As AI gets smarter, the real differentiator may be how well humans regulate their own thinking. The post Meta-Cognitive Regulation Might Be the Most Important AI Skill Nobody Is Talking About appeared first on Towards Data Science.

A group of 20 Snap alumni has come together to launch a fund called Ghost Angels to back the next generation of social media.

Theodore Schleifer / New York Times: A look at the nasty fight between Anthropic-backed super PAC Public First and OpenAI-backed Leading the Future to sway midterms, especially Democratic primaries  —  One super PAC is allied with Anthropic.  The other is tied to OpenAI.  They're both spending millions to influence this year's elections.

The golden age of Microsoft's Github Copilot appears to be at an end.

Meta seems to be making big bets on AI-powered hardware.

Gemini Spark helps automate everyday tasks, from inbox summaries to local event planning, but it’s unclear why Google made it a separate product.

The author (left), is happy for the life that her younger sister has built, but is sometimes envious that her own path looks different. Courtesy of Alyssa Wiens. My sister is married, recently bought a house, and is pregnant with her second child. I'm two years older, single, child-free, and renting in a shared community house. I'm happy for my sister, but sometimes feel jealous. I'm learning to embrace my own path. I'm a single 30-something renting in a community house in central Vancouver, where I can enjoy everything the city offers. I work a flexible freelance schedule, and fill my time with friends, new hobbies, and traveling. In so many ways, I truly love my life. I know I'm lucky. But I'm also ready to find a partner and start building a life together. This dream sometimes feels far away, especially when I start comparing myself to other people, like my sister, who is married, has recently bought a house, and is pregnant with her second child. She's one of my best friends, and I am genuinely thrilled for her. But I still feel jealous at times. I struggle with comparison sometimes My sister and I have always been close and see each other weekly. Having her, my brother-in-law, and nephew is a privilege, and I'm genuinely so happy for them. Sometimes, when I compare our lives, jealousy creeps in. I look at her beautiful family and think, "Why can't I have that?" It's hard to admit this; I sometimes feel guilty that I can't just "be happy for her." I think it's common to fall into this comparison trap. When looking at other people's lives, it's easy to see where I'm "behind" in terms of career, family status, income, house, or other areas. It's particularly hard when cultural or societal standards dictate where I "should" be in my thirties, even if it's an outdated expectation. But there's really something behind the truism, "comparison is the thief of joy." Getting caught up in it can cause unnecessary pain, which is something I never want to impact my relationship with my sister. Both things can be true at once While comparison is human nature to some degree, I don't want to get stuck there. A helpful mindset shift for me is recognizing how two things can be true at once. I can be excited for my sister's life, and I can feel disappointed that I don't have the same. I can even feel both grateful and sad over things in my own life. One emotion doesn't negate the other — both things are true at the same time. And by acknowledging all emotions, I can stop dwelling so much on the negative ones and embrace the good. I'm learning to live my life as it is now I'm not perfect at it, but this mindset has helped me embrace where I am today, instead of wasting energy comparing myself to my sister or anyone else. I can embrace my unique story and appreciate all the good things in my own life, and in my sister's life, too. While I still want a partner, a house, and a family one day, I'm also grateful for what my life without them affords, like time freedom and opportunities to travel or have new experiences. Ultimately, learning to accept the mixed emotions we all experience in life is helping me embrace my own path and make the most of life today. Read the original article on Business Insider

Yazhou Sun / Bloomberg: Anthropic cuts its list of unauthorized secondary market sellers from eight to four after the initial notice caused panic and pushback from investors  —  Anthropic PBC updated its warning about secondary markets for its shares, cutting the number of unauthorized platforms by half …

Enterprise Document Intelligence [Vol. 1 #2] Why the same vector search that handles synonyms and paraphrase silently fails on negation, exact identifiers, and your company’s acronyms, and what to use when it does. The post Embeddings Aren’t Magic: The Predictable Failure Modes of RAG Retrieval appeared first on Towards Data Science.

"If you're 22 years old in San Francisco and building something in AI, there may be a seed term sheet in your inbox — but if you're 19, oh my God, this means you're really good; you might already have a Series A [offer]," said one, half-kiddingly.

