Happy New Year! We’re kicking things off by sharing our tech resolutions for 2026 and reflecting on how we fared with our social media and meditation goals from last year.

Then, we open up the listener mailbag and answer your questions on data centers in space, who’s to blame when a customer service A.I. bot lies to you and whether it’s OK to deepfake Santa into your home security footage.

Also, get your very own “Hard Fork” hats, now available at the Times Store: https://store.nytimes.com/products/hard-fork-baseball-cap

Additional Reading

• What I Learned About Productivity This Year

• Data Centers in Space + A.I. Policy on the Right + A Gemini History Mystery

• Shuffling Some Whimsy Into Poker and Blackjack

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Credits

“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn. This episode was edited by Jen Poyant. Engineering by Alyssa Moxley and original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and Rowan Niemisto. Fact-checking by Will Peischel.

Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam and Dahlia Haddad.