Overview
Today reads as a snapshot of an economy and internet in motion. AI firms are racing towards public markets while laying down the plumbing for usage-based revenue. SpaceX keeps stacking satellites to push broadband coverage wider. Consumer platforms lean into what users ask for. Housing stress in the US ticks up, politics brings surprises, and robots keep learning to jog. Football gets a lift with Cole Palmer’s return, and X serves its usual mix of memes and debate.
The big picture
SpaceX adds 27 more Starlinks, notches its 60th orbit of 2025
SpaceX confirmed the deployment of 27 Starlink v2 Mini satellites from Vandenberg, marking its 60th orbital mission this year. The 2025 tally now stands at 2,898 Starlinks across 112 dedicated missions, taking the constellation past 10,000 satellites in total. The network serves more than 5 million users with sub-50ms latencies, per FCC filings. 🔗 Post link
US foreclosures rise 20% year on year
ATTOM’s October report, cited here, shows foreclosure starts up 20% to 25,129 properties, with total filings up 19% to 36,766. High mortgage rates and rising insurance and tax costs are pressing budgets. Unlike 2008, tighter lending since the GFC keeps systemic risk lower, pointing more to affordability stress among adjustable-rate and stretched borrowers. 🔗 Post link
Anthropic lines up a 2026 IPO at a sky-high valuation, per FT
Anthropic has begun preparing for a public listing as soon as 2026, according to the Financial Times, with talks for funding above $300 billion and private marks reported over $350 billion in November. Backers include Amazon and Google, and the company is building data centres to support revenue targets above $20 billion annualised by 2026. 🔗 Post link
From Bun to Claude Code - Anthropic folds in Oven
Developer jokes turned into news as @thdxr tied a pause in Jared Sumner’s GitHub activity to Anthropic buying Oven, maker of the Bun runtime. Sumner’s post describes a long walk that helped clinch the deal. Expect Bun’s speed to feed Claude Code and agentic tooling. 🔗 Post link
Stripe buys Metronome to make usage-based billing native
Patrick Collison welcomed Metronome to Stripe, folding metered pricing deeper into Stripe’s stack. Founded in 2019, Metronome handles high-volume usage events and complex invoicing. Terms were not disclosed, but the move fits Stripe’s push from billing to broader revenue ops. 🔗 Post link
YouTube Recap lands - a small win for creator feedback
Marques Brownlee says YouTube Recap is live, summarising your top channels and genres for the year. He had asked for a “YouTube Wrapped” in 2024. Early replies flag staggered rollout across devices and regions, which is par for major features. 🔗 Post link
Tesla’s Optimus sets a new mobility mark
Tesla shared a clip of its humanoid robot jogging smoothly in the lab. The team has been hiring across perception and controls, with aims to build thousands of units for factory and home trials. 🔗 Post link
Cole Palmer is back - minutes on the way, says Maresca
Fabrizio Romano relays that Cole Palmer is available again after weeks out and will be managed back to full matches. Expect bench cameos, then longer runs as fitness returns. Chelsea fans are buzzing. 🔗 Post link
Make weather-grounded city art with Nano Banana Pro
Nano Banana Pro shows a prompt that pulls live weather via search grounding to render cute, isometric city scenes. Users are sharing versions for Ankara, Mumbai, and more, mixing factual conditions with playful visuals. 🔗 Post link
Tennessee special election called for Matt Van Epps, says Benny Johnson
Benny Johnson reports a win for Republican Matt Van Epps over Democrat Aftyn Behn in TN-07, with a closer margin than Trump’s 2024 result in the district. The seat stays red, but the spread has watchers reading turnout tea leaves. 🔗 Post link
Reports claim Federica Mogherini arrested in Belgian probe
BRICS News says former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was detained in a fraud investigation tied to procurement at the College of Europe. Police reportedly raided EU offices. As with any fast-moving legal story, details may evolve. 🔗 Post link
Receipts culture, Pidgin wit
A Nigerian Pidgin quip about bookmarking posts to resurface during future wedding photos struck a nerve. It is the internet’s habit of keeping score, distilled into a punchline. 🔗 Post link
Why it matters
AI is not just hot, it is building foundations. Anthropic’s IPO drumbeat, the Oven buy, and Stripe’s metered billing push show capital, compute, code, and cash cycles knitting together. Usage will define pricing, and runtimes will shape how agents write and run software.
SpaceX’s cadence and scale keep broadband expansion on track, raising the floor for connectivity in places fibre still cannot reach. That, in turn, widens the addressable market for cloud and AI services.
The US housing update is a reminder that rates bite slowly, then bite harder. Rising foreclosures point to household strain, though better lending standards mean fewer dominos across finance.
Politics keeps surprising. A Republican hold with a tighter margin hints at turnout and candidate quality mattering more than national mood. In Europe, claims about an arrest will fuel debates on trust in institutions until courts do their work.
On the consumer edge, YouTube Recap reflects platforms listening to creators and viewers. In hardware, Optimus’s jog is a small but telling step towards robots doing useful work outside labs. And X remains X, where a tidy meme can travel faster than any press release.