Hurricane wind damage accounts for $12.26 trillion in reconstruction cost value, according to Cotality. krblokhin/Getty Images It's the start of hurricane season, and with it comes the risk of home damage. Cotality ranked states with the biggest risk of hurricane damage, and some of the results were surprising. Gulf states have more homes susceptible to hurricane wind damage, but the Northeast's damage can hit harder. For a lot of homeowners, summer means more than vacations — it also means staying vigilant during hurricane season. A problem most associated with Southern states hugging the Gulf Coast, like Florida and Texas, hurricanes also pose a serious threat to the Northeast. Property data and analytics firm Cotality found that while Florida and Texas have the highest amount of homes with moderate or greater risk of hurricane wind damage, the damage in the Northeast can be more devastating. "While hurricanes hit the Northeast less frequently than the Gulf Coast, the region's immense population density and property value mean the stakes are incredibly high," Cotality vice president of insurance market insights Maiclaire Bolton-Smith said in a release. "It's critical that homeowners in the Northeast understand that while landfalling hurricanes may not be as frequent as other states, the risk is still real." As for metropolitan areas, New York City ranks ahead of any Florida city, with a reconstruction cost value of more than $1.9 billion. The metro also has the most homes with a moderate or greater risk of hurricane wind damage. In total, more than 32.2 million homes across the United States are at moderate or greater risk from hurricane winds alone, accounting for over $12.26 trillion in reconstruction cost value, according to Cotality. Below, see the states where homeowners are at the highest risk of hurricane damage. Median home price data is from Redfin. 15. Maryland Maryland. Kruck20/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 479,881 Reconstruction cost value: $179.6 billion Median home price: $446,900 14. Alabama Mobile, Alabama. adamkaz/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 768,390 Reconstruction cost value: $232.7 billion Median home price: $299,000 13. Pennsylvania Philadelphia. Jumping Rocks/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 781,797 Reconstruction cost value: $360 billion Median home price: $308,500 12. Connecticut Hartford, Connecticut. Sean Pavone/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 813,066 Reconstruction cost value: $426 billion Median home price: $445,100 11. Georgia Savannah, Georgia. Ultima_Gaina/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 836,172 Reconstruction cost value: $243.1 billion Median home price: $373,700 10. Mississippi Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. ianmcdonnell/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 837,860 Reconstruction cost value: $241.8 billion Median home price: $265,200 9. Virginia Richmond, Virginia. Dee Liu/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 1,146,781 Reconstruction cost value: $426.4 billion Median home price: $462,400 8. South Carolina Beaufort, South Carolina. elan7t50/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 1,482,345 Reconstruction cost value: $476.9 billion Median home price: $397,600 7. Louisiana New Orleans. Larry Gibson/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 1,657,255 Reconstruction cost value: $515.7 billion Median home price: $260,300 6. Massachusetts Boston. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 1,785,383 Reconstruction cost value: $1 trillion Median home price: $645,400 5. New Jersey Atlantic City, New Jersey. Terrell Washington/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 2,208,651 Reconstruction cost value: $1.2 trillion Median home price: $545,300 4. New York New York. cmart7327/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 2,213,104 Reconstruction cost value: $1.2 trillion Median home price: $595,900 3. North Carolina Southport, North Carolina. Larry Gibson/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 3,165,030 Reconstruction cost value: $1.1 trillion Median home price: $381,700 2. Texas Fort Worth, Texas. RudyBalasko/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 4,763,476 Reconstruction cost value: $1.5 trillion Median home price: $341,800 1. Florida St. Augustine, Florida. Cyndi Monaghan/Getty Images Number of homes with moderate or greater risk: 8,249,592 Reconstruction cost value: $2.3 trillion Median home price: $416,800 Read the original article on Business Insider

