It's not clear which states are involved, but they're asking about everything from OpenAI's ad policies to its handling of health data.

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The Information: Sources: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is among tech leaders who raised concerns with Trump officials about Mythos 5, setting in motion new export restrictions  —  Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was among the tech leaders who raised concerns to senior Trump administration officials this week about security risks …

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly warned that his latest AI model, Mythos, posed a cybersecurity threat. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images Dario Amodei has warned that his latest AI model, Mythos, was so powerful it posed a serious threat. The Trump administration just ordered Anthropic to block foreign access to Mythos. Anthropic responded by shutting down the model altogether. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is famous for warning that his own products pose a threat. In an essay published this month, Amodei cautioned that AI's power "has become undeniable." As an example, he pointed to Anthropic's latest model, Mythos, which he said presents "very real risks" to cybersecurity, the financial sector, critical infrastructure, and national security. He then called for a more robust government intervention to address the risks. On Friday, his warnings appeared to backfire when the US government suddenly intervened. Anthropic cut off access to its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 after it said the Trump administration ordered it to block foreign access to the models. The Pentagon's chief information officer expressed support for the move in an X post, writing, "Some things are simply more important than revenue cycles, clickbait, and pre-IPO valuation." The surprise development sent the tech industry into a tizzy. Gary Marcus, the AI researcher and notorious skeptic, called the Trump administration's move "wildly overdramatic and also counterproductive." Yann LeCunn, who is considered one of the godfathers of AI, blamed Amodei: "Dario Amodei's ridiculous fear mongering about Mythos/Fable (and AI in general) finally pays off," he wrote on X. "One reaps what one sows." Amodei has long sought to position himself as the AI industry's adult in the room. Once an integral researcher at OpenAI, he left the company to start Anthropic over concerns that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman prioritized releasing products over ensuring their safety. He has since issued a stream of statements that the things he is building and releasing to the general public, alongside OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon, and others, could upend life as we know it — for good as well as bad. Amodei once warned that AI would eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to soar to levels not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic, and before that, the Great Recession in 2008. While Amodei has softened his tone on jobs in recent weeks as his company gears up to go public, he and his company have not held back on other safety concerns. "The cyber risks that Mythos-class models present will not be the last that we must face," he wrote in his June essay. "I believe that biological risks may soon follow, and that serious AI autonomy risks may not be far behind." He wrote that concerns by lawmakers were out of step with AI's rapid progress. Earlier this month, his company called for a temporary halt to the development of frontier AI models in a paper cautioning that the latest models are getting closer to improving themselves, which it said, "might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems." "We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology," Anthropic wrote. That pause arrived on Friday, at least for Anthropic. Read the original article on Business Insider

I’ve struggled with insomnia since I was very young. Like many chronic overthinkers, I tend to fall asleep best when my mind is occupied by something else, such as podcasts, YouTube compilations, or my personal favorite: rain sounds. But earbuds can be uncomfortable, and playing audio out loud isn’t exactly considerate when I’m staying at […]

New York Times: US barring foreign nationals, including Anthropic staffers in the US, from using Fable 5 and Mythos 5 marks a new phase in the US trying to control Anthropic  —  The company said on Friday night that the federal government had ordered limits on its Mythos and Fable 5 A.I. systems, citing national security concerns.

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Enterprise Document Intelligence [Vol.1 #5ter] - Table cells, OCR, captions, headings: cloud-grade structure, running on your own machine. No key, no per-page bill, nothing leaves the building The post Parse PDFs for RAG Locally with Docling: Rich Tables, No Cloud Upload appeared first on Towards Data Science.

