The Sunday Blender Podcast

The Call of the Wild

EDITOR’S WORDS After trying out OpenClaw for a few intense weeks since late January, I gradually stopped using it because it was always too buggy and unstable for meaningful tasks. The new kid on the block in this AI agent craze - Hermes seems a much stronger replacement. It’s much easier to switch to different AI models and its self-learning capability looks interesting. I’m slowly hooking up my Hermes agent with all the web services/sites I’m developing, making this AI aide-de-camp the exclusive channel to receive notifications from my applications and transforming my operation into a true AI-native OPC. In the past, this channel used to be email, SMS, Telegram, and WeChat. It’s now becoming my autonomous AI agent, which helps me not only with coding, but also with filtering and curating information that will reach me. Maybe one day the agent can even help me produce the future issues of the Sunday Blender, once it learns of my taste and view of the world. TECH Unitree [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/mecha.jpg] A Chinese robotics company just built something straight out of Pacific Rim. On May 12, Hangzhou-based Unitree unveiled the GD01, which it calls the world’s first production-ready manned mecha — a giant robot suit with a cockpit in its chest where a human pilot climbs in. It stands 2.7 meters tall (nearly 9 feet), weighs around 500 kilograms with a rider inside, and can switch between walking on two legs and crawling on four. A demo video shows it punching through a brick wall with its hand. The price tag: 3.9 million yuan, or roughly $570,000. Hermes AI agent [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/hermes.jpg] If you want to build AI agents that work for you, there’s a fast-rising new tool called Hermes Agent — named after the Greek god of messengers, who carried words between the gods and mortals on his winged sandals. A fitting name for software that runs errands on your behalf. Released in February 2026 by an AI lab called Nous Research, Hermes is free, open-source (anyone can see how it’s built), and it learns from what you ask it to do — so the more you use it, the better it gets. In just ten weeks it picked up over 110,000 stars on GitHub, the website where programmers share code, and is quickly stealing the spotlight from the older market leader, OpenClaw. To pull in more developers, Nous Research recently teamed up with Chinese AI company Kimi — whose newest model is tuned to work well with Hermes — to run a 16-day coding contest, called a hackathon, with $25,000 in prizes. the beast [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/beast.JPG] When the US president travels abroad, his car, his security team, and his secure communications gear travel ahead of him on huge military cargo planes. Ahead of President Trump’s two-day visit to Beijing on May 14–15, at least four US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport planes landed at Beijing’s airport carrying the goods. The C-17 is a flying truck the size of a small office building — 174 feet long, able to carry up to 77 tons, with enough room inside for an entire 69-ton M1 Abrams battle tank. What did they unload? The presidential limousine, nicknamed “The Beast” — an 18,000-pound armored Cadillac with 8-inch-thick steel-and-ceramic armor, 5-inch bulletproof windows, doors as heavy as those on a Boeing 757, and a hermetically sealed cabin with its own oxygen supply in case of a chemical attack. It even carries a stash of the president’s blood type in a built-in fridge. And the gadgets? Reportedly night-vision cameras, smoke screens, tear-gas cannons, oil-slick sprayers to spin out enemy cars, and door handles that can deliver a 120-volt electric shock. Spotted by Beijing residents on the city’s Third Ring Road, the convoy looked like something out of a James Bond movie. GLOBAL Jensen [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/jensen.jpg] While in Beijing this week as part of a US business delegation, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took an afternoon off to wander around Nanluoguxiang, one of Beijing’s oldest and most famous alleyways. Even though it was a warm 27°C (81°F) day, he wore his trademark black leather jacket — the same one he wears for every big public appearance. The man who runs the world’s most valuable company ($5.7 trillion) ate street food, posed for selfies with tourists, and slurped a bowl of Beijing zhajiangmian noodles right on the sidewalk. He also tried douzhi — Beijing’s famously divisive fermented mung bean drink — and the look on his face said it all. After he gave a thumbs-up to a peach tea at Mixue, the chain reported sales of that drink jumped 140% the next day. Quite a side hustle for a chip-company CEO. ECONOMY & FINANCE Porsche [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/porsche.jpg] The German sports car maker Porsche is having a rough time in China. In 2025, Porsche sold 41,938 cars there — down 26% from the year before, and less than half of what it sold in 2021. Things got worse in early 2026: deliveries fell another 21% in the first three months. So Porsche is closing roughly a third of its Chinese dealerships, shrinking from 150 stores at the end of 2024 to around 80 by the end of 2026. The biggest reason? Chinese carmakers like Xiaomi and BYD are now making fast, fancy electric cars of their own — and many Chinese drivers prefer them. Cerebras [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/cerebras.jpg] A Silicon Valley company called Cerebras went public this week, in the biggest stock market debut of 2026 so far. Cerebras makes specialized chips for running AI models — and unlike normal computer chips the size of a fingernail, theirs are the size of a dinner plate, with about 4 trillion tiny switches packed onto a single piece of silicon. The company raised $5.5 billion when it listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange on May 14, and its shares almost doubled on the first day of trading, briefly valuing Cerebras at around $66 billion. Cerebras is trying to challenge Nvidia, currently the world’s most valuable company. NATURE & ENVIRONMENT Antelope [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/antelope.jpg] Scientists have just released the first-ever drone footage of the largest land mammal migration on Earth — and it’s not the famous wildebeest stampede across the Serengeti. It’s happening in South Sudan, where roughly six million antelope migrate across grasslands and wetlands every year, more than twice the size of the East African wildebeest migration. The migration was hidden from the world for decades because of war in the region, which kept scientists and tourists out. It was only confirmed in 2024, when researchers flew planes over the area and took 330,000 aerial photos. The May 2026 issue of National Geographic features the stunning new drone images. Birding [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/birding.jpg] There’s a competition called the World Series of Birding, where teams race across the state of New Jersey for 24 straight hours, trying to spot or hear as many bird species as possible. The 43rd annual event was held on May 9, and one team that drew lots of attention was The Pete Dunnelins — three high school friends, ages 16 and 17, who had won the past two years. Starting just after midnight, they sprinted from park to park with binoculars, fueled by energy drinks and M&Ms. By the end of the day, they had counted 206 species — but lost by three to their rivals, The Flying Penguins, who got 209. wolves [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/wolf.jpg] This past Friday, May 15, was Endangered Species Day — a yearly reminder to celebrate animals that are at risk of dying out, and to highlight species that are making a comeback. One of the most surprising returns: gray wolves are back in California. The state’s last wild wolf was shot in 1924, and for the next 87 years there were none. Then in December 2011, a young radio-collared wolf nicknamed “Journey” walked south from Oregon into California — entirely on his own. More wolves followed his trail over the years. Today, an estimated 50 to 70 wolves roam California in at least 10 packs. Nobody released them. They just walked back home. SCIENCE Money Plant [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/moneyplant.jpg] Scientists just discovered that one of the world’s most popular houseplants — the Chinese money plant, known for its perfectly round, coin-shaped leaves — hides a famous mathematical pattern in its veins. Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and two Canadian universities analyzed 34 leaves and found that the web of veins on each leaf follows a Voronoi diagram — a pattern where every point on a surface “belongs” to whichever center it’s closest to, like dividing a playground into zones around each kid. The same math is used by mobile phone networks to assign you to the nearest cell tower, and by biologists to study how cells pack together. The Chinese money plant has been quietly drawing it on every leaf, all along. Mars [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/mars.jpg] A Brazilian scientist just discovered a possible shortcut to Mars hiding in the orbital path of an asteroid. In a paper published last month in the journal Acta Astronautica, astrophysicist Marcelo de Oliveira Souza showed that if a spacecraft followed a route geometrically similar to the orbit of asteroid 2001 CA21, the trip to Mars could in theory be done in just 34 days — instead of the usual 6 to 9 months. The catch: a spacecraft would need to leave Earth at around 32.5 kilometers per second (faster than any rocket has ever launched) and would arrive at Mars going about 108,000 km/h — way too fast to land safely with today’s technology. So the shortcut is real on paper. We just need to build the rocket. MATH Math 1 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/math_1.JPG] > Fill in the missing numbers Math 2 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/math_2.jpg] > What’s the size of the shaded area? LIFESTYLE, ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE zombie [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/zombie.JPG] A 5-minute AI-made short film called Zombie Scavenger went viral around the world this week — and the director’s day job is in real estate. The film, made by a young Chinese creator who goes by MX-Shell, features a lonely robot wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland (think WALL-E, which inspired it, but with zombies and cowboys). Here’s the wild part: he made the whole thing by himself, in just 10 days, for about 3,000 yuan (roughly $420) — paying only for AI tool credits. After the film racked up over 13 million views on X, a Hollywood AI filmmaker named PJ Ace posted a public plea: “I would love to hire him but I cannot find him.” Internet sleuths tracked MX-Shell down. He’s now in talks to turn the short into a full-length movie. Planet Earth [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/planeteart.jpg] The most famous voice in nature documentaries just turned 100. On May 8, Sir David Attenborough — the British broadcaster who has narrated Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, and dozens of other BBC nature series — celebrated his 100th birthday. He has been making wildlife films for over 70 years, since 1952, and his calm, half-whispered voice has introduced generations of kids to gorillas, polar bears, deep-sea creatures, and everything in between. To mark the milestone, the Royal Albert Hall in London hosted a gala concert attended by Prince William, King Charles III sent a birthday card, and scientists named a newly discovered parasitic wasp after him. Tulip [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/tulip.jpg] Last weekend, the city of Albany — the capital of New York State — held its 78th annual Tulip Festival in Washington Park. Over 140,000 tulips in 150 different varieties bloomed across the 81-acre park, drawing thousands of visitors over Mother’s Day weekend. Why tulips in upstate New York? Because Albany was originally a Dutch settlement, founded by traders from the Netherlands in 1614 and called Fort Orange. The Dutch brought tulips with them — the flower is a national symbol of the Netherlands — and the tradition has continued for centuries. Every year, the festival crowns a “Tulip Queen” and features a Dutch street-scrubbing ceremony, where people sweep the streets with brooms before the celebration begins. Eurovision [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/eurovision.jpg] Bulgaria just won Eurovision for the first time ever. Eurovision is one of the world’s biggest TV events — a song contest where dozens of European countries each send one song, perform live on a single stage, and then everyone votes for their favorites. Each country gets to give points from 1 to 12, and the country with the most points wins. It’s been running every year since 1956 — that’s 70 years, making it the longest-running annual TV music competition in the world. Last night in Vienna, Austria, a Bulgarian pop singer named Dara won the 70th edition with a dance song called “Bangaranga,” beating 24 other countries with 516 points. Bulgaria will get to host next year’s contest. Famous past Eurovision winners include the Swedish band ABBA, who won in 1974 with “Waterloo” and went on to become one of the biggest pop groups in history. Shakira [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/shakira.jpg] The official song of next month’s FIFA World Cup dropped on Thursday: “Dai Dai,” a high-energy track by Colombian pop star Shakira and Nigerian Afrobeats star Burna Boy. The title comes from an Italian phrase that means “come on, come on,” and the song’s chorus mixes English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Japanese words for “let’s go.” The lyrics name-drop soccer legends past and present: Pelé, Maradona, Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappé, and Salah. It’s Shakira’s fourth World Cup song — her 2010 hit “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” remains one of the most recognized World Cup anthems ever. The 2026 World Cup kicks off on June 11 in Mexico City, hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico. Summer [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/summer.jpg] Get your popcorn ready — Hollywood’s summer blockbuster season kicks off next weekend with a packed lineup. First up on May 22 is The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars movie in theaters in seven years, starring everyone’s favorite Baby Yoda. Pixar follows in June with Toy Story 5, bringing Woody and Buzz back for another adventure. July is the biggest month: Minions & Monsters takes the little yellow troublemakers to 1920s Hollywood; Moana gets a live-action remake with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson reprising his role as Maui; legendary director Christopher Nolan releases The Odyssey, an epic adaptation of the 3,000-year-old Greek poem starring Matt Damon; and Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters with Tom Holland and Zendaya. With ticket sales already 16% higher than last year, 2026 might be the biggest movie year since before the pandemic. calling [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/calling.jpg] You may have seen viral videos this month of grown men in green hunting jackets blowing into giant curved horns, making haunting calls that echo through a German trade hall. That’s the German National Deer-Calling Championship, held on January 30 in Dortmund — but clips from it went viral worldwide this May. Contestants imitate the sounds of red deer using only their voices or specially crafted horns, judged on accuracy and emotional realism. The tradition dates back over 800 years to medieval hunters, who used these calls to lure deer during mating season. This year’s winner was Fabian Menzel, who has now claimed the title five years in a row. There’s also a kids’ version called the Kidsfiep World Championship. SPORTS Man City [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/mancity.jpg] [Soccer] Two of Europe’s biggest clubs lifted trophies on Saturday. In Munich, Bayern Munich collected the Bundesliga trophy at home after thrashing Köln 5-1, sealing their 35th German league title — a championship they’d already mathematically locked up a month earlier. England striker Harry Kane scored a hat-trick (three goals in one game) to finish the season with 36 Bundesliga goals, winning the top-scorer prize for a third year in a row — something no one had ever done in their first three Bundesliga seasons. The same afternoon at Wembley Stadium in London, Manchester City beat Chelsea 1-0 in the FA Cup final, England’s oldest football competition, dating back to 1871. The winning goal was a thing of beauty: winger Antoine Semenyo flicked the ball past Chelsea’s goalkeeper with the back of his heel. For City, it’s their 8th FA Cup title. Pep Guardiola’s side now turn their attention to chasing Arsenal in the Premier League. messi [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/messi.jpg] [Soccer] Lionel Messi keeps finding new ways to break records. On May 13, Inter Miami beat FC Cincinnati 5-3 on the road, and Messi was at the center of it — scoring twice and setting up a third goal. It capped a wild week. Four days earlier, in a 4-2 win at Toronto, the 38-year-old Argentine became the fastest player in MLS (Major League Soccer) history to reach 100 regular-season goal contributions, hitting the mark in just 64 games. The previous record, held by Toronto’s Sebastian Giovinco, took 95 games. Miami have now won six road games in a row, and Messi is heating up just one month before he leads Argentina at the World Cup. THIS DAY IN HISTORY NYSE [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/nyse.jpg] 234 years ago today, on May 17, 1792, 24 stock traders met under a buttonwood tree (a type of sycamore) outside 68 Wall Street in New York City and signed a short, two-sentence agreement promising to trade only with each other and at fair, fixed prices. That handshake deal, known as the Buttonwood Agreement, is the founding moment of the New York Stock Exchange — today the biggest stock market in the world. What’s a stock exchange? It’s a marketplace where people buy and sell tiny pieces of companies, called shares. If you own a share of NVIDIA, you own a tiny slice of NVIDIA. When lots of people want to buy a company’s shares, the price goes up; when they want to sell, the price goes down. The exchange is the place where all that buying and selling happens — back in 1792, under a tree; today, mostly on computers. ART OF THE WEEK Jackson Pollock [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/pollock.jpg] Tomorrow at art auction house Christie’s in New York, a painting called Number 7A is expected to sell for around $100 million. It was made in 1948 by an American artist named Jackson Pollock, who had a wild way of working: instead of putting a canvas on an easel and using a brush, he laid the canvas flat on the floor and dripped, splattered, and flung paint at it from above, walking around all sides. Critics laughed at first — one magazine nicknamed him “Jack the Dripper” — but Pollock’s drip paintings are now considered some of the most important American art of the 20th century. The funny part? Number 7A was once discovered hanging in someone’s kitchen, covered in years of cooking smoke and grime, before being recognized as a masterpiece. FUNNY Yes But - iPhone [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/yesbut_iphone.JPG] Yes But - Line [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-call-of-the-wild/yesbut_line.JPG] ---------------------------------------- PREVIOUS ISSUES ---------------------------------------- May 10, 2026, Double Wins for Arsenal in 2026? [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026] May 03, 2026, The Way You Make Me Feel [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel] April 26, 2026, Game Is No. 1, Friendship is No. 14 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14] ---------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with friends who might also find it interesting and refreshing, if not for themselves, at least for their kids.

Double Wins for Arsenal in 2026?

