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From 250 miles above Earth, most of the United States blurs together into a continental mass of brown and green with no obvious landmarks. Then Michigan appears and the confusion stops completely. The mitten shape of the Lower Peninsula surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes is one of the most distinctive geographic features visible from the International Space Station, a natural outline so clean and so recognizable that astronauts have confirmed it repeatedly as one of the clearest views of any state from orbit. The Great Lakes are what make it work. Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie create a water to land contrast that defines Michigan's borders with a precision that no cartographer could improve on. The mitten sits in the middle of all that blue like it was placed there deliberately, which in geological terms it essentially was, carved out by glaciers over thousands of years into a shape that somehow ended up being both geographically functional and immediately identifiable from the edge of the atmosphere. Michigan residents have been using their right hand as a map their entire lives and that same gesture works from space, which is not something any other state can say. Astronauts have photographed Michigan more than almost any other state passing beneath them because the view rewards it every single time. For a state already sitting on the greatest freshwater system on the planet, being unmistakable from 250 miles up is simply Michigan being exactly what it has always been. Impossible to miss. Even from space.

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation). Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI. As a result, 1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb. Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more. 2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future). Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire" 3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed. Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies. 4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either. No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money." I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here. Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success". Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

I’m sick of pretending, what does RSVP stand for?

Hussain rehar setting so many bars for Pakistan fashion industry I WANNA WORK WITH HIM SO BAD

Drake sends a thank you letter to Olivia Chow after his iceman release & calls her his crodi!

Any recommendations for places I should visit in Karachi?

Drake got the whole city out on a Thursday night for ICEMAN 🇨🇦

I knew there was a reason i lovers Brussels so much. And love Francophone Africa

43 Drake songs at 5am am I a wasteman

Bro Drake can deadass do whatever he wants in Canada gang 😭

She could have still worn a dupatta covering her chest .... Swag doesn't need to be promiscuous

Funny how in Ptv days, so many actresses had short hair and people didn’t lose their minds over it. Let women be however they want