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The author and her partner met when she was n29 and he was 46. Now that he's 57, she's timing more about how their future will look. Courtesy of Victoria Peel Yates. My partner is 17 years older than me. I've been calculating how much time we have left together. Since my mom died at 69, I can't stop worrying about what our future might look like. Despite my fears, we recently moved to Italy together. On New Year's Day, I sat crying alone on the sofa while my partner, Max, slept. I wished it were just the one too many glasses of cava I had the night before. But it was something worse: a sudden, panicky feeling that time had moved faster than I realized. When we met in 2015, I was 29, and he was 46 — 17 years my senior. He looked so youthful that I assumed he was in his late 30s. If I'm honest, the age difference made me hesitate, but the connection between us was too strong to ignore. He made me feel seen and wanted in ways no one else had before, and after a few months of resisting, I gave in to my feelings. After 11 years, I worry about things my friends don't think about yet In the early days, he used to say, "I wish I were 10 years younger so I could have ten more years with you." It sounded so romantic to 29-year-old me, and 10 years seemed like an eternity. I wasn't prepared for how quickly they would pass. Over a decade later, Max still has the same energy and drive he had when I met him. Now 57, he's not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon, despite a few health niggles. He regularly spins records as a DJ, indulging in his passion for music. The author said her partner has a youthful spirt and is in good health. Courtesy of Victoria Peel Yates. But while friends my age are raising children or focusing on their careers, I worry about things that feel like they belong to someone much older. Those thoughts have intensified since my mom died unexpectedly at 69. Losing my mom made me start calculating our time together I often find myself calculating how long we have left together, as he's now just 12 years younger than my mother was when she died. Will I still be with the same energetic man in another 10 years? Or will I spend my 50s or 60s as a caregiver? Would I even be able to handle that responsibility if it fell to me? I picture hospital visits, me pushing a wheelchair, and the man I've come to depend on becoming dependent on me. Other times, I jump further ahead and picture what might come after. Will I end up alone at 50 or 60? Will I meet someone else, or build a new life on my own? I call these calculations "grief math." Awareness of time keeps me grounded in the present When Max woke up, I didn't say anything. How do you tell someone you've been contemplating their death? But when he asked what was wrong, I confessed. He wasn't upset; instead, he told me I should always talk to him. The author said thinking about the future has made her try to focus more on living in the now. Courtesy of Victoria Peel Yates. I still catch myself doing grief math from time to time. But when I do, something else happens: all the daily annoyances, like how he interrupts me when I'm talking, or lets the dishes pile up in the sink, just evaporate. I just want to hug him and hold onto the feeling forever. So I do. We recently moved to his hometown in Italy to be near his aging parents, which felt like a deeper commitment to a future that scares me. But if my mother's death taught me one thing, it's that time is never guaranteed, and not always in the way grief maths assumes. Max could live to 100. I could die first. We could have forty more years together. Obsessing over worst-case scenarios only guarantees I'll have wasted the time we definitely have now. Read the original article on Business Insider

