The rambling ponderings of Eric "Gub" Snyder. I'm incurably curious. I ponder things like AI, the environment, sustainability, stranded assets, environmental stewardship, waste, waste reduction, thriving simply, living simply, genealogy, history, calendars, personal productivity...
Welcome back, curious humans! Here’s what’s actually new in AI today, pulled from current web sources. No corporate jargon, no enterprise-speak — just the coolest, weirdest, and most important stuff happening in artificial intelligence right now.
Your daily plain-language AI briefing
1937: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were crowned in Westminster Abbey, a defining moment in modern British history.
1941: Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, widely regarded as the world’s first working programmable computer.
1949: The Soviet Union lifted its blockade of Berlin, ending one of the early and most dangerous Cold War crises.
Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, told investors its revenue in the first quarter of 2026 was about 80 times higher than the same period a year ago, with an annual run rate now above 44 billion dollars. Two years ago it had roughly a dozen customers spending over 1 million dollars a year; today that number is above 500, showing how fast big companies are standardizing on AI services.
Historic Events on May 11:
868 – The earliest surviving dated printed book, the "Diamond Sutra," was produced in China, one of the most important texts in Mahayana Buddhism now housed in the British Library
1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded, the organization that would become synonymous with the Oscars
1949 – Israel joined the United Nations
If you feel like AI headlines are speeding up, you’re not imagining it. This weekend brings new AI models, quiet software changes on our computers, and governments trying to catch up with the technology.
1774 – Louis XVI becomes King of France, inheriting a financial and political crisis that will help set the stage for the French Revolution.
1869 – The first U.S. transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, linking Atlantic and Pacific coasts and transforming global trade and migration routes.
1872 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for the U.S. presidency, a landmark in the long struggle for women’s political rights.
