Here is a report from Euronews: EU population to fall by 12% by 2100: Which countries will decline the most? EU Population Decline to 2100 Overall Projection EU population falls from 452M to 399M (−11.7%) between 2025–2100 18 of 30 European countries will shrink; 12 will grow Countries with Largest Declines >30%: Latvia (−33.9%), Lithuania (−33.4%), … Read more
Palantir occupies a more extreme place in Silicon Valley but represents a new, growing ethos Big Tech is developing. We have seen the company’s official X message today. A few early comments: This is the nationalist turn. Big Tech now explicitly acts as an agent of a nation-state, which in turn justifies its regulations worldwide. … Read more
I recently visited Müzeverse at Galataport, İstanbul. Müzeverse is a location‑based virtual reality (VR) museum in Istanbul that offers large‑scale, immersive historical experiences and markets itself as Türkiye’s first dedicated VR museum.[1][2][3] Although I believe in the potential of VR, I find it a bit impractical. However, in our 45-minute tour of ancient Egypt, I was … Read more
The history of music videos is not just an artistic evolution but a history of media infrastructures shaping how music is seen, circulated, and monetized. Origins of the Music Video The concept of combining film and music predates modern music videos, with early experiments dating back to 1894, exemplified by George Thomas’s “The Little … Read more
I first saw the news at the Guardian and asked Perplexity to do a roundup. Here is the issue: What the investigation actually found An investigation by Investigate Europe, published with the Guardian and others, shows that Microsoft and the lobby group DigitalEurope (representing Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc.) proposed language to classify all individual … Read more
I wanted to collect propaganda content for all sides during the war for the record. Here is what ChatGPT’s deep research found out. It looks like this is not just propaganda in the traditional sense, but a platform-native propaganda system, where states, semi-state actors, and meme producers operate within the same attention economy. How I … Read more
Two school shootings in Türkiye within 24 hours have disrupted a long-standing perception: that such violence is exceptionally rare. Some unionized teachers protested today over the first incident and the lack of adequate security for teachers, and did not attend classes. In the meantime, we have witnessed the worst today. You can find a list … Read more
Viktor Orbán’s landslide election loss in April 2026 marks the end of 16 years of illiberal rule in Hungary and is widely read as a major setback for the European far‑right and its allies, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and former U.S. President Donald Trump. At the same time, the unexpectedly strong victory of Péter … Read more
Of course, if only Israel allow it… Reactions to the Iran-US-Israel Two-Week Ceasefire (April 8, 2026) Overview On April 7–8, 2026, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, announced just under two hours before President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face devastating attacks on its … Read more
OpenClaw, a viral open-source AI agent launched in 2026, promises to control your computer autonomously—but quickly exposed major security risks. Key Insights by Merlin AI Overview of OpenClaw – OpenClaw emerged in early 2026 as a highly anticipated AI tool, capturing the attention of creators and entrepreneurs. – It was designed as an open-source software … Read more
My TV Turkish Serials Subreddit receives more than 95 thousand visits weekly, and my colleague Alper Kırklar and I decided to curate an edited volume on Turkish Television Series. The series’ global attraction is definitely unintended, but all over the world, I come across people asking me about a particular Turkish series. So here we … Read more
Claude Code Source Code Leak: What Was Revealed Reactions have been a mix of fascination, alarm, and ridicule, while Anthropic has tried to frame it as an embarrassing but contained packaging error with no user-data impact. How Anthropic Responded Anthropic confirmed the incident, saying “some internal source code” for Claude Code was leaked in an … Read more
HP’s decline under Carly Fiorina stemmed from cultural disruption, a troubled mega‑merger, and alienated employees, while its later “rebirth” under Mark Hurd shows how the same merger could succeed with disciplined execution and quieter leadership. HP before Fiorina HP evolved from a respected engineering‑driven firm with 80+ semi‑autonomous units into a bloated bureaucracy losing ground … Read more
Here comes the new episode for Thoughts on academic life There has always been self‑promotion in academia. People mailed offprints, boasted about books, dropped famous names at dinner. But the contemporary landscape is qualitatively different: platformized, metricized, gamified.[6][8] Academics now operate across multiple, interconnected arenas: Citation and profile platforms: Google Scholar, Scopus IDs, ORCID, ResearchGate, … Read more
CPJ’s 2025 record and the new wartime totals The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in late February 2026 that 2025 was the deadliest year ever recorded for the press, with 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide since CPJ began collecting data in 1992. According to the same report, Israel was responsible for … Read more