I decided to share a home with three strangers after college, and so far, it's been better than living with friends. Emily Savage Six months after college, I moved to San Francisco, but was struggling to find potential roommates. Instead of living alone, I signed a lease with three strangers I met through Facebook groups. Moving in with people I didn't know was scary, but it's been easier than rooming with friends. When I graduated from college in 2023, I knew I wanted to return to Northern California, where I was born and raised. But after living with my parents in the Bay Area suburbs for six months, I accepted a job in San Francisco and needed to move closer to the city for work. There was just one problem: I didn't know a single person in San Francisco. Although I grew up in the area, all my friends had scattered across the country. I debated living alone, but ultimately, as a natural homebody, I wanted roommates to help push me outside my comfort zone and be more social. Having people to split bills with would be nice, too. Desperate to live with someone I even vaguely knew, I tried to connect with a few distant friends of friends, but preferences never aligned, and nothing ever worked out. So, I decided it was time to expand my options and turned to Facebook groups of people looking for roommates in San Francisco. After hours of scrolling through posts and vetting people through Instagram and FaceTime calls, I found three women — three strangers — to live with. Signing a lease and moving in with people I didn't know was terrifying at first, but now, nearly two years later, I can truly say my life in San Francisco wouldn't be as full without them. In my case, living with strangers gave me built-in exploration buddies and made dividing up chores easier Just one month after we moved in together, my roommates cheered me on as I ran the San Francisco Marathon. Emily Savage All three of my roommates were from out of state, and like me, they didn't know anyone else in San Francisco. That meant all of us were equally motivated to get out, explore, and say yes to any adventure. During the first few weekends of us living together, we bar-hopped across our neighborhood. It felt like being a freshman in college all over again, except our campus was now an entire city. My roommates slowly transformed from strangers to friends after each excursion, from attending a running club together to buying tickets to attend the Outside Lands music festival on a whim, Much to my surprise, my three roommates even showed up to cheer me on as I ran the San Francisco Marathon — my first-ever half-marathon — just a month after we moved in together. It felt great to make new connections and step out of my comfort zone. If I'd lived alone with friends I already had and knew well, I don't think I would've felt the need to explore and branch out. It would've been easy to stick with what's comfortable and familiar, like hanging out at home or visiting the same routine places, instead of trying new things. Another perk of living with people I didn't already have relationships with was that I felt more confident I could voice my needs. When I'd lived with friends before, there was always the fear of ruining the relationship in the back of our minds, so unspoken tensions grew, and chores remained unfinished. Some of the friends I lived with would leave the kitchen and living room a mess for days, but I never felt comfortable speaking up because I didn't want to be seen as the "nitpicky one" in our group or potentially jeopardize a long-standing friendship. I no longer have this problem now that I live with people I don't have a history with and who are roommates first. If one of us doesn't clean, forgets to lock the door, or neglects to take out the trash, I always feel like I can be upfront and ask them to pitch in. The arrangement isn't always perfect, but living with strangers has worked well for me Moving in with strangers might not be for everyone, but I'm really lucky it worked out for me. Emily Savage Yes, there are some setbacks about living with strangers that I would be remiss if I didn't mention, like the initial awkwardness that comes with getting to know new people and the possibility of having incompatible living styles. I'm definitely glad I spent time thoroughly vetting my would-be roommates via video calls and messages before signing a lease, since that helped lessen awkwardness and ease some of my anxieties. I'm also grateful that the process of searching for potential roommates helped me make new friends before I arrived in San Francisco. I still keep in touch with several people I met in those Facebook groups, even though living together didn't work out. Regardless, I understand that moving in with strangers doesn't work for everyone, and I got really lucky. I'm so glad I kicked off this new season of postgrad life by seeking out new people to live with. It's gone so well that we have no plans to move anytime soon. But if I do ever relocate to a different city, I know I'll be right back on Facebook, scouring through groups of strangers in search of roommates, eager to once again share a home with unfamiliar faces. Read the original article on Business Insider

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Oliver the puppy Alistair Barr/Business Insider ChatGPT analyzed puppy potty logs to create actionable metrics for Oliver's training efficiency. AI-generated CSV files helped track Oliver's potty habits, revealing key accident patterns. Consistent potty schedules, as shown by AI, reduced Oliver's accidents significantly over time. A recent AI experiment involved feeding weeks of handwritten puppy potty logs into ChatGPT. My wife and I tracked every pee, poop, walk, and accident for our puppy Oliver, creating a new breed of KPI: Key Potty Indicators. ChatGPT extracted the data from our scribbled notes and turned it into a fully formatted CSV file. Then it went to town charting the heck out of these KPIs. It came up with a host of fancy metrics, including ARR (Accident Reduction Rate), LTV (Longest Time Void-free), PTP (Poop-to-Pee) ratio, WAF (Weekly Accident-Free) rate, and DPV (Daily Potty Volume). This chart was useful, showing how accidents correlate with how often we walk Oliver. A chart showing trends in puppy potty training data Alistair Barr/ChatGPT And the AI analysis found that accidents weren't random. They clustered in two predictable windows: midday (roughly noon to 3 pm) and late evening (8 pm to 10 pm), often following meals, naps, or play sessions. The biggest takeaway: Success comes from reducing the gap between "need to go" and "opportunity to go." According to Oliver's KPI dashboard, consistency beats discipline, every accident is a training opportunity, and our puppy is becoming increasingly forecastable. Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

Jessica Loudis / Bloomberg: A review of The Yahoo Boys, a deeply reported book on four online scammers in Lagos, Nigeria, exploring how and why they scam and the local impact of the trade  —  Nigeria's “Yahoo Boys” have industrialized romance scamming, reflecting and distorting modern hustle culture in the face of collapsing economic prospects.

