Overview
Today’s feed sits at the meeting point of robots, real users, and real incentives. We see factory-floor gains in welding, a robot sending up the robot dance, AI tools chasing attention with holiday twists, and hard questions about chips, UX speed, and who gets the best talent. Markets weigh risk and rollups, while games and new browsing tools reframe how we learn and build.
The big picture
Robots speed up welding, without giving up TIG quality
Novarc’s Spool Welding Robot is hitting TIG-like results on pipe while doubling typical manual deposition rates to roughly 4 lb per hour and pushing line speed up to three times faster. Replies note limits on awkward fit-ups and custom angles, yet the trajectory is clear, with AI-guided welding lifting productivity on repeatable tasks by 20 to 50 percent in studies.
The robot dance becomes a history joke
A humanoid does the robot dance with deliberate stiffness, an emulator of an emulation, turning a 1970s human parody into a self-aware nod. It fits a wider loop where quirks become preserved artefacts, from NPC streaming fads to quantised drumming, mixing stagecraft with today’s robotics.
Grok tops visit time charts
Similarweb data has Grok leading average visit duration at 7 minutes 44 seconds over the past two months, ahead of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. The clip shows a clean rise, helped by timing and xAI’s rapid audience growth.
Add Santa with Grok Imagine
Grok’s Christmas template drops Santa into family photos with simple controls for look and pose. The short demo landed millions of views, a light touch that turns social attention into playful creation.
Tesla’s Santa Mode 2.0 lands in the holiday update
Santa Mode swaps your on-screen car for a sleigh and brings festive music and refreshed visuals, including a Santa Optimus cameo. Fun for kids, though some long-timers miss the old-school vibe.
Tesla pushes FSD Supervised as your best chauffeur
A new 15-second ad pitches FSD Supervised with smooth clips and a call to book a test drive. It builds on earlier safety claims tied to NHTSA data, and reignites debate about advertising to an already informed X audience.
Groq argues LPUs fit inference better than GPUs
Founder Jonathan Ross sets out a simple frame for inference needs, speed plus cost plus energy, while noting GPUs still excel at training. A fresh licensing deal with NVIDIA signals a pragmatic pairing rather than a fight to the death.
Skip the spinner when the action is instant
Soren shows a form jumping straight to a green success state in under 100 ms, arguing that spinners add noise when the response is near-instant. Research on user flow supports that cut-off, though longer tasks still benefit from progress cues.
A timer built with CSS alone
In 45 minutes, a CSS-only LiveSplit recreation runs with animations, splits, and resets, no JavaScript. It is a neat reminder of how much interaction modern CSS can handle across browsers.
Google Disco turns tabs into mini apps
Disco’s GenTabs uses AI to convert your open tabs into interactive views, from quick comparisons to simple games. It is a Labs experiment with a waitlist, and it hints at a browser that adapts to the task at hand.
Replicube makes maths and code click through play
This Steam puzzle game has you write short functions, then shows instant 3D feedback. Reviews are glowing, and studies back the idea that gamified practice beats lectures for understanding core concepts.
The US courts AI talent with two-year tours of duty
Scott Kupor tells Odd Lots that government should stop selling lifetime roles to twenty-somethings and instead offer time-boxed missions with clear civic impact. Pay and equity gaps remain the hard part.
Peter Thiel says Musk’s double bet shows our risk aversion
Thiel argues that doing Tesla and SpaceX in parallel looked mad, then worked, which says as much about others’ caution as Musk’s nerve. Replies push back on how much public support cushioned the blows.
Henry Kravis warns multiple arbitrage is closing
Kravis says sellers now anchor to higher comps, making rollup maths tougher, even with AI pitches. If the gap in multiples is thin, the value has to come from deeper improvements, not quick flips.
Why it matters
Robotics is moving from lab demos to plant throughput, which boosts output in sectors like pipes and pressure vessels. The catch is adaptability on messy work, so expect hybrid lines where humans handle the odd jobs and robots keep the pace on repeats.
The robot dance moment shows how fast culture and tech fold into each other. When machines parody their own archetypes, it signals maturity, and it helps people accept them in daily life.
On the consumer side, time spent is the scorecard. Grok is winning attention while turning seasonal fun into product habits, and Tesla keeps its brand in the holiday feed as it markets FSD. None of this settles safety or autonomy debates, but it does set expectations.
Inference has different physics than training. If LPUs deliver speed per watt at scale, we get a broader hardware mix, more price pressure, and a bigger market for specialised chips that meet real workloads.
Small UX choices compound. Fast paths should feel instant, and only slower paths need ceremony. That mindset, plus stronger browser primitives, lets builders ship lighter, quicker interfaces.
Learning is changing too. Games like Replicube and AI-driven browsing experiments point to a future where practice is interactive, not passive, which tends to stick better for maths and code.
Finally, talent and capital are repricing. Governments will need new pitches to attract top engineers, and investors cannot count on multiple gaps to do the work. Real value will have to come from product, process, and hard-won efficiency.