EDITOR’S WORDS What have you done today for your mom on this Mother’s Day? My son made omelette for his mom for the first time, with bacon, tomatoes, corn, spinach, and scallion. For the most part it was a smooth ride. Bacon was a bit too light. The father (in a supervising role) and the son were busy in the kitchen for an hour to serve a breakfast meal that was finished in 10 minutes. The mom was very happy. New skill unlocked - not an AI one. TECH SpaceX [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/spacex.jpg] In a surprise move on May 7, AI company Anthropic — the maker of Claude — signed a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to use the giant Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee, with 220,000 chips and 300 megawatts of computing power. The next day, Musk announced he was dissolving his own AI company, xAI (maker of the Grok chatbot), and folding it into SpaceX as a new product line called “SpaceXAI.” The two men had been bitter rivals — Musk previously called Anthropic a company that “hates Western civilization.” After meeting Anthropic’s team last week, he changed his tune. The timing matters: SpaceX is preparing for what could be the biggest stock market debut in history, possibly valuing the company at $2 trillion. Renting out spare computing power is good for the IPO. xAI also struggled lately, with 11 of its 12 original co-founders having left the company. Boris Cherny [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/boris.jpg] Boris Cherny, the engineer who created Claude Code at Anthropic, gave a talk last week at Sequoia Capital’s AI Ascent 2026 conference that has tech and finance circles buzzing. His main claim: for him, programming is “solved.” Cherny, a veteran software engineer who literally wrote textbooks on coding, revealed he hasn’t written a single line of code by hand in 2026. Instead, he ships dozens of changes a day — from his phone — by directing AI agents that do the actual writing. He runs five to ten parallel sessions at once, plus thousands of background tasks overnight. Cherny compared the moment to the invention of the printing press in the 1400s, but moving much faster. He also predicted that the number of disruptive startups will grow tenfold over the next decade, because small teams can now build things that used to require huge companies. Coding, he said, is becoming everyone’s job. agents [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/agents.jpeg] The AI Ascent 2026 conference held by venture firm Sequoia Capital in San Francisco on April 20, brought together more than 150 of the biggest names in artificial intelligence. The host firm declared 2026 “the year of agents” — AI programs that can perceive, plan, and complete tasks on their own, not just answer questions. OpenAI president Greg Brockman said that over a single month last December, AI tools jumped from writing 20% of new computer code to 80%. Demis Hassabis, the Nobel Prize-winning CEO of Google DeepMind, said he believes AGI — artificial general intelligence, AI as smart as any human at any task — is achievable by 2030, and that drug discovery could collapse from ten years to days. Andrej Karpathy, who co-founded OpenAI, argued that we’re entering “Software 3.0,” where many traditional apps simply won’t need to exist anymore. AGI [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/agi.jpeg] Something unusual is happening in Silicon Valley: top tech executives are quitting their high-ranking jobs to take regular engineering roles at AI company Anthropic. Peter Bailis left his job as chief technology officer of Workday, a $50 billion enterprise software company, to become a “member of technical staff” — basically, a regular engineer. Bryan McCann, co-founder and CTO of AI startup You.com, did the same. Mike Krieger, the co-founder of Instagram, switched from an executive role at Anthropic to an engineering one. Normally, executives don’t trade their corner offices for engineer desks. So why are they doing it? One working theory: these tech veterans believe AGI — artificial general intelligence, the holy grail of AI research — may be arriving soon, and they want a front-row seat when it happens. GLOBAL cruise [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/ship.jpg] A rare and deadly virus broke out on the cruise ship MV Hondius in the South Atlantic earlier this month, killing three passengers and sickening several others. The culprit is hantavirus, a virus normally carried by wild rodents like mice and rats. Most strains spread to humans through contact with rodent droppings, but this one — the Andes strain — is the only hantavirus that can also pass between people. The ship was stranded off West Africa for days before being allowed to dock in the Canary Islands on May 10. The World Health Organization says the global risk is low. It’s not the next COVID. ECONOMY & FINANCE China Soccer [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/chinasoccer.jpeg] The 2026 World Cup kicks off June 11 in North America, but with about a month to go, there’s still no deal for it to air in China. FIFA reportedly asked China Media Group between $250 and $300 million for the rights, while CMG’s budget was closer to $60–80 million. Several things are working against a deal. The tournament is hosted across the US, Canada, and Mexico, meaning most matches kick off in the early hours Beijing time — brutal for viewers and a turnoff for advertisers. China’s national team also failed to qualify, eliminated by Indonesia last year, which has cooled domestic interest. Yet Chinese companies have already poured over $500 million into sponsoring this World Cup, according to Beijing Daily, and Chinese viewers made up nearly half of all digital viewing hours in 2022. A blackout would sting both sides. Buffett [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/buffett.jpeg] On May 2, tens of thousands of investors gathered in Omaha, Nebraska, for the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting — an event so famous in finance circles it’s nicknamed “Woodstock for Capitalists.” This year was different. For the first time in six decades, the meeting wasn’t headlined by Warren Buffett, the legendary 95-year-old investor often called the greatest of all time. Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 when it was a failing textile company. Over the next 60 years, he turned it into a giant conglomerate that owns insurance companies, railroads, See’s Candies, and big stakes in Apple and Coca-Cola. The numbers are staggering: Berkshire’s stock returned 19.9% per year on average — nearly double the S&P 500’s 10.4%. A $100 investment in 1965 would be worth over $5.5 million today. Buffett stepped down as CEO in January but still showed up, sitting in the front row. NATURE & ENVIRONMENT New Orleans [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/neworleans.jpg] A new study published on May 4 in the journal Nature Sustainability warns that New Orleans, one of America’s most beloved cities, has reached a “point of no return.” Researchers at Tulane University say rising seas and sinking land have grown so severe that southern Louisiana is losing an area the size of a football field every 100 minutes. Since the 1930s, the state has lost coastal land roughly equal in size to the state of Delaware. The scientists say the city likely won’t exist by the end of the next century, and they’re calling for governments to start planning now for the long-term relocation of residents. SCIENCE Apollo 17 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/apollo17.jpg] On Friday, the Pentagon released its first batch of declassified UFO files — 162 documents pulled from the FBI, State Department, NASA, and other agencies, posted on a new public website called PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters). UAP, or “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” is the modern term for UFOs. Some of the more eye-catching items: an Apollo 17 photo from 1972 showing three small dots in a triangular formation above the lunar surface, with the Pentagon noting new analysis suggests it could be “a physical object in the scene.” Apollo 12 photos show similar bright spots near the moon’s horizon, and a transcript captures astronaut Buzz Aldrin describing “little flashes” inside the Apollo 11 cabin. Researchers say nothing in the batch is a smoking gun. More tranches are promised every few weeks. Stay tuned. MATH Square [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/square.jpg] This rectangle consists of 6 squares. Two of them on the bottom right are of the same size. The smallest square in the center has an area of 4. What is the total area for the rectangle? LIFESTYLE, ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE Mother’s Day [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/motherday.jpg] This Sunday, May 10, is Mother’s Day in the US, China, Japan, Australia, and dozens of other countries that mark it on the second Sunday of May. Over 100 countries celebrate some version of it, though the date shifts — the UK had Mothering Sunday back in March, and Thailand waits until August 12. Some numbers worth knowing: Americans will spend roughly $38 billion this year, and Mother’s Day generates more phone calls than any other day on the calendar — about 122 million. You don’t need to spend anything. A handwritten note, a hug, or doing the dishes without being asked counts. Mom will remember it longer than flowers. Pulitzer [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/pulitzer.jpg] The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on May 4 in New York. The Pulitzers, awarded since 1917, are considered the highest honor in American journalism, books, drama, and music. Twenty-three prizes are given out each year. The fiction winner was Angel Down by Daniel Kraus, a novel about World War I soldiers who find a fallen angel in No Man’s Land — and the whole story is written as one long sentence. The history prize went to Harvard professor Jill Lepore for We the People, a book about the U.S. Constitution. The biography prize went to Amanda Vaill for Pride and Pleasure, about the Schuyler sisters, who played important roles during the American Revolution. The memoir prize went to celebrated Chinese-American writer Yiyun Li for Things in Nature Merely Grow. The poetry prize went to Juliana Spahr for Ars Poeticas. I Am Legend [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/legend.jpg] Hollywood is finally moving forward on I Am Legend 2, the long-awaited sequel to the 2007 post-apocalyptic thriller starring Will Smith. Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan are both attached to star. The original film, based on a 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, follows a scientist named Robert Neville who is one of the last people alive in New York City after a virus turns the rest of humanity into vampire-like creatures. Smith’s character died in the theatrical version of the original, but the sequel will follow an alternate ending where he survives. The new story will pick up decades later, with nature reclaiming the city, asking what happens to the world when humans are no longer in charge. No release date has been announced yet. SPORTS Arsenal [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/cup.jpg] [Soccer] Arsenal, one of England’s most famous football clubs, is on the brink of a historic season. With just a few matches left in the Premier League, they sit on top of the table, two points ahead of Manchester City. If they hold on, it will be their first league title in 22 years — since the legendary 2003-04 “Invincibles” team that went an entire season without losing a single game. At the same time, Arsenal just reached the Champions League final for the first time in club history. They’ll play Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest on May 30. Arsenal has never won the Champions League in their 140-year history. Winning both trophies in the same season is called the “European double” — one of the rarest and most prestigious achievements in club football. Manager Mikel Arteta, who used to play for Arsenal himself, took charge of a struggling team in December 2019 and has patiently rebuilt it over six seasons into one of the best in Europe. Snooker [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/snooker.jpg] [Snooker] On May 4, 22-year-old Chinese snooker player Wu Yize won the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England — the sport’s most prestigious tournament. He beat former champion Shaun Murphy 18-17 in a final that came down to the very last frame, and became the second-youngest world champion in snooker history. Only Stephen Hendry, who won at 21 in 1990, was younger. Wu’s win continues a remarkable surge of Chinese snooker. Last year, Zhao Xintong became the first Chinese player ever to win the title. This year, a record 11 Chinese players reached the last 32. China is taking over the green baize. Table Tennis [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/tabletennis.JPG] [Table Tennis] The world’s best table tennis teams gathered in London this week for the ITTF World Team Championships, a special centenary edition held in the city where the tournament was first played in 1926. China’s women, six-time defending champions, swept through the tournament without dropping a single game and set up a Sunday final against Japan — their sixth showdown in a row dating back to 2012. The men had a wobblier ride, losing twice in the group stage, including a stunning defeat to Sweden, before recovering to make the semifinals. Both finals are on Sunday, May 10, with China still favored. sinner [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/sinner.jpg] [Tennis] On May 3, Italy’s Jannik Sinner won the Madrid Open, beating Germany’s Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-2 in a one-sided final. With the win, the 24-year-old world No. 1 became the first male player ever to win five Masters 1000 titles in a row. The Masters 1000 are the nine biggest tennis tournaments outside of the four Grand Slams, and Sinner’s streak now includes Paris, Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, and Madrid. Even legends like Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal had only managed four in a row. Sinner heads to Rome next week chasing his sixth straight, on his way to the French Open later this month. Wembanyama [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/wembanyama.jpeg] [Basketball] The NBA playoffs are heating up. In the East, the New York Knicks are 3-0 against the Philadelphia 76ers, including a stunning 137-98 Game 1 blowout. New York hasn’t reached the Conference Finals since 2000, but they look unstoppable this year. In the West, France’s Victor Wembanyama is showing why everyone thinks he might be the future of the NBA. The 7'4" 22-year-old led the San Antonio Spurs past Minnesota in Game 2 by a 38-point margin and now leads the series 2-1. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Lakers are in trouble. They’re down 0-2 to the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder and have lost both games by double digits. LeBron James, now 41, and his teammates need to find an answer fast in Game 3 on Sunday. The Conference Finals start later this month, with the NBA Finals scheduled to begin on June 4. THIS DAY IN HISTORY Rolling Stones [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/rollingstones.jpeg] On May 10, 1963, five young Londoners walked into Olympic Sound Studios and recorded their first single — a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.” Their manager admitted he had no idea what he was doing, and lead singer Mick Jagger called the group “a bunch of bloody amateurs”. Those amateurs were the Rolling Stones, one of the biggest bands in rock history alongside the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. While the Beatles broke up in 1970 and Zeppelin disbanded in 1980, the Stones kept going — and going. They’re now 64 years into their career, the longest run of any major rock band. Founding members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are both 82. Their 2024 Hackney Diamonds tour sold out stadiums across North America, though they recently scrapped a planned 2026 tour because Richards’ arthritis made the schedule too tough. ART OF THE WEEK Persistence of Memory [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/memory.jpeg] Salvador Dalí was a Spanish artist famous for his curled mustache, wild personality, and even wilder paintings. He was a leading figure in Surrealism, an art movement from the 1920s that tried to paint dreams, the unconscious mind, and impossible scenes — basically, the strange logic that takes over when you’re asleep. What made Dalí great was his technical skill: he painted bizarre, dreamlike images with the precision of a Renaissance master, so the impossible looked completely real. His most famous work, The Persistence of Memory (1931), shows soft, melting clocks draped over a tree branch, a square block, and a strange sleeping creature in a quiet desert landscape. Dalí said the idea came from watching a wedge of Camembert cheese melt in the sun. The painting is surprisingly small — about the size of a sheet of paper. Maybe time isn’t as solid as we think. FUNNY picture [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/double-wins-for-arsenal-in-2026/picture.JPG] ---------------------------------------- PREVIOUS ISSUES ---------------------------------------- May 03, 2026, The Way You Make Me Feel [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel] April 26, 2026, Game Is No. 1, Friendship is No. 14 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14] April 19, 2026, Robots Run Faster Than Humans Now [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now] ---------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with friends who might also find it interesting and refreshing, if not for themselves, at least for their kids.