Mahjong originated in China and became popular in the US during the 1920s. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images After my millennial cousin convinced me to try mahjong, I'm hooked. It keeps me off my phone and engaged with my friends and family. Now I understand how people can spend hours around a mahjong table without getting bored. A few months ago, if you'd asked me what I knew about mahjong, I probably would have said it's a game older women play, like my grandma, and that I was definitely not interested in learning. Then I got hooked. After my cousin moved closer to where I live, she told me she wanted to learn to play mahjong and asked if I'd teach her. My first thought was that if my cousin, a millennial, was interested, I (a Gen Zer) probably wouldn't be the only young person learning. Plus, I'd heard plenty of praise for the game from my mom's friends over the years. Before long, my mom and our family friend wanted to learn, too, so the four of us signed up for classes together. Mahjong, which has roots in mid-19th-century China, is seeing a surge in popularity as people seek out more face-to-face social activities — and after playing, I can see why. Now, I spend multiple evenings a month gathered around a table with them, shuffling tiles, debating strategy, and trying to remember which discards will come back to haunt me. Learning how to play When my cousin and I won two Mahjong games, our instructor gave us ducks. How cute are they? Amanda Geffner Mahjong arrived in the US from China in the 1920s, eventually developing into a variant known as American mahjong. When I sat down to play, the learning curve was much steeper than I expected. At first, the colorful tiles looked interchangeable, and every game felt like controlled chaos. There seemed to be endless rules, strategies, and combinations to memorize. For the first couple of classes, I was completely overwhelmed. There were moments I considered giving up. I couldn't understand how anyone kept track of everything happening on the table. But after a few sessions, patterns began to emerge. The strategy became more intuitive. Instead of seeing random tiles, I began to recognize opportunities. The game slowly began to make sense. Now, I completely understand why people can spend hours around a mahjong table without getting bored. The best part isn't the game My cousin and I after our first mahjong win! Amanda Geffner Like many people my age, I wasn't just looking for another hobby when I started playing mahjong — I was looking for a reason to spend less time staring at a screen and more time interacting with people face-to-face. My days are usually spent online. I work on a computer, communicate through Slack and email, scroll social media, and unwind by watching TV. Even many of my social interactions happen through text. However, unlike these modern hobbies, mahjong demands your full attention. The pace of the game requires players to stay engaged, watch what everyone else is doing, and react in real time. For a few hours, notifications disappear into the background. The game has also created a social routine that feels increasingly rare: a few hours where everyone is actively participating in the same thing. Younger players are picking up mahjong Oh My Mahjong makes tiles, bags, mats, and everything you need to play. XNY/Star Max/GC Images The more I've played, the more I've realized that mahjong's growing popularity among younger people makes sense. It fits into the larger trend of growing interest in activities that offer real-world connections — running clubs, book clubs, pickleball leagues, dinner parties — as players flock to clubs for a sense of community, as PBS reported. Yelp data showed searches for mahjong clubs and lessons grew by 4,000% last year, PBS reported. Many mahjong clubs across the US have seen increased interest from younger players. San Francisco's Youth Luck Leisure Mahjong Club, for example, draws crowds of up to 200 people, often with waitlists, the Associated Press reported in 2025, while New York's Green Tile Social Club is popular with younger players hoping to connect with their cultural heritage, The New York Times reported in 2024. Vogue also reported that younger players are heading to stylish mahjong clubs and themed events, and buying designer game sets, helping transform the game into a fashionable social activity. Ironically, I probably wouldn't have started playing mahjong without seeing it pop up more frequently online, but what has kept me playing is the exact opposite of what most online platforms offer. I've learned that mahjong rewards patience instead of instant gratification. It encourages real-life conversation over scrolling. And it gives me a reason to put my phone away for a few hours and focus fully on the people sitting across from me. Read the original article on Business Insider