I rely on healthy, easy-to-prepare items for my daughter's lunches. Lauren Manaker Packing my 11-year-old's lunch box with healthy food she'll actually eat isn't easy. As a dietitian and mom, I rely on budget-friendly, nutritious staples from Aldi. Some of my go-to purchases for school lunches are peanut butter and whole-grain bread. Mornings in my house feel like a race against the clock. Getting out the door on time requires a tight schedule, one that doesn't allow for an entire morning preparing a healthy meal. As a dietitian and a mom, I aim to feed my 11-year-old daughter foods that keep her energized throughout the day without blowing our grocery budget or requiring too much time in the kitchen. Whether I'm making a school lunch for my kid or sending her off to summer camp, I rely on easy, packable foods from Aldi to stay on track. The Reggano classic pasta salad kit requires minimal effort. I sometimes add my own vegetables, protein, and cheese into the past salad. Lauren Manaker The Reggano classic pasta-salad kit is one of my favorite time-savers. It comes with semolina pasta along with seasonings like garlic and parsley and vegetables like onion and red bell pepper. All I have to do is boil the noodles and mix everything together. After that, lunch is ready. Sometimes, I toss in extra vegetables, mozzarella pearls, or leftover chicken for an extra protein boost. It makes enough for several lunches, and everyone in my family loves it, including my daughter. Goldhen eggs are a simple protein source. I keep eggs in my refrigerator at all times. Lauren Manaker Eggs are a staple in my refrigerator. I cook a batch of them at the beginning of each week and peel them right away. They're a low-effort protein source (each one has 6 grams of protein) that requires zero preparation on busy mornings. Sometimes, I mash them up with a little mayonnaise to make a quick egg salad that my daughter loves as a sandwich filling. If I put it in her freezable lunch box, the egg salad stays chilled until midday. Slices of the Dave's Killer Bread with 21 whole grains and seeds are perfect for sandwiches. I use this bread for my daughter's sandwiches. Lauren Manaker When I make sandwiches, I look for whole-grain bread that isn't too dense. This thin-sliced bread from Dave's Killer Bread fits the bill perfectly. Each slice has 3 grams of fiber, which supports digestion and satiety, and 14 grams of carbohydrates, which help support energy. My daughter enjoys the bread's soft texture, and I appreciate the nutrient-dense ingredient list, which includes organic flax seeds, organic sunflower seeds, and organic pumpkin seeds. Simply Nature organic creamy peanut butter is a versatile plant-based protein packed with healthy fats. Peanut butter is versatile, as I use it as a dip and a sandwich filling. Lauren Manaker Peanut butter is a reliable addition to my daughter's lunch box. The Simply Nature organic creamy peanut butter is a plant-based protein with healthy fats that keep my daughter full until she gets home. Each 32-gram serving has 16 grams of fat and 8 grams of protein. I use it for peanut butter sandwiches or as a dip for apples and celery. My daughter loves how crisp and sweet Pink Lady apples are. I buy an entire package of Pink Lady apples when I'm at Aldi. Lauren Manaker Whenever possible, I try to include produce in my daughter's lunch, and Pink Lady apples are one of my most frequent purchases. Each one has about 3 grams of fiber along with micronutrients like vitamin C and potassium. My daughter loves the apples' crispiness and sweet flavor, and I love that they're reasonably priced at Aldi. When I'm preparing her lunch, I usually pack a sliced apple and pair it with a small container of nut butter for a boost in protein and healthy fats. Simply Nature freeze-dried strawberries snack packs deliver the nutrition of fresh fruit. Each package comes with six individual packages. Lauren Manaker Fresh berries are great, but they often end up squished by the time the lunch bell rings. These Simply Nature freeze-dried strawberries solve that problem completely. The freeze-drying process removes water while leaving nutrients like iron and potassium intact. These snacks stay perfectly crisp in my daughter's lunch box and never turn mushy. The BelGioioso fresh mozzarella snacking cheese is a delicious source of calcium. The cheeses come preportioned. Lauren Manaker I try to include a source of calcium in my daughter's lunches to support bone health, and these individual mozzarella packs make that easy. I just grab one from the fridge and toss it into her freezable lunch box. She loves the mild flavor, which pairs nicely with crackers, raw vegetables, or pasta salad. Baby carrots add a satisfying crunch to my daughter's meals. These carrots come peeled and cut. Lauren Manaker Peeling and chopping vegetables can be time-consuming, but these baby carrots are a breeze to pack. They deliver a satisfying crunch and healthy dose of vitamin A, which supports vision and immune health. They also maintain their texture well throughout the day and taste fresh when my daughter reaches for them hours after I pack them. It's an added bonus that Aldi sells them at a great price point. Curious what other shoppers are loving? Keep reading our Aldi Diaries! Read the original article on Business Insider