The Way You Make Me Feel

EDITOR’S WORDS I was watching MJ’s biopic “Michael” in Kerry Center’s movie theatre. In the swimming pool scene, Michael is lying comfortably in a floater and one of his brothers asks him, what are you dreaming about Michael? Michael goes, I’m hoping God could give me more ideas and inspiration, otherwise they all go to Prince. I was LOLing loudly in the theatre. This writer is good. I’m a big fan to both MJ and Prince and have been to their live concerts (MJ’s in Singapore and Prince’s in Boston). It was a blessing to have lived through the 80’s and 90’s to witness the last breed of true superstars who redefined what music is and could be. And how interesting it is that MJ’s music (especially Beat It) is enjoying a strong comeback in one of the prestigious international schools in Shanghai, among the 10-years olds. TECH David Silver [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/davidsilver.jpg] A new AI startup based in London has just raised $1.1 billion in seed funding — the very first round of money a startup raises from outside investors — at a $5.1 billion valuation. That makes it the largest seed round in European history. The company is called Ineffable Intelligence, and it was founded by David Silver, one of the most respected AI researchers alive. Silver led the team at Google DeepMind that built AlphaGo, the program that famously beat the world’s best Go player in 2016. His new company will pursue a different approach to AI: building systems that learn from experience instead of from human-written text. Stripe [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/stripe.jpg] Stripe is one of the most important companies on the internet that you’ve probably never heard of. It builds the technology that lets businesses accept payments online — when you buy something from Amazon or Shopify, Stripe is often quietly running in the background. This week at its annual conference in San Francisco, Stripe announced 288 new products. What made it remarkable is that Stripe is now chasing three of the biggest prizes in tech all at once. First, AI: through partnerships with Google, OpenAI, and Meta, your AI chatbot will soon be able to shop and pay for things on your behalf. Second, crypto: Stripe expanded its stablecoin services to over 150 countries, letting businesses send digital dollars across borders almost instantly. Third, plain old finance: Stripe is now valued at $159 billion, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world. Few companies are racing on all three tracks — and winning. GLOBAL Iranian Boy [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/iranianboy.jpg] [China] In Shaoxing, a city in eastern China, an 8-year-old Iranian boy named Radin walked back into his classroom last week to a swarm of hugs from his Chinese classmates. He had been gone for more than three months. Radin left China in mid-January to visit Iran with his father, and told his teacher in late February he’d be back in about three weeks. Then conflict broke out in Iran, communication was cut off, and his classmates didn’t hear from him for 42 days. The video of his return — kids running across the room to grab him — went viral across Chinese social media. Chonkers [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/chonkers.jpg] A 2,000-pound sea lion named Chonkers has become San Francisco’s unlikeliest celebrity this spring. He showed up at Pier 39, a famous tourist dock, in mid-March and decided to stay. Chonkers is a Steller sea lion, a much bigger species than the California sea lions that usually lounge there — about twice their size, closer in build to a bear than a sea lion. When he hauls himself onto the dock, the smaller sea lions scatter to get out of his way. Crowds of over a hundred now gather every morning just to watch him sleep. Sheila [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/sheila.jpg] Englishman Ollie Jenks and his Canadian friend Seth Scott just set a Guinness World Record for the longest journey ever completed in a three-wheeled car. They drove a Reliant Robin — a tiny, wobbly British car from the 1970s, originally designed for short trips to the local grocery store — all the way from London to Cape Town, South Africa. That’s 14,000 miles across 22 countries, taking more than four months. They named the car Sheila. Even Sheila’s original designer was reportedly too scared to drive her more than 20 miles. Things broke constantly: the engine had to be replaced in Cameroon, the gearbox in Ghana, and Sheila once had to be loaded onto a cattle truck after a breakdown. The pair drove through deserts, past elephants, alongside galloping giraffes, and even arrived in Benin during an attempted coup. Sheila will now be displayed in the London Transport Museum. Bridge [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/bridge.JPG] On April 28, Guinness World Records officially certified the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge in southwest China as the tallest bridge in the world. Its deck sits 626 meters (about 2,054 feet) above the Beipan River below — high enough that the entire Empire State Building could fit underneath with room to spare. The bridge opened in September 2025 in Guizhou, one of China’s most mountainous and historically isolated provinces. A drive that used to take two hours of winding mountain roads now takes just two minutes. China is now home to the world’s seven tallest bridges, with three of them in Guizhou alone. ECONOMY & FINANCE KOSPI [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/kospi.jpg] South Korea’s stock market is having an extraordinary year. The KOSPI, the country’s main stock index (similar to the S&P 500 in the US), started January 2026 at 4,300 and crossed 6,750 last week — a gain of more than 55% in just four months. That kind of jump is rare for a major economy. The rally has been driven mostly by the global boom in artificial intelligence, since Korean firms like Samsung Electronics and SK hynix make the advanced memory chips that AI systems rely on. Some global investment banks now think the KOSPI could reach 8,000 before year-end. NATURE & ENVIRONMENT India’s heat wave [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/heatwaves.jpeg] India is going through one of its hottest pre-summer stretches on record. Since mid-April, temperatures across the north and centre of the country have pushed past 45°C (113°F), with some cities expected to top 46°C (115°F) in the coming days. The India Meteorological Department, the country’s official weather agency, has issued heat alerts across states including Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha. According to recent reports, 95 of the world’s 100 hottest cities right now are in India. Schools have shortened hours, and farmers have been told to harvest wheat early before the heat ruins their crops. El Nino [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/elnino.jpg] Scientists are warning that a “Super El Niño” is likely to develop later this year, and it could reshape the world’s weather into 2027. El Niño is a natural climate pattern that happens every few years when the surface of the Pacific Ocean near the equator gets unusually warm. That extra heat changes wind, rainfall, and storm patterns across the planet. A “Super” El Niño is the strongest version, with ocean temperatures more than 2°C above normal. The expected impacts: heavier rain and flooding in California and South America, droughts and wildfires in Australia and Indonesia, a quieter Atlantic hurricane season, and 2026 likely setting another global heat record. SCIENCE Voyager 1 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/voyager1.jpeg] Voyager 1 is a NASA spacecraft launched in 1977 — almost 49 years ago — and now the most distant human-made object in existence, more than 16 billion miles from Earth in interstellar space (the region between stars). It runs on a tiny nuclear power source that loses about 4 watts every year, so engineers have been switching off instruments one by one to keep the probe alive. On April 17, NASA powered down another one. The team’s goal is to nurse Voyager 1 to its 50th birthday in 2027 and beyond, possibly into the 2030s, as it drifts deeper into uncharted space. MATH Math [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/math.jpg] How much is the angle in red? math problem [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/mathproblem.jpg] A 23-year-old named Liam Price, with no advanced math training, just helped crack a math problem that has stumped professional mathematicians for 60 years. He did it using ChatGPT. The problem was posed in the 1960s by Paul Erdős, one of the most famous mathematicians of the 20th century, and concerns a special type of number set. Price simply typed the problem into ChatGPT, and the AI produced a proof in about 80 minutes — using a method no human had ever tried for this kind of problem. Terence Tao, one of the greatest living mathematicians, reviewed it and said the AI found a path that humans had collectively missed for decades. LIFESTYLE, ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE Michael Jackson [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/michael.jpg] The new Michael Jackson biopic, simply titled “Michael,” opened in theaters on April 24 and immediately broke records. It pulled in roughly $97 million in the United States and $218 million worldwide in just its first weekend — the biggest opening ever for a music biopic, beating “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Straight Outta Compton,” and even topping last year’s “Oppenheimer” for any biopic. The lead role is played by Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew, who bears a striking resemblance to him. Critics gave the film mixed reviews, but audiences turned up anyway, drawn mostly by the music. A sequel is already being discussed. May 04 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/may04.jpg] Tomorrow is May 4, also known as Star Wars Day. The reason is a simple pun: “May the Fourth” sounds like “May the Force” — as in the famous Star Wars line, “May the Force be with you.” Fans started making the joke as early as 1979, just two years after the first Star Wars film came out. It grew into an unofficial holiday over the decades, and Disney officially embraced it after buying Lucasfilm in 2012. Today, fans across the world dress up as Jedi, rewatch the films, and greet each other with “May the Fourth be with you.” SPORTS PSG [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/psg.jpg] [Soccer] On April 28, Paris Saint-Germain beat Bayern Munich 5-4 in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League semifinal — the highest-scoring semifinal match in the tournament’s history. The Champions League is the top club soccer competition in Europe, where the best teams from every country face off each year. The game in Paris was chaos from the opening minutes. Bayern’s England striker Harry Kane converted a penalty in the 17th minute, and his teammate Michael Olise made it 2-1 to the visitors before halftime. Then PSG exploded. Georgia’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and France’s Ousmane Dembélé each scored twice, including two goals in three minutes after halftime to make it 5-2. Bayern refused to die — defender Dayot Upamecano and forward Luis Díaz pulled two goals back in three minutes. PSG, the defending champions, take a one-goal lead into the second leg in Munich next week. Evan Liu [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/evansliu.jpg] [Rubik’s Cube] In a small-town gymnasium in Falls City, Nebraska, 51 speedcubers gathered April 10–12 for the third annual Nebraska Championship — a Rubik’s Cube competition sanctioned by the World Cube Association. Competitors raced through 17 events, from the classic 3x3x3 cube to puzzles solved blindfolded, one-handed, or with the fewest possible moves. Jayben Keene took the marquee 3x3 title with an average of 8.68 seconds across five solves. The weekend’s standout, though, was Evan Liu, who won seven events including the 5x5, 6x6, 7x7, and an extraordinary blindfolded multi-cube round in which he memorized 15 cubes and solved 13 from memory in under an hour. Pogacar [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/pogacar.jpeg] [Cycling] On April 26, two cyclists put on a show at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, one of the oldest and toughest one-day races in the world (about 260 km through the Belgian Ardennes hills). The favorite, Slovenian world champion Tadej Pogačar, launched his usual brutal attack on the steep Côte de la Redoute climb. Most riders cracked instantly. But one stayed glued to his wheel: Paul Seixas, a 19-year-old French rookie sensation. The two opened a huge gap, climbing in lockstep. Pogačar eventually broke away in the final kilometers to win solo, but Seixas held on for second — announcing himself as cycling’s next big star that could potentially challenge Pogacar’s supremacy. Hyrox [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/hyrox.jpg] [Hyrox] A new fitness sport called HYROX is taking over New York City. HYROX is a race that mixes running with strength workouts: athletes run 1 kilometer, then do a tough exercise like sled pushes, rowing, or wall balls (throwing a heavy ball at a wall). They repeat that eight times. It started in Germany in 2017 and has exploded worldwide. Next month, NYC will host the largest HYROX event in North American history, with 50,000 athletes competing across eight days at Pier 76 on the Hudson River. Gyms across the city are filling up with people training for it, and HYROX has quickly become one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. Ice Hockey [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/icehockey.jpg] [Ice Hockey] For years, ice hockey has quietly become one of the most reliable ways for international students to get into top American universities. Many families at elite schools in Europe, Canada, and Asia have invested heavily in hockey training, knowing that a strong player can earn a spot at schools like Harvard, Yale, or Michigan. But last week the NCAA, which runs US college sports, announced a major rule change. A player’s college eligibility clock will now start the year they turn 19 — regardless of when they actually enroll. The problem: school systems in Europe and Quebec don’t line up with the American K-12 calendar, so many foreign students will arrive at college already having lost a year or two of eligibility before they’ve even played a game. lakers [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/lakers.jpeg] [NBA] The first round of the NBA playoffs is wrapping up, and it’s been full of upsets. The defending Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics, led by superstar Jayson Tatum, were knocked out in seven games by the #7 seed Philadelphia 76ers, powered by a healthy Joel Embiid. The Denver Nuggets, with three-time MVP Nikola Jokić, were eliminated by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Out west, French phenom Victor Wembanyama and his San Antonio Spurs cruised past Portland, LeBron James’s Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, and the league-best Oklahoma City Thunder swept the Phoenix Suns. The New York Knicks also advanced, beating the Atlanta Hawks. THIS DAY IN HISTORY Spider Man [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/spider-man.jpeg] On May 3, 2002 — exactly 24 years ago today — the first Spider-Man movie hit theaters in the United States. Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, the film was the first movie ever to make more than $100 million in a single opening weekend. It went on to earn over $825 million worldwide. Before Spider-Man, Hollywood treated comic book movies as risky and a bit silly. After it, every major studio rushed to make their own. Without Spider-Man’s success, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man, the Avengers, Black Panther) and the modern superhero boom probably wouldn’t exist. ART OF THE WEEK Spot Paintings [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/spotpaintings.jpg] Damien Hirst is one of the most famous — and most controversial — living artists in the world. The British artist made his name in the 1990s with shocking works like a real shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde. But his most recognizable series is much simpler: the Spot Paintings. Each one is a grid of perfectly round, brightly colored dots on a white background, with the rule that no two dots in a single painting can be the same color. Hirst started making them in 1986 and has produced over 1,400 since — though most weren’t actually painted by him. He hires assistants to do the painting, which raises a real question: who’s the artist? FUNNY Kenzaburo [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/kenzaburo.jpg] Kenzaburō Ōe was a Japanese writer who, as a child, told his mother he would one day win the Nobel Prize in Physics. He grew up, studied French literature instead of physics, and became one of Japan’s most celebrated novelists. In 1994, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He proudly went to his mother and said, “See? I kept my promise. I won the Nobel Prize.” Her reply: “No. You promised it would be in physics.” Seven [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/seven.jpg] Why is Six afraid of Seven? Because Seven, Eight (“ate”), Nine Game [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-way-you-make-me-feel/game.jpg] ---------------------------------------- PREVIOUS ISSUES ---------------------------------------- April 26, 2026, Game Is No. 1, Friendship is No. 14 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14] April 19, 2026, Robots Run Faster Than Humans Now [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now] April 11, 2026, Build A Second Brain to Compound Knowledge Learning [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/build-a-second-brain-to-compound-knowledge-learning] ---------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with friends who might also find it interesting and refreshing, if not for themselves, at least for their kids.