Anthropic's Dario Amodei WEF Anthropic says the Trump Administration ordered it to block foreign access to two powerful AI models. In response, the company cut off all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The tech world reacted swiftly and with surprise. Anthropic's announcement that the Trump Administration ordered it to block foreign access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — prompting the company to completely cut off access to those AI models — sent a shock wave across the tech world. Here are some reactions on social media to the latest skirmish in the hostilities between the White House and Anthropic. Dean W. Ball Stephanie Augello/Getty Images for WIRED Dean W. Ball, senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation "If this is true, it is just baffling. An administration whose posture is that we should export advanced AI chips to China, which also wants to ban… Britain (and every other non-American on Earth)… from using our best models? I have no words. "I can't tell if this is lawfare against Anthropic in particular or extreme national-security hawkery. Regardless, it is simply cartoonish." Peter Girnus, senior threat researcher at Zero Day Initiative "Two things are true at once. "First: Anthropic spent months marketing Mythos as too dangerous to release. Sam Altman said it was 'incredible marketing to say we have built a bomb. The Commerce Department has now formally agreed it is a bomb. If you describe your product as a munition in every press release, eventually a government takes you at your word. They wrote the legal predicate themselves and called it a brand. "Second: we have run this experiment before. In the 90s the government classified encryption as a munition under ITAR. Activists defeated it by printing PGP's source code as a book, because books are protected speech and floppy disks were arms exports. A t-shirt with three lines of RSA Perl was legally a munition. The controls collapsed because math does not stop at customs. "The new wrinkle is the 'deemed export' rule: showing controlled technology to a foreign national inside the US counts as exporting it abroad. Which is why Anthropic's own foreign-national employees are now locked out of the model they built. The munition is in the building and the people who made it are not allowed to look at it." Marc Andreesen, partner at Andreessen Horowitz https://t.co/eYqKnNYl06 pic.twitter.com/rrqDY62JP1 — Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) June 13, 2026 Chris McGuire, senior fellow for China and emerging technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations "I actually think targeted export controls on model access are prudent. But across the board controls on all countries on a single model, without any warning, is highly questionable. Imposing equally broad deemed export controls, which also restrict access to foreign nationals, is just absurd—and obviously will result in the model being pulled from distribution, as just happened. "Export controls are a critical tool, and an extremely powerful one. Used correctly, they have the potential to massively extend the US lead in AI. Used incorrectly, they will stifle AI development. The Department of Commerce's export control strategy has been completely incoherent and sabotaging. It is sending powerful AI chips to China, not enforcing controls that would prevent Chinese smuggling, creating massive loopholes that allow AI chips to be sent to China, and preventing US AI companies from releasing their own models. "This has to stop. We urgently need a smart export control strategy that applies robust export controls to deny our adversaries access to advanced technology, while advantaging US companies. Commerce and BIS are consistently doing the opposite. If BIS doesn't understand how to use its authorities or what the implications are of its actions, then it needs to find some new personnel who can actually execute a competent export control strategy. The current one is incoherent and self-defeating." Matthew Pines, CEO of Physical Superintelligence "this is gonna send shockwaves through every lab and neolab… U.S. export control laws operate under a strict liability standard… they are a very sharp blade…" Dan Shipper, the CEO of media and AI software company Every Alex Broadway/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images Dan Shipper, CEO of Every "my take on this situation currently is that they'll unban it in a few days and the net effect will be increased demand for Fable "however this kind of thing is extremely disruptive and distracting for people inside of the company. the only comparable scenario i can remember is Sam