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Quick facts

• Difficulty: HARD
• Problem: Minimum Time to Finish the Race
• Topics: Array, Dynamic Programming

Problem gist

Each tire type is described by [f, r]. A fresh tire completes its first lap in f seconds, but keeping it for consecutive laps makes it geometrically slower: its next lap times are f, f * r, f * r^2, and so on. There is an unlimited supply of every tire type. Between laps, the driver may spend changeTime seconds to put on any fresh tire.

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What Deep Focus Looks Like in the Brain

Concentration can sometimes feel less like effort than immersion. A difficult problem gradually comes into focus, distractions recede, and the answer seems to assemble itself on a mental blackboard. In “How Expertise Improves Concentration,” neuroscientist Hanna Poikonen asks what the brain is doing during that state—and whether years of practice make it easier to enter.

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TBPN surfaced the piece in its July 23 run of show, pointing readers to Google’s original article, Understanding the AI economy, and the accompanying ATLAS v1.0 report. The study’s central finding is more subtle than either “AI is taking every job” or “AI has changed nothing”: use has spread across much of the economy, but most observed interactions still help people perform pieces of work rather than automate whole tasks.

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This summary covers The Economist’s July 4th, 2026 By Invitation essay by Carson Block, listed in the contents as Carson Block on what AI could do to markets and published under the headline When markets crash, stabilising them will be easy compared with reordering society for AI.

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Trump orders signs be installed outside Smithsonian museum warning of “inaccurate information” (r/news)

• jVCrm68: Did they give any examples of the “inaccurate information”?
• NamelessTacoShop: I can’t wait for all this to be in the Trump exhibit in the Smithsonian.
• johnthejazzman: Those signs will be in that museum one day

Substance in Houston ICE shooting van was not drugs, district attorney’s office says testing confirms (r/news)

• edingerc: The search warrant was requested and granted after the victim was already dead. Since this attempt failed, I’m sure they will look into the victim’s high school records to see if they ever had detention. It’s the old, “if you can’t justify, deflect.”
• unhiddenninja: Even if they were drugs, that’s not a fuckin death sentence on the spot. I’m glad the record is clear, though.
• HotBrownFun: Right wing MO. Put out lies first, gets all the headlines on TV, nobody bothers reading the corrections…

What are some of the scariest internet rabbit holes you’ve gone down? (r/AskReddit)

• maddie-irl: The search for the MH370 flight. I went in expecting a simple answer and came out three hours later with 40 tabs open and even more questions
• BazingaBazongas: The more I read about cults, the less I think I’d be immune to joining one. You start out thinking, “How could anyone fall for that?” Then you learn about sleep deprivation, isolation, love bombing, sunk-cost fallacy, and gradual escalation. It’s way less about intelligence than timing and vulnerability. That rabbit hole was genuinely unsettling.
• ENDLESSFIRST251: Back in 2012, a mysterious group started posting ultra complex puzzles across 4chan, deep web sites, and even physical locations worldwide (posters taped to streetlights in Tokyo, Paris, and LA). To this day, nobody knows for sure who was behind it or what the actual end goal was whether it was high-level intelligence recruitment, a secret society, or something far weirder.

To you, what’s the biggest choke in sports history? (r/AskReddit)

• Pitiful_Camp3469: has to be 28-3 falcons vs pats superbowl
• Great-Scotch121: Yankees blowing a 3-0 ALCS series lead to the Red Sox in 2004.
• TheWingus: Jeeze I know the NHL isn’t as popular but the Philadelphia Flyers came back from an 0-3 series deficit AND an 0-3 score in game 7 to win the series against the Boston Bruins in 2010

What was a rule in your household growing up that you didn’t realize was weird until you moved out? (r/AskReddit)

• abnormal2004: It wasn’t after moving out, but in third grade I spent the night at friend’s house. The next morning her mother served us cereal for breakfast. After I ate mine she asked me if I wanted more. I told her I already ate mine. She asked me again if I wanted more. I was genuinely confused. More cereal? It was like seeing colors I’d never seen before!
• unarmed_cookie: I thought every grandparents wouldn’t let their grandchild get up in the morning before grandma had her coffee
• Hee-hoes_Mad: There were no “accidents” in my mother’s house. Spilling a drink, dropping a plate, all accidents were treated as if you had done it maliciously and with intent. Her logic was, if you didn’t mean to do it, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

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If you think your SaaS job is safe… you’re lying to yourself (Blind)

