#backlog

#backlog

At that point, backpressure and load shedding are the only things that retain a system that can still operate. If you have ever been in a Starbucks overwhelmed by mobile orders, you know the feeling. The in-store experience breaks down. You no longer know how many orders are ahead of you. There is no clear line, no reliable wait estimate, and often no real cancellation path unless you escalate and make noise.

Microsoft is facing capacity constraints, and OpenAI is driving a large portion of the backlog in its cloud computing business. The company said its backlog in commercial bookings, a metric referred to as remaining performance obligations, ballooned 110% year over year to $625 billion when it reported earnings for the second quarter on Wednesday. OpenAI accounts for roughly 45% of those commitments, Microsoft revealed.

For decades, competitive multiplayer games have existed, and the concept of a game that can't be "finished" has been around for about as long as games themselves. But when I talk about the games that undermine the very concept of a backlog, I'm not talking about online-only PVP titles like Arc Raiders or Team Fortress 2. I'm instead talking about the growing list of live-service games, many of which can be played solo, that have campaigns with "endings" but also keep growing,

Since April, the Department of Justice has fired more than half of the bench in San Francisco's immigration courts, twelve judges in total. The largest cut came in late November, when Judges Shuting Chen, Louis A. Gordon, Jeremiah Johnson, Amber George and Patrick Savage were all terminated on the same day. It is unclear why the two judges have chosen to retire.

From President Donald Trump's first full month returning to office in February through August, federal immigration judges in San Francisco and Concord denied 54% of the 4,019 asylum cases they decided, according to the latest data from University of Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research center that collects and analyzes immigration court data. During the previous seven months, when Joe Biden was president, the courts rejected 26% of 3,355 cases.

It's the first Friday of December, which means we're one step closer to the Winter holidays - whatever and however you celebrate, something tells me video games are involved, along with some relaxation, good food, great friends and family, and maybe some more video games. As the year begins to wind down, our backlogs are looking a bit more manageable and I wager I'll look at mine, download multiple games, and touch roughly none of them this month.

Symbotic ( Nasdaq:SYM) reports Q4 FY2025 results after the close, with Wall Street looking for steadier execution following a reset in deployment timing. Management has already signaled that Q4 growth will be less pronounced as customers shift project schedules to incorporate Symbotic's newly launched storage-structure architecture, which offers higher density and materially faster installation. This call matters because it should clarify the cadence of deployments into early FY2026, how quickly the new structure scales, and whether margin progress holds amid elevated investment and prototype development.

General Dynamics delivered a broad-based earnings beat this morning that rewarded investors across all four business segments. The stock opened 4.5% higher on the results, though it settled to a more modest gain as the day progressed. The real story here isn't just that the company cleared expectations. It's the consistency of execution and the scale of the backlog driving confidence into 2026.

Without action, we risk total system collapse. These reforms are not small tweaks, but fundamental changes to make the system fit for the 21st century.