Tugboat for Today

Favorites: Hidden Words, Prediction Markets, and Clean Power

July 6, 2026 — Ukraine salutes the American Dream, Tom Clancy trashes The Sum of All Fears on its commentary track, Ossoff imagines the founders touring…

Jul 7 • David Watson

Favorites: Birthright Citizenship, Border Panic, and Bridgewater

July 2, 2026 — Advanced-degree pay bumps reward useless credentials, the median Supreme Court vote drifts right by arithmetic, Caplan sours on the…

Jul 3 • David Watson

June 2026

Favorites: Obesity Drugs, Rocket Wreckage, and Spanish Sprawl

June 30, 2026 — Josh Barro pivots to defending the automatic transmission, Germans back restarting up to 18.7 gigawatts of idled reactors, UCSD STEM…

Jun 30 • David Watson

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Favorites: SpaceX, Liquid Assets, and Whips

June 29, 2026 — California's medical association opposes the Medi-Cal billionaire tax, updated COVID shots cut cardiovascular deaths, Tokyo grows to…

Jun 29 • David Watson

Favorites: Missiles, Mythos, and Medical Scanners

June 23, 2026 — Valar Atomics reaches reactor criticality, Disneyland debuts a lifelike Olaf robot, a dog beats cancer with a custom mRNA vaccine.

Jun 23 • David Watson

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April 2026

Favorites: Translations, Transit, and Tribal Rights

April 6, 2026 — Gene therapy restores hearing in weeks, Outlook crashes in orbit, NYC fills potholes in 90 seconds.

Apr 7 • David Watson

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March 2026

Favorites: Senate Sabotage, Seaside Density, and Saturated Benchmarks

March 11, 2026 — GLP-1 patients keep weight off at lower doses, Ford's wiring harness weighs 70 pounds more than Tesla's, tech news sites lose up to 97…

Mar 12 • David Watson

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Favorites: Tanker Escorts, Drone Swarms, and Cheating Chatbots

March 8th, 2026 — California rewards destructive ballot propositions, Japan approves stem cells for Parkinson's, virtual fruit flies walk on their own.

Mar 9 • David Watson

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Favorites: Vintage Jets, Tax Brackets, and Building Permits

March 2, 2026 — BullshitBench v2 tests 70 models on hallucination, secretarial work disappeared across two decades, and Seedance 2.0 generates cinematic…

Mar 3 • David Watson

Favorites: Bechamel Benchmarks, Gun Prosecutions, and Driving Negligence

February 28, 2026 — How students use AI matters more than whether they do, post-2020 SF traffic enforcement finds new footing, Daring Fireball tames…

Mar 1 • David Watson

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November 2025

Favorites: Waymo Wins, Weary Fusion, and Whole-Aisle Coca-Cola

November 25, 2025 — Charm turns out to be a real political asset in one surreal White House exchange, a social rule about who demands the “doctor” title…

Nov 25, 2025 • David Watson

Favorites: Fission, Forgeries, and Foreign Policy

November 20, 2025 — A big tent for Democrats, skepticism on school laptops, and a new cloud for fights.

Nov 21, 2025 • David Watson