🌏 Planetary Intelligence Planet just opened up an AI interface to a decade of daily satellite images of the entire Earth. I have been playing with a pre-release and here are some samples of what you can do: 1) For the ag sector: “plot the crop performance of farms near Williams, California for the past 5 years seasons.” 2&3) Ski Season report: a couple samples from the prompt “make a report of the changing snow and ice conditions of the ski resorts in Tahoe for the past decade.” It also has pixel by pixel sliders of the snow levels over the years, part of a 30-page report. 4) My personal passion project: “find RGB signature of planes in flight near Paris airport.” High altitude objects in motion leave a very visible RGB parallax artifact. The push broom sensors in the imaging satellite use its steady motion to integrate a rectangular image from a line sensor sweeping forward in orbit like a push broom. With multiple lines of sensors for different colors, high altitude objects (planes, balloons, satellites) also cause misalignment from parallax shifts (unrelated to their lateral movement). This creates an easily detectable image artifact that can now serve as a search feature. Planet used this "bug" to search its daily planetary imaging database to find all of the high-altitude Chinese spy balloons and trace them back in time to their launch site in China. Explore our Earth:

WARNING: Emotional post (but worth reading or bookmarking for later). Time is cruel. But that cruelty carries the seeds of beauty. Last weekend, my family and I made our annual pilgrimage to a small community in northwest Connecticut. We started going when I was 18 months old. I met my two best friends there. I caught my first fish there. I had my first crush there. But perhaps most importantly, I played my first game of catch there. As I remember it, I was probably about five years old. My dad had a softball and a couple of old baseball gloves. And there, in the tall, overgrown grass, we threw the ball back and forth. As the years wore on, I got bigger and the ball started moving faster. We played catch damn near every single day when I was a kid. It didn't really matter what time of year or what time of day. We'd play catch in the snow in January. In the early morning light before school. In the dim light of the evenings when he got home from work. In high school, when I started getting college scholarship offers, we played catch. While on the team at Stanford, when my family went on vacation, we played catch. But then, my career ended. And with it, our game of catch. Time is a funny thing. Usually, it goes unnoticed. It exists, but not really. Only in some abstract sense. It flows under the surface. Adjacent to your reality, but not exactly in it. The routines of life make it go faster. You settle into patterns. Paths with gravity. You take a job. You establish a place. You start a family. The days start blending together. They become weeks, months, years, even decades. But then, something breaks. There's some collision. Suddenly, time gets thrust to the surface. Time goes unnoticed, until it's the only thing you notice. I've felt that most painfully with my parents. My dad is 70 now. In some ways, that 70-year-old version feels like a stranger to me. I think the image we have of our parents never really changes from the one we establish as kids. I still see my dad as the young, vibrant, athletic young man. The one who could hit the ball farther than anyone I knew. The one who could toss me up on his shoulders in a flash. The one who could beat me in a race (but usually let me win). I still see that young dad in his eyes, in his energy, in his curiosity for life. In some painful sense, I imagine the 70-year-old version feels like a stranger to him, too. Time is cruel. But that cruelty carries the seeds of beauty. The most beautiful things in life are made beautiful by their impermanence. So, what are we to do about all of this? Perhaps we must simply give in to time. Embrace its unending, relentless flow. Live as we are. Do as we can. But what if, in truth, we have a bit more power than that? What if it's possible, in some imperfect, impermanent way, to control time? To bend time and space. To really be there. To really feel it. To embrace it, without giving in to it. To live as we want. To do as we dream. That theory is what brings me back to last Sunday, when I felt compelled to unlock one of the old cabinets in my parent's cottage. It was a cabinet that, when opened, had the feel of a time capsule. Dust and cobwebs everywhere. A musty smell. Like reaching into it was reaching back in time. I pulled out my old baseball glove. And my dad's old catcher's mitt. I walked outside, where I found my dad playing with his grandsons on the swings. I held up the two gloves, a smile across my face. "Hey, Dad, wanna have a catch?" I smiled. He smiled. We walked side by side out onto the field. And there, in the tall, overgrown grass, we threw the ball back and forth. As we did, something amazing happened. Time melted away. 30 years disappeared. He wasn't 70. I wasn't 35. I was that little boy again. And he was my young dad. Just playing catch for no purpose at all. It was just a game of catch. But it was so much more.

What I've read recently: Snowball - Warren Buffett Biography (9.7/10) Lessons about scaling up of Berkshire Hathaway and deep dive into Warren's childhood and what made him a good investor. Undisputedly the pound for pound GOAT of playing capital markets at the highest level. Beneath the Cards - Garrett Adelstein (7.9/10) Autobiography and story telling of the journey through high stakes poker from one of the most winning cash game players. Was insightful and related to a lot of the childhood stories and motivations behind becoming successful but too much time spent addressing the J4o hand with Robbi and too little poker stories. Would have been great to have detailed history of earnings, insight into frameworks applied to other ventures, etc. @junkbondinvest's newsletter, insightful breakdown of fixed income markets specifically the MSTR STRC offering and current game theory surrounding credit markets in AI.

