1. Data centres don’t harm water access at all anywhere in America
    • Masley tests a crisp claim: data centers raise household water bills where they are built, then goes looking for documented instances and finds none.

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  • He uses likely stress tests, including Loudoun County, The Dalles, and Maricopa County, to argue residential price impacts round to zero even where data center presence is high.
  • A recurring theme is that water markets are segmented: commercial and residential pricing is usually separated, so business demand does not automatically hit households.
  • The piece reframes data centers as unusually “water efficient” for the tax revenue they generate, and suggests they often help fund infrastructure upgrades.
  • The meta point is about media incentives: dramatic analogies replace marginal impact, and “exacerbating drought” is used as a substitute for quantification.
  • Link: Data centers don’t harm water access at all anywhere in America Andy Masley
  1. Learning to code and building a 28k a month portfolio of SaaS products Indie Hackers
    • Samuel Rondot built his way to independence by shipping side projects around a day job until revenue justified quitting.
    • Early success came from validating demand first, including a human powered Instagram automation service that reached about 30k a month before real code.
    • Today’s portfolio combines focus and diversification, with StoryShort.ai as the main earner and Capacity.so as the higher ambition bet.
    • Growth relies on SEO for compounding returns and paid ads for predictability, with discipline about not competing on spend.
    • The central lesson is procedural: validate demand with data, charge early, and treat products as a portfolio.
    • Link: Learning to code and building a 28k a month portfolio of SaaS products James Fleischmann
  2. ’s Philosopher Builder Winter Reads Cosmos Institute, Substack
    • A curated list of 12 recommendations arguing that technologists need judgement, not just tools.
    • The picks span science, philosophy, politics, and early robot fiction, with recurring concern for how knowledge and values form.
    • Several selections speak directly to AI, including Braitenberg on emergent behaviour and Čapek’s R.U.R. on automation and humanity.
    • Others focus on epistemic foundations, from the origins of science to the nature of explanation.
    • Link: Philosopher Builder Winter Reads Cosmos Institute