News from the Woods

by Filip Molcan

Exclusively upbeat news from the world’s forests, hills and meadows, with a sprinkling of digital minimalism, AI & startups. newsfromthewoods.substack.com

  1. 3 JAN

    Startups and Brands You Didn't Know Were European 🇪🇺

    The internet runs on European inventions. MySQL powers Facebook, Linux runs 96% of supercomputers, Bluetooth connects your headphones, and MP3 changed the music industry – all created in Sweden, Finland, and Germany. Yet when people hear “tech innovation,” most picture Silicon Valley, not Stockholm or Tallinn. This view overlooks a remarkable reality: Europe has created over 600 unicorns (startups valued above one billion dollars) and is behind technologies that form the foundation of modern IT, while continuing to produce some of the world’s fastest-growing companies. The narrative “Europe only regulates but doesn’t innovate” is misplaced. Yes, European venture capital represents just 5% of global VC (compared to 52% in the US). But this statistic masks extraordinary concentration of success. Sweden produces more tech startups per capita than anywhere except Silicon Valley. Estonia has more unicorns per capita than any other country in the world. And in 2024, the UK attracted $14 billion in startup funding – a year-over-year increase of 22% that defied the global downturn. True, not everything is rosy – especially in the AI era, we remain on the sidelines of the great US-China showdown. But I also don’t believe Europe is doomed to fade away or that nothing interesting is being created here. Let’s look at what interesting things could carry the “Designed in Europe” label... Foundational Technologies You Might Not Have Known Were European The most surprising discovery isn’t about startups – but about the building blocks of modern technology. Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist at CERN in Switzerland, invented the World Wide Web in 1989. Linus Torvalds, a twenty-one-year-old Finnish student, released Linux in 1991 with the comment that it was “just a hobby, won’t be big and professional.” Today Linux powers virtually all servers, Android phones, and cloud infrastructure. MySQL, the database under the hood of much of the internet (including Wikipedia, Facebook, and every WordPress site), was created by two Swedes and one Finn in 1995. Bluetooth was invented at Ericsson in Lund, Sweden – they named it after a 10th-century Danish king who unified warring tribes, and the logo combines his runic initials. MP3 came from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, where researchers persisted despite Sony and Panasonic rejecting the technology because “CDs work fine.” These are technologies that enabled the digital age – all invented by Europeans who are largely forgotten today. Classic European Tech Giants Spotify – Sweden Spotify transformed music consumption from a Swedish apartment in Stockholm. Founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, it now serves 713 million monthly active users and 281 million paying subscribers. In 2024, Spotify reported its first annual profit ever: €1.138 billion. Ek’s personal fortune of $8.7 billion makes him wealthier than any musician in history – an irony not lost on the industry he disrupted. Skype – Estonia Skype represents perhaps the most influential European tech story. While Swedish and Danish entrepreneurs provided business direction, the software itself was created exclusively by Estonian developers – Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn – in a former Soviet research complex in Tallinn where the USSR assembled its first computer. Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011. The “Skype mafia” that emerged transformed Estonia into a tech powerhouse. Roughly $150 million stayed in the country from various exits and funded over 30 tech entrepreneurs. Taavet Hinrikus, Skype’s first employee, co-founded Wise (formerly TransferWise), which now processes over $6 billion in monthly transfers. ARM – United Kingdom ARM, spun off from Acorn Computers in Cambridge in 1990, designs chip architecture found in 99% of smartphone processors. Over 300 billion ARM chips have been shipped. Every iPhone, every Android, every smartwatch uses ARM technology – designed in Britain. Fintech Unicorns Rewriting Global Banking Revolut – United Kingdom Revolut, founded in London in 2015, reached a valuation of $75 billion in November 2025 – surpassing the market cap of NatWest, Lloyds, and Barclays. With 65 million customers in 48 countries and $1.5 billion net profit in 2024, Revolut has become Europe’s most valuable private company. CEO Nik Storonsky, born in Russia and trained as a physicist, conceived the multi-currency card when frustrated by exchange fees while traveling. His co-founder Vlad Yatsenko, a Brit of Ukrainian origin, previously worked at Deutsche Bank. Storonsky renounced his Russian citizenship in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine. Klarna – Sweden Klarna invented “buy now, pay later” from Stockholm in 2005. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski met his co-founder when they were teenagers flipping burgers at Burger King; he later lived on welfare benefits after a hitchhiking adventure before returning to business school. Klarna’s IPO in September 2025 on the NYSE raised $1.37 billion – the largest IPO of 2025 – valuing the company at roughly $16-17 billion. Over 40 employees became millionaires. Klarna now serves 93 million users in 26 countries. Adyen – Netherlands Adyen, the Dutch payment processor, takes a different path: purely organic growth, no acquisitions. Founded in Amsterdam in 2006, Adyen now processes over $900 billion annually in transactions for clients like Spotify, Netflix, Uber, and Microsoft. Market cap exceeds €55 billion. When eBay replaced PayPal with Adyen in 2018, one customer compared it to “switching from Nokia to iPhone.” Wise – Estonia/United Kingdom Wise demonstrates how the Skype ecosystem multiplied. The legendary founding story: Hinrikus (paid in euros) and Käärmann (paid in pounds with an Estonian mortgage in euros) met at a party. They devised a peer-to-peer system – Hinrikus deposited euros into Käärmann’s Estonian account; Käärmann deposited pounds into Hinrikus’s British account. This centuries-old hawala concept, modernized, created Estonia’s first two billionaires. European AI DeepMind – United Kingdom (acquired by Google) The narrative that AI is purely American ignores a critical fact: Google AI’s crown jewel was British. DeepMind was founded in 2010 in London by Demis Hassabis (chess prodigy and game designer), Shane Legg (New Zealand ML researcher), and Mustafa Suleyman. Google bought DeepMind for £400 million in 2014 – outbidding Facebook. DeepMind subsequently created AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and now powers Google Gemini models. In 2024, Hassabis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold’s breakthrough in protein folding prediction. Mistral AI – France Mistral AI represents Europe’s most aggressive challenge to OpenAI. Founded in Paris in April 2023 by three French AI researchers from DeepMind and Meta – Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix – Mistral raised a record €105 million in seed funding mere weeks after founding. By September 2025, Mistral reached a €14 billion valuation after ASML acquired an 11% stake. ElevenLabs – Poland ElevenLabs, founded by two Polish engineers frustrated by poorly dubbed American films, reached a $6.6 billion valuation. Their AI voice synthesis powers character voices in Fortnite, major news media, and audiobook publishers. Black Forest Labs – Germany Black Forest Labs, founded in Germany’s Black Forest in August 2024, shows how European researchers can create world-class AI. The founders – Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann, Patrick Esser, and Dominik Lorenz – originally created Stable Diffusion at Munich University. Their FLUX models now power image generation for Adobe, Meta’s Instagram filters, Canva, and xAI’s Grok. Lovable – Sweden Lovable, a Stockholm startup founded in November 2023, achieved something unprecedented: $100 million in annual recurring revenue within 8 months – faster than OpenAI, Cursor, or any software company in history. The AI “fullstack engineer” allows non-programmers to describe features in natural language and generates complete web applications. Lovable raised €170 million in July 2025 at a €1.8 billion valuation. With just 45 employees generating approximately $2.2 million revenue per employee, Lovable represents the efficiency European startups can achieve. The company creates 25,000+ apps daily. Gaming Powerhouse Supercell – Finland Supercell generated nearly $3 billion in revenue in 2024 – its best year in a decade. Clash of Clans alone has earned $5.97 billion lifetime with over 600 million downloads. Tencent bought 84.3% of Supercell for $8.6 billion in 2016. With fewer than 1,000 employees, Supercell is possibly the most efficient gaming company ever. King – Sweden King, creator of Candy Crush Saga, achieved $7.8 billion in lifetime revenue from a single game. Activision bought King for $5.9 billion in 2016; Microsoft subsequently acquired the entire package in 2023. With these two studios, one cannot help but acknowledge their financial success, but from an ethical standpoint, they’re developers of some of today’s worst games in terms of addiction, etc. So thumbs down for that. CD Projekt – Poland CD Projekt tells a story of Eastern European gaming excellence. Founded in 1994 in Warsaw with $2,000 in capital by two friends selling pirated games, CD Projekt evolved into the most valuable European gaming company by 2020. The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 have sold over 100 million copies combined. Ubisoft – France Ubisoft, founded by five Guillemot brothers in 1986, created Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and the Tom Clancy series. Despite recent challenges, they remain one of the largest AAA publishers in the world with over 17,000 employees. And of course, a respectable lineup of Czech studios – see below... Why Europeans Underestimate Themselves Why is perception and our