Enterprise AI is at its best when it’s invisible. With Cortex Code, now officially Snowflake CoCo, Providence Health is playing data scientist for a day and the results are very real. 🏥 They ditched 60-hour work weeks spent manually coding and digging through patient notes for a 2-hour Streamlit app build using natural language. Watch how CoCo transforms the frontline 👉🏻

My wife's college friend Naoko spent three years in Kansas as an agricultural researcher. She came home with 3,000 photos. Four of them are the Grand Canyon. Two thousand one hundred are handwritten signs. I asked her why. "In Japan, signs tell you what you can't do. No parking. No entry. No food. No talking. In America, people take a piece of cardboard and a marker, and they write something kind to a stranger they will never meet. Then they tape it to a mailbox. I couldn't stop taking pictures." She let me go through them. These are her favorites, with her notes. "FRESH EGGS $3. HONOR SYSTEM. CASH BOX BELOW." (Ohio. No camera. No lock. There was $46 in the box. I counted. I put in $5 and felt watched by God.) "LOST CAT. His name is Moose. He is fat and mean. We love him. Please call." (I did not find Moose. I think about Moose often.) "FREE FIREWOOD. STAY WARM." (Vermont. Two words from a stranger. In Japan, a sign has never once told me to stay warm.) "CH__CH. WHAT'S MISSING? U R." (I read it three times. Then I understood. Then I went in.) "SNOW SHOVELING. FREE FOR SENIORS AND VETERANS. CALL TYLER (AGE 13)." (Tyler is 13. Tyler is in business. Tyler is not making any money. Tyler is a great businessman.) "SLOW DOWN. GRANDKIDS PLAYING. GRANDMA HAS YOUR LICENSE PLATE." (I drove 9 miles per hour. Grandma was on the porch. She waved. I do not think it was a friendly wave.) "WELCOME HOME DADDY. 287 DAYS." (Painted on a bedsheet, hanging from a garage in Kansas. Three different handwritings. One of them very small. I don't know this family. I pulled over and cried for a man I will never meet.) "FREE COFFEE FOR TRUCKERS. YOU KEEP THIS COUNTRY RUNNING." (A rest stop in Iowa. Two old men behind a folding table. One of them told me I was not a trucker. Then he gave me coffee anyway.) "CAN'T AFFORD TO WASH YOUR CLOTHES? ASK FOR LINDA. NO QUESTIONS." (A laundromat in Missouri. I didn't need Linda. I just stood there and loved her for a minute.) And then there's one photo that isn't very good. It's dark. It's blurry. She took it with shaking hands. A paper taped to the door of a closed gas station on a two-lane road in western Kansas. "CLOSED. IF YOU'RE STUCK, CALL EARL. I'M JUST UP THE ROAD." It was 11:40 at night. Naoko had a flat tire. No signal for most of the drive. One bar, right there by the door. She called. Earl was 81. He came in his truck in slippers and a bathrobe. His wife June came too, because, as Earl explained, "She don't let me go out at night alone anymore." Earl changed the tire with a flashlight in his mouth. June sat in the truck with the heater running, poured coffee from a thermos, and handed it through the window. "You're shaking, honey. Drink this." When it was done, Naoko tried to give him money. He wouldn't touch it. She said, "In Japan, I could never repay something like this." Earl said, "Then don't." "Just leave your porch light on for somebody." Naoko has been back in Japan for two years. In front of her house, there is a wooden box. Every week she fills it with tangerines from her garden. On the box is a handwritten sign, in Japanese and English. "FREE. TAKE WHAT YOU NEED." The first week, nobody touched it. The neighbors thought it was a trap. The second week, an old man took two and left a note. "Thank you." The third week, someone she has never met left a bag of persimmons. It has been two years. That box has never once been empty. America, the world watches your news and thinks it knows you. It doesn't. You're not in the headlines. You're on a piece of cardboard. In marker. Taped to a mailbox. Leaning on a fence post in the rain. "Stay warm." "Take what you need." "I'm just up the road." If you've been wondering where your country went, it didn't go anywhere. Go for a drive. It's still taped to the mailboxes.

