This isn’t spin. It’s seasoned analysis.
The People Building AI Are Worried
Jacob Coxon managed to scare the hell out of a lot of people this week. Coxon isn't some guy sitting in his basement asking ChatGPT whether the machines are coming for him. He worked on artificial intelligence at OpenAI and Anthropic, two companies at the front of the...
Judge Orders Full Review of California Data Center
Rendering of the proposed $10 billion Imperial Valley Computer Manufactoring data center near Imperial, Ca. A Superior Court judge has overturned the county approvals for the project and ordered the development to undergo environmental review as a whole. There is a...
A Silicon Valley Node With Beer
The light comes through one window at Bogeys and Stogeys, and that's where I sit. I don't smoke. This is not necessarily an advantage at Bogeys. Cigarettes. Cigars. Smoke hanging in the darker reaches of the room and wandering through the shaft of Florida daylight...
When the Bartender Became the IT Department
A few years ago, my buddy, Paul, finally surrendered. For years, Paul had resisted the smartphone revolution. He had his flip phone. It made telephone calls. People could call him. He could call them. As far as Paul was concerned, Alexander Graham Bell had pretty much...
Welcome to Lake America; the Canadians Hold the Keys
President Donald Trump has renamed Lake Ontario. It is now, according to the United States government, Lake America. Well, sure. Why not? We have apparently reached the point in international diplomacy where the State Department can be replaced by a label maker. There...
I Remember When the West Had Too Much Water
In June 1984, I was driving north on the I-15 out of Las Vegas toward Utah when I came upon something I have never forgotten. The Virgin River was raging. Not flowing. Not meandering politely through the desert. Raging. It was red with silt, a muddy torrent cutting...
AI May Live in the Cloud; Its Power Bill Doesn’t
There is an old rule in journalism: when everybody is staring at the shiny thing, look behind it. The shiny thing these days is artificial intelligence. AI apps write. Generators make pictures. Computers create video, write software and answer questions. Wall Street...
The West Is Running Out of Cushion
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was looking at a water crisis. I was in Colorado in June, driving through the Rockies, looking up at mountains that ought to have been wearing considerably more white. There was snow up there. Just not much of it. I took a...
Permission Is Not Independence
For more than 80 years, the United States has maintained an unusual proposition: The government can pay journalists without owning their journalism. It was never a particularly comfortable arrangement. It wasn't supposed to be. Voice of America was created during...
America’s Pivot to Asia Stalled; The World’s Didn’t
Every once in a while, a chart tells you something Washington has spent several trillion dollars trying not to notice. I was looking at one the other day showing the world's largest cities from 1950 into the future. Back in 1950, the list looked reassuringly familiar...
The Computer Is Dumb, Until It Isn’t
Back when I taught programming, I always began with the same lesson. "The computer is dumb." It wasn't an insult. It was a warning. A computer doesn't think. It doesn't improvise. It doesn't know what you meant. It only does what you tell it to do. If your program...
16 Nobel laureates just admitted something most politicians won’t
There's an old saying that when the engineers start worrying about the bridge, it's probably time for everyone else to stop arguing about the paint color. That may be where we are with artificial intelligence. For the past few years, the AI conversation has split into...
Strange Bedfellows in the Age of AI
Politics has always been full of surprises. Every so often, you look up from your coffee and discover that people who spent years arguing with one another have somehow wandered into the same room carrying the same sign. Welcome to the latest chapter in America's AI...
The Most Important Machine in America Is Older Than You Think
There are two kinds of people in this country. The first kind can tell you the horsepower of a 1969 Camaro, the caliber of the rifle their grandfather carried in World War II, and probably the batting average of the Yankees' cleanup hitter. The second kind knows where...
The First AI Data Center Problem Came Before the First Server
UPDATE – July 23, 2026: Since this article was first published, the story has taken several important turns. Cheyenne officials have confirmed that the contamination was traced to wastewater discharged during a subcontractor's fill-and-flush operation on Meta's data...
Isaac Cubillos
This isn’t journalism for the polite table.
This is truth with grit under its nails and dirt on its boots.