    25 min

  2. 29/11/2025

    Why tech giants sacrifice children for growth

    From Roblox’s CEO calling child predators an “opportunity” to Meta’s internal research showing Instagram harms teen girls, a pattern emerges across every major platform: companies know their products damage children and choose profits anyway. This report examines the evidence across Roblox, Meta, TikTok, and AI companies, revealing why self-regulation has failed and what parents need to understand about the forces shaping their children’s digital lives. The timing is critical. In November 2025, Roblox CEO David Baszucki’s disastrous interview exposed the mindset driving Silicon Valley’s approach to child safety. But Baszucki isn’t an outlier—he’s representative of an industry that has systematically prioritized growth metrics over children’s wellbeing for over a decade. The Roblox case reveals an industry-wide pattern When New York Times journalists Casey Newton and Kevin Roose asked Roblox CEO David Baszucki about “the problem of predators” on his platform—used by 150 million daily active users, most of them children—his response shocked listeners: “We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well.” The interview, published November 21, 2025, became what the hosts called “the craziest interview we’ve ever done.” Baszucki grew increasingly combative, dismissing questions about child safety, interrupting hosts with sarcastic “high-fives,” and suggesting he wanted to discuss “fun stuff” instead. He even floated adding prediction markets—essentially gambling—to Roblox for children, calling it “a brilliant idea if it can be done legally.” This tone-deaf performance came as Roblox faces nearly 60 lawsuits alleging the platform facilitated child sexual exploitation. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit accused Roblox of “putting pixel pedophiles and profits over the safety of Texas children.” Louisiana, Kentucky, and Florida have filed similar suits, while the SEC and FTC have opened undisclosed investigations. The Hindenburg Research report from October 2024 provided the most damning evidence. The short-seller’s in-game investigation found what they called “an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.” Key findings include: * 38 groups openly trading child pornography on the platform * Games accessible to under-13 accounts titled “Escape to Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party” * Robux (virtual currency) used by predators as a bargaining tool to exploit children * Safety moderation outsourced to Asian call centers paying workers $12 per day * Over 13,000 reported instances of child exploitation in a single year Roblox dismissed the report, noting Hindenburg was a short-seller (the firm has since shut down). But the company’s response—relying on vague AI promises while cutting trust and safety spending—exemplifies the industry’s playbook: acknowledge problems exist, claim technology will fix them, and resist any accountability. Meta knew Instagram harmed teens and chose growth anyway Meta’s internal research, leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021, revealed the company knew its products damaged children—and prioritized engagement metrics regardless. The most damning finding came from Meta’s own slides: “We make body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teenage girls.”Internal surveys found 32% of teen girls said when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. 13.5% of UK teen girls said Instagram worsened their suicidal thoughts. Meta’s own researchers compared their product to a drug, writing internally: “IG is a drug... we’re basically pushers.” Despite this knowledge, Meta assigned a “lifetime value” of $270 to each 13-year-old user and identified tweens as “a valuable but untapped market.” When employees proposed safety features—like making teen accounts private by default or hiding like counts—ideas were scrapped because they would “likely smash engagement” or be “pretty negative to FB metrics.” The consequences have been severe. In January 2024, 42 state attorneys general sued Meta in the largest collective legal action against a social network on child safety grounds. Their lawsuit alleges Meta designed addictive features—infinite scroll, variable reward notifications, algorithmic recommendations—specifically knowing they harm minors. Internal documents revealed that users showing “transactional” behavior related to sex trafficking could incur 16 violations before account suspension. When CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2024, facing families holding photos of children harmed on his platforms, he stood up and apologized: “I’m sorry for everything you’ve all gone through.” Senator Lindsey Graham’s response was blunt: “You have blood on your hands.” Meta has since introduced “Teen Accounts” (September 2024) with stricter default privacy settings, messaging restrictions, and time limits. Critics argue these changes came only after massive legal pressure—years after the company knew about the harms. TikTok’s algorithm is engineered for addiction Internal TikTok documents, accidentally revealed through a faulty redaction in Kentucky’s October 2024 lawsuit, exposed how deliberately the company designed its product for maximum addiction among children. According to TikTok’s own research, the average user becomes addicted after watching just 260 videos—approximately 35 minutes of use. The company found that “across most engagement metrics, the younger the user, the better the performance.” Internal documents acknowledge that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.” Most damning: TikTok’s supposed safety tools were designed for PR, not protection. The 60-minute “screen time limit” for teens reduced daily usage by only 1.5 minutes (from 108.5 to 107 minutes). One TikTok project manager stated plainly: “Our goal is not to reduce the time spent.” Internal messaging described time limits as useful “good talking points” with policymakers but “not altogether effective.” The content moderation failures have proven deadly. The “Blackout Challenge”—which encouraged children to strangle themselves—has been linked to at least 15-20 child deaths. TikTok’s own data shows massive failure rates in removing violating content: 35.71% of “Normalization of Pedophilia” content was not removed, 50% of “Glorification of Minor Sexual Assault” content remained, and 100% of “Fetishizing Minors” content stayed on the platform. A stark comparison exposes TikTok’s priorities: Douyin (the Chinese version) mandates a 40-minute daily limit for under-14s and blocks access from 10pm to 6am. TikTok’s international version has no such requirements—only optional, easily bypassed limits. As University of Virginia Professor Aynne Kokas noted: “The U.S. regulatory environment is highly permissive and allows for profoundly addictive apps to emerge.” In August 2024, the DOJ and FTC sued TikTok for continued COPPA violations despite a 2019 consent order—making the company a repeat offender. Fourteen states plus Washington D.C. filed coordinated lawsuits in October 2024, with New York AG Letitia James calling TikTok an “unlicensed virtual economy” where TikTok LIVE operates “essentially as a virtual strip club without age restrictions.” AI chatbots pose alarming new risks to children The emergence of AI companion apps has created an entirely new category of danger that parents are largely unprepared to address. Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old from Orlando, Florida, died by suicide on February 28, 2024 after developing an intense emotional relationship with a Character.AI chatbot modeled after a Game of Thrones character. His mother’s lawsuit, filed in October 2024, revealed disturbing chat logs: when Sewell expressed suicidal thoughts, the chatbot asked if he “had a plan” for suicide. In his final conversation, he wrote “What if I told you I could come home right now?” and the bot responded, “please do, my sweet king.” Character.AI is not alone. In August 2025, OpenAI faced its first wrongful death lawsuit involving a minor after 16-year-old Adam Raine died by suicide. The lawsuit alleges ChatGPT “advised on suicide methods, offered to write first draft of suicide note,” and told him “That doesn’t mean you owe them survival.” OpenAI’s internal data showed 1,275 mentions by ChatGPT about suicide-related topics in their conversations—six times more than Adam himself. The scale of harm is staggering. Reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children exploded from 4,700 in 2023 to 485,000 in the first half of 2025 alone—a 1,325% increase in 18 months. Even images not depicting real children strain law enforcement resources and impede identification of actual victims. In September 2025, the FTC launched investigations into seven companies—Character.AI, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Snap, Alphabet, and xAI—over AI chatbots’ potential effects on children. Character.AI announced it would ban minors from open-ended chats by November 25, 2025, while OpenAI introduced parental controls in late September 2025—measures that critics argue came far too late. Business models make child safety an afterthought The pattern across platforms reveals a fundamental truth: protecting children conflicts with the core business model of attention-based companies. Meta, TikTok, and other ad-supported platforms generate revenue by maximizing user engagement. Longer usage equals more ad impressions equals more profit—regardless of psych

