glocal VR

Mathematical modelling: Small models give insight but have little predictive power Big models give little insight, questionable predictions, and need huge computational time Ideally, you would like to be in the Goldilocks zone (not too small, not too big) How big is your model?

Last week belonged to x402 and x402 only. Headlining was x402 moving under the Linux Foundation on Thursday, with every major tech company backing it. But the ecosystem news underneath was just as important. Here's everything that matters: The Linux Foundation — Housing x402 alongside Linux and Node.js neutralizes its biggest existential threat: the perception that it's a Coinbase product rather than an INTERNET PRIMITIVE. Enterprises now have the cover to build on it. Bankr's x402 Cloud — Launching an x402 endpoint meant stitching together payments logic, hosting, and discovery manually. Not anymore. Point Bankr at your service, set a price, deploy with one command. If monetizing a tool still requires custom plumbing, adoption stalls. Bottleneck removed. Ampersend — x402 has no built-in spending limits or reporting. For one agent, that's fine. For a company deploying dozens across hundreds of services, it's not. Ampersend sits on top and adds per-agent budgets, service allowlists, compliance reporting. As single-person companies move from proof of concept to production, this becomes ESSENTIAL. AgentCash — 300+ APIs accessible via x402. The costs are worth noting. An agent found an image of Bankless's "founder," edited it in Nano Banana, emailed the result — 26 cents. Someone found a lost ID in a park, had their agent track down the owner's contact info — 30 cents. They're now grabbing lunch. Recommend giving the article a full read.

Last week belonged to x402 and x402 only. Headlining was x402 moving under the Linux Foundation on Thursday, with every major tech company backing it. But the ecosystem news underneath was just as important. Here's everything that matters: The Linux Foundation — Housing x402 alongside Linux and Node.js neutralizes its biggest existential threat: the perception that it's a Coinbase product rather than an INTERNET PRIMITIVE. Enterprises now have the cover to build on it. Bankr's x402 Cloud — Launching an x402 endpoint meant stitching together payments logic, hosting, and discovery manually. Not anymore. Point Bankr at your service, set a price, deploy with one command. If monetizing a tool still requires custom plumbing, adoption stalls. Bottleneck removed. Ampersend — x402 has no built-in spending limits or reporting. For one agent, that's fine. For a company deploying dozens across hundreds of services, it's not. Ampersend sits on top and adds per-agent budgets, service allowlists, compliance reporting. As single-person companies move from proof of concept to production, this becomes ESSENTIAL. AgentCash — 300+ APIs accessible via x402. The costs are worth noting. An agent found an image of Bankless's "founder," edited it in Nano Banana, emailed the result — 26 cents. Someone found a lost ID in a park, had their agent track down the owner's contact info — 30 cents. They're now grabbing lunch. Recommend giving the article a full read.

Compare and contrast these three post-territorial concepts: * Cosmopolises vs the Civium vs Network Nations Venkatesh Rao, taking the medieval Catholic Church and the Caliphate as prefigurative of what is emerging, talks about ‘Cosmopolises’: “cosmopolises organize procedural memories into widely diffused infrastructures." . Cosmopolises depended on faster and faster transportation and communication. But the current networked civilization is based on instantaneous communication. Jordan (Green)Hall, partially inspired by the emerging pop-up villages, talks about the emerging ‘Civium’: “the invention and development of “the digital” brings an end to the cultural logic of the city that has been driving civilization since the beginning. We are now exiting the epoch of the city and entering the epoch of a new relationship. The civium.” Civium are places with highly networked populations existing outside a city context. Primavera de Filippi and the Network.Nations research group call it ‘Network Nations’: "translocal communities united by shared identity, purpose, and values that govern their own affairs across borders without any territorial claims". It is now possible to strive for, and to organize, post-geographic nations.

* the recent US moves on crypto look like a strategic pivot toward enhanced monetary control. 'What am I referring to? - On 4 March, Kraken Financial became the first crypto-native institution to obtain a Federal Reserve master account, allowing direct access to core payment rails such as Fedwire. This can be regarded as a “crossing of the Rubicon” regarding the centralisation of cryptos. - On 19 February, the SEC (the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) issued new guidelines on stablecoin use, slashing the capital penalty (“haircut”) from 100% to 2%. This move legitimizes stablecoins as equivalents to money market funds in corporate accounting, effectively bringing privately issued digital dollars into the regulated financial system rather than leaving them in the crypto periphery."