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Grail's $950 blood test isn't FDA-approved yet, but you can get one easily via telemedicine. Zoë Meyers for BI Multi-cancer blood tests are generally seen as the future of cancer detection. The promise is that with a few vials of blood, you could test for dozens of cancers at once. For now, the tests seem far better at picking up some cancers than others. Is a $950 test that searches for upwards of 50 types of cancer in your bloodstream worth it? That depends on who you ask. Grail, the Silicon Valley healthcare company developing blood tests to pick up early cancer, presented its largest study to date on Saturday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting (ASCO) in Chicago. The study, tracking more than 140,000 older people in the UK, assessed whether people who took Grail's $950 Galleri test each year for three years could catch cancer before it hit the later stages (Stage 3 and Stage 4). The study was unsuccessful at its stated goal of meaningfully curbing more late-stage cancers. Still, the company says these results are a clear signal that their test is working. "When you add Galleri to single cancer, standard-of-care screening, we found four times more cancer in the population," Grail President and incoming CEO Joshua Ofman told Business Insider, shortly before the results were released. The Galleri blood test looks for tell-tale signs of cancer DNA in your blood. Zoë Meyers for BI The fresh data from ASCO shows the sticking point: while an additional 937 were picked up by Grail's Galleri, the test is still not the best at detecting early-stage cancer, the kind that is generally easier to treat and cure. While Grail's testing did pick up some new cancer cases, it missed a lot more, and the majority of those it did find — 54% — were in Stages 3 and 4. Grail's test is not yet approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, but it is available across the country with a doctor's prescription, or through telehealth services like Hims & Hers. Business Insider has zeroed in on five key data points to keep in mind as you weigh whether the test is worth your time and your money: 1: If Grail says you have cancer, you probably do. The test is designed with high specificity, so that it doesn't scare people into thinking they have cancer when they don't. More than 70,000 people took this test, and the odds of any individual without cancer getting a false positive test were very low, at less than 0.5%. But there were at least a few false alarms in the crowd. 864 people were given a cancer "signal" who were not diagnosed with cancer afterwards. That's hundreds of people who worried about cancer alongside their doctors, and ultimately couldn't find anything wrong. Grail's founding CEO Jeff Huber said that may not mean the test failed. Previous research has shown that about a third of Grail's "false positive" tests, when followed over longer periods of time, do become cancer diagnoses that doctors simply couldn't identify right away. "When you get a Grail test result, and it says you have cancer, you can be highly, highly, highly confident you have cancer," Huber said. "If Grail says you have cancer, unfortunately, you should freak out and do something about it as quickly as you can." Dr. Scott Ramsey, who directs the Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and who was not involved in this study, agreed with Huber. "If I did Grail and I had a positive test, I would be worried, I would be looking for cancer," he said. 2: Grail missed 2,114 cancers Getting a negative Grail test does not mean you're in the clear. In the study, 2,114 people with "negative" Grail test results were diagnosed with cancer in the following 12 months, through traditional oncology methods like regular screenings and biopsies. Grail offers a licensed phlebotomist who'll come to your home to draw the blood, or you can go into a lab to get the bloodwork done. Zoë Meyers for BI This means Grail's test is not yet a viable safety net — it's missing twice as many cancers as it is finding, with a sensitivity around 30%. "If it's a negative test, you should not feel safe because they are not very sensitive," Ramsey said. 3: The test caught most cancers before they were terminal. People who took Grail had fewer Stage 4 diagnoses, and more cancer cases were picked up in Stage 3. Grail says that's a good thing, because it means doctors can catch cancer before it progresses to the metastatic, and often terminal stage. Ideally, that should mean Grail helps make cancers easier to treat, and patients can live longer lives. But that's all speculation for now. "This is where it gets so complicated," Ramsey said. "In theory, and intuitively, detecting cancer in an early, curable stage is what you want to do because it should work. But the devil ends up being in the details because most of these cancers that Grail is screening for — the ones that aren't screened for now — we don't know the behavior of those cancers." In general Stage 1 and Stage 2 cancers are the easiest to treat, then things get a little more challenging in Stage 3, depending on the cancer, and in Stage 4, survival is generally very low. But that's not universally true. The blood gets shipped off to a lab for testing, and it can take a few weeks to get the results. Zoë Meyers for BI "Stage 4 to Stage 3? For some of these cancers, that might be a good thing, but for others it may make no difference at all," Ramsey said. 4: The test appears best at identifying a few specific early-stage cancers After three years of running Grail, Stage 1 and 2 cancer detection improved by 16%. For some cancers, like lung cancer and bladder cancer, there wasn't a huge surge in detection after three annual tests. But for some that cannot be routinely screened for, the test really made a dent in early detection: Ovarian cancers: Grail doubled the number of Stage 1 and 2 cases detected in the study Myeloma/plasma cell neoplasm: There was a 118.2% increase in Stage 1 and 2 diagnoses Esophagus cancers: And a 92.3% increase in Stage 1 and 2 diagnosed "Those are horrible cancers that kill you when they're detected late," Huber, the former Grail executive, said. 5: Should you do it? Maybe as an add-on Ultimately, none of these new figures tells cancer researchers what they really want to know: can Grail testing save lives? In the meantime, patients are left to decide on their own if the testing is worth adding to their annual medical routine. Is this worth $950? Zoë Meyers for BI When friends ask Ramsey if they should do Grail, he tells them to keep two things in mind: "I say they're very promising tests that I think someday will be part of screening. But right now, I don't have any data to tell them that getting this test will reduce their risk of dying from cancer. And that's the whole reason you do screening." Huber, a true believer in this technology, says he gets a Grail test every year. But he also gets regular full-body MRIs and colonoscopies. He believes the Galleri test should be part of comprehensive clinical care. But it will be some time before we can tell whether that extra vigilance saves lives. Read the original article on Business Insider