Game Is No. 1, Friendship is No. 14

EDITOR’S WORDS It was a beautiful weekend with great weather in Shanghai. Hope you all got out and enjoyed the sun. TECH Beijing Autoshow [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/autoshow.JPG] The 2026 Beijing International Auto Show opened on April 24 and runs through May 3 — featuring 1,451 cars from 21 countries, including 181 world premieres. While auto shows in Europe, Japan, and the United States have been shrinking, Beijing’s has become the world’s biggest. German luxury brand Audi made a striking move: it unveiled the AUDI E7X, a fully electric SUV designed and built specifically for Chinese customers in partnership with Chinese carmaker SAIC. The car uses Huawei’s self-driving software and Chinese-made batteries from CATL. It is part of a broader shift where global brands are now building cars “in China, for China,” instead of selling Chinese drivers their global models. anthropic [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/anthropic.jpg] Anthropic, the American artificial intelligence company that makes the chatbot Claude, has been shipping new products at a record pace. A product analyst named Paweł Huryn recently counted every Anthropic release between February 1 and March 23 — and found that the company had launched 73 new products and features in just 52 days, more than one new product every single day. The releases included new versions of Claude itself, tools for AI agents that can complete tasks on their own, and add-ins for Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. Investors have noticed: this week, private investors valued Anthropic at $1 trillion, briefly overtaking its rival OpenAI to become the most valuable private AI company in the world. iqiyi [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/iqiyi.jpeg] iQiyi, one of China’s biggest streaming services, announced on April 20 that it had signed up over 100 actors for its new “AI artist library” — a digital system where AI can generate new scenes featuring an actor’s face, voice, and body without the actor showing up on set. The company’s CEO, Gong Yu, said live-action filming could one day become “intangible cultural heritage,” like an old craft preserved in museums. The announcement sparked backlash online. Several well-known Chinese actors quickly denied ever signing AI agreements, and some sent legal teams to investigate. The hashtag “iQiyi has gone crazy” shot to the top of Chinese social media. Orbital [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/orbital.jpg] A Beijing-based startup called Orbital Chenguang has received $8.4 billion in credit lines from 12 major Chinese banks to build data centres — in space. Data centres are buildings filled with thousands of computers that power the internet, apps, and AI. On Earth, they use huge amounts of electricity, land, and water for cooling. Orbital Chenguang wants to put them in orbit instead, where sunlight is constant and space itself provides free cooling. The plan is to launch satellites that work together as a giant space computer, with the goal of building a full space data centre by 2035. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has filed similar plans to launch up to one million solar-powered satellites for the same purpose. DeepSeek [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/deepseek.jpg] DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company based in Hangzhou, released a preview of its newest model, DeepSeek V4, on April 24. The release continues a remarkable run for DeepSeek, which shocked the world in January 2025 when its R1 model matched top American AI systems despite being trained at a fraction of the cost — wiping nearly $1 trillion off global tech stocks in a single day. V4 comes in two versions, Pro and Flash, and is “open source” — meaning anyone in the world can download it for free and run it on their own computers. What makes V4 a big deal is its low cost, with prices roughly one-sixth of leading American models like OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7. V4 is also designed to run on Chinese-made Huawei chips instead of US ones. Drones [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/drones.jpeg] The world’s first International Drone Sports Games kicked off on April 11 in Chengdu, China, and runs through April 25. Over 800 teams from multiple countries are competing in events you would not normally associate with drones — including weightlifting, fencing, basketball, and even equestrian (horse-riding) competitions. In drone basketball, multiple drones zip around mid-air, slamming a ball into a hoop. In drone fencing, drones identify and “tag” fast-moving targets. The closing event featured drones working together with robot dogs in a horse-riding-style course. Each event is designed to test real industrial skills like heavy lifting, precision, and team coordination. GLOBAL Jamie Ding [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/jamieding.jpg] [USA] Jamie Ding, a 33-year-old housing administrator and part-time law student from New Jersey, has just extended his winning streak on the American TV quiz show Jeopardy! to 30 games, earning nearly $850,000. Jeopardy! is a 60-year-old show where contestants answer trivia questions across history, science, literature, and pop culture — except that answers must be phrased as questions. Ding now ranks fifth all-time in both games won and money earned, behind legends like Ken Jennings, who holds the 74-game record. To prepare, Ding borrowed stacks of books from his local library, took online trivia quizzes, practiced on a buzzer app, and watched old episodes. Kites [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/kites.jpg] [China] The 43rd Weifang International Kite Festival opened on April 18 in Shandong province, eastern China. Over four days, 260 teams from 57 countries flew more than 2,300 kites, including giant soft-bodied elephants, flying aircraft carriers, and robotic dogs soaring through the sky. Weifang is known as the “world capital of kites” — kites were invented in China around 2,400 years ago, and Weifang artisans have been making them for centuries. Modern makers now use carbon fibre to keep giant kites light, and AI software to test designs before building. The global kite-making industry is centred here: Weifang produces over 80% of the world’s kites. ECONOMY & FINANCE Cursor [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/cursor.jpg] SpaceX, the rocket company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, announced on April 21 that it has signed a major deal with Cursor, a fast-growing AI startup that helps people write computer code by chatting with an AI. Under the deal, SpaceX can choose to buy Cursor outright later this year for $60 billion — or pay Cursor $10 billion to keep working together. That would be one of the biggest tech deals in history. Cursor was founded in 2022 by four MIT friends — Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark, and Aman Sanger — who studied computer science and mathematics together. Two of them, Asif and Lunnemark, had competed in the International Math Olympiad as teenagers. They dropped out of MIT, joined OpenAI’s startup accelerator, and launched Cursor in March 2023. Less than four years later, their company is worth $60 billion — one of the fastest rises in software history. NATURE & ENVIRONMENT Earth Day [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/earthday-minecraft.jpg] April 22 was Earth Day — an annual day, started in 1970, when people around the world celebrate the planet and think about how to protect it. To mark this year’s Earth Day, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launched a fun online tool called “Your Name in Landsat.” Type in your name, and the tool builds it out of letter shapes found in real satellite images of rivers, mountains, lakes, coastlines, and forests around the world. It quickly went viral, with people posting their names and seeing exactly where on Earth each letter came from. The Landsat satellites have been photographing Earth from space since 1972. The one above is from Minecraft. SCIENCE ArchaeoBot [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/ArchaeoBot.jpeg] Researchers at Ateneo de Manila University, a leading Philippine college, have built a robot called ArchaeoBot to help dig up the country’s ancient past. Recent discoveries show that people were living in the Philippine islands as far back as 35,000 years ago — and they were skilled seafarers who crossed open oceans, caught tuna and sharks, and traded with other islands. That is tens of thousands of years before Spain colonized the Philippines in 1565 and ruled for over three centuries, followed by nearly 50 years of American rule that ended in 1946. kraken [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/kraken.jpg] Scientists have discovered that giant octopuses up to 19 metres (62 feet) long once ruled the oceans during the age of the dinosaurs, around 100 million years ago. Researchers from Japan’s Hokkaido University studied fossilised jaws of two extinct species, nicknamed “Cretaceous krakens” after the legendary sea monster. The wear on their beaks shows they crushed hard-shelled prey and even the bones of giant marine reptiles — making them apex predators, not just giant animals. Until now, scientists thought sharks and huge swimming reptiles like mosasaurs were the top hunters of the ancient seas. These octopuses may be the largest invertebrates ever discovered. MATH geometry [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/geometry.jpg] A rectangle is divided into four regions by four line segments, each starting at the midpoint of one of the rectangle’s sides and all meeting at a single point inside the rectangle. Three of the regions have areas of 3, 4, and 5. What is the area of the fourth (shaded) region? LIFESTYLE, ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE Michael film [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/michael.jpg] A new biographical film called Michael opens in theatres worldwide today, April 24. It tells the story of Michael Jackson, the “King of the Pop”, who sold over 500 million records with hits like “Beat It” and “Billie Jean” before his death in 2009. The role is played by Jackson’s real-life nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in his acting debut. The film covers Jackson’s life from his childhood in the Jackson 5 through his 1980s superstardom, and has sparked fresh interest in his music among younger listeners who were not yet born when he died. Early reviews are mixed, but ticket sales are breaking records for musical biopics. Nike [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/nike.jpg] [Running] Sportswear giant Nike ran into trouble during last week’s Boston Marathon, the oldest annual marathon in the world. In the days before the race, Nike put up a big sign at its store near the finish line that read “Runners Welcome. Walkers Tolerated.” Runners and disability advocates quickly criticised the message as mean-spirited, since many marathoners walk parts of the 42-kilometre course — including athletes with injuries or disabilities who race in the adaptive division. Nike took down the sign, apologised, and replaced it with one that read “Movement is what matters.” Notably, Adidas — not Nike — is the marathon’s official sponsor. SPORTS Alcaraz [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/alcaraz-gu-laureus-2026.jpg] The 2026 Laureus World Sports Awards — often called the “Oscars of sports” — were held on April 20 in Madrid, Spain. Spanish tennis star Carlos Alcaraz, who finished 2025 ranked world No. 1 after winning the French Open and US Open, was named Sportsman of the Year. Belarusian tennis player Aryna Sabalenka, also the world No. 1 and the 2025 US Open champion, took the women’s top prize. 17-year-old Spanish football star Lamine Yamal won Young Sportsperson of the Year, and French club Paris Saint-Germain won Team of the Year after sweeping six trophies. Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogačar — hailed by many as the greatest of all time — was nominated but lost, while Chinese badminton world No. 1 Shi Yuqi, who won the 2025 World Championships, was not nominated at all. For the first time, the show was co-hosted by two athletes: Serbian tennis legend Novak Djokovic and Chinese-American freestyle skier Eileen Gu. Su Super [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/susuper.jpg] [Soccer] The second season of the Jiangsu City Football League — nicknamed “Su Super” — kicked off on April 11 in Changzhou, eastern China, with an opening ceremony that looked more like the Super Bowl halftime show than a sports event. Around 290 robots and robot dogs performed a synchronised dance routine, alongside 40 go-karts, 13 floating aerial screens, and a live performance by popular singer Zhou Shen. Over 40,000 fans packed the stadium. Tickets started at just 10 yuan and sold out instantly. . Su Super is a city-versus-city league made up of 13 teams representing Jiangsu province’s 13 cities. Last season, it became an unexpected national phenomenon just as the Chinese men’s national team was drawing criticism for another round of disappointing results. Fans say Su Super works because it strips football back to what people actually want: local pride, affordable tickets, honest effort on the pitch, and cities cheering for their own - even if that sometimes means the playful Su Super motto: “Game is No. 1, friendship is No. 14”. Wemby [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/wemban.jpg] [Basketball] French basketball star Victor Wembanyama was named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year on April 20, making history as the first player ever to win the award unanimously — receiving all 100 votes from media judges. At just 22 years old, he is also the youngest winner ever. Known simply as “Wemby,” the San Antonio Spurs center stands 7 feet 4 inches tall (2.24 metres) and led the NBA this season in blocked shots. Teammates say opposing players often see him near the basket and choose not to shoot at all — changing how whole teams play without him even touching the ball. Last summer, Wemby made headlines for spending 10 days at the Shaolin Temple in China, where he shaved his head, wore monk robes, meditated, and practised kung fu alongside Buddhist monks to train his body and mind. London Marathon [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/london.jpg] [Running] History was made at the London Marathon today, April 26, when Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe became the first man ever to officially run a marathon in under two hours, finishing the 42.2-kilometre course in 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds. A marathon is one of the most demanding races in athletics, and breaking two hours has long been considered one of running’s holy grails. Sawe’s time smashed the previous world record of 2:00:35, set by Kenyan runner Kelvin Kiptum in 2023. In the women’s race, Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa also broke her own world record, finishing in 2:15:41. New York Mets [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/mets.jpeg] [Baseball] The New York Mets, one of Major League Baseball’s most-watched teams, just snapped a 12-game losing streak — their worst slump in over two decades. Between April 8 and April 21, the Mets could not win a single game, scoring fewer than two runs in nine of those losses. Some joked about a curse — echoing the famous “Curse of the Bambino,” when the Boston Red Sox went 86 years without a championship after selling star player Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919. The streak finally ended on April 22, with a 3-2 home win over the Minnesota Twins. THIS DAY IN HISTORY Chernobyl [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/Chernobyl-Ukraine.jpg] This Sunday, April 26, marks 40 years since the Chernobyl disaster — the worst nuclear accident in history. On that day in 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded during a safety test, releasing about 400 times more radioactive material into the air than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. A radioactive cloud drifted across much of Europe, and hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated. The nearby city of Pripyat, once home to 50,000, remains abandoned inside a 30-kilometre “exclusion zone” that is still off-limits today. Surprisingly, wildlife has returned in large numbers, and scientists now study the zone as a rare accidental wilderness. ART OF THE WEEK artemis [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/artemis.jpg] NASA released a stunning new image taken by the Artemis II astronauts on April 6, as they flew around the back of the Moon. The photograph shows a small blue Earth setting behind the rough, cratered grey surface of the Moon, with swirling white clouds visible over Australia. NASA describes the image as “reminiscent” of the famous Earthrise photograph taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders 58 years ago, which inspired the very first Earth Day in 1970. Artemis II is the first crewed mission around the Moon since 1972, and the astronauts described seeing impact craters, ancient lava flows, and surface ridges as they passed. FUNNY Funny [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/funny.jpeg] steal [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/game-is-no-1-friendship-is-no-14/steal.jpg] ---------------------------------------- PREVIOUS ISSUES ---------------------------------------- April 19, 2026, Robots Run Faster Than Humans Now [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now] April 11, 2026, Build A Second Brain to Compound Knowledge Learning [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/build-a-second-brain-to-compound-knowledge-learning] April 05, 2026, To the Moon and Back [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/to-the-moon-and-back] ---------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with friends who might also find it interesting and refreshing, if not for themselves, at least for their kids.

Robots Run Faster Than Humans Now

EDITOR’S WORDS I have a pretty good relationship with the security guards of my compound. Occasionally when I left the compound in my Tesla after a brief parking, they would just buzz-lift the parking lot bar and let me out without charging any daily fees, sparing both from the bureaucratic procedures. It was a nice gesture. That changed today as a new “smart” parking system was installed recently. My Tesla approached the bar and the monitor showed I should pay RMB30. The guard came over with a QR code on a piece of paper. I scanned it with my phone. The phone’s connection was acting up and the payment transaction didn’t seem to complete. Somehow the bar was lifted, so I drove through it. I realized this was an incomplete transaction and asked the guard what was going on. He said he thought I finished the payment so he manually buzz-lifted the bar. But now we’re stuck. If I leave, he would be in a hole of RMB30 in the system. I said, can you give me the QR code to scan for payment again? He said, no, you can’t. Your car already came out and the system doesn’t flag there is any pending payment of any car. Seeing the bar is still hanging high in the air, I said, let me try to go backward and approach the bar from inside again. That sort of did the trick. I was not entirely sure. The guard gave me another QR code that seemed to allow me to transfer him the RMB30 without going through the official parking system. Anyway, I could make the payment and get out. We were both relieved, after this chaoic and confusing span of 5 minutes battling the system. I’m sure in the future my exists from the compound’s parking lot will be mechanical and deterministic, but I still miss the good old days when my pals could just exercise their own human judgment without the machine getting in the way. Machines are just cold. TECH Jensen Huang [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/jensen.jpeg] Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast this week and said something most Silicon Valley AI leaders won’t touch: the US should let Nvidia sell its AI chips to China. His case: blocking the sales won’t stop China from building AI — it just pushes Chinese companies to buy from Huawei instead, and Nvidia loses billions. He warned it would be “a horrible outcome” if DeepSeek, China’s hottest AI startup, trained its next model on Huawei’s Ascend 950PR chip instead of Nvidia’s. The podcast set off a firestorm online — but Nvidia has already taken a $4.5 billion hit this year from US export restrictions. DeepSeek [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/deepseek.jpg] DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that shocked Silicon Valley last year with its low-cost R1 model, is raising outside money for the first time ever. The plan: at least $300 million at a $10 billion valuation. That’s quite unusual for DeepSeek because it has spent its whole life turning down investors — it was bankrolled entirely by its parent hedge fund, High-Flyer. Why the change? Building top AI models is getting really expensive. DeepSeek suffered a 7-hour crash last month, and needs cash for more chips, bigger data centers, and to pay its engineers enough so they don’t leave. GLOBAL Wolf [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/wolf.JPG] A 2-year-old wolf named Neukgu burrowed under a fence at O-World zoo in Daejeon, South Korea on April 8 and vanished into the countryside, kicking off a nine-day nationwide hunt that had the whole country glued to the news. More than 300 firefighters, police, and soldiers searched for him using drones, thermal cameras, and even recordings of wolf howls. Authorities once lost him on thermal camera while swapping a drone battery. Police got roasted online for releasing an obviously AI-generated photo of a wolf. A crypto meme coin was launched in his honor. He was finally tranquilized and safely returned on April 17. Songkran [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/Songkran.jpg] Songkran, the Thai New Year, is famous as the world’s biggest water fight — a three-day festival where people soak each other with water guns and buckets on the streets. But it also has a grim nickname: the “Seven Dangerous Days.” This year, from April 10 to 16, Thailand recorded 242 deaths and 1,242 road accidents across the country. Speeding and drunk driving were the top causes, and motorcycles were involved in 65% of crashes. Thai authorities run a huge annual safety campaign, but the tradition of celebrating with alcohol makes the roads especially dangerous. ECONOMY & FINANCE Kelp DAO [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/kelpdao.jpg] A hacker just pulled off the biggest DeFi heist of 2026. On Saturday, someone tricked a crypto protocol called Kelp DAO into handing over $292 million worth of a token called rsETH. Then they took that stolen token to Aave, the biggest lending protocol in crypto, and used it as collateral to borrow another $236 million in real Ethereum. Think of it like forging a fake gold bar, walking into a pawn shop, and borrowing real cash against it. Panicked users yanked over $5.4 billion out of Aave in hours. The whole DeFi world is rethinking how safe cross-chain bridges really are. allbirds [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/allbirds.JPG] photo credit by Brandonator Allbirds, the eco-friendly wool sneaker brand that was a Silicon Valley staple in the 2010s and worn by every investment guy with a Patagonia vest, is quitting the shoe business and pivoting to AI. The struggling company announced it will sell its sneaker brand to a licensing firm for $39 million, raise $50 million from an investor, and rebrand as “NewBird AI.” The new plan: buy a bunch of GPU chips and rent out their computing power to AI companies. Wall Street loved it — the stock jumped over 500% in a day. Allbirds was once valued at $4 billion. ` SCIENCE Robot running [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/robot.jpeg] Over 100 humanoid robots raced alongside human runners in Beijing on Sunday in the world’s second humanoid robot half-marathon. The winner, a robot named Lightning built by Chinese smartphone maker Honor, finished the 21-kilometer course in 50 minutes and 26 seconds — faster than the current human world record of 57:20. Last year’s winning robot took over 2 hours and 40 minutes and kept falling over. This year, the robots had legs designed to mimic elite