Tech on Deck: Filter bubbles on steroids
Tsar Nicholas II was isolated from reality by advisers who filtered bad news, contributing to his failure to understand the growing crisis around him. Today, personalized algorithms can create similar information bubbles, giving people curated feeds that reinforce their existing views. From the latest Tech on Deck, “Every time you open your phone and begin to scroll, you are inside a machine that has been studying you.” Image generated using Nano Banana
Happy Monday in New York City, where the economy has a case of the K.
An analysis by The City Reporter of publicly available data shows that the top 1% of earners in the city are thriving, even as the poverty rate continues to soar and record numbers of New Yorkers seek government aid.
A K-shaped economy, popularized by economist Peter Atwater, describes the split trajectory in which high earners grow steadily wealthier while low- and middle-income earners fall further behind.
Since the 2020 pandemic, the city’s 40,700 millionaires — despite making up 1% of the population — accounted for 53% of all income growth. The bottom 99%, meanwhile, have seen their rate of income growth fall every year since 2019. The city’s poverty rate now sits at 26%, double the national average. 67% of New Yorkers are severely rent burdened, meaning their rent accounts for 50% or more of their total income. Approximately 573,000 people are enrolled in cash assistance programs, up from 326,000 in 2020. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollment is up to 1.7 million from a low of 1.55 million in 2020.
No one is enjoying a bigger piece of the pie than people in the securities sector. Wall Street profits are set to clear a record-high $68 billion in profit this year, marking four straight years of growth. Average wages in top-earning sectors is up 6.3%, fueling a boom in luxury home ownership. Sales of homes worth $20 million or more are up 39% since last year, whereas the overall housing market is down 8.2%.
“The reason the K-shaped economy matters isn’t because of what it says about wages or wealth, but what it says about how people feel and their life experience,” Atwater told The City Reporter.
There may be no better evidence for Atwater’s claim than the rise of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who ran his campaign on a focused message of affordability. Across the country, Democratic candidates are trying to follow his example, betting that the rapidly diverging trajectory of high- and low-income earners will prove to be the defining political issue of the moment.
Most Lyfts in US for World Cup Final screenings went to popular indoor-outdoor Nowadays dance club, bordering Queens and Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Children’s Museum has received a $5K grant from the Citizens Philanthropic Foundation to support the Museum’s Community Access initiative.
1-day art exhibition “PIGEONS!” to take place Saturday in Williamsburg.
A new book shop and community gathering space opened in Red Hook in July.
Brooklyn developers sign contract to buy history-rich church building.
Mother of 5 killed in gunfire outside Crown Heights bar.
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Our World In Photos
Photo: Tatan Syuflana/AP
JAKARTA — A little cuddle is part of good sportsmanship: Participants react during a greased-pole climbing competition during the celebration of Indonesia's Independence Day at Ancol Beach in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.
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Sounding Board:
Exploring the Moon will require rovers that can think for themselves. An upcoming NASA mission will test whether they can
FLORIDA — Liftoff: This time exposure photo shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a payload including two lunar rovers from Japan and the United Arab Emirates, launching from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, on Sunday. Photo: John Raoux/AP
NASA is planning to send three small rovers to the Moon with a single instruction: Work out among yourselves how to explore a patch of ground.
The Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration mission, or CADRE, will land on the side of the Moon facing Earth as part of NASA’s IM-3 launch, planned for late 2026. These rovers will spend roughly two weeks mapping the terrain as a self-guided team. No joystick will control them, and no human will approve each turn.
The rovers will elect a leader among themselves, assign their own tasks and redraw their plans as a group when one of them runs low on charge. If it succeeds, CADRE will be the first time NASA has operated multiple rovers beyond Earth as a single autonomous system.
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Cartoon Sketchbook
By Dave Whamond
For the Road
Happy Birthday “The Corrections” author Jonathan Franzen!
On this day in 1948, the Eagle reported, “A whole nation today mourned the passing of Babe Ruth. Baseball’s all-time hero, home run king and Sultan of Swat, died in his sleep at 8:01 last night at the age of 53, a victim of cancer of the throat.”
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