YouTube — 2026-04-28#

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Applied History Today | Hoover Institution is a phenomenal, multi-hour masterclass featuring Niall Ferguson and John Bew on how history isn’t just an academic pursuit, but a critical tool for pattern recognition and geopolitical prediction. It perfectly bridges the gap between historical scholarship and real-world policymaking, making a compelling case for why governments need an “applied history” approach to navigate modern crises.

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For a superb breakdown of China’s currency dynamics, check out 人民币疯涨，为什么？背后有什么秘密？ · 小Lin说. The host clearly unpacks why the RMB has been surging against the dollar—pointing to a massive trade surplus and capital repatriation—while brilliantly explaining the macro “impossible trinity” the PBOC is navigating. On the leadership front, Stop Trying to Fit In | Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein · CNBC International offers a candid look at Blankfein’s journey from Brooklyn public housing to the top of Wall Street, highlighting how shedding his chip on his shoulder helped him navigate the 2008 financial crisis. Finally, a quick hit from the Financial Times, White-collar prosecutions have fallen further under Trump 2.0 | FT #shorts · Financial Times, notes that white-collar crime enforcement has plummeted to a 40-year low, forcing defense lawyers to pivot to civil work.

YouTube — 2026-04-30#

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Making Machines Make Music (with Roger Dannenberg) from Carnegie Mellon University is a fascinating oral history detailing how a trumpet player’s curiosity about synthesizers birthed Audacity, shaped the field of computer-generated music, and transformed how machines collaborate with human musicians. It is a wonderful look at how a simple problem—like trying to visualize audio waveforms—can accidentally yield one of the most widely used open-source tools in the world.

YouTube — 2026-05-02#

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If you only have time for one video today, make it Why Pursuing Happiness Makes You … Less Happy. Emily Esfahani Smith delivers a profoundly relevant TED Talk arguing that modern culture’s obsession with chasing happiness leaves us feeling unmoored, and that true human resilience is actually built on cultivating meaning, purpose, and deep belonging.

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In global markets, the Chinese-language finance channel 美投侃新闻 (Meitou) offers a sharp breakdown of a record-setting week for US stocks in 美股又破纪录！英伟达要让位了？SaaS末日反转！, analyzing whether Nvidia is losing its crown while SaaS companies like Atlassian stage a massive rebound. On the geopolitical front, the WSJ was on board as U.S. Commercial Flights to Venezuela Are Back, a historic shift driven by new oil agreements. Meanwhile, cultural commentator Xiaosong (晓松闲谈) delivers an incredibly deep, multi-part retrospective on Trump’s return to power in 五一特辑，晓松谈川普2.0系列合集, analyzing the profound class divides and Rust Belt frustrations that fueled his victory. Finally, the WSJ covers the impending collapse of two massive corporate ventures: Spirit Airlines preparing to liquidate after failed bailout talks, and the total failure of Saudi Arabia’s $5B LIV Golf Experiment after they failed to secure a major broadcast deal.

YouTube — 2026-05-03#

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If you only watch one thing today, check out Can a quantum sensor detect your heartbeat from 60 km away?. It is an excellent investigation by Veritasium that breaks down the physics of nitrogen-vacancy diamond magnetometers while thoroughly debunking a sensationalist rumor about CIA heartbeat-tracking technology.

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On the business front, CNBC explores a fascinating side effect of the weight-loss boom in Why GLP-1s Are Helping The Hair Care Industry: GLP-1 drugs are causing severe hair loss for some patients, sparking a new $1 billion opportunity for the beauty and haircare industry. For corporate strategy, CNBC International offers a compelling profile in How Rakuten Built a Tech Empire by Breaking the Rules, detailing CEO Mickey Mikitani’s contrarian choices, such as mandating English for his Japanese workforce to compete globally and pivoting heavily into a virtualized mobile network.

YouTube — 2026-05-04#

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If you only watch one thing today, make it How to Spot a Russian Deepfake | Bloomberg Investigates. It offers a fascinating, albeit chilling, look into the “golden age of disinformation” by tracing how a Russian military intelligence group known as Storm-1516 creates highly effective fake whistleblower videos to launder narratives through Western influencers. It’s an essential watch for understanding how easily modern social media ecosystems are manipulated.

YouTube — 2026-05-07#

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I Let DaddyGPT Parent My Kids. Here’s What I Learned | Stephen Remedios | TED. Management consultant Stephen Remedios thought outsourcing his parenting permissions to a custom AI agent while his wife was away was a brilliant life hack, but the results were surprisingly heartbreaking. It’s a poignant, cautionary look at the intersection of automation and authentic human connection.

