Friday links for May 29th 2026
The “no one could have seen this coming” edition.
1. Pentagon says US military personnel are reportedly being targeted using location data
The dangers of advertising technology happily tracking everyone everywhere aren’t new – I’ve been talking peoples’ ears off about this for years. The pentagon has suddenly woken up to the fact that their adversaries are using advertising data to track and target their soldiers. Looks like “military-grade privacy” isn’t a big feature of AdTech.
2. AI sticker shock hits corporate America
Many businesses also suddenly realising that the costs of AI don’t justify the returns and that it’s not being used for the most valuable tasks: “One CTO told Axios that employees were using AI models to check the weather”. Subscription fee: enterprise – use case: partly cloudy.
A deep dive into why the AI bubble is in fact a … bubble. This is one of the clearer explanations I’ve read, at least for someone like me who gets extremely confused by financial jargon.
Yes, more AI – it just dominates the discourse. You probably know the answer to the titular question, but this is a nice visual representation of the gigantic financial hole these people have dug themselves into.
5. webRcade
And a little throwback fun to finish: play retro console games in your browser. From classic consoles like the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, or Sega Master System.
On rotation
This week’s soundtrack is Inferno by Boards of Canada.
See you Monday,
Colin