Most actors leave their famous roles behind on set. Gary Sinise didn't. After playing Lieutenant Dan Taylor in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, he found a connection to the military community that changed the direction of his career. He started visiting service members in the early 2000s, wanting to show gratitude to those who gave up their physical and mental health for their country. Since 2003, he's traveled to more than 170 military bases and 21 hospitals around the world, giving troops and their families someone to count on. 🏠 Supporting the Wounded In 2011, he set up the Gary Sinise Foundation to put his charity work under one roof and give veterans, first responders, and their families real, tangible help. The foundation runs several programs built around problems specific to military life, including: * The R.I.S.E. program, which builds specially adapted smart homes for severely wounded veterans so they can live independently again. * Snowball Express, which supports the families of fallen service members with experiences and community for grieving children. * The Soaring Valor program, which brings World War II veterans to the National WWII Museum to record their stories. * Relief and outreach programs for first responders and active duty personnel dealing with financial or emotional crises. 🎸 Musical Morale Boosters Sinise also understood that morale and entertainment matter in recovery. He co-founded the Lt. Dan Band in 2004, a cover band that plays for troops and their families at bases and charity events. The band connects civilian and military life, using loud, high energy shows to lift spirits and bring attention to veteran causes. By leaning into the name of his most famous character, Sinise turned a fictional story about recovery into an actual source of joy for thousands of soldiers stationed far from home. Recognition and Lasting Impact His years of advocacy have earned him honors from Hollywood and the U.S. government. He's one of the few civilians named an honorary Marine and an honorary Navy Chief Petty Officer, which says something about how much respect he's earned within the ranks. His work isn't a string of one-off appearances. It's a long effort to keep veterans from being forgotten once the headlines move on. Through his foundation, he keeps pushing the point that we can never fully repay what service members gave up, but we can always do more

There's a word in Japanese that I need Americans to know. Osekkai. It means helping someone who did not ask for help. Giving advice nobody wanted. Fixing a problem that belongs to a stranger. In Japan, it's a little bit rude. We even have a polite phrase for refusing it: "yokei na osewa." Roughly: "That's unnecessary help, thank you." I'm telling you this because I have come to a conclusion. America is the osekkai capital of the world. Here is my evidence. All of it comes from Japanese people I know who have lived in your country. A man in aisle 9 of a Home Depot explained cordless drills to my coworker for twenty minutes. Brands. Batteries. Torque. A story about his brother-in-law. He did not work at Home Depot. He has never worked at Home Depot. He was just there. My coworker went back six times that year. The man was there every time. (Texas) A woman at a grocery store took the cantaloupe out of my friend's cart, smelled it, put it back on the pile, and handed him a different one. She did not say one word. She did not work there either. (Ohio) A stranger at a gas station told my cousin his back tire looked low. Then he got down on the pavement and checked it. Then he filled it. Then he checked the other three, "since I'm down here anyway." (Kansas) My sister-in-law tried to parallel park on a busy street. Three men on the sidewalk stopped what they were doing and talked her in like a pit crew. "Cut it! Cut it hard! You got it! YOU GOT IT!" When she made it, they applauded and walked away. She has never seen them again. She thinks about them weekly. (Illinois) A man at a Little League game walked over and told my brother he was holding the bat wrong. My brother was 41. He was not playing. He was holding his son's bat while his son tied his shoe. He fixed his grip anyway. (Pennsylvania) A woman at a Target told my wife's friend that her baby needed a hat. Then she went and bought the baby a hat. (Minnesota) I laughed at all of these. For years. Then my coworker's daughter, Riko, got a job in Denver. She was 26. She lived alone. Across the hall lived a woman named Arlene. 74. A retired school nurse. Widowed. And, as Riko put it, "the most osekkai human being in the state of Colorado." In October, Arlene told Riko her coat was too thin. She taped a note to Riko's door explaining the recycling schedule. With diagrams. She asked who Riko's doctor was. Riko didn't have one. Arlene looked very worried about this for a whole week. She gave Riko her phone number, "for emergencies." Riko thanked her politely and had absolutely no intention of ever using it. Riko told her father, on the phone, that her neighbor was very kind and a little bit exhausting. In January, Riko got sick. A cough. Then a fever. Then she couldn't get out of bed. She didn't tell anyone. She didn't call in. In Japan, the worst thing you can do is be a burden. She thought she would sleep it off. On the third day, Arlene looked out at the parking lot. It had snowed twice that week. Every car in the lot had been dug out and scraped. Except one. Riko's car was still buried. Three days of snow. Untouched. Arlene knocked. No answer. She knocked again. She called the building manager. She told him to open the door, right now, and that she would explain later. They found Riko on the bathroom floor. Fever of 104. She could barely say her own name. Pneumonia. The doctor said another day or two alone and it could have been much, much worse. Arlene rode in the ambulance. She stayed in the hospital all night, in the plastic chair, in the coat she had told Riko to buy. When Riko woke up, the first thing she did was cry and apologize. For the trouble. For the night. For everything. Arlene took her hand. "Honey, this isn't trouble," she said. "I've been waiting since October for you to need something." Then she said the sentence Riko wrote down that night, on the back of a hospital menu, and still has. "Where I come from, minding your own business is how people die alone." Riko lives in Tokyo again now. Last month, a young man moved into the apartment next to hers. On his second day, she knocked on his door and told him his coat was too thin. He looked at her like she was out of her mind. She says that's how she knows it's working. So, America. You're the man in aisle 9 who doesn't work there. You're the lady who knows a better cantaloupe. You're a retired nurse looking out a window at one car nobody has dug out. The whole world thinks you're a little bit nosy. Please. Never mind your own business.

