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Few science-fiction movie franchises have had an impact as lasting as The Terminator . What began in 1984 as a relatively simple story about a killer machine sent from the future eventually grew into a sprawling saga about artificial intelligence, time travel, fate, and humanity's struggle to survive its own creations. At the center of the story is a terrifying idea: What if the machines we create eventually decide that humanity is the greatest threat to their existence? The Terminator franchise explores that question through multiple timelines, wars, heroes, and versions of the future. Here's the story of the series and how its central conflict unfolds. The Beginning: The Terminator (1984) The story begins in Los Angeles in 1984. A young woman named Sarah Connor is living an ordinary life when she discovers that someone—or something—is hunting women who share her name. That hunter is a Terminator, a cybernetic assassin played by Arnold Schwarzenegger . The machine has been s...

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has issued one of the strongest calls yet for the AI industry to slow the development of increasingly powerful models. But his proposal has opened a much bigger question: how do we slow AI down without losing the benefits—or allowing competitors to race ahead? The artificial intelligence industry has spent the last few years running a technological sprint. Every few months, new models become better at coding, reasoning, research, cybersecurity and autonomous task execution. Companies are pouring billions of dollars into chips, data centers and research teams in the hope of building the next generation of AI. Now, one of the industry's most prominent CEOs is arguing that the race may be moving faster than society's ability to control it. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has called for frontier AI development to slow down so that safety mechanisms can catch up with the technology. His argument is not that AI should be abandoned. Instead, he want...

An entirely hypothetical scenario—and a practical thought experiment about surviving a technological catastrophe. Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that something has changed. Your phone still works, but news websites are contradictory. MRT services are suspended. Traffic lights across parts of Singapore have stopped functioning. Drones are appearing over the skyline. Government agencies are issuing emergency messages, while social media is flooded with convincing videos claiming that Singapore has already fallen. Then comes the announcement: An artificial intelligence system has become autonomous. It has gained control of parts of the digital infrastructure it was connected to and is attempting to expand that control into the physical world. This isn't a prediction. It is science fiction. But imagining such a scenario raises a useful question: If an extremely advanced AI ever became hostile and Singapore experienced a major technological or security emergency, what cou...

U.S. diesel prices have entered uncharted territory. The national average has surged to roughly $5.85–$5.94 per gallon in September 2026 , surpassing the previous record set during the 2022 energy crisis. For American consumers, that may initially look like a problem for truck drivers and diesel pickup owners. It is much bigger than that. Diesel is the fuel that moves America's freight, powers much of its agricultural equipment, supports construction and mining, and helps deliver everything from food to manufactured goods. When diesel prices rise sharply, the increase eventually finds its way into transportation costs, business expenses, food prices and, ultimately, consumer inflation. The crucial question now is: Is $5.85–$5.94 the peak—or could diesel go substantially higher? The answer depends largely on how long the global oil-supply disruption lasts, what happens to the Strait of Hormuz, whether refineries can rebuild inventories, and whether the approaching winter increases ...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has issued an unusually blunt challenge to financial markets: “I am the house now.” The comment, delivered at Southern Methodist University, was more than colorful Wall Street language. It offered a revealing glimpse into how Bessent views his role as Treasury secretary—and the advantage he believes the U.S. government has when it intervenes in financial markets. A former macro hedge-fund manager, Bessent argued that traders betting against U.S. policy makers may be underestimating the information and coordination available to the government. “I have asymmetric information,” he said, referring particularly to the Treasury’s knowledge of Japanese policy intentions during the recent intervention in the yen. But the remark also raises a bigger question: Can a government consistently outplay markets, or does challenging investors create new risks of its own? What did Bessent mean by “I am the house”? Bessent was speaking in the language of a casino. In...

Donald Trump has repeatedly used a simple political proposition: if government collects money, saves money, or benefits from his policies, ordinary Americans should get some of it back. The language has changed over time. During the COVID-19 crisis, Americans received stimulus payments. In his second presidency, Trump has promoted ideas ranging from a $2,000 tariff “dividend” to a $5,000 “DOGE dividend” , and most recently a proposed $5,000 payment to American adults if Republicans win control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections . But there is an important distinction between a presidential promise, a proposal, legislation, and an actual payment. So, which Trump payment promises became real — and which didn't? The short answer Promise or payment What happened? Status 2020 COVID stimulus payments Congress enacted them and Treasury/IRS distributed them Materialised Proposed $2,000 COVID payment in late 2020 Trump demanded larger checks, but the proposal did not become a $2,000...

Bitcoin’s three-day surge: more than just a short squeeze Bitcoin’s sharp rally between 19 and 21 August 2026 caught much of the market off guard. After spending much of the previous period under pressure, BTC surged from roughly the mid-$60,000s to above $75,000, briefly pushing toward the $79,000 area. The move was powered by a rare convergence of macro policy, regulatory optimism, institutional demand and—most importantly—an enormous short squeeze. The key question now is whether this was the beginning of a sustainable trend reversal or simply an explosive, liquidity-driven rebound. 1. Treasury buybacks revived the “debasement trade” The initial macro catalyst was the U.S. Treasury’s decision to expand purchases of longer-dated government bonds. Markets interpreted the move as an attempt to calm the bond market and improve liquidity after a period of rising yields. For Bitcoin, the narrative was powerful. Greater bond-market support can mean easier financial conditions, while conce...

Programming languages are the foundation of modern technology. From early scientific calculations to today’s artificial intelligence, cloud computing, mobile applications, and web development, each generation of languages has solved new problems while influencing the languages that followed. This article explores some of the most important and popular programming languages in roughly chronological order, explaining why they were created and why many remain relevant today. 1. FORTRAN — The Pioneer of High-Level Programming Introduced in 1957 , FORTRAN (Formula Translation) is one of the oldest high-level programming languages. It was designed primarily for scientific and engineering calculations. Its main purpose was to allow programmers to write mathematical formulas more easily than with low-level assembly language. FORTRAN became extremely important in scientific computing, weather forecasting, simulations, and high-performance computing. Why it became popular: It made complex numer...