July 2026

Thursday, 16 July 2026

Built to converge / Designed to isolate

Malcolm Crawford: “Stripping away walls didn’t produce more spontaneous conversation. It made people more self-conscious about being watched, and they responded by putting on headphones and retreating into text. There’s a specific irony in citing this study for a piece about Apple Park: the same research literature that documents open-plan’s failure mode has, more than once, used a photo of Apple’s own campus as the go-to illustration of the design philosophy it’s debunking.”

Electron

Tuesday, 7 July 2026

‘Uncharted territory’ as brewing El Niño, roasting oceans, heat bring risk for California, planet

Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times: “Between June 2025 and April, Labe said, global average surface temperatures were about 1.8 to 2.7 degrees above pre-Industrial Revolution levels. But an average of forecast models suggests global average surface temperatures could be even higher in the winter — perhaps hitting 3.24 to 3.42 degrees above the pre-Industrial Revolution era.”

Killing Khamenei

William “Chip” Usher, Lawfare: “Present ambiguity buys short-term operational flexibility and eats away at legal credibility everywhere else.”

Saturday, 4 July 2026

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV ACCEPTANCE OF THE LIBERTY MEDAL OF THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER (USA)

The Holy See: “Though frequently understood as the ability to act as one would like, authentic freedom runs much deeper. It is founded upon the human person’s capacity to know the truth and adhere to what is good, even at great cost — a sacrifice well known to many who have labored to shape this country.”

James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass Speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”