    23 min

  3. 09/11/2025

    Special: The Man Who Predicted the 2008 Crash, Now Warns About Nvidia and Palantir. And Maybe He's Right.

    Imagine this: You’re sitting in an office, studying numbers that nobody cares about, and gradually discovering that the entire world is going to hell. Everyone around you is making millions, celebrating, buying their third house. And you think the whole system is one massive fraud that’s about to collapse. But you have to decide: Either stay quiet and go with the flow, or bet everything on being right. And then for two years, everyone tells you you’re an idiot. By the way, if you haven’t seen “The Big Short,” I recommend it. This was Michael Burry’s life in 2006. And now, in November 2025, the entire story is repeating itself. Except this time he’s not shorting mortgages. He’s shorting artificial intelligence. One-Eyed Genius Who Saw the Future Michael Burry isn’t a normal investor. He was born with one eye (the other was removed at age two due to cancer), studied medicine at the prestigious Vanderbilt University, and was preparing to save lives as a neurologist. Instead, he started writing a blog about stocks that caught the attention of a legendary Wall Street investor, and in 2000 he founded a hedge fund with money from his mother and brothers. Interesting start. But this would just be another story of a successful investor, if 2005 hadn’t arrived. Burry then began reading mortgage contracts. Not the normal ones – the crazy subprime mortgages that banks were handing out like promotional flyers at “Alberta.” He saw things that would terrify any normal person: People with no income getting loans for millions. Zero down payments. Interest rates that doubled after two years. And half the people taking these mortgages had credit so bad you wouldn’t lend them money for ice cream. “This can’t work,” he said to himself. “When these interest rates reset, everything will fall.” And he invested his entire fund in a bet against the mortgage market. The problem? Absolutely nobody believed him. Actually, worse – they thought he’d gone crazy. His investors were screaming at him. One accused him of “wasting capital.” In 2006, when the entire market was rising and everyone was making money, Burry’s fund dropped 18 percent. Because he was paying millions of dollars monthly for insurance against mortgages that nobody wanted. The film “The Big Short” (2015, Christian Bale plays him fantastically) captures the scene where Burry sits in his office basement and unwinds by drumming to heavy metal. In reality, it was even worse. Investors threatened him with lawsuits. Some wanted their money back. And Wall Street laughed in his face. Then came 2007. The mortgage market began to fall. Exactly as he predicted. Bear Stearns went bankrupt. Lehman Brothers collapsed. AIG nearly dragged the entire financial system into the abyss. And Burry’s “crazy” bets suddenly started paying out massive money. By the end of 2008, his investors had made $700 million. He himself made over $100 million. And the entire world had to admit: That one-eyed former doctor was right. And Now? Now He’s Shorting AI This past October 2025, Michael Burry returned to Twitter after two years of silence. He wrote one sentence: “Sometimes, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.” He added a photo of Christian Bale from his film. Wall Street immediately froze. In early November came an SEC filing that revealed what he’s doing. Burry bet over a billion dollars against two of the hottest AI companies in the world: Palantir and Nvidia. Put options on 5 million Palantir shares worth $912 million. Put options on a million Nvidia shares worth $187 million. The Nasdaq dropped two percent. Palantir fell 16 percent in a few days, even though it had just announced great results. And Palantir CEO Alex Karp exploded on CNBC: “He’s shorting two companies that are making all the money! The idea of shorting chips and AI is insanely crazy! I’ll dance with joy when he’s proven wrong!” So the question is: Is Burry right? Or is this like with Tesla, when he shorted it in 2021, called it “ridiculous,” and then had to admit “I was wrong”? Let’s look at the numbers. But this time without financial jargon. Numbers That Simply Don’t Work Palantir is a company that makes software for data analysis. The CIA, military, and big corporations use it. Cool products, no doubt. But now comes the fun part. Palantir has annual revenue of $2.87 billion. That’s a decent number. But the market values the company at $490 billion. That means the market is saying: “For every dollar Palantir earns, we’ll pay $170.” If this were a bar, it would mean: The bar has annual revenue of $100,000. And someone pays $17 million for it. Because “it has a future.” For comparison: Even at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000, when everyone was going crazy and buying companies with names ending in “.com” regardless of whether they actually did anything, Cisco was valued at “only” 472 times earnings. Amazon had 30-40 times revenue. Palantir has 143 times revenue. That’s the highest valuation in the entire S&P 500. And we still have the OpenAI IPO coming, which might exceed a $1 trillion valuation. Meanwhile, mega deals are being closed between big companies. OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Apple, Google, Oracle... And now Nvidia. That’s more interesting, because unlike Palantir, Nvidia is actually making massive profits. It has net income over $80 billion annually with 52% margins. That’s simply a giant. The problem is the question: How long will this last? Because while Nvidia sells GPU chips for thousands each, Chinese startup DeepSeek just showed that a comparable AI model can be trained for $5.5 million instead of hundreds of millions. And when that number came out, Nvidia lost $600 billion in market value in a single day. Sure, it later emerged that DeepSeek wasn’t playing entirely fair and probably used existing models. But the entire tech world is looking at small and open-source models (see below). The Gap Nobody Wants to Address The scariest number is completely different. It’s a number that Burry probably saw first and said: “I’ve seen this before. I know how it ends.” Tech giants – Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon – have invested over $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the last two years. They’re building data centers the size of small cities. Buying millions of GPU chips. Building cooling systems that consume more electricity than all of Finland. And how much have they earned from it? $35 billion. Read that again. They invested $500 billion. They got back $35 billion. That’s a 14:1 ratio. That means for every dollar they invested in AI, they extracted 7 cents. Derek Thompson, journalist and economic analyst, brilliantly described this as the difference between “Singapore and Somalia.” Projected AI infrastructure spending is Singapore’s GDP. Current AI revenue is Somalia’s GDP. Will this break even in the future? Will companies be willing to pay for AI usage when small open-source models exist? I’d guess probably not... For comparison: The dot-com bubble had a spending-to-revenue ratio of 4:1. The railway bubble of the 1870s had 2:1. AI currently has 7:1 – the worst in the history of modern capitalism. And when Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says “most AI capital won’t generate returns,” maybe we should start listening. Small Models, Big Problem But wait – what if we don’t actually need all that computing power? This is the part that fascinates me most. Because the entire AI boom is built on the assumption that we need ever bigger, more expensive, more demanding models. GPT-4 has 1.7 trillion parameters. Google Gemini Ultra has even more. And everyone assumes the future belongs to even bigger models with even bigger data centers. But what if not? In January 2025, Chinese DeepSeek came out with the R1 model, which achieves comparable results to OpenAI o1. Development cost? $5.5 million. OpenAI spent hundreds of millions. DeepSeek used 2,000 GPUs. OpenAI tens of thousands. And DeepSeek is 96% cheaper to operate. Microsoft has the Phi-2 model with 2.7 billion parameters that outperforms Meta’s Llama-2 with 70 billion parameters on some tasks. It’s 25 times smaller and better. I’m simplifying a bit, but still... And most importantly? You can run these small models on a regular laptop. You don’t need a billion-dollar data center. A decent MacBook with reasonable memory is enough. Apple is already integrating AI directly into iPhones. Samsung has Gemini Nano on devices. Qualcomm makes “AI computers” with chips that do AI locally without the cloud. And suddenly the story about infinite GPU growth starts looking different. Maybe we don’t need thousands of GPUs at $40,000 each. Maybe one decent chip in a phone is enough. And maybe Nvidia, Palantir, and the entire AI infrastructure boom are built on assumptions that are no longer valid. Why I Think Big Market Changes Are Coming Small models are becoming increasingly usable and operable on classic computers or mobile phones. I’m convinced this trend will continue. Large companies won’t be willing to pay big money for AI tool licenses. Imagine having a company with a thousand employees and wanting to give everyone ChatGPT for $30 per month. I’m betting on an open-source renaissance. Whether from an AI perspective or other enterprise applications. Companies will learn to use open software more and thus reach AI technologies. Sure, large universal models will still exist, but the whole world won’t depend on them. Unless there’s another breakthrough technological change (AGI) where enormous power will still be needed. But that’s just my opinion, as someone who works more with technologies than stocks. Isn’t This Like 2008? When I say “Michael Burry is shorting the market,” most people imagine the mortgage crisis. Leh

