Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 10/02 – A Tech Angle To The Hurricane

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Catching you up on a bunch of other Microsoft announcements we missed yesterday. Is Nvidia trying to break open the black box of AI? It’s absolutely wild that there’s still no viable YouTube app for the Vision Pro. And we were worried about disruption to the semiconductor industry if a typhoon hit Taiwan, but it turns out, a hurricane hitting North Carolina can be bad too. Links: Microsoft is using AI to improve Windows search (The Verge) Microsoft starts paying publishers for content surfaced by Copilot (TechCrunch) Telegram CEO Downplays Service Term Changes Amid French Probe (Bloomberg) Nvidia just dropped a bombshell: Its new AI model is open, massive, and ready to rival GPT-4 (VentureBeat) Threads users can now see who follows them from other fediverse servers (TechCrunch) Christian Selig’s unofficial YouTube app for the Vision Pro just got taken down (The Verge) Hurricane Helene Will Send Shockwaves Through the Semiconductor Industry (Wired) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Wednesday, October 2, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. Catching up on a bunch of other Microsoft announcements we missed yesterday. Is Nvidia trying to break open the black box of AI models.

It's absolutely wild that there's still no viable YouTube app for the Vision Pro, and we were worried about disruption to the semiconductor industry if a typhoon hit Taiwan, but it turns out a hurricane hitting North Carolina can be just as bad. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I guess there was some sort of Microsoft event yesterday, because after I posted yesterday, a bunch of other announcements came out in addition to the ones I shared with you yesterday.

For instance, Microsoft says it will start rolling out Click-to-Doo, which is their answer to Google's circle to search, I guess. This is all part of AI-enhanced Windows search improvements for co-pilot plus PCs that are rolling out next month. Quoting The Verge. These search improvements will make it easier to find and interact with images, emails, documents, and even videos and are just a few of the AI-based features coming to Copilot Plus PCs starting in November.

The Improved Windows search will first show up in File Explorer on Copilot Plus PCs next month, allowing you to search for pictures using words, even if the search word isn't found in the photo or file name. AI-powered search makes it dramatically easier to find virtually anything, says Yusuf Medi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft. You no longer need to remember file names and document locations, nor even specific names of words. Windows will better understand your intent and match the right document, image, file, or email, end quote. This improved search will also be available in the coming months in the main Windows search interface and through the search box that appears in the settings interface. You can type things like

add my headphones into the settings search box and it will help you find the right settings. Search hasn't been great in Windows for years, so this AI-powered natural language search should greatly improve things as long as it works as well as Microsoft Prime. promises. Microsoft is leveraging the NPU chips on the new Copilot Plus PCs to enable local search on OneDrive content without having to be connected to the internet. Alongside Windows search, Microsoft will also start rolling out ClickToDo on Copilot Plus PCs next month, which is very similar to Google's Circle to Search feature. With Click to Do, you hit the Windows key on a keyboard and left click on a mouse to see an interactive overlay appear on your screen,

which lets you select images or text to perform clickable actions. Click-to-do works by first understanding everything you've seen on your screen and enabling useful shortcuts to actions to help you more quickly search, learn, edit, shop, or act on those items, explains Medi. It works on any Windows document, image, or even video, end quote. Also, the new Windows 11 update adds generative AI-based fill and erase options to paint, and up to eight times picture resolution upscaling to photos for co-pilot plus PCs again. They've also begun rolling out Bing generative search, its answer to Google's AI overviews to all U.S. users underpinned by a mix of AI models. Also, Microsoft plans to pay outlets like Reuters, The Financial Times, and Axel Springer for content in Copilot Daily, a new assistant that gives a spoken summary of current events. Sounds a bit like our Notebook L.M experiment yesterday, right? Quoting TechCrunch.