• rddcvgjc (Meta): irrespective of AI, workday is a company that should die miserable death for their shitty job application software.. ceo and PMs who designed this crap should be made to use it daily 50 times as a punishment
• GtQM82 (Google): Why is Workdays UX still so shitty, after all this time? Frankly, they deserve to be disrupted. Their moat (the inherent conservatism of HR departments) can’t (and shouldn’t) protect them from agentic disruption.
• usrnm12 (ex-Braze): There are open source alternatives for most of the services these SAAS companies provide. Their value is not on the code that claude can replicate, its on the continuing support and not needing to waste your own engineers time on maintaining something that is not core to your business.

Those who have SURVIVED layoffs – what’s your secret / advice? (Blind)

• mbly6743 (Meta): Get shit done. I haven’t seen too many industrious people let go.
• a2z1299 (Workday): Just not being be an asshole will save you 80% of times.. the other 20% can be for any reason
• sndkdk (ByteDance): Don’t be afraid of being laid off. Accept that layoff can happen to anyone at any time. Once I accepted this, I found peace in mind.

Corporate America discovered microdosing layoffs (Blind)

• H5gIb (eBay): There’s some HR research that suggests this comes out worse. People do notice their jobs aren’t safe and act accordingly, even if it’s not called a layoff. With a traditional large layoff, morale drops for up to several years, but tangibly impactful stuff like gatekeeping knowledge and attrition doesn’t continue as long.
• CJUu54 (The Trade Desk): This isn’t new, it’s to avoid WARN and other state/local requirements. Welcome to reality, this is the crappy side of being a corporate employee. It isn’t new.
• ekfijrb (Google): What did you think they meant when they said America is a capitalist country. You know miners and railroad workers had to die for concessions from the capitalists, right?

Turns out Dead Internet Theory was right: AI agents are eating the Web, growing by nearly 8,000% and rewiring the Internet’s business model (r/technology)

• theKetoBear: At what point do advertisers go " It doesn’t make sense to pay for robot views"
• Leek5: So we are just wasting a bunch of electricity powering bots to argue with other bots and sometimes people
• usmannaeem: It really sucks that developers VCs and tech bros can’t see how much they are poisoning people’s lives and not to forget the environmental impact.

US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search (r/technology)

• deekamus: It’s not illegal to wipe your phone.
• CondescendingShitbag: Technically, the accused didn’t wipe anything. The officers were in possession of his phone and entered the password that would initiate a wipe. That’s on them for entering it.
• pocketdrummer: Why does US Customs and Border Patrol need to search my phone when I reenter the country in the first place? I realize they’ve allegedly found a loophole to the 4th Amendment, but they have to understand this is against the spirit of the constitution.

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TBPN surfaced this piece in its July 22 standalone episode, Inside Travis Kalanick’s Wild New AI Company. Speaking just after Atoms announced a \$1.7 billion financing round, Kalanick described a company built around a blunt idea: the next important AI businesses may not sell better chatbots or software agents. They may use software, sensors, and specialized machines to make mines, food production, and transportation work differently in the physical world.

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Minnesota man gets 2 life sentences for killing Democratic lawmaker and her husband (r/news)

• jotsea2: Fuck this piece of shit. There has not been enough coverage about this outrageous poltical violence.
• Electronic-Bus-6361: Rot in piss you fucking scumbag
• Ladyhawkeiii: And still not labeled as a terrorist despite his list of other targets.

Government withdraws subpoenas of 3 reporters for The New York Times after admitting legal errors (r/news)

• zobby3: The BBC in the U.K. seem to be calling his bluff. Makes me proud to pay my licence fee. 🤞🙂
• HeyRooster42: Oh, so it was only a scare tactic? Is this not domestic terrorism?
• B-Z_B-S: The White House is afraid of discovery.

