Welcome back, friends. Summer is rolling and tech keeps moving. Let’s get you up to speed!
In This Issue:
Wildcard Wednesday Returns: Join “Used By It”, July 15 at noon Pacific
The Big Think: Junk fees, AI slop, and why real humans matter more than ever
News Roundup: IBM’s sub-1nm chip, iOS 27 AI features, and the human cost of the AI World Cup
Spotlight on AI: Where models land on politics and how Google trains on your searches
Security Update: Smart TV leaks and weaponized FIFA narratives
Tips: Free live TV, algorithm-free radio, and live flight tracking
Good News: DOS games, paper puzzles, and monocle etiquette for your villain era
I appreciate you spending your valuable time with me. Share this with one person who’s tired of tech taking over. That’s all I ask. 😉
Available for iOS and Android
Your phone buzzes. Your inbox swells. Your subscriptions multiply. Somewhere underneath all of it, there is an uneasy feeling that the technology is winning. It is not. You just need the right mental model.
This month’s Wildcard Wednesday is not about fear. It is about ownership. We will walk through the four things technology quietly takes from you: attention, money, trust, and peace. Then we will take them back. You will leave with concrete actions you can do that night. Turn off notifications that do not serve you. Cancel subscriptions you forgot. Verify before you click. Solve one daily problem first.
No jargon. Just thirty years of experience distilled into one hour. Bring your questions. Bring a friend. This is a room for people who want to use technology on their own terms
👉 Want the link? Just subscribe to my offers newsletter and you’re good to go. It’s free and free of spam - simply sign up to my offers list here:
We’re at peak enshittification and everyone knows it. Pew Research shows 63% of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly, 71% say it’ll make their data less secure, and views tilt negative even among the young adults who use it most. Arthur Brooks calls it “why nothing feels real anymore.” We’ve handed left-brain optimization problems to right-brain questions about meaning and connection. The result is simulated life that leaves us empty.
Meanwhile, your apartment lease has 35 different fees including a “boiler management” charge and valet trash you didn’t request. Greystar, the largest apartment manager in the US, counts at least 125 different named fees across its properties. Some tenants pay hundreds extra per month. This isn’t an accident. It’s a business model.
The shape of enshittification follows a pattern. Cory Doctorow coined the term to describe how platforms abuse users, then abuse businesses, then squeeze maximum profit until everyone leaves. Ryan Levesque’s research shows AI writing has a detectable shape that’s distinguishable from human work 93% of the time. AI over-explains themes, relies on bodily metaphors for emotion, and lacks narrative diversity.
Social media is in stage four or five of the decline. LinkedIn just put reach up for sale. People are moving conversations to private group chats because posting publicly feels pointless when bots are the audience. How-to book sales have collapsed 80% since 2022 because chatbots read them for you. The internet no longer gets surfed. It gets scraped. Content is engineered for chatbots, not humans.
But here’s the good news. When everything that can be faked is being faked, the things that can’t become the whole game. Slop is cheap. Real is rare. And rare is what people will pay for.
The work ahead splits into three categories.
People who orchestrate AI systems.
Skilled trades and craftsmanship rooted in the physical world.
Human-to-human work where trust and discernment matter.
This trend arguably started with gold standard removal in the 70s. Market deregulation meant the number must go up, which meant consumers got penny-and-dimed into terrible experiences. We’re at the tail end of that cycle. Real creativity is waiting to break out. The question isn’t whether humans remain valuable. It’s whether we structure the economy to let people do work that matters. 📉🛠️🤝
Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact
‘Extremely overwhelmed’: apartment renters face rising tide of fees
IBM just debuted the world's first sub-1 nanometer chip, packing nearly 100 billion transistors onto something the size of a fingernail. That's 70 percent more energy efficient than current chips, with production expected in five years.
iOS 27 is weaving AI into everyday tasks like splitting bills, updating passwords after breaches, and organizing Safari tabs without asking Siri.
And the AI-powered World Cup runs on thousands of human data workers in Brazil, Cambodia, and the Philippines who tag every pass and tackle for teams, broadcasters, and betting markets. They make about $70 per match. The football we watch runs on their work as much as the players. 🔬📱⚽
Trakkr.ai maps where major AI models actually land on politics and society. Most lean left of center, even when they claim neutrality.
Meanwhile, Google quietly enabled AI training on your Search uploads by default. Images, audio, and voice searches stay for four years unless you manually opt out in Search Services History. Check your My Activity settings before your random searches train the next model. 🗺️🔒
Meme of the month:
Your fish tank screensaver is renting out your internet connection to strangers, letting outside traffic route through your living room without much oversight.
Meanwhile, World Cup controversies are getting weaponized by state actors using real complaints to push engineered narratives, so check your app permissions and watch who’s amplifying the outrage. 📺🌍
TV Explorer streams 10,000+ free live TV channels in your browser with no account needed. TRDO brings internet radio to your Windows taskbar so you can ditch Spotify's algorithms. Tinfoil Pigeons shows every aircraft overhead right now because sometimes you just need to know what that jet is.
Bookmark our Resources page for more tools that don't sell you out. 📺📻✈️
Need more? Head to our resources page for tools that don’t sell you out. 🔗
DOS.zone lets you play classics like Doom right in your browser because nostalgia shouldn't require installation. Daily Unfold offers a spatial reasoning puzzle that's Wordle for paper folders. And a 1930s tutorial reminds gentlemen how to wear monocles with proper etiquette.
Get the look right, gents. Your villain era awaits. 🎮📜🎩🤪
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