CoPilot Daily announced on Tuesday alongside other co-pilot upgrades gives users a spoken. in summary of the weather and current events. Alexa and Google Assistant have long delivered similar daily briefs, but Microsoft describes its take as, quote, an anecdote to that familiar feeling of information overload. Clean, simple, and easy to digest. Co-Pilot Daily will only pool from authorized content sources. Microsoft writes on a blog post, adding that options for reminders and customization will arrive over time. Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Magazine, USA Today Network, and the Financial Times are signed up for Co-Pilot Daily, which is only available in the U.S. and UK at launch. Microsoft won't reveal how much it's paying publishers nor the other terms

of the arrangements, but the company did say it plans to add publishers and expand co-pilot daily to new countries soon, end quote. And one last thing, Microsoft is discontinuing HoloLens 2 with no replacement planned, and will only push updates to address critical security issues and software regressions until 2028. So it's interesting that they are burning that particular boat, even as others like meta are moving more aggressively in this direction. Telegram CEO Pavel Duraev says, I got it wrong. Telegram isn't blinking, like I said. Dorev says his previous posts on the Terms of Service updates to the platform,

quote, may have seemed to announce a major shift in how telegram works, but no, quoting Bloomberg. My previous post may have seemed to announce a major shift in how telegram works. Dorev said on the platform Wednesday, but in reality, little has changed. Duraov, who was charged by French prosecutors in August in connection to crimes committed on the app, announced last week that Telegram had beefed up moderation and updated its terms of service to deter criminals from abusing it. He downplayed the moves in his post-W Wednesday, saying Telegram's policy since 2018 has been to disclose data from criminals to the authorities when it, quote, received a properly formed legal request via relevant communication lines, end quote. Derov said an increase in valid legal requests from Europe in the third quarter came after European Union authorities

began using the proper lines of communication. French prosecutors have portrayed Russian-born Duraev as the head of a company that refused to provide law enforcement with data to assist legal wiretaps on suspected criminals. Durav, who has been ordered to remain in France during the investigation, denies the charges, end quote. NVIDIA has detailed a new LLM family, NVLM 1.0, which can handle vision and language tasks while enhancing text-only capabilities. It's led by the 72 billion parameter NVLM. NVLMD-72B, but also what's interesting is what they're doing in terms of revealing how this works. Quoting Venture Beat. The N-V-L-MD-72B model shows impressive adaptability in processing complex visual and textual inputs.

Researchers provided examples that highlight the model's ability to interpret memes, analyze images, and solve mathematical problems step by step. Notably, NVLMD-72B improves its performance on text-only tasks after multimodal training, While many similar models see a decline in text performance, NVLMD-72B increased its accuracy by an average of 4.3 points across key text benchmarks. The AI community has reacted positively to the release. One AI researcher commenting on social media observed, Wow, Nvidia has just published a 72 billion model, which is on par with Lama 3.1, 405 billion in math and coding evals, and also has vision. NVIDIA's decision to make such a powerful model openly available could accelerate AI research and development across the field. By providing access to a model that rivals proprietary systems from well-funded tech companies,

Nvidia may enable smaller organizations and independent researchers to contribute more significantly to AI advancements. The NVLM project also introduces innovative architectural designs, including a hybrid approach that combines different multimodal processing techniques. This development could shape the direction of future research in the field, but by open-sourcing a model that rivals proprietary giants, Nvidia isn't just sharing code. It's challenging the very structure of the AI industry. This move to open source could spark a chain reaction.

Other tech leaders may feel pressure to open their research, potentially accelerating AI progress across the board. It also levels the playing field, allowing smaller teams and researchers to innovate with tools once reserved for tech giants. However, NVLM-1.0's release isn't without risks, as powerful AI becomes more accessible, concerns about misuse and ethical implications will likely grow. The AI community now faces the complex task of promoting innovation while establishing

guardrails for responsible use. Nvidia's decision also raises questions about the future of AI business models. If state-of-the-art models become freely available, companies may need to rethink how they create value and maintain competitive edges in AI, end quote. Threads now gives users 15 minutes to edit posts and lets users who have connected their accounts to the Fediverse, see who follows them and likes their posts over there, quoting TechCrunch. The announcement comes as Threads has slowly been deepening its ties with the Fediverse over the past several months after first letting users connect their accounts to the Fediverse back in March.

