1 Flash 1017</a>) and I wanted an easy way to copy the resulting logs into a Gist.</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/projects">projects</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/pelican-riding-a-bicycle">pelican-riding-a-bicycle</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/deepseek">deepseek</a></p>

Ritholtz Wealth Management Chairman and Chief Investment Officer Barry Ritholtz tells Bloomberg This Weekend that AI remains a transformational technology, but investors face a difficult task determining which companies will ultimately emerge as winners and losers. Speaking with hosts David Gura and Christina Ruffini, Ritholtz discusses CoreWeave’s selloff, concerns about AI financing and valuations, and the challenges facing Tesla as competition in electric vehicles intensifies. (Source: Bloomberg)

Restrictions on Ukraine’s military use of SpaceX’s Starlink system appear to be deliberate and not the result of any technical problems, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while denouncing a US decision to waive sanctions against Russia.

Preeti Singh / Bloomberg: A profile of Blackstone President Jon Gray, who is making AI his biggest bet, has built a $200B data center empire, and is building a cloud venture with Google  —  From data centers and chip financing to AI advice on potential deals, the technology is everywhere at the alternative-investment giant