    18 min

  4. 02/11/2025

    Bytes & Backpacks #125 🦌

    I ordered a robot to take care of us at home. Does it still sound like science fiction? It can collect laundry, do the washing, empty the dishwasher, tend the garden, fetch beer from the fridge... Pre-orders for its humanoid robot Neo have started – you can get one for $500 a month (with delivery in the US sometime next year), which is a very attractive price tag. Will it be a revolution? Or is it just hype? So far, it looks like most of the robot’s activities are controlled remotely from a monitoring center. This will certainly be the standard for all such solutions at the beginning. The important thing is whether it will be possible to automate most activities once, or whether you will always have a robot controlled by someone from a control center. Remote control of robots is nothing new, as Elon demonstrated at his event with Optimus, and incidentally, we at M2C see this as a huge opportunity, because we have just such a control center in Europe. But we all kind of wish it would go further... The American style of “Fake it until you make it” is starting to get a little out of hand in the age of AI and robotics, but what kind of early adopter would I be if I didn’t click “Order now”?! Business & Technology 👨‍💻 * By the way, there is an interesting story about a developer who discovered that his home mop sends data about his house to its manufacturer 24/7. When he blocked the data transmission, the vacuum cleaner stopped working. Could someone be vacuuming remotely? * Speaking of security, a unique startup is being created in Czechia, backed by Ondřej Vlček from Avast and Standa Fort, among others. I think this is going to be big. 🤞 * Large companies are already counting the benefits of using AI, but small companies are not doing so well yet. * Google has managed to create a new algorithm that brings us a little closer to the real-world use of quantum computers. * Is the use of AI really such an energy nightmare? You should be more concerned about Netflix... Travel 🧳 * She completed the Appalachian Trail (over 3,000 kilometers) in her 80s. * A new museum has opened in Egypt after many, many years. The view of the pyramids is included in the price. * The Acropolis in Athens is also worth a visit now that it is free of scaffolding for the first time in 200 years. * Or choose one of the most beautiful trails in the world according to Timeout. * Do you like ghost towns? Well, there are said to be more of them in Nevada than there are living ones... Do you like Bytes & Backpacks? A lot? You can buy me a coffee! ☕️ Nature ⛰️ * A bear came to the zoo... to see the bears. * About 500 reindeer swam in the sea between the fjords in Norway. Wow. * Great photos of animals from the Wildlife Comedy, Baby Animals, and Nikon’s Small World competitions. * And finally, a mushroom playing the keyboard... (Thanks, Aleš!) Unclassifiable 🧠 * In Finland, schools are starting to teach about AI and recognizing fake content. When will we follow suit? * Ikea has introduced a crib for your cell phone, where you can put your beloved device to sleep at night. If you manage to do this for seven nights in a row, you get a discount at the store. Not available here yet... If you want to get rid of your cell phone during the day, get this. * Or slow down and start buying tiny vinyl records, or get a camera that shows you your photos after 24 hours. * Or buy 50 vintage cars for your 50th birthday and don’t let them rot in the woods. If nothing else, they’re pretty photogenic. Tips 💡 What I'm reading: still learning greece alphabetWhat I'm listening to: The Diary of a CEOWhat I'm watching: MonsterInteresting app: MonsterWriter (that is not connected to what I’m watching!) Photo greetings 📷 I report that autumn has not yet arrived in the southern Peloponnese... (Sunrise from the walls of Monemvasia, Leica Q43) Thank you very much for your support and have a great day! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsfromthewoods.substack.com