For instance, the company started letting users see Fediverse replies on other people's posts a few weeks ago, bringing more content into threads. It's worth noting that users have been able to see Fediverse replies on their posts since June. Although Threads users can't respond to replies from other servers, the meta-owned company has said the feature is under development. Threads is the largest social network to adopt activity pub, which is the decentralized social networking protocol that connects to the Fedaverse, as it reaches almost 200 million users, according to meta. The Fediverse itself has more than 12 million total users. As for the increased time limit on editing posts, Threads is giving users quite a bit more time to change or edit posts, as users previously had only 5.5. minutes to do so. Adam Mosseri, head of threads, and Instagram noted that if you have connected your

account to the Fediverse, your threads posts will be shared to the Fediverse 15 minutes later after the edit window is closed. Threads first rolled out the ability to edit posts a year ago, and unlike X, formerly Twitter, users don't have to pay extra to access the feature. However, X does offer users a much longer time frame for editing posts as users can do so for up to an hour after a post is shared, end quote. developer Christian Selig says third-party YouTube app Juno for the Apple Vision Pro was removed from the app store after YouTube said it violated its terms of service. Quoting the Verge. Like Netflix, Google doesn't make a YouTube app for the Vision Pro.

That means you can only watch YouTube in Safari, which breaks out videos into Apple's native video player. Google said a YouTube app for the Vision Pro is on the roadmap back in February, but we haven't heard any updates since. Selig created Juno earlier this year to fill the gap. It offers features like the ability to view videos in an immersive 360 or 180-degree format, pinch and drag to scrub through content, and use Siri to control playback. Juno didn't block ads and served as a web wrapper for YouTube akin to a browser extension, according to Selig. In an email in April, YouTube's legal team told Selig that the Juno app violated the platform's API terms of service,

even though Selig says Juno doesn't use YouTube's API. And, quote, strongly alludes to YouTube's trademarks and, iconography. After receiving the message, Selik said he removed YouTube's logo from Juno's homepage and added unofficial to its subtitle and description in the app store. Despite these changes, Selik says he couldn't reach an agreement with YouTube. Juno is just a web view and acts as little more than a browser extension that modifies CSS to make the website and video player look more VisionOS-like. No logos are placed other than those already on the website. And the for-y-tube suffix is permitted in their branding guidelines. I stated as much to YouTube. They wouldn't really

clarify or budge any, and as a result of both parties not being able to come to a conclusion, I received an email a few minutes ago from Apple that Juno has been removed from the App Store, end quote. Seelig says he doesn't intend to fight the app's removal, as he did with the Apollo app for Reddit. If you already have Juno, it should continue working unless you delete the app or YouTube pushes an update that breaks something. The Verge reached out to Google and Apple with requests for comment, but didn't immediately hear back, end quote. Finally today, yes, I have a tech angle for the hurricane, but the

This is also another example of how global supply chains can have weird, single points of failure. What if I told you that the flooding in North Carolina could cause problems for the global semiconductor industry? Quoting Wired. Spruce Pines sits about an hour northeast of Asheville, North Carolina, and is home to the world's biggest known source of ultra-pure quartz, often referred to as high purity quartz or HPQ. This material is used for manufacturing crucibles on which global semiconductor production relies, as well as to make components within semiconductors themselves. HPQ is the raw material for the high-grade quartz products that sit at the heart of high-end consumer tech products.

Its chemical and physical properties, including high temperature and corrosion resistance, low thermal expansion, high insulation, and light transmission mean it can be used in optical communication and electronic light source technology. HPQ drives a $500 billion microchip industry that is core to the $3 trillion global tech sector. Spruce Pine alone supplies around 70% of the naturally occurring HPQ that is needed for computing devices and products. The site's market position and significance were underlined in 2019 when a manager for Quartz Corp, one of the two main mining companies that works the deposit, told the BBC, inside nearly every cell phone and computer chip, you'll find quartz from Spruce Pine, end quote. Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in the earth's crust, but while it can be found across the world, quartz reserve properties, including a deposit size and top. type vary by region. It is rare to find economically viable deposits of HPQ, and aside from

Spruce Pine, the largest are found in India and Brazil. Another silicon material, so-called silicon metal, a lower grade and more easily accessible material that is largely sourced in China is also listed as a critical raw material for the silicon industry by the European Commission, the UK, India, and South Korea. But it is unclear what percentage of it is refined for use in computing. HPQ from Spruce Pine is, in a way, more critical, and the United and South Korea, but it is, and valuable because of its purity, says Johnny Penn, an associate professor of AI ethics and society at the University of Cambridge. Its unique purity emerges out of processes that unfold over geological rather than human timescales, Penn says. This purity requirement matters most for advanced