A few thoughts on the recent meme market This is not a paid promotion. —————————Meme Bull Case part1 1. GameStop was a "one-tap" event. Robinhood triggered the zero-commission war in 2019 and reduced options trading to a few taps. The real engine behind the GameStop squeeze was retail piling into cheap out-of-the-money calls → market makers hedging by buying shares → gamma squeeze. That only worked because options had become one-tap. Simplify access, and the event happens at that doorway. 2. fomo is standing in exactly that doorway for memecoins. In the cofounder's own words: "onboard, fund, and buy a token within 30 seconds." 68,000 people bought crypto for the first time through Apple Pay; 29% of users actually trade. Users went from 120K in November 2025 to 625K by June 2026 — 5x in seven months — with ~3,500 new signups a day. fomo captures 46% of Solana trading-platform spot volume. 3. It's infrastructure with capital and revenue behind it. $75M Series B at a $550M valuation (Index, USV, Benchmark). 140+ angels in the seed round including Solana, Coinbase, LayerZero, Wintermute, Pantera, and Dragonfly. A 17–20 person team hit a record $2.64M in weekly revenue and $16M for the month of August. Index partner: "We think there is a market shift there, and they have what it takes to capture this next wave." 4. It's already at the top of the US retail app charts. On August 21 it hit #3# in the US iPhone Finance category — behind only Capital One and PayPal, ahead of Cash App, Venmo, and Kalshi. It's not competing with crypto apps anymore; it's sitting next to banks and payment apps. Fifteen months after launch. 5. Robinhood is moving in the same direction. Robinhood Social (follow/copy trading) launched in March; Robinhood Chain launched in July. Vlad himself said it was "built for RWA, but it works great for memes too," and within nine days of launch a single token, CashCat, hit a $150M market cap on $500M of volume. The company that made GameStop possible just brought its own memecoin chain. 6. The team is preparing for the game to get bigger. A joint event with Pudgy Penguins during KBW, an official Korean channel, merch on the way — they're actively running community events and communication. Team feedback is fast and engaged. A model proven in the US is expanding into Asia, the densest retail market there is, and they look ready to absorb a surge when it comes. Axiom, Trojan, Photon, Moonshot — none of those teams ever did anything close to this kind of active offline community. fomo being this active is a good thing for those of us in the DEX trenches. Once again, for the record: fomo has not threatened me, and fomo has not paid me. 7. It's already visible in the data. From tracking fomo data: comments on new tokens are landing about 3x faster than before. The inflow isn't a forecast — it's happening now. 8. Life-changing headlines are already here. CashCat (Robinhood Chain): $85 → $2.5M (entered June 18, at a $142M market cap; $580K realized) CashCat + PONS: wallet 0x7e3ba, $220K in → $4.7M (reported September 1) Niu Lai / "cow head" (BNB): $120 → $205K, 822x (mid-August) ANSEM (Solana): +190,000% in 13 days, $260M market cap First $10M account on fomo (Bonk Guy, community-reported) Just as "I changed my life on Robinhood" stories pulled retail into GameStop, these headlines are doing the same job now. 9. The early call was right — and Ansem deserves real respect for it. Ansem has been saying "retail will come in through mobile apps" since the earliest days of the ANSEM token, long before fomo cracked the app-store top 3 or Robinhood shipped a chain. That's exactly what's playing out now. Calling the direction this early, and sticking to it while most people dismissed it as just another mobile app, is rare. I genuinely respect that, and if you're trying to read where this market goes next, he's someone you should be following. 10. All that's left is a trigger. The structure is in place — the doorway, the capital, the app-store rank, the chain, the team, the headlines. One Dogecoin-scale viral moment or one Bitcoin bull run is all it takes, and the snowball is already rolling. @RobinhoodCrypto @vladtenev @blknoiz06 @seyong @fomo

Despite a midseason elbow injury and then going from a starting role to a reserve, @RyanKalkbrenner has continued making strides his rookie season, mostly because he's now playing with an increased level of physicality and confidence. 💪 Read more: