Sean Brodrick

Goldman just put a number on the AI buildout: $7.6T from 2026-2031. They explicitly flag optics as the next “buy out the store” chokepoint after memory. The numbers behind the thesis: +Compute alone is $5.1T of the $7.6T total +Annual AI capex grows from $765B in 2026 to $1.6T in 2031 +Data center cost per MW jumped from $10M (cloud era) to $15-20M (AI era) +A single $50K accelerator depreciates $10K/yr but goes economically obsolete faster than the schedule +NVIDIA’s GB300 NVL72 packs 72 processors per rack, linked by hundreds of thousands of km of cabling In the repot they state: similar episodes of intense, short-term pricing pressure are likely to recur across other critical components such as interconnect, optics, storage, and packaging.” Meaning the same dynamic that just sent memory parabolic is queued up across the entire physical layer of AI infrastructure. The “AI factory of the future” data center will pack 576 GPUs per rack at 500+ kW, requiring liquid-only cooling and millions of GPUs deployed at the >1 GW scale. None of that scales without optics. Memory just ran (still going). Photonics is just warming up. Full disclosure: Goldman is confirming what’s been playing since the late last year. A lot is already priced in. The alpha is front-running institutions, not reading their reports. But $7.6T over 6 years doesn’t get fully priced in 6 months. Plenty of runaway left.

Just another way Trump’s War in Iran is empowering the Chinese: Demand for their green technology. And of course, Trump is anti wind and solar.

Cinema Sewer is a fun resource if you enjoy reading about old exploitation/horror/adult/splatter films, written by a guy who clearly enjoys the subject matter. I've discovered a few gems from them.

Last time I checked 70% is a lot. Long agricultural commodities.

American media discovering Europeans are not in any way upset to see US troops leaving is very funny to watch.

Your party has had complete control of Florida for 15 years.

The S&P is 45% AI and 4% energy. The market is massively long the output. Massively short the input. AI runs on power. Every dollar flowing into Nvidia eventually flows into a gas turbine, a transformer, or a transmission line. The market has built a portfolio that ignores its own supply chain. I wrote about it, in my latest article, link in replies 👇

Every night for years, a parrot named Alex told his trainer the same nine words before bed: “You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.” One night, he said them one last time. He was found dead in his cage the next morning. His trainer, Irene Pepperberg, had bought him from a Chicago pet shop in June 1977, when he was about a year old. She had just finished her chemistry PhD at Harvard. Most of her colleagues thought studying a parrot was a waste of a career. Back then, scientists believed birds couldn’t think. The phrase “bird brain” came from that belief. They thought you needed a big mammal brain to think, count, reason, or know your own name. Alex spent the next 30 years proving them wrong. He learned over 100 English words. He could identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes. He understood “bigger” and “smaller” and “same” and “different.” He could count up to six with 80% accuracy, and was learning eight when he died. He understood zero. He knew that “nothing” is itself something. Most kids don’t grasp that until age four. Alex was a parrot. He once invented his own word for an apple. He called it a “banerry,” because the inside reminded him of a banana and the outside of a cherry. In December 1980, a research assistant took Alex into a bathroom and held him up to the mirror. He had never seen himself before. He tilted his head, studied his reflection, and asked: “What color?” That was a first. No animal had ever asked a question about itself before. The assistant told him “gray” six times. Alex used the word correctly for the rest of his life. The first time Pepperberg had to leave him at the vet overnight, he watched her walk toward the door and said, “I’m sorry. Come here. Wanna go back.” She kept telling him she would be back tomorrow. She made sure she was. Every night, when she put him in his cage at the end of the day, he said the same nine words: “You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.” On September 5, 2007, he said it for the last time. He was 31. Grey parrots in captivity usually live to 45 or older. The autopsy found hardened arteries. A heart attack or stroke had probably killed him in his sleep. Pepperberg called it the worst day of her life. The New York Times wrote his obituary. The headline was “Brainy Parrot Dies, Emotive to the End.” Scientists still argue about whether Alex really understood what he was saying. Pepperberg never claimed he used real language. She called it a two-way communication code. But when she remembers the last night, and the same nine words she had heard a thousand times, there is no argument left.

Many scholars believe Rivendell was inspired by a real place. Tolkien hiked there in the summer of 1911. He was 19 years old, and the valley left a mark on him so deep that more than 50 years later he was still describing it from memory... The valley is called Lauterbrunnen. It sits in the Bernese Oberland, in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Tolkien went on foot, "carrying a great pack, in a party of twelve." They walked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, then up to Mürren, and finally to the head of the valley in what he later called a wilderness of moraines. They slept in haylofts and cowsheds. They ate in the open. They walked by map, mostly avoiding the roads. Goethe had stood at the foot of those same falls more than a century before Tolkien did. The poem he wrote about them, Song of the Spirits Over the Waters, was published in 1779. There is something about this valley that has always pulled writers toward it — as if its sheer scale and beauty demand a response, and ordinary language keeps falling short… In 1967, at the age of 75, Tolkien wrote to his son Michael describing the 1911 trip in detail. He called it the "very part of the world that had the deepest effect on me." That is what this valley does. You walk into it once, and it follows you for the rest of your life... If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter for over 50,000 readers who love rediscovering the beauty of the past: James-lucas.com/welcome Join us!

@jackrwilkie No

I’m not trying to hurt any Gen X feelings with this, but we as a society have GOT to chill with the Journey music. They were on 3 stations at the same time today. It’s been 40 years. Move on already.

America stopped making titanium sponge in 2020. China and Russia produce 75% of the world's supply. Two Japanese companies, Toho Titanium and Osaka Titanium, supply 70% of America's imports. Sponge is the porous metallic form that every titanium part starts as. In 2018, Titanium Metals Corporation warned regulators that without tariffs the US military would depend on geopolitically risky countries for titanium. No tariffs came. Two years later their plant closed. This month the Air Force announced an $8.4 million program to 3D-print titanium aerostructures. The sponge still comes from overseas. I manufacture chemicals. The same molecular structure that lets titanium survive the most corrosive reactors in our industry is the structure that punishes you when you try to shape it. It conducts heat 30 times slower than aluminum. Machine it and three problems feed each other. The heat stays at the tool tip. The metal bonds to the cutting tool. The surface hardens the moment the tool touches it. Each cut hits a tougher surface than the one before. Aerospace-grade titanium has no substitute. Nothing else matches its strength-to-weight at jet-engine temperatures. Every F-35, Falcon 9, and chlorine plant depends on a metal the US imports.

@Nerdcognito This is X, so I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Reddit mods to take it down

It came from Reddit, X edition: Modern converts shared that AD&D gave them the absolute best RPG night of their lives. Classic rules and old school play delivered what modern TTRPGs keep failing to provide. How long until the Reddit mods take this down? 😆😆😆

LOL US Officials now desperately walking back Trump's claims. Says they will only "coordinate" telling the civilian ships the "safe lanes" to travel across the Strait by themselves. Despite the fact that he threatened to use "force" against any interference. 🤣🤣🤣

Central Banks are Quietly Reshaping the Gold Market 🏦 What’s happening: • Official-sector gold buying remains strong despite volatility • Emerging markets continue accumulating as a geopolitical hedge • Select countries are selling to manage liquidity and currency pressure The signal is clear. #Gold is shifting from a tactical asset to strategic reserve insurance in an increasingly fragmented global system. Full article: 👉 nytimes.com/2026/05/01/bus… #GoldMining #Mining

@lyssasphere Jack Vance

Authors everyone should be familiar with, imho: Edgar Allen Poe George Orwell Hunter S. Thompson Isaac Asimov Ken Kesey Lewis Carroll Ray Bradbury Are there any others that belong on this list?

Morgan Stanley has again raised its capex forecasts for the five hyperscalers Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle. It now expects them to spend about $805bn this year, up from a previous estimate of $765bn. For next year, the forecast has been lifted from $951bn to $1.1TRILLION. To put that into perspective, their 2026 spending alone would be roughly equal to what all non-tech companies in the S&P 500 spent combined in 2025. The expected ~$800bn for 2026 is nearly double 2025 levels and about three times what was spent in 2024.

@World_Affairs11 How long until Iran blows up the east-west pipeline again?

BREAKING: 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia fully restored East-West oil pipeline, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and pumping 7,000,000 barrels per day. Saudi Arabia says it needs no more strait of Hormuz.

NEW from me: The US is building a record amount of power infrastructure, especially solar & batteries, and has broken out of a multi-decade period of grid stagnation Yet this hasn’t been nearly enough, and America has a widening electricity shortage that’s driving up prices 🧵

Russia's Nornickel sees nickel production declining for a 3rd consecutive year in 2026: "Nickel production has now declined for a third consecutive year, despite the company avoiding direct sanctions targeting its operations." For 2026, Nornickel expects output to decline across all major metals, forecasting palladium production to fall by 10-11%📉, platinum by 5-8%📉, nickel by 3%📉 and copper by 5%📉.

@AlexSJacquez They should not surprise you. That’s how capitalism works.

Great news guys, we’re sending our domestic oil abroad to chase triple digit prices, juicing profits for Big Oil while U.S. gas prices head toward $5