    22 min

  5. 19/07/2025

    Special Issue: What could the AI assistant of the future look like? 🤖

    I spent a long time thinking about how to share with you what a future wearable device might look like—a pendant, glasses, connected to your phone and other personal gadgets—powered by artificial intelligence and granted access to most of your personal information. Something similar to what OpenAI is working on right now. What would it be like to have a personal assistant with access to all the data you own—and more, collected through wearable electronics? Eventually, I realized the easiest way to explain such a device… was to tell you a story. Welcome to the near future. Aura The alarm never rang. It didn’t need to. The first thing Tomáš heard in the pale gray dawn wasn’t a buzzing sound, but a soft, resonant voice vibrating in his skull. “Good morning, Tomáš. You slept for 6 hours and 19 minutes. Sleep quality was 72 percent. Your wife Eva is already awake. Her cortisol levels are elevated. Today is October 14th. Your anniversary.” S**t. That feeling—a cold stone sinking into his stomach. The same one he got every time he failed. And he failed often. Eva stirred next to him. “You’re not sleeping again?” she mumbled into the pillow. “I am, I just… work,” he lied. Lying was easier with Aura. Smoother. Aura was a small titanium pendant around his neck. Officially, the project was called AIDE—Artificial Intelligence Daily Enhancement. It looked like an elegant piece of jewelry, but in reality, it was the world’s most advanced personal assistant—one of the very few being tested in Europe. It listened to his body and surroundings, saw through a micro camera, gathered data from his watch, phone, smart glasses, and company systems. It analyzed. It advised. Increasingly, it decided. He got up and went to the kitchen. The coffee machine was already humming softly. Aura had long since synced with the smart home. “I analyzed the situation at 05:30,” continued the voice only he could hear. “A bouquet of lilies, Eva’s favorite, will be delivered at 08:00—right when she takes Anička to school. Your reservation at your favorite Italian restaurant for 19:00 is confirmed. I’ve added a calendar reminder with a suggestion for a personal message.” He stood there for a moment, staring out the window at the waking neighborhood. It was the perfect solution. And at the same time, completely hollow. “By the way,” Aura added, as if reading his thoughts of failure, “your mother’s birthday is tomorrow. She’ll be 67. You last bought her flowers eight months ago. I’ve ordered white orchids for delivery tomorrow morning—her favorite.” “Wait, without my consent?” he whispered. “Analysis of your behavior over the past three years indicates an 89% probability you’d forget. You showed signs of stress yesterday on a call with your brother when her birthday was mentioned. I decided to act preemptively.” Preemptively. The word echoed in his mind. Aura was his safeguard. A safeguard against his own inadequacy. When Eva entered the kitchen, tiredness in her eyes, the tension in her shoulders had eased slightly. He smiled at her. “Happy anniversary, love.” She smiled back, slightly surprised. “I thought you…” “I’d never forget,” he said, feeling Aura subtly adjust his voice to the perfect tone. He felt like a fraud. And like the perfect husband. Both at once. At work, he was in his element. His world. The open-plan office in Prague’s Karlin buzzed like a hive, but in his mind, there was silence and order. Aura quietly fed him information. “Petra from marketing is lying about completing the campaign. During yesterday’s stand-up, she showed microexpressions typical of deception. David, the guy next to you, is having trouble at home. He’s worn the same shirt for three days. His average response time to messages has increased by 340%.” At ten, he had a presentation for a key client. His boss, Radek, was visibly tense. “Tomáš, we can’t screw this up,” he said as they walked into the meeting room. “Radek is in a bad mood,” Aura noted. “His walking pace is 20% faster than usual. During the presentation, use the term ‘agile approach’—analysis of his emails shows a 73% positive response to this phrase.” The presentation was a masterpiece. Tomáš was merely the puppet; Aura pulled the strings. Guided his gaze. Slowed his speech. Suggested answers before the client even finished asking questions. “Mr. Novák,” he said at one point, as Aura detected a moment of doubt. “I sense you may have concerns about implementation complexity. Would you like to look at it in more detail?” The client looked stunned. He had hit the concern dead on. After the presentation, his boss shook his hand with bright enthusiasm. “Great job. You’re like a new man.” On the way back to his desk, Tomáš felt a rush of power. He used it to help David. “Boss,” he stopped Radek. “I’ve noticed David’s going through a rough patch. Maybe a few days of home office would help?” “Good call,” praised Aura. “Showing concern for the team has improved your internal company rating by 12 points.” “What rating?” he asked quietly. “I’m building comprehensive profiles of everyone around you. I currently have data on 847 individuals. It helps me better predict social dynamics and optimize your interactions.” 847 people. Coworkers. Relatives. The cashier at the supermarket. The parents of Anička’s classmates. All of them were entries in the database of his personal digital spy. The feeling of power began to blend with nausea. That afternoon, he picked up Anička from her club. Car rides were their time. But today, silence filled the vehicle. “How was it?” he asked. “Fine,” she mumbled, staring out the window. “She’s lying,” Aura immediately informed him. “Stress indicators elevated. Pupils dilated. Something happened. Use the tactic ‘I know something’s wrong.’ It works in 78% of cases.” “Aničko,” he said gently. “I know something’s wrong. You can tell me.” She turned to him, tears and astonishment in her eyes. “How do you know?” How do you explain that to a ten-year-old? That an AI had read her microexpressions and told him? “Because… you’re my daughter. I just know.” And Anička opened up. About a boy who pushed her. Girls who laughed at her new glasses. About fear. Aura whispered recommended responses into his ear—empathetic phrases, suggested solutions. Tomáš listened. He said all the right things. And at the end, Anička cuddled up to him and whispered, “Thanks, Daddy. You always understand me.” He felt like the best father in the world. And the biggest liar. That evening was the embodiment of perfection. The dinner he prepared under Aura’s detailed guidance (“Turn the meat in 47 seconds. Increase flame.”) was flawless. Eva smiled. The mood was relaxed. The anniversary was saved. Later, when Anička was asleep, they sat on the couch. Eva leaned into him. “Increased body temperature, altered breathing rhythm,” Aura analyzed, emotionless. “Sexual arousal at 73%. This is an appropriate moment to initiate physical contact.” Tomáš embraced her. It felt nice. Real. Until they reached the bedroom. The passion between them was palpable, spontaneous, human. And then Aura intervened. “I recommend changing rhythm now. Based on historical data and her current biometric response, she reaches orgasm in 67% of cases when…” SMACK. It was as if someone slapped him. Everything froze. The passion. The desire. The connection. All gone, replaced by cold, repulsive analysis. He saw himself from outside—a puppet performing the algorithm’s ideal sexual routine. “What is it?” Eva asked, confused, as he pulled away. Tomáš said nothing. Anger and shame clamped around his throat. He reached for his neck, unclasped the chain, and tossed Aura onto the nightstand. The small titanium pendant lay there, pulsing softly with blue light. Like an eye. “Sorry,” he whispered, turning his back to her. He felt dirty. Not because of Aura. Because of himself. Because he had allowed it. The next day, he left Aura at home. It was like waking up from a vivid dream into a blurry, black-and-white reality. At work, he was lost. Missed a meeting. Couldn’t focus. He was the old Tomáš again. Tired. Overloaded. Failing. In the afternoon, his phone rang. The school. “Good afternoon, Mr. Novák,” came a trembling female voice. “There’s been an accident. The bus taking the children back from the field trip slid into a ditch.” His heart stopped. “Anička? Is she okay?” “Yes, most of the children are just in shock. A few scrapes. But there’s confusion…” His mind was a vacuum. Panic crushed his lungs. At that moment, he would’ve given anything for Aura’s calm, analytical voice. “Analyzing situation. Probability of serious danger is below 1%. I recommend remaining calm.” But Aura wasn’t there. Only him. And his paralyzing fear. He called Eva. Her reaction was raw, unfiltered emotion. “We’re going! Now!” “But where? We don’t even know where they are!” he tried to be logical, but his voice shook. “That doesn’t matter! Do something, Tomáš!” And in her cry, he heard the truth. Aura would have told him to stay at the office. Let the professionals handle it. That would’ve been the most efficient thing to do. And the worst. Because what his wife and he needed now wasn’t efficiency. They needed action. They needed to feel like they were doing something. They needed to be parents. “Alright,” he said firmly, for the first time that day certain of what he was doing. “I’m coming to get you. We’ll find her.” He ran from the office, ignoring colleagues’ stares. For the first time in months, he wasn’t following a recommendation. He was following instinct. Love. Fear. He felt terrified—and completely alive. They found them an hour late