Altman's firing which was resolved relatively quickly. even though things went back to the way they were, i do think that disrupted their momentum for a while "hoping for a good outcome here!" Josh Pigford, founder of Baremetrics "Anthropic has not done theirselves ANY favors with their hyperbole over the past 6-12 months. But I also guarantee this has zero to do with national security." Peter Barnett, researcher at Machine Intelligence Research Institute "If it's true that USG export controlled Fable because another company said they could jailbreak it, then we might be stumbling into a regime where AI companies red team each others' models before the USG allows deployment." Yusuf Mahmood, director of AI policy at the America First Policy Institute "The US government just ordered Anthropic to suspend all foreign-national access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, inside or outside the US. As a reminder, huge percentages of technical employees at all the frontier AI labs (including Anthropic) are likely foreign nationals." The US government just ordered Anthropic to suspend all foreign-national access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, inside or outside the US. As a reminder, huge percentages of technical employees at all the frontier AI labs (including Anthropic) are likely foreign nationals. pic.twitter.com/hQqvNIMuuz — Yusuf Mahmood (@YusufSMahmood) June 13, 2026 Jeremy Howard, cofounder of fast.ai "I disagree with this decision and I don't like it. "But also... "HOW DID ANTHROPIC NOT SEE THIS COMING‽ "It is the obvious response to 'this is too dangerous for anyone except us to use', since that relies on a premise ('we are uniquely good') that almost no-one agrees with." Ryan Brewer, member of technical staff at OpenAI "Eventually you will only be able to access frontier intelligence in a small set of buildings in the Bay Area if the US govt continues in this direction. Shame" Ketan Ramakrishnan, Yale Law professor "The federal government is going to regulate AI developers aggressively. The question is whether this regulation will be done intelligently or not; whether Congress and public deliberation will have a role or just opaque executive action; etc" Yann LeCun, former chief scientist of Meta AI YUI MOK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Yann LeCun, executive chairman of AMI Labs "Dario Amodei's ridiculous fear mongering about Mythos/Fable (and AI in general) finally pays off: "The US government bans its use by non Americans, including by foreign employees in the US "One reaps what one sows." Peter Harrell, visiting scholar at Georgetown Law School "I find it ridiculous and un-American for the government to tell me, as an American, I cannot use an advanced AI model because of a vague and non-public alleged security threat. We should regulate AI, but based on transparent and impartial rules, and not 5pm on a Friday diktats." Alan Rozenshtein, research director at The Lawfare Institute "This may become the first big First Amendment AI case." Box CEO Aaron Levie Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch Aaron Levie, CEO of Box "This is a big turning point for AI regulation. The government is starting to deem some models too powerful for certain uses, which creates a precedent for a range of possible controls in the future. I'm in the camp that this is unnecessary and we should be primarily regulating the use of AI, as opposed to the underlying models. But, equally, there are plenty of people that actually prefer this outcome. Either way, it's unlikely that we're going back to a world where the government doesn't have far more meaningful involvement in the rate of AI progress." AI researcher Gary Marcus Shauna Clinton/Web Summit via Sportsfile via Getty Images Gary Marcus, AI researcher "Commerce's shocking decree this afternoon — which effectively shuts down Anthropic by cutting off access to Mythos 5 and Fable 5 for many of their own employees — seems both wildly overdramatic and also counterproductive for the US AI industry. Perhaps it does China a favor, though. Certainly every Chinese person working in a US AI company (and there are many) will consider returning to the competition in China ASAP. And investors will start to wonder whether American AI companies can thrive in this atmosphere. If you want an example of an AI regulation that can stifle innovation, this is it." Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute "Lol Anthropic made such a big deal about their model being 'dangerous' because they thought the only result was gonna be hype + something something preventing China from something." Read the original article on Business Insider

