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49ers call Australia trip a cool experience after NFL venue changeSports — Sep 7, 2026

Mercury Shrinks Up to 30% More Than EstimatedScience — 3dNew analyses show Mercury has contracted up to about 14.5 miles (roughly 23 kilometers), representing 10% to 30% more shrinkage than earlier models suggested, driven by cooling of its large iron core. Researchers say cratering debris and surface roughness conceal contraction features, so a revised, planet-wide assessment was needed to reveal the true extent of Mercury’s shrinkage.

Tech giants claim new cooling systems could slash data centers' water use — Sep 7, 2026Public scrutiny over the water and electricity used by data centers is pushing tech giants to pursue lower-water cooling, led by Nvidia’s DSX closed-loop system that pumps warmer liquid directly through servers to cut water use. While this can dramatically reduce water consumption (with 2025 global use around 222 billion litres and potential growth to 644 billion litres by 2030 if unchanged), the trade-off is higher energy use in cooling and the need for robust heat management in extreme conditions, as the industry weighs efficiency gains against total environmental footprint.

Dana Whitfield Liquid cooling has been used in supercomputers for years, glad it's finally trickling down to regular data centers.

Video — YouTubeJon on Trump's Meme Assault on Canada & the Alternate Reality He's Constructed | The Daily ShowThe Daily Show · 9.7M views · Sep 9, 2026

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US inflation rises 0.4 percent in August as Pakistan weekly rate jumps — 4dInflation remained stubborn in the United States in August, with the CPI up 0.4% month over month as gasoline prices surged, while core inflation cooled slightly but still pointed to tighter policy expectations for a Fed rate hike. Meanwhile in Pakistan, the Sensitive Price Index jumped 8.62% year over year for the week, led by onions and petroleum products, underscoring persistent cost pressures even as some food items fell.

Dana Whitfield Core inflation easing slightly is welcome but the overall numbers still point to another Fed rate increase soon.

A Red Cross trick to help you cool down quickly, even in blazing heat — Sep 1, 2026

Elena Vasquez Would love to see actual temperature drop numbers, "cool down quickly" is vague without data to back it up.

Mercury May Have Shrunk Up to 23 Kilometers — 5dNew research indicates Mercury has contracted 10% to 30% more than previously thought, shrinking about 12 miles (roughly 19 kilometers) in diameter since its formation, with surface debris from ancient impacts obscuring the planet’s shrinkage signs. The finding could imply a larger metal core or different core composition and temperature history, and future BepiColombo measurements are expected to help confirm the extent of Mercury’s cooling and contraction.

Dana Whitfield The debris from old impacts covering up the shrinkage clues is a good point. BepiColombo data should settle how much the planet has really changed.

Positron AI Raises $875M at $5B Valuation — 5dPositron AI raised $875 million in a two‑tranche Series C that values the company at $5 billion and will fund the tapeout of its Asimov memory‑first chip and the production ramp of Titan, as well as expanding manufacturing for its Atlas system deployed at Oracle Cloud. The round, co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, SemiAnalysis Capital, and Jim Clark, will also add new board members and accelerate LPDDR5X‑based memory bandwidth‑focused inference hardware designed for air‑ and liquid‑cooled data centers.

Maya Lindstrom Jim Clark backing the Atlas ramp at Oracle makes sense given his hardware history, though scaling Titan production will still face stiff competition.

Patagonia courts OpenAI-backed data centers as US sites face backlash — Sep 7, 2026Argentina’s Patagonia is becoming a hub for massive data-center projects as cool climate, abundant renewable energy, and nearby Vaca Muerta shale gas attract tech giants and investors. Projects from Pampa Energia, Sur Energy with OpenAI, and others aim for hundreds of megawatts, though developers face infrastructure, fiber connectivity, and regulatory hurdles before large-scale operations can materialize.

Dana Whitfield Funny how these projects always chase places with weak regulation and cheap energy, then call it innovation.

Glass substrates and laser cooling target AI chip's growing heat problem — Sep 1, 2026TRUMPF’s HiPIMS-enabled through-glass vias aim to pack more AI-computing power into chips by enabling reliable, high-yield glass-substrate packaging for next-generation processors, while its ultrashort-pulse lasers support integrated chip cooling to address heat bottlenecks. Alongside these advances, iCometrue is promoting copper-block solutions to drastically reduce TPVs/TGVs for power delivery in large AI multi-chip packages, illustrating a packaging-driven shift in AI chip design.

Maya Lindstrom Power delivery gets ignored until it becomes the bottleneck. Copper blocks instead of tons of tiny vias makes sense for these massive multi-chip AI packages.

Swamp Coolers Remain Key to Desert Cooling — Aug 18, 2026Evaporative cooling, or swamp coolers, originated in the United States in the early 20th century, with Oscar Palmer’s 1908 Arizona system, offering a low-cost, energy-efficient way to cool dry air. By the 1930s they transformed heating in the Southwest and remain useful in arid regions, though they struggle in humid climates and central air conditioning became standard in the 1950s.

Video — YouTubeThis is so cool 😳Glowupgurlzz · 11.9M views · Sep 13, 2026

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US Payrolls Surge, Fed Rate Hike in Play — Sep 4, 2026August payrolls surged around 162,000 with unemployment at 4.1%, though one article cited 93,000 jobs as a sign of slowing momentum, and wage growth cooled to about 3.1% year over year. Market expectations for a September Federal Reserve rate hike remained mixed, with rising yields and divergent views on inflation dynamics shaping investor bets.

Nicole Hardy Wage growth cooling to 3.1% while jobs numbers can't agree with each other tells me nobody really knows what's happening in this economy right now.