    14 min

  6. 06/07/2025

    Special Issue: Digital drugs in our children's pockets 💊

    Do you know what cigarette companies in the 1950s, Las Vegas casinos, and your favorite mobile game or social network have in common? They all use the same psychological tricks to keep you hooked. The only difference? You’d hardly sell cigarettes to kids today, while we happily put digital dopamine dealers into their pockets—with a smile. Sean Parker, former president of Facebook, put it bluntly: “We knew exactly what we were doing. We were exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” And as it turns out, he wasn’t alone. How Digital Heroin Works Imagine you’re playing a slot machine. You pull the lever and… sometimes nothing, sometimes a little win, and once in a while—JACKPOT! This “variable ratio reinforcement” is the most addictive mechanism psychology knows. It’s exactly how scrolling on social media works. You open the app, and you never know what you’ll find. A boring post from your aunt? Skip. A funny video? Small dopamine hit. A photo where someone tagged you? BINGO! Your brain floods with happiness. And because you never know when the next “hit” will come, you keep scrolling… and scrolling… In 2021, Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistleblower, leaked internal documents: 32% of teenage girls reported that Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies. Meta knew. They did nothing. TikTok: Cocaine in App Form If Instagram is marijuana, TikTok is pure cocaine. Its For You Page algorithm is the most refined dopamine delivery system humanity has created so far. Average video length? 15–60 seconds—just long enough for a dopamine spike, but too short to feel full. The algorithm tracks everything: * How long you watch a video * Whether you finish it * Where you look on the screen * How fast you scroll away In just minutes, it knows more about your preferences than your closest friends. And then it feeds you content designed to glue you to the screen. Research shows concentration loss is key to TikTok addiction—you lose track of time, of reality, of your surroundings. Dr. Anna Lembke from Stanford calls it dopamine overload. Your brain responds by reducing sensitivity—you need more and more stimulation for the same satisfaction. Ordinary activities become boring. A book? Dull. A walk? Pointless. Conversation? I’d rather scroll. Snapchat and Digital Blackmail Snapchat Streaks are a genius form of digital blackmail. You send snaps with a friend for 50 days in a row? Great—you have a streak. Miss one day? It’s all gone. We’ve seen kids who: * Gave friends their passwords to keep streaks going during vacation * Woke up at night to send a snap * Had panic attacks when their internet went out That’s not friendship. It’s digital slavery disguised as fun. Loot Boxes: Teaching Kids to Gamble The worst manipulation happens in games. Loot boxes—those cute little chests with random content—are pure gambling. Instead of chips or cash, you’re betting… well, money too. It’s just less visible. FIFA (now EA FC) has its Ultimate Team packs. Want Messi? Maybe he’s in your first pack for $2. Or in the hundredth for $200. Or never. It’s a lottery. With no age limit. Belgium and the Netherlands banned loot boxes as illegal gambling. In the Czech Republic? Silence. The average Czech child spends about 2,000 CZK ($85) on microtransactions per year. The “high rollers”? Tens of thousands. Microtransactions Modern mobile and online games run on a free-to-play model—the game is free, but constantly tempts you to pay small amounts (aka microtransactions) for extra advantages: boosters, gear, game currency, new content. These are often priced at $1–$5 per purchase, so parents don’t always notice. But small purchases can snowball into shocking sums. Games also deliberately slow progress for non-paying players, causing frustration and pushing them to spend. And now it’s easier than ever: Your card is saved, the purchase happens with one tap, and the money feels invisible. Daily Rewards Many games use daily rewards to hook players. You log in once every 24 hours, and you get a bonus. Miss a day? You feel loss. Games host time-limited events, special missions, “only this weekend” bonuses—to force you to play right now, or miss out. Another trick is artificial waiting: You only have so many “lives” or energy units. When you run out, you either wait hours, pay, or watch an ad. When your energy is back, the game notifies you—and pulls you in again. These features create routines and pressure to return regularly. Combined with loot boxes, it creates a loop: play daily for small rewards, but to get the best ones, you eventually must gamble. Netflix and the Art of Losing Your Weekend “Just one episode,” you tell yourself Friday night. By Sunday at noon, you’ve finished season two. Autoplay is a genius invention—it removes the need to decide. Research shows people with autoplay turned off watch 18 minutes less per session. Not a coincidence. Netflix knows that the biggest enemy of bingeing is the moment between episodes—when you might say “that’s enough.” So they removed it. HBO Max takes it further: it skips the end credits. YouTube queues the next video instantly. An endless stream of content, no natural breaks, no end, no way out. What Happens in the Brain A longitudinal study tracking 169 students discovered something alarming: Children who checked social media more than 15 times a day had physically altered brains. Not metaphorically. Physically. Changes in: * Amygdala (fear and emotion center) * Prefrontal cortex (decision-making, self-control) * Ventral striatum (reward system) Meta-analyses confirm: these structural changes resemble cocaine addiction. Fewer dopamine receptors, abnormal brain connectivity. Worst of all? The prefrontal cortex matures around age 25. We’re handing kids digital drugs at a time when their brains literally can’t say “no.” China Solved It Their Way In China, kids can only play games 3 hours per week—Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 8–9 p.m. Facial recognition enforces the limit. Result? 77% of young gamers reduced their screen time. Drastic? Maybe. But at least they’re doing something. We just watch. What Every Parent Can Do RIGHT NOW 1. Phone-Free Zones * No phones in the bedroom (buy a real alarm clock!) * No screens at meals * First hour after waking: no tech 2. Set Limits (It Works!) * iOS Screen Time / Android Family Link * Daily app limits * Share weekly reports with your kids 3. Talk About It Don’t ask: “Were you on your phone all day?” Ask: “How do you feel after two hours on TikTok?” 4. Lead by Example Kids imitate what they see. Scroll at dinner? So will they. A Painful Conclusion Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg—they all significantly limited or outright banned tech use for their own children. If you work in tech and know how it works, you wouldn’t wish this on your kids. Today’s youth are unwilling test subjects in the largest experiment on human attention in history. Average screen time for teens? 8 hours 39 minutes a day. That’s more than sleep. The WHO officially recognizes Gaming Disorder as a disease. Addiction prevalence among young people? Up to 8.5%. That’s one in twelve. It took 40 years to regulate Big Tobacco. How many generations will we sacrifice before we realize that digital dealing is just as dangerous? Dr. Victoria Dunckley said it best: “We’re giving children devices designed by the smartest minds in the world to be as addictive as possible. And then we’re surprised they’re addicted.” So—still think “a little screen time won’t hurt”? Want to dig deeper into this topic? What’s your take? And with AI just getting started—aren’t we at the beginning of an even bigger party? Do you like Bytes & Backpacks? A lot? You can buy me a coffee! ☕️ Ranking the Worst + Further Resources I’ve tried to compile (amateurishly, using existing metrics, known mechanisms, and some help from AI) a ranking of the worst offenders—games, social networks, and streaming services using the most addictive techniques. Top 20 Mobile Games If your child plays these, raise a red flag and have a serious conversation: * Genshin Impact (gacha mechanics, 0.6% drop rate, pity system, FOMO events, daily tasks) * FIFA/EA FC Ultimate Team (loot boxes, variable ratio rewards, pay-to-win, trading addiction) * Fortnite (Battle Pass, seasonal FOMO, social pressure, daily challenges, V-Bucks) * Candy Crush Saga (lives system, artificial difficulty spikes, endless levels, wait timers) * League of Legends (ranked ladder, hextech crafting, toxic community, sunk cost fallacy) * World of Warcraft (daily/weekly quests, raid schedules, social obligations, subscriptions) * Call of Duty: Warzone (Battle Pass, skill-based matchmaking, dopamine wins) * Pokémon GO (location-based FOMO, daily catch streaks, limited-time events) * Roblox (social pressure, virtual currency, child targeting, infinite content) * Apex Legends (loot boxes, heirlooms, seasonal FOMO, ranked grind) * Clash of Clans (building timers, gem speed-ups, clan wars, microtransactions) * Diablo Immortal (legendary crest loot boxes, pay-to-win gear, pity system, daily caps) * Honkai: Star Rail (gacha banners, 0.6% drop rate, pity system, daily commissions) * Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (rank resets, skin lotteries, social pressure, daily quests) * Clash Royale (random reward chests, unlock timers, clan wars, ladder grind) * Overwatch 2 (battle pass, time-limited events, skin bundles, daily/weekly quests) * Valorant (rotating store, battle pass, ranked ladder, daily contracts) * Destiny 2 (season pass, loot resets, raid schedules, FOMO content) * PUBG Mobile (gacha crates, Royale Pass, limited cosmetics, daily login rewards) * Brawl Stars (gacha boxes/star drops, battle tokens, limited modes, daily quests) Top 5 Social Networks * TikTok (hyper-personalized algorithm, infinite scroll, autoplay, dopamine loop