After traveling to over 50 countries, I think Uzbekistan is worth visiting. Kristin Gillies As a solo traveler who's visited over 50 countries, some have left a lasting impact on me. I'll never forget my time in Guatemala, where I saw a volcano erupt right before my eyes. Uzbekistan is one of my favorite places for incredible cuisine and breathtaking scenery. I'm a solo traveler from Australia who dreams of visiting every country in the world, and so far, I've checked over 50 off my bucket list. After traveling to so many different destinations, I often get asked which ones I'd recommend most. Even though I've visited so many memorable places in Asia, Central America, and Europe, it's challenging to pick my favorites. But if I had to narrow it down, these are the seven countries I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Mongolia is unlike any other place I've visited. Kristin Gillies When I arrived in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, I was completely in awe of the architecture, specifically the mix of modern buildings and Buddhist temples. Besides the unique architectural designs in the capital, however, the part of my trip that stood out to me most was visiting the Gobi Desert, where I spent weeks living off the grid with nomadic families. Here, I experienced a dramatic range of weather conditions: extreme winds, dry heat, snow, and temperatures dropping below negative 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the unpredictable climate, spending time with these families and disconnecting from the rest of the world made my trip to Mongolia one of my favorites. Plus, the lack of crowds and very intermittent cell reception in the desert truly allowed me to live in the moment. In Bolivia, every moment was full of variety. Kristin Gillies Bolivia kept me on my toes constantly: One minute, I was backpacking on foot, the next, I was riding cable cars high above the city — an experience I'll never forget, despite my fear of heights. I was also blown away by the traditional Bolivian fashion, specifically the big, layered skirts, shawls, and bowler hats. Overall, Bolivia — specifically the administrative capital of La Paz — felt so raw, colorful, and unlike anywhere else I'd been to in South America. The landscapes in Ethiopia took my breath away. Kristin Gillies Ethiopia quickly became one of my favorite places to visit, as it's home to some of the kindest and most generous locals I've ever met, and offers the most incredible hikes I've ever undertaken. During my time there, I climbed a 1,000-foot-high cliff — without a harness or shoes — to reach Abuna Yemata Guh, a centuries-old rock-hewn church. When I reached the top of the cliff, I could see for miles across the Ethiopian landscape. Another standout spot was the Danakil Depression, often called "Mars on Earth." With a slew of active volcanoes and average temperatures consistently reaching nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit, it's considered one of the most hostile places on Earth. Regardless of the warm weather, these yellow-green and neon-orange landscapes are so beautiful and vibrant that photos don't do them justice. Hiking in Guatemala is an experience I'll never forget. Kristin Gillies Guatemala is filled with some of the most incredible landscapes I've ever seen. After a long hike, I was able to see Volcán de Fuego — one of Central America's most active volcanoes — erupt right in front of me. It was a moment I'll never forget. During my trip, I also traveled to Lake Atitlán, a stunning body of water surrounded by three volcanoes. The peaceful scenery, which is surrounded by small towns full of yoga retreats and delicious food, was the perfect place to recover after one of the most intense hikes I've ever done. I think visiting Nepal should be on everyone's bucket list. Kristin Gillies As soon as I arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, I was greeted by pouring rain. In spite of the weather, the city was so beautiful, with vibrant clothing and colorful stores brightening every street. During my time in the country, I hiked to the Annapurna Base Camp, a multiday trek offering stunning views of the Himalayan peaks. I was worried I wouldn't be able to see the peaks due to cloud coverage and poor weather, but I remained positive throughout the hike, and after six days, I was met with blue skies, a gorgeous sunrise, and breathtaking views. I think South Korea is the perfect place for solo travelers. Kristin Gillies As a female solo traveler, I felt very safe during my visit to South Korea, and I was amazed by how clean the streets were. Plus, the shopping and food in this country are on another level. I'm still dreaming about my iced latte from Malic Coffee in Seoul and am obsessed with the skincare and makeup at Olive Young, South Korea's leading beauty retailer. Another highlight of my trip was visiting the Starfield Library, an open-concept reading area that houses roughly 50,000 books and is one of the most spectacular sites I've seen. Uzbekistan offers a cultural diversity unlike any other country I've visited. Kristin Gillies As soon as I stepped into Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, I felt pieces of Asia, the Middle East, and Russia blending into this one place. What stood out to me the most was Uzbekistan's wide range of cuisines. I could find everything from Russian Borscht and Middle Eastern pilaf to lagman, a hand-pulled noodle dish influenced by Uyghurs. Besides the cuisine, another highlight of my trip was traveling down the Silk Road, which was full of breathtaking squares and towns that felt like stepping onto a film set. Read the original article on Business Insider

Let's practice data science thinking through a probability problem The post Solving the 3Blue1Brown String Probability Problem (Without AI) appeared first on Towards Data Science.

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