SimpleClosure, a service that helps founders shut down startups, has expanded into selling their code and internal data—emails, chats, documents—to AI labs and other buyers. Its Asset Hub platform has completed over 150 such deals and expects to return more than $10 million to startups by end of 2026, with 47% of its closures now including data sales. Competitor Sunset runs a similar business, and firms like Surge AI are buying this 'operational exhaust' to build training environments for AI agents.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-10-13
A programmer created a visualization tool to explain why the moon's illuminated side can appear to point upward after sunset, contrary to the naive expectation that it should point down toward the sun. Using the program, they found that when the moon is high in the sky rather than at the horizon, an observer looks at it from below, causing the dark portion to appear as a slice missing from the bottom rather than the whole underside. The effect is most visible with a nearly full moon and produces no visible paradox with a half-moon.
notes.secretsauce.net
· 2026-09-27
In a new essay, writer Cory Doctorow argues that people project intention and meaning onto AI systems like Anthropic's Claude much as religious believers see purpose in a sunset. He suggests this instinct to read agency into statistical text generators is a kind of collective delusion rather than evidence of genuine understanding inside the machine.
pluralistic.net
· 2026-09-21
GoKawiil