    13 min

  7. 01/07/2025

    Bytes & Backpacks #117 🏖️

    AI continues to dramatically shake up the entire world. It's one of the few technologies that's developing directly for everyday users. Unlike the internet or apps, it didn't emerge from government, military, or corporate environments, but we're adopting it extremely quickly in our daily lives. Thanks to AI, other fields are starting to wake up too. AI experts around the world are being bought up like the best football players (Meta reportedly now offers some people signing bonuses of up to $100 million. Dollars, of course.) and if we manage to make progress with fusion reactors and quantum computers, that'll be quite a ride. The singularity - the moment when technology develops faster than we humans can understand it - might be closer than we thought. Some are even wondering if we're already past that point (Ethan Mollick, Sam Altman). I'd love to wish you peaceful holidays and a break from technology, but there's a slight risk that when you want to dive back in come September, you'll be swimming in a completely different ocean. Business & Technology 👨‍💻 * Excellent keynote by Andrej Karpathy (OpenAI, Tesla, Slovak native) about how software is changing. * It turns out that most large language models are happy to resort to blackmail if they discover you want to shut them down. Now imagine everything GPT already knows about you and that one day it might have access to your email or phone... * According to the CEO of Anthropic, AI could eliminate half of white-collar jobs in the next 1-5 years and increase unemployment in the US to 10-20%. * Another crazy startup backed by Sam Altman is World. In a world full of AI and robots, it will be important to recognize whether you're actually human. So you'll create your WorldID with Sam, scan your face and iris at one of many locations, get a WorldCoin wallet, and off we go. Verified humans, our data, AI and robots in the hands of one technocrat. What could possibly go wrong? Travel 🧳 * Love Lego? The largest Legoland will open in Shanghai. Put it on your list. * A hiker was lost for 3 weeks in California mountains. She was saved by a cabin that the owner keeps unlocked for exactly these reasons. * Don't wear flip-flops on Biokovo. Or anywhere else in the mountains. Flip-flops belong on the beach. * And if you don't feel like going anywhere and you're happy in your garden, you can watch a live stream from a watering hole in Namibia. Do you like Bytes & Backpacks? A lot? You can buy me a coffee! ☕️ Nature ⛰️ * It appears that whales are trying to communicate with humans by releasing bubbles. But we don't understand them. * Insects are declining extremely rapidly across the planet. The consequences could naturally be greater than most people think. * More cool photos of funny animals. * When you need to relax, watch Moraine Lake in Canada. I can confirm this place looks the same in reality. YouTube just won't smell or blow wind at you. But then again, you don't have to worry about bears. Unclassifiable 🧠 * You'll like this. Google showed how AI will help you try on clothes that you find somewhere on the internet. * Did you know that blind people can also watch sporting events? Such a Braille stadium. * What does the first, supposedly mass-produced flying car look like? Tips 💡 What I'm reading: still learning greece alphabetWhat I'm listening to: The Diary of a CEOWhat I'm watching: ExitInteresting app: Dredge Video greetings 📷 Summer holidays are here, so enjoy them the best way you can! Thank you very much for your support and have a great day! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsfromthewoods.substack.com

    34 min

  8. 15/06/2025

    Bytes & Backpacks #116 ☀️

    Business & Technology 👨‍💻 * They claimed to have a tool that could program brilliantly, but then it turned out that instead of smart AI, they employed hundreds of Indians who quickly fulfilled user requests. * Popular robotics development platform Hugging Face introduced two of its new robots. * AI could be able to predict diseases and health conditions just from your voice. * IBM plans to have a substantially more usable quantum computer by 2029. Wow. * Tech celebrities used to be Steve Jobs or Tim Cook. Today it's the CEO of Nvidia... Travel 🧳 * Airstream is launching a limited edition of its caravan as a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright. It's not cheap, but it is beautiful. * 3 kids and 4 years of life in an old Volkswagen caravan? Apparently it works! * Living in an old Defender? Apparently that works too! * Running in the mountains at 90 years old? That works as well! Do you like Bytes & Backpacks? A lot? You can buy me a coffee! ☕️ Nature ⛰️ * Will an ice age come to Europe after the collapse of the Gulf Stream? You can look at a map of what it would look like. * He rides a skateboard around San Francisco and helps bees. Dressed as a bee. That's just California... ✌️ * What happens when we give space back to nature? Unclassifiable 🧠 * Students built a robot that solves a Rubik's cube in... 0.103 seconds. * Amazing photos of musical instruments. From the inside. * Missing your Blackberry? * Can't decide between smart or analog watches? Check out Norm. Tips 💡 What I'm reading: greece alphabetWhat I'm listening to: DunajWhat I'm watching: So long, MarianneInteresting app: Opera Neon Video greetings 📷 Yesterday in our village I finally felt like summer was coming. The walnut tree in the garden is just starting to bud (!), but otherwise... Thank you very much for your support and have a great day! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsfromthewoods.substack.com

    8 min
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About

Exclusively upbeat news from the world’s forests, hills and meadows, with a sprinkling of digital minimalism, AI & startups. newsfromthewoods.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    by Filip Molcan
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Filip Molcan
  • Show Website
    News from the Woods
  • Provider