computing systems in areas like the military, healthcare, and quantum computing, end quote. The two main companies at the Spruce Pine Pegamite Complex, roughly 40 kilometers long by 16 kilometers wide, according to a 1962 survey, our Quartz Corp, and Unimim, a subsidiary of the Global Industrial Minerals Company SCR, Sebelko, based in Belgium. A spokesperson for Sebelko said, As of September 26, we have temporarily halted operations at the spruce pine facilities in response to weather challenges. Viral social media posts have claimed that due to the flooding, global production of semiconductors could halt. This doomsday scenario is unlikely, but experts are gravely concerned about the impact the flooding could have on the tech industry and the economic ramifications of prolonged

supply chain pressures caused by the shutdown of the site. The key thing will not be just the floods, as bad as they are, says Chris Hackney, a researcher in human geography at Newcastle University in the UK, the damage to infrastructure, roads, transport, power, and mining equipment will stop production for a while. There's also potential for landslides. Hackney adds that, quote, any disruption to supply chains will have an impact on prices and production of high-end electronics in tech. Tom Bide, a senior scientist at the British Geological Survey, believes it's possible the disaster will prove minimally disruptive due to stockpiling at other kinds of contingency work. The impact on the tech industry will very much depend on how long it takes them to get operations

running again, he says. It is likely most manufacturers have some level of stockpiles, so there will be some slack in the system. If the issues are temporary, this may have no discernible effect, end quote. Bide estimates it would take around a month for any serious impacts to be felt, All right, I did feed the show script into Notebook LM again today, because you know how yesterday they made like a theme out of AI stories? It was an AI heavy day, so I wanted to give it a script that had a bit more variety in terms of topics. Turns out that again, it only picked out one single topic, one single theme, the hurricane and the potential silicon supply chain disruption story that we just heard. It ignored everything else. Which, maybe that's the prompting that's going on in the background, focus on just one topic, zero in on something.

But I'm sharing this, again, because it's still fascinating in terms of how much it then extrapolates on that one topic beyond what I actually fed it. I guess this is a flavor of hallucination, right? Even if it's largely accurate, it's just adding things that maybe I didn't want or don't need. I suppose you can with proper prompting get it to summarize better, but it made me think that AI generally has what I would term a middle school book report problem. It doesn't want to do that information dense cut to the chase. Here are the points you need to know that is so key to what I do on this show. At least it doesn't want to do that yet. It continually wants to provide introductions and conclusions and let's look at the impact and implications of all this.

I'm sure that that co-pilot summary thing that Microsoft is doing will probably do summarization better. But still, it's interesting to hear. If you got your fill of this little experiment yesterday, then go ahead and just skip it and delete the episode now. And this is the last time I intend to do this experiment. But if you want to see what Notebook LM did with today's show, take a listen after this quick break. Hurricane in North Carolina messing with like the global tech industry. Sounds kind of wild, right? Yeah, it is pretty wild.

But that's what we're diving into today, how Hurricane Florence, this small town spous pine, and like the future of basically all your gadgets, kind of weirdly connected. Yeah, it is a fascinating case of how something we think of as, you know, purely digital. Like all of our devices, all this tech, it's actually, like, deeply connected to, you know, very, very specific physical places and materials. Yeah, and just like one single hurricane can really throw a wrench. the whole thing. So for anyone just joining us, let's break down why this is such a big deal. So recent reports from Tech meme ride home have been all over this. They've been following Hurricane Florence, of course, you know, the one that caused all that crazy flooding in North Carolina last month. Yeah. And as tragic as, you know, that white spread flooding was. There's this one

particular impact on this one small town, spruce pine. And that kind of caught my eye. You know, it's not exactly Silicon Valley, but it turns out that it plays this really, really vital role in the tech world. Spruce pine. Okay. Okay. What is it about this town that has like the whole tech world kind of freaking out a little? So this town, it's sitting on the world's largest known supply of something called ultra pure quartz or HPQ. Okay. And you might be thinking quartz, like what's in my watch. Right.