What is something you secretly find deeply disturbing, but everyone else seems to accept as totally normal? (r/AskReddit)

• Fangsong_37: People using smartphones to record videos everywhere; including private spaces. You don’t need to capture videos in gym locker rooms. You don’t need to record videos of other people in public to shame them on social media.
• ActualOriginal4030: We don’t own the music and books and movies we buy when we buy them digitally.
• alliechatsalot: People mistake functioning for healthy way too often

What’s one slang teenagers nowadays use that you like? (r/AskReddit)

• DNRmeir: Locked in ( they never get locked in 😭)
• zerocoolforschool: Reading through this thread, I think most of these are already retired by the kids.
• Time_Physics_6557: choppelganger is so funny

What is an open secret in your industry that the general public would be genuinely shocked to learn? (r/AskReddit)

• piratecat666: I have been in academic research for almost 30 years, and the amount of cherry picked or just completely made up data in research papers should concern everyone. In the past it was very rare and now it is almost common practice. It’s driven by the pursuit of increasingly scarce funding sources.
• screenaholic: I work in security. The vast majority of security is actually what’s called “security theater,” meaning things that make the given area LOOK more secure, but isn’t actually capable of stopping any threats. It’s not useless though, because a certain amount of would be threats ARE prevented under the assumption that they would be stopped if they actually tried anything.
• vray88: Farmed salmon are so overcrowded that they get sick and develop sores. It’s absolutely disgusting, and it’s awful to see them suffering.

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My Time at Amazon Is Over. AGI Layoffs suck (Blind)

• Ka’iana (ex-Google): People need to realize that this runway is not as long as they think. The good old days of high TC and job security is long long gone. Everyone better have an exit strategy ready to be executed.
• LyrY82 (DoiT International): This is why tech workers need to unionize.
• BDoM57 (Amazon): This could be one of the best things that happened to you. Amazon sucks as a company, has been treating employees like trash and slaves.

Is it ok to end interview early if candidate is very bad (Blind)

• dEJe06 (Microsoft): How much time can you save by ending early? Honestly I would just turn it into a teaching session so they learn something valuable for next interview
• dontarius (Airbnb): OP’s behavioral interview would end early with me. That’s for sure. EQ of a brick.
• EfYK67 (Atlassian): No. They deserve the dignity of the full allotted interview time, and genuine consideration, looking past nerves.

I had 25 interviews and no offer. Laid off from Snap (Blind)

• 他强让他强 (Microsoft): Get another 25 interviews, rinse and repeat, till you get an offer that you want to take
• vBgL56 (Microsoft): The market is really difficult right now. I hope you get a job. Keep trying. Don’t give up. 🙏
• ch0d3 (DoorDash): I’ve been there brother. As long as you’re able to learn from each rejection and stay determined, you’ll land one eventually

Top AI Researchers Terrified of a “Chernobyl Moment”: a Mass Casualty Event, or Worse, That Turns the World Against AI Forever (r/technology)

• Ok_Marionberry8779: They want fAI to be the big bad boogeyman that only they can protect us from. Instead they’re just dorks who over sold LLMs to gullible investors.
• Stilgar314: So… top AI researchers think AI can cause a “Mass casualty event, or worse” and the only thing they fear is “turns the world against AI forever”? Well, there’s no doubt why the world is turning against AI and AI people in general.
• bactchan: Frank Herbert saw this coming decades ago and named it the Butlerian Jihad in Dune.

Employers who laid off workers citing AI are already starting to regret it (r/technology)

• Theydontlikeitupthem: This is how companies work, especially IT companies, laying off staff or cutting staffing costs in any way looks great to shareholders and on the balance sheet, senior management get nice bonuses and promotions based on the onetime reductions. If there is any negatives and the cuts are rolled back or business suffers, those bonuses and promotions aren’t revoked if anything it’s turned as a positive “the company is doing so good they need to increase staff numbers, yay!” If anyone actually suffers from this it’s the staff layed off or the remaining staff who have to take on the extra work of the lost staff, it’s not some executive.
• 0b1w4hn: LLMs are simply a very limited technology that can never live up to the promises made by tech companies.
• VVrayth: Just like the gold rush, the only people making money are the ones selling shovels. Everyone else is a sucker.

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Techmeme surfaced Anthropic’s July 24, 2026 launch in its Claude Opus 5 cluster. The original piece is Anthropic’s Introducing Claude Opus 5.

Another frontier-model launch would be easy to dismiss as a fresh batch of benchmark charts. Claude Opus 5 is more interesting because it makes the boundary between an elite model and an everyday model less clear. Anthropic says Opus 5 approaches its restricted Fable 5 model on difficult coding work at roughly half the cost per task, while remaining substantially less capable than Mythos 5 at turning software vulnerabilities into working exploits. The result is not simply a new point on a leaderboard. It is a deliberately positioned middle layer: powerful enough to become the default for demanding work, cheaper and less obstructive than the frontier tier, and surrounded by routing controls that decide which model handles which request.