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In global politics, the Financial Times explores the crumbling of Britain’s traditional two-party system ahead of local elections in What’s at stake in Britain’s elections | FT #shorts, while The New York Times explains in Why Trump’s Feud With the Pope Worries Republicans why Donald Trump’s feud with Pope Francis has Republican strategists nervous about losing the Catholic swing vote. On the financial front, the Chinese-language channel 美投侃新闻 breaks down Wall Street’s growing concerns over an AI-driven debt crisis and upcoming mega-IPOs in 高盛：AI该收钱了！大摩：AI债务危机！美银：AI年底就熊市！. For a deeper geopolitical dive, LIFEANO CLUB’s Yuan Tengfei offers a fascinating critique in 袁Sir聊胜利日阅兵：帝国梦不死，阅兵不断 #lifeano漫聊 260507 of how Russian Victory Day parades have historically been used to mask internal struggles and project illusions of power.

YouTube — 2026-05-10#

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2026 CMU Commencement Keynote Speaker: Jensen Huang Nvidia’s Jensen Huang delivers an outstanding keynote at Carnegie Mellon’s 2026 commencement, framing this moment as the starting line of the new AI revolution. It is a compelling, highly personal look at leadership, resilience, and his belief that AI will amplify rather than replace human capability.

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Over on CNBC, Why Target Is Betting Big On Babies details how the retailer is launching massive in-store baby boutiques to win back high-spending families. For a sharp Chinese-language macro perspective, 美投讲美股 dissects whether AI hype, inflation, and a new Fed chair will trigger a US stock market correction in 三大风险齐聚！美股狂热即将终结？. Finally, GQ Taiwan briefly touches on geopolitics, laying out the historical context of whether Iran poses a true threat to the US in 伊朗真的足以構成美國的威脅嗎？.

YouTube — 2026-05-11#

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If you only have time for one thing today, make it Zhang Xiaojun’s fascinating 4-hour interview with AI researcher Yao Shunyu. Shunyu shares candid inside baseball on the cultural differences between Anthropic and Google DeepMind, arguing that the era of individual heroism in AI is dead and has been replaced by massive, system-level collective efforts.

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On the geopolitical and financial front, the channel 美投侃新闻 provides a solid breakdown of Trump’s upcoming state visit to China with a 17-CEO entourage, alongside a warning from Goldman Sachs that the current semiconductor and AI stock bubble feels eerily like 1999. In US news, The New York Times highlights a controversial shift in how Trump is prioritizing white South African Afrikaners for refugee status. Bloomberg Originals explores the US military’s sudden return to jungle training in Panama as a muscular flex of the Monroe Doctrine following operations in Venezuela. Finally, The Wall Street Journal covers the high-stakes low-earth-orbit clash between Amazon and SpaceX over the trillion-dollar global broadband market.

YouTube — 2026-05-13#

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If you only have time for one video, make it 李想×罗永浩！李想的理想：通过 AI 技术，让普通人也过上富豪的生活. Li Auto’s CEO Li Xiang sits down with Luo Yonghao for a fascinating, deep-in-the-weeds discussion about moving beyond cars into “embodied AI,” creating proprietary dynamic data-flow chips, and mapping out a realistic timeline for L4 autonomous driving.

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The Financial Times and NYT both weigh in on Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to Beijing, highlighting how he views China primarily as an economic competitor and may use his leverage to seek help resolving the Iran war. On the markets front, CNBC covers an unusual geopolitical test for the Fed regarding a permanent U.S.-UAE dollar swap line, while FT breaks down GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s aggressive, hostile bid to buy eBay utilizing the company’s $9.5 billion meme-stock cash pile. Interestingly, as the FT reports China blaming foreign “anti-work propaganda” for youth “lying flat,” LIFEANO CLUB provides a brilliant historical parallel in 袁Sir聊苏联反躺平：今天迟到扣工资，过去迟到进监狱 #lifeano漫聊 260513, detailing how the Soviet Union severely punished idle workers with labor books and labeled them “social parasites”. For lighter personal finance, GQ Taiwan features Kevin O’Leary in 億萬富翁的投資策略大公開！ sharing sharp, basic investing advice on diversification and the power of ETFs.

YouTube — 2026-05-17#

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Love, Intimacy and Connection in the Age of AI | Bryony Cole | TED is easily the most thought-provoking piece today, exploring how AI companions are being used for everything from processing grief to planning simulated “AI families”. It forces us to ask whether we are replacing human intimacy or merely supplementing it, reminding us that true human relationships require an uncomfortable friction that modern technology explicitly tries to eliminate.