But this is not your average courts. This stuff is absolutely essential for creating semiconductors, the tiny little brains that power like our entire digital world. Hold on. So you're seeing this one little town in North Carolina. It's the source of material that could like make or make. break the global tech industry? Pretty much. It's estimated that something like 70% of naturally occurring HPQ comes from spruce pine. And just to put that in perspective, the microchip industry alone is a $500 billion

giant. And it's completely fueled by this one material. And then that industry impacts a multi-trillion dollar global tech sector. So yeah, spruce pine is a pretty big deal. Okay. I'm starting to see why everyone's so nervous. But what makes this HPQ so special? Can we get it somewhere else? See, that's the thing about HPQ. It's basically irreplaceable, at least with the technology we have now, you need this really unique combination of properties to be able to withstand the crazy conditions of semiconductor manufacturing. So you need high heat resistance, corrosion resistance, low thermal expansion. HPQ has it all. And on top of all that, it's also a fantastic electrical insulator. And it transmits light really well. You just don't find that kind of combination

in your average rock. The superhero of materials. Perfectly designed for these really high performance electronics. So if it's this important, how come we haven't heard of Spruce Pine as like a tech hub before this? Right.

It's interesting, isn't it? Spruce Pine is not some sprawling tech metropolis. It's the HPQ instruction there is mostly dominated by two major companies that operate within the town's very unique geological formation,

a pegmatite complex, to be precise. Okay. And we've got QuartzCorp and Unimin, which is a subsidiary of a Belgian company, SCR. Sebelco. It's just this

reminder that even in our like hyper-connected world, so much depends on these really specific locations and their unique geology. Which brings us back to Hurricane Florence. This massive hurricane barrels in unleashes all this flooding. What happens to those companies? And what happens to the global supply of HPQ? Yeah. That's where this story takes a turn.

Both of those companies had to completely stop operations because of the flooding. And of course, some people online, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was it. This was going to shut down global semiconductor production. is a bit of an overreaction, to be honest. Yeah. I can see social media having a field day with that one. But even a temporary pause in production from a supplier as big as spruce pine, that's got to have some ripple effects. Oh, absolutely. And we're not even just talking about the immediate flood damage here. There's the

potential for lasting damage to infrastructure. So the roads, the power grid, the mining equipment, all that stuff's essential for extracting the HPQ and getting it to where it needs to go. And then on top of that, you've got the risk of landslides in the hurricane's aftermath. So it all adds up to this really complicated recovery process. So it's like someone just hit the pause button on this absolutely crucial part of the global tech assembly line. And the longer that pause button is held down, the bigger the potential impact. Exactly. That's what has everyone on edge. How long is this disruption going to last?

What kind of impact is it going to have on this already crazy web of global tech manufacturing? So we've got this potential crisis brewing and everyone's looking for answers. What are the experts saying? How serious could this actually get? Well, Chris Hackney. He's a researcher in human geography at Newcastle University. He's been looking into this. And he focuses on how geographical factors can impact these situations.

And he's particularly concerned about the unique vulnerabilities of a place like spruce pine. So you're saying we can't just like pick up APQ production and move it somewhere else if things get really bad? Exactly. The geology is very specific. to that region, and Hackney is worried that kind of vulnerability. Coupled with just how bad this flooding is, could lead to these production stoppages that last way longer than anyone wants. Okay. Not exactly what the tech industry was hoping to hear.

Is anyone else weighing in on this? So Tom Byde, he's a senior scientist at the British Geological Survey. He thinks we might have a little bit of breathing room. He believes that the existing stockpiles of HPQ could bias some time, maybe a month or so before things get really tight. But even he admits that there's a lot of unknowns right now. It all depends on how quickly those companies in Spruce Pine can assess the damage and get back up and running. Sounds like we're all crossing our fingers hoping those stockpiles hold out while Spruce Pine like dries out and gets back on its feet. But this whole situation has really got people talking about just how fragile these global supply chains can be.

Yeah, it's a really critical point. This isn't just some tech story or even just a North Carolina story. It's really an illustration of how interconnected the entire world really is. We often just take these complex systems for granted, but they have these points of vulnerability, these like pinch points, like spruce pine, that can have these huge ripple effects across entire industries. And it's not just hurricanes, right? We've seen how pandemics, geopolitical tensions. Heck, even a ship stuck in a canal can, like, throw a wrench into the gears of the entire global economy. Exactly. We're living in a complex system. And this whole situation with spruce pine just shows how important diversification is. When we're overly reliant on a single source. course, for a material this crucial, we're putting all our eggs in one very fragile basket. So what can we even do about it? I mean, if spruce fine is the only place with this ultra-pure quartz,

