Model Context Protocol, Prehistoric Psychopaths, and a Japanese Sword
Quotes from recent reads: four for everyone and another four for paid AG supporters.
My Quest to Find the Owner of a Mysterious WWII Japanese Sword
The sword was suspended in the basement rafters with a message from 1945 still secured to its fittings. My grandfather and I were sitting one floor above it at his kitchen table when an email arrived. It was 9:17 A.M. on Christmas Day in 2021, the Chicago weather too mild, the ground too much of a defeated brown, and the gathering too small to suggest that anything festive was about to happen. A notification lit up my phone with the subject line “Merry Christmas and a letter from Umeki-san.”
Why Gen Z Will Never Leave Home
As a result, youthful independence—the kind that Tully tasted in Honduras and that many parents remember fondly from their own twenties—starts later, delaying a lifetime of milestones like marriage and parenthood. For parents, it means those heart-tugging memes of “only having 18 summers with your kids” are a load of crap. They’re emotionally and financially supporting their kids for much longer than expected, forcing them to reimagine their retirement years. Instead of an empty nest, they now have a roommate who keeps forgetting to empty the dishwasher.
MCP: The New “USB-C for AI” That’s Bringing Fierce Rivals Together
The solution comes from Anthropic, which developed and released an open specification called Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024. MCP establishes a royalty-free protocol that allows AI models to connect with outside data sources and services without requiring unique integrations for each service.
"Think of MCP as a USB-C port for AI applications," wrote Anthropic in MCP's documentation. The analogy is imperfect, but it represents the idea that, similar to how USB-C unified various cables and ports (with admittedly a debatable level of success), MCP aims to standardize how AI models connect to the infoscape around them.
European Travellers Cancel US Visits as Trump’s Policies Threaten Tourism
The number of European travellers visiting the US has fallen sharply as political and economic tension and fears of a hostile border under President Donald Trump threaten the world’s most lucrative air routes.
Visitors from western Europe who stayed at least one night in the US fell by 17 per cent in March from a year ago, according to the International Trade Administration.
Travel from some countries — including Ireland, Norway and Germany — fell by more than 20 per cent, an FT analysis of ITA data showed.
The trend poses a threat to the US tourism industry, which accounts for 2.5 per cent of the country’s GDP. Some airlines and hotel groups have warned of waning demand for transatlantic travel and a “bad buzz” about visiting the US.