Mattie Gardner is documenting paying down her debt on social media. Courtesy of Mattie Gardner Mattie Gardner is a content creator in her early 30s who lives in New England with her husband. They racked up $63,000 in credit card debt, but are only $17,000 away from paying it off. She has been sharing her debt journey on social media to hold herself accountable. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mattie Gardner. It has been edited for length and clarity. My husband and I are in credit card debt. We started at $63,227, and our current balance is $17,401. Back in 2022, we took a big risk and jumped into a building business opportunity offered to us by an acquaintance. I was working full-time then, but we decided to leap, and I quit my job. My husband also walked away from his career for this business. We had no income. It was a combination of bad timing, not great choices, and an inability to face the reality of our situation. We racked up $65,000 in credit card debt in a year. Our personal finances were a mess because we were relying on credit cards for our normal expenses. We gave it a year, and then both said we cannot do this anymore. In 2023, we both got full-time jobs shortly thereafter and slowly began rebuilding our lives. But the damage had been done. I started a social media account to hold us accountable for the payments In October 2025, my husband got three paychecks in one month; it was just the way it landed that month. I remember thinking that if we didn't take action right now, we'd miss the window of opportunity to start paying down the debt. We had been kicking the can down the road for way too long, thinking that something might save us. Finally, I realized nothing was coming to save us. So I created the account in November 2025 to document the debt payment progress and what the journey would look like; I also thought it would be cool to look back on the videos and see how far we'd come once we paid it off. I was hoping along the way we'd also find a community with people in a similar situation because I had seen creators post about debt, and it made me feel seen. One day, I uploaded a video about our debt, and it went viral. We had to make serious sacrifices and create new mindsets We had to sell our house. We didn't make nearly as much as we thought we would. We put everything we made from the sale toward the credit card debt. We are currently living at my parents' house; they moved out of state, and we pay the mortgage. We have accepted that we likely won't own a home for many years. We also only have one car, which we have to make work. I wasn't involved in our finances before this. I avoided them. I didn't want to be involved because numbers and money scared me. That's a belief I had built up, that I'm bad at math, so I shouldn't be involved in finances. I've had to overcome that fear. There's very little to do with money that scares me now. This has strengthened our relationship because we've had to work as a team to get it done. We still fight about money and budgeting all the time, but we're not afraid to have these conversations anymore. We know they need to be had. The biggest thing that got us to where we are — $40,000 paid down — is doing a personal audit. We know our finances really well and are budgeting now. We know what's in our budget and what's in our bank accounts every day. We think about it all the time, which we didn't previously do. We use a spreadsheet I bought from Etsy and an app called EveryDollar. We hope to pay off the remaining credit card debt by the end of the summer. It's optimistic, but we're certain we can do that and then begin tackling other debt that needs to be paid off, like student loans. We want to shift into saving mode as well, start contributing to a high-yield savings account, and make that a higher priority. Read the original article on Business Insider

A new study suggests that bacteria dispersed through space on dust grains could potentially arrive intact and alive on Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Most engineers see quantization as shrinking vectors. TurboQuant asks a harder question: can you shrink them without breaking their geometry? The post Qdrant TurboQuant Explained: Is TurboQuant the Silver Bullet? appeared first on Towards Data Science.

TikTok may be working to become the app that people use for most of their digital activities.

The Ninja Artisan Outdoor Pizza Oven is aimed at people who want delicious pizza nights without having to deal with things like propane or wood pellets, unlike many other pizza ovens.

We’ve compiled an overview of some of the top alternative browsers available today aiming to challenge Chrome and Safari.