“Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.” Epictetus |
|
| |
|
| 1 | | Iran ties nuclear talks to seven US concessions A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran has sent Washington a nuclear proposal through Qatar, but will discuss it only after the US meets seven demands. Washington is reviewing it. WHY Tehran wants sanctions lifted, frozen assets released and war reparations, and says Hormuz stays shut until then; Washington says nuclear issues must be in any first talks. Watch whether Trump, who has not ruled out renewed combat, resumes strikes. |
|
| 2 | | Nigerian court voids main opposition candidacy before January vote A Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that the African Democratic Congress’s leadership was illegally constituted and voided Atiku Abubakar’s presidential candidacy. Nigeria votes on Jan. 16. WHY The ADC calls the ruling an attempt to cripple the opposition and links the ruling APC to the lawsuit; President Tinubu’s spokesman says the APC “is not involved at all.” Next: the ADC’s appeal, which has to move before the ballot is set. |
|
| 3 | | First new drug in a decade for advanced head and neck cancer The FDA granted accelerated approval to Rybrevant Faspro for adults whose recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma progressed after platinum chemotherapy and immunotherapy. In a 102-patient trial, 42% saw tumors shrink or disappear. WHY Approved options for these patients have response rates of about 20% or less, per the FDA, and none had been added in 10 years. The approval rests on response rates, so confirmatory trials must now show longer-term benefit. |
|
| 4 | | England’s biggest infrastructure projects must now leave nature better off Since Nov. 2, applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects (major roads, energy and water schemes) must deliver at least a 10% gain in biodiversity, measured with a statutory metric. WHY Gains must be maintained for at least 30 years, and the guidance ties them to wider recovery such as habitat corridors and natural flood management. The first applications filed under the rule are the test. |
|
| |
|
S&P 7,376.9 +0.31% | NDX 26,990 +1.35% | 10Y 4.86% +2bp | BRENT $98.32 +0.03% | BTC $75.8k −0.20% |
|
| Chipmakers led a partial rebound from Thursday’s post-midterm AI rout, with the Philadelphia semiconductor index up 4.2%. A strong jobs report pushed yields higher, and Brent held steady on hopes the election results lead to de-escalation with Iran. |
| RELEASED Jobs (Oct) payrolls +165,000, vs. a revised +60,000 in Sep; unemployment 4.1% |
| |
|
Today’s question When you rehearse a future in your head, are you predicting it or choosing it? |
STORY UVA Open Anthology · Kate Chopin First published in Vogue in 1894 as “The Dream of an Hour.” A woman with a weak heart is told, gently, that her husband has died in a railroad accident; she goes to her room alone, sits by an open window, and begins to imagine the years ahead. In about 1,000 words it maps a whole interior life, and it has lasted because it shows how fast a mind builds a future once it is allowed to. Five minutes; it feeds your note on the mental path to an outcome. |
ESSAY Substack · Lisa Strom Strom argues that the popular claim that taste will be the scarce human skill gets it backwards: taste is social and shaped by feeds, so its median form is already standardized and easy for machines to reproduce. Her mechanism: platforms reward the recognizable, and “profilicity” (an identity built for how others see you) makes people converge. The hook: if taste comes from culture, the scarcer skill is questioning the context that formed it. It pushes against your note that taste now beats skill. |
| |
|
WORKFLOW Anthropic Engineering Agents have to decide what to remember before they know what will matter, so Anthropic proposes four layers (raw transcripts, notes, structured wikis and a small always-loaded index) plus an offline “dreaming” pass that checks notes against the logs and fixes them. In Pokémon Red, one model wrote 413 memory files and earned one badge; a later one kept about ten and earned four. For a personal agent: keep the index short, store only what it cannot see for itself, and schedule a review pass. |
A grocery agent that dreams Build a tiny meal-and-grocery agent with today’s memory layout, then watch whether a weekly review pass makes its second plan better than its first. | 1 | In Claude Code, create memory/INDEX.md (30 lines max) and ask for a script that saves each chat to transcripts/. | | 2 | Tell it what memory is for (what you liked, what’s already in your fridge, prices at your store), then have it plan three dinners and a list. | | 3 | Write a dream prompt that rereads transcripts, fixes wrong notes and trims INDEX.md; run it Sunday and compare next week’s plan. |
|
|
| |
|
PREDICTION MARKETS Silver Bulletin · Nate Silver Silver argues markets followed the forecasting models in the midterms, not the reverse: prices converged on his FLIPR model (correlation of .99 or higher) and the model reached the right answer days to weeks earlier. Markets overreacted to election-day turnout chatter, though they won in Mississippi. The open question is whether markets need public models to be accurate at all; he discloses that he advises Polymarket. |
MARKETS CNN via KRDO Thursday erased about $2.5 trillion: the Nasdaq 100 fell 6.36%, its worst day since March 2020, and a chip index dropped 12.3%. Investors read Democratic wins as a threat to the data-center buildout; Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a temporary moratorium. Ed Yardeni’s view, “We want a slowdown,” is the counterpoint. |
| |
|
Blog José Luis Ricón brings a progress-studies rigor to meditation and therapy; start with his post on two years of meditation. | | Tool Write animations in TypeScript, with a live preview synced to your voiceover. A web-native relative of Manim for explainer shots in video essays. |
|
| |
Until tomorrow. Sat 07 Nov · 09:36 ET |