human runners, and even used liquid cooling borrowed from smartphones. Honor’s team swept all three podium spots, with Germany, France, and Brazil also competing. MATH Math 1 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/math1.JPG] Math 2 [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/math2.jpg] LIFESTYLE, ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE Justin Bieber [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/bieber.JPG] Coachella is one of the world’s biggest music festivals, held every April in the California desert, where top pop stars, rappers, and DJs play to crowds of 125,000 a day. This year’s headliners included Sabrina Carpenter, Karol G, and Justin Bieber — and Bieber’s set left fans genuinely confused. In the middle of his show, the 32-year-old pop star sat down at a laptop, typed “baby” into YouTube, and sang along to his own old music video playing on the giant screen behind him — sometimes not singing at all. (The “Baby” video, released in 2010, has over 3.5 billion views.) Bieber was reportedly paid $10 million — the highest fee in Coachella history. Critics called it lazy; defenders called it a clever statement about nostalgia and internet culture. Katy Perry, watching from the crowd, joked: “Thank god he has YouTube Premium, I don’t wanna see no ads.” Monocle [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/monocle.jpg] Monocle, the British lifestyle magazine famous for covering design, travel, and good coffee, is coming to Shanghai for the first time. From April 25 to June 30, it’s opening a pop-up shop and café at the Jing An Kerry Centre, with furniture from Swiss brand USM and Shanghai-based Stellar Works. The magazine is also hosting its first-ever Entrepreneurs Live conference in China on April 29, bringing over 100 founders and business leaders together. Monocle was launched in 2007 by Canadian journalist Tyler Brûlé and is known for its thick glossy magazine, global city guides, and radio station broadcast from London. Michael Rosen [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/rosen.jpg] British writer Michael Rosen just won the 2026 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing, often called the “Little Nobel Prize” for children’s books. Rosen, 80, is the author of the beloved We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and has written over 200 books for kids across his 50-year career. He also wrote Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, about the death of his son. You may also recognize his face from the internet — he’s the “Noice” meme guy, whose wonderfully expressive delivery of the word “nice” in a 2013 children’s poetry video went viral and has been turned into countless GIFs. Chinese illustrator Cai Gao won this year’s prize for illustration — the first Chinese artist ever to win it. dance [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/dance.jpg] A song called “No Batidão” has been blasting out of TikTok for months. It’s by two producers, ZXKAI and slxughter, who released it in September 2025. The song is in Portuguese and just 1 minute 29 seconds long — a mashup of Brazilian funk and phonk, a style of music built around heavy, distorted beats. What really made it explode was a slowed-down version that became the soundtrack to a viral dance challenge, with TikTokers everywhere copying its body-wave and footwork moves. The slowed version alone has racked up over 84 million Spotify streams. depeche mode [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/depechemode.jpg] Depeche Mode, the English synth-pop band that helped invent the sound of modern electronic music, just teased a new round of 2026 tour dates, including stops in Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg. Formed in Basildon in 1980, the band’s moody, synth-driven hits like “Enjoy the Silence”, “Strangelove”, and “A Question of Time” shaped how pop music sounds today — you can hear their influence in artists like The Weeknd and Billie Eilish. Their 1990 album Violator is considered a masterpiece, and “Personal Jesus” was later famously covered by Johnny Cash. the Odyssey [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/Odyssey.jpg] Christopher Nolan, the director behind Interstellar and Inception, is making a movie version of The Odyssey — the 3,000-year-old Greek epic poem by Homer about the hero Odysseus, who spends 10 years trying to get home from the Trojan War while battling one-eyed giants, sea monsters, and angry gods. At CinemaCon 2026 — the Las Vegas trade show where Hollywood studios show off upcoming films to theater owners — Universal screened a scene of the Trojan Horse. It’s the first movie ever shot entirely on IMAX film cameras — a dream Nolan has chased since The Dark Knight in 2008, requiring IMAX to invent lighter, quieter cameras. Opens July 17, 2026. SPORTS Shi Yuqi [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/shiyuqi.jpeg] [Badminton] Shi Yuqi, China’s world No. 2, won the 2026 Badminton Asia Championships in Ningbo on April 12, beating India’s 20-year-old Ayush Shetty 21-8, 21-10 in the final. It took him just 41 minutes. This was a title that had long eluded Shi — despite being the current world champion and having won nearly every other major tournament, including the All England Open and the BWF World Tour Finals. With this win, Shi is now just two trophies away from completing badminton’s “Super Grand Slam” — the full set of 9 most prestigious titles in the sport. The missing pieces? Asian Games singles gold and Olympic gold. His next shot comes at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games this September. Axelsen [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/axelsen.jpg] [Badminton] Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen, one of the most decorated badminton players in history, announced his retirement on April 15 at age 32. Back injuries forced him out. Over his 16-year career, he won back-to-back Olympic gold medals at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, two World Championship titles, and spent 183 weeks at world No. 1 — the third-longest run of all time. Standing 6'4" with a giant wingspan, he redefined what a badminton player could do on court. Axelsen is also famous in China for speaking fluent Mandarin, which he began learning in 2014 to chat with his rivals and fans. Paris [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/paris.jpg] [Cycling] Paris-Roubaix, nicknamed “The Hell of the North,” is one of cycling’s oldest and most brutal races — a 258-kilometer one-day race in northern France that includes 55 kilometers of bone-rattling cobblestone roads. This year’s edition on April 12 was one of the most thrilling ever. Belgian rider Wout van Aert finally won his first Paris-Roubaix after 8 years of trying, out-sprinting world champion Tadej Pogačar in a two-man dash inside the famous Roubaix velodrome. Both men had punctures along the way. The race was the fastest ever, averaging 48.91 km/h. Van Aert dedicated the win to a teammate who died during the 2018 race. Augusta [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/augsta.jpg] [Golf] Rory McIlroy won the 2026 Masters at Augusta National on April 12, becoming just the fourth player ever to win golf’s most prestigious tournament two years in a row — joining Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, and Tiger Woods in the club. It wasn’t easy. McIlroy had a massive six-shot lead heading into the weekend, then blew it with a disastrous third round that left him tied for first. He steadied himself on Sunday, shot a final-round 71, and beat Scottie Scheffler by one stroke. The Masters is held at the same course every year, and is famous for its strict traditions — no cell phones allowed on the course, and egg salad sandwiches still cost $1.50. Bayer [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/bayher.jpg] [Soccer] Bayern Munich beat Real Madrid 4-3 in an epic Champions League quarter-final in Munich on April 15, knocking the 15-time European champions out of the tournament. It was one of the greatest games in recent memory — seven goals, a red card, and two last-minute strikes. Madrid’s 21-year-old Turkish star Arda Güler scored just 35 seconds in after Bayern’s goalkeeper made a disastrous mistake. Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé both found the net in a wild first half. But after Real’s Camavinga was sent off in the 86th minute, Luis Díaz scored at 89’ and Michael Olise added a stoppage-time gut-punch. Bayern now face defending champion PSG in the semifinals; Arsenal play Atlético Madrid in the other. Stephen Curry [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/curry.jpg] [Basketball] The Golden State Warriors, one of basketball’s great dynasties of the last decade, will not be in the 2026 NBA Playoffs. On Friday, the Phoenix Suns beat them 111-96 in the final play-in game, ending their season. Legendary guard Stephen Curry, now 38 years old, could only manage 17 points on 4-of-16 shooting — a far cry from the sharpshooter who won four championships and two MVPs. It’s the Warriors’ first playoff miss since 2021. Curry is widely credited with transforming how basketball is played — his deadly long-range shooting made the three-pointer a weapon, and today every team, from kids’ leagues to the pros, builds its offense around it. Moganshan [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/moganshan.jpg] [Running] Shanghai’s Moganshan mountains just hosted a brand-new race: Ultra-Trail Mogan, which debuted on April 10-12 as part of the UTMB World Series — the world’s most prestigious circuit for trail running, sometimes called the “Olympics of ultra-running.” Runners could pick from four distances: 20K, 50K, 100K, or a brutal 100-mile race that takes up to 32 hours to finish. The course winds through bamboo forests, tea terraces, and ancient stone paths. Moganshan gets its name from Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, a legendary couple from ancient China who, the story goes, forged the world’s greatest swords right here 2,500 years ago. THIS DAY IN HISTORY We Are the World [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/wearetheworld.jpg] On April 19, 1985, “We Are the World” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, where millions were starving. On one night in January 1985, 46 of the biggest music stars in America crammed into a Los Angeles studio to record it. A sign on the door read: “Check your ego at the door.” One huge name was missing though: Prince. He refused to sing, instead offering to play a guitar solo. Producer Quincy Jones was not amused. Huey Lewis took his part. The song raised over $60 million for Africa and became one of the best-selling singles ever. ART OF THE WEEK Cao Gao [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/caogao.jpeg] Cai Gao, the 79-year-old Chinese illustrator who just won the 2026 Hans Christian Andersen Award, is known as “the grandmother of picture books” in China. Her most famous work is The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring, based on an ancient Chinese poem from the year 421 about a hidden utopia where people live in peace with nature. Cai blends classical Chinese ink painting, folk-art motifs, and impressionist colors into illustrations that feel both traditional and modern at once. She’s also illustrated Chinese legends like Hua Mulan and Meng Jiangnü. Her work has been so popular in Japan that two illustrations appeared in Japanese school textbooks. FUNNY dogs [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/robots-run-faster-than-humans-now/dogs.JPG] ---------------------------------------- PREVIOUS ISSUES ---------------------------------------- April 11, 2026, Build A Second Brain to Compound Knowledge Learning [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/build-a-second-brain-to-compound-knowledge-learning] April 05, 2026, To the Moon and Back [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/to-the-moon-and-back] March 22, 2026, The Future of SaaS Companies and Knowledge Workers [https://weekly.sundayblender.com/p/the-future-of-saas-companies-and-knowledge-workers] ---------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with friends who might also find it interesting and refreshing, if not for themselves, at least for their kids.