are we just kind of stuck hoping for the best? Well, that's the million-dollar question. It's not just about finding another spruce fine. This could be a wake-up call. To really invest in researching alternative materials, maybe there are other substances, other types of quartz, or even totally different materials that could work for semiconductor manufacturing. we haven't look hard enough because spruce pine's always been there it's like we've gotten so comfortable the way things are that we haven't really explored other options yeah it's human nature to stick with what you know especially when it's been working but events like this they remind us that change can happen

really quickly and being prepared is key makes you think about the environmental impact too i mean extracting any natural resource yeah especially on this kind of scale it's got to have a cost absolutely This situation really underscores the need to be mindful of the environmental and social impacts. Of technologies we usually just take for granted. If we're going to rely on materials like HPQ, we need to be thinking about sustainability, responsible sourcing, and minimizing our footprint. It's about balancing that technological progress with being responsible stewards of the planet. And, hey, maybe this even pushes us towards more innovation, right? Like discovering new ways to do more with less.

But let's bring this back down to Earth for a second. What does all this mean for our listeners? Should we all be running out to buy that new phone before the price goes through the roof? Well, it's probably a little early to hit the panic button, but you're right to point out that this affects everyone. While we don't know the full extent of this disruption to the HPQ supply yet, it's definitely something to keep an eye on. So don't panic, but stay informed.

Any practical tips for anyone listening who might be thinking about a major tech purchase in the next few months? Well, it never hurts to be a savvy shopper. If you're planning to buy something, do your research. Compare prices, check different retailers, and maybe consider buying sooner rather than later, if you're worried about price increases or delays. Don't forget those holiday wish lists. But even beyond the practical advice, I think there's a bigger takeaway here, this whole spruce pine thing, it really drives home just how deeply interconnected our world is. It does. We don't always see these complex systems that are bringing us all this technology, the food we eat, all the everyday things we depend on.

But this event, it really highlights those often hidden dependencies. And it reminds us that something like a hurricane in a small town can actually has global consequences. It really makes you stop and think. What other vulnerabilities are we overlooking in this increasingly complex world? It really highlights how much we rely on things, you know, that we don't even think about. It's like we're so busy like comparing the latest smartphone features or arguing about like the newest app that we totally forget about the crazy journey those devices took to actually get to us. all the materials the manufacturing the shipping routes. It's kind of mind-boggling when you actually stop and think about it.

And it's not even just about gadgets. This applies to like so many parts of modern life. Oh, absolutely. The food we eat, the clothes we wear the energy that powers our homes. It's all part of this crazy interconnected system. And as we're seeing with Spruce Pine, any part of that system can be disrupted. And what's really fascinating is how this one event, a hurricane hitting a quartz mine, It kind of reveals this like fundamental truth about our world.

As we become more reliant on all this sophisticated technology, we also become way more vulnerable to these totally unforeseen disruptions in the systems that actually make all that technology possible. So where do we even go from here? Like what are the big takeaways from this whole deep dive into hurricanes and quartz mines and, you know, the future of our gadgets? Well, on a practical level, I think this just shows how important awareness really is, like just being informed about where our stuff actually comes from, understanding what could happen to those supply chains, and maybe even like becoming more conscious consumers.

So like looking beyond the price tag when we're shopping and asking ourselves, are the companies I'm supporting thinking about this stuff? Like, are they thinking about supply chain resilience? Are there other products I could buy that maybe rely on more diverse sourcing? Exactly. And on a bigger level, I think this whole thing pushes us to think about resilience for ourselves and as a society.

Like how can we make ourselves less vulnerable? to these kinds of disruptions? How do we create systems that are more flexible and adaptable? So it's not just about having a stockpile of quartz, but also about having a more prepared mindset, being resourceful, being open to new solutions, and maybe even just like a healthy dose of skepticism, but the idea that things will always be the way they are now.

It's not about living in fear, but about recognizing that complexity creates vulnerability, and understanding that allows us to make smarter choices. Being prepared, not scared. As we wrap up today, it really gets you thinking, what other hidden connections and vulnerabilities are out there, just quietly shaping the world around us? It's a great question.

And by really understanding these complex systems, by digging into those invisible connections, we can create a future that's more resilient and more sustainable. It's all connected. Thanks for joining us for another deep dive. We'll catch you next time.