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Desk Memo

Dear Reader,

I am reluctantly on dating apps. If you want to filter people you see by whether they want a long-term relationship or want kids, you have to pay for that. As of writing, Hinge wants almost $50 a month for this feature. You want to connect with people? Pay up, buddy. And it’s not just dating. Want to hang out with people? Cover charges, subscription apps, paid venues everywhere you turn.

There’s a pattern underneath all of it. Everything around us is optimized for something other than what we actually need it for. Apps for connection don’t actually enable connection, healthcare companies don’t actually provide healthcare, social media is built to keep you scrolling, not to make you feel less alone. The question I keep coming back to is simple: are we ok with it? Is this all there is?

Warmly,
Xavi B

Busy Isn’t the Same as Working

It’s no surprise that AI use in the workplace has increased. I can’t say I’m shocked that time spent on focused work has also dropped 9 percent, according to ActivTrak’s 2026 State of the Workplace report, which analyzed 443 million hours of digital work activity. The average focused session now lasts just 13 minutes. And it’s no wonder. If you’re prompting away, it can feel like you’re getting a lot done. But the threat of distraction is always present. Especially with productivity systems, you can spend more time working on the system itself than on the work the system is supposed to help enhance and enable. This is the trap of the tinkerer. We see it, we’re conscious of it, we try not to fall into it (too much).

But I think this also reveals the priorities of the leadership of these companies. AI isn’t built to help humans reduce real pain in their lives (for the most part) yet. It’s built to make a profit, to keep users using their products, and to keep the money rolling in. But the potential is there! Imagine what humans will be free to do when AI can run large-scale technological systems and handle multi-step processes with no human oversight? That would be objectively good for humanity. But getting there requires democratic control over the technology, not just another product optimized for extraction.

What Two Weeks With a Custom AI Actually Looks Like

I’ve been using Claude to create a robot assistant for about two weeks now. It’s been an exciting ride, but as the ActivTrak research points out, while there are a lot of useful ways to use this tool, there’s also a lot of work that can feel like you’re getting things done, but not really.

Over the first two days, I built around sixteen different skills for my workflows. Summarizing podcast transcripts, creating RSS digests, and building a weekly review workflow that connects with my calendar and email. I gathered that starting with common, repeatable tasks is what MacSparky’s course recommends, so that’s what I did. And frankly, it’s amazing. The power this unlocks is kind of mind-blowing. You build workflows together with Claude, and it writes them. When it makes mistakes, you tell it to update the workflow (also called Skills). The system grows over time and does more of what you want it to do as you work with it.

It’s not perfect. It makes mistakes and formatting errors, and especially with Claude, you run into usage limits (but I think I’ve found a clever way around this for some use cases). For example, I told it to create a wiki based on my journal entries. It did an amazing job, but it also had some weird formatting issues here and there, and notes weren’t linked properly. But it improves because you improve the instructions. Want to know more about how this actually works? Let me know, and I might write a full piece on it.

Fifty Years, and the Clock Is Ticking

The workers at Apple, over fifty years of history, have truly created some magnificent things. I fell in love with the Mac when I was about eleven years old, in the G3 era, with its rainbow colors. We had a few at my school. The iPhone and Watch were true technological advancements, and both have been genre-defining in their respective spaces. There’s a lot of untapped potential at Apple.

The leadership has been making blunder after blunder lately. Vision Pro is a bust, iPadOS needs to go away, and time will tell if their AI play works out. Apple missed the boat on the first wave of AI. That seems pretty clear. But the company is reportedly exploring a hybrid approach to rebuilding Siri, using third-party LLMs like Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s models alongside its own on-device foundation models. When the AI bubble pops, Apple could be positioned to pick up IP at a much lower price. Watch this space.

Why Making Friends Feels Broken (And Why That’s Not Your Fault)

There’s a common sentiment I hear out there: “It’s so hard to make friends as an adult.” As important as I think Dr. NerdLove’s advice from last week was, it’s also important to recognize the systemic issues at play. This article by Dave Spenger quotes a report that alarmingly shows that 12% of US adults have no close friends, a figure that has quadrupled since 1990. To put this in perspective, that’s over 30 million people. We didn’t all become antisocial out of nowhere!

Maybe you’ve felt this too. While other people seem to have friends from school, work, and church, you don’t. It can be easy to feel like it’s your fault, or even disoriented about where to make friends. The report makes it clear we’re not alone. And notice the thread: just as the apps that are supposed to connect us and the workplaces that are supposed to be productive are optimized for something other than what we actually need, the systems we live in are optimized for something other than what we actually need. So the next time you’re feeling lonely, like no one out there feels like you do, know that millions feel that too. A better world is possible, but we need to fight for it.

The Dispatch Desk

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Farewell

If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend! If you’d like to submit a story for possible inclusion in a future issue, leave a comment or reply to the email.

Thank you for reading. Live long and prosper 🖖

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Desk Memo

Dear Reader,

Imposter syndrome gets a lot of airtime, and for good reason. Most of us are living with some version of it: the feeling that there’s a gap between who you are and who you’re supposed to be.

I ran into my own version of it this week. I’ve been working on getting more comfortable with conversation: the kind that starts cold, with strangers, without a script. It doesn’t come naturally, so I’ve been taking the reps: small talk with people I don’t know, whenever one presents itself. This week, I got a few of those in. What I noticed is that the discomfort doesn’t go away; it just becomes more familiar. That’s what closing the gap looks like—not eliminating the distance, just working it.

That’s what I think a conscious life requires: staying aware of the gap between who you are and who you’re building toward, and putting in the reps instead of waiting until you feel ready.

Before we get into it, Data Stream is entering a new chapter: focused, high-signal. Suppose the new direction isn’t for you; no hard feelings. You can always manage your subscription.

Warmly,
Xavi B

What Ryan Gosling’s Best Role Since Barbie Gets Right About People

Project Hail Mary opens with a man who doesn’t know who he is. He wakes up alone, runs through a basic self-inventory, and has to reconstruct himself from scratch. That’s the film’s premise and, it turns out, its argument. Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, and he’s fantastic, carrying most of the film by himself. The cinematography and color throughout (from the grade to the costumes) felt especially intentional. The red NASA space suit stood out to me; I found it far more delightful than the white suits of real life.

I don’t want to get too much into spoiler territory, so all I’ll say is that the supporting cast is also great, human and non-human alike. The emotional stakes they bring make the film land hard several times, so don’t feel bad if you’re wiping a tear or two. Lens blur is prominent throughout to signal the character’s own blurriness with his memories. There are moments where this almost goes too far, and some viewers might have issues making out the details.

The pacing drags in places, making the film feel longer than its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. The notion that the world’s capitalist governments would work together to solve a global crisis is laughable and utopian, but somehow the film earns it. It’s a story that shows how ordinary people can make extraordinary sacrifices, and a meditation on the resilience of humanity and our instinct to collaborate to survive. Bottom line: it’s genuinely moving, flaws and all. What did you think of the film?

The Robot Assistant Isn’t Just a Chatbot Anymore

Refusing to trust AI companies is reasonable. The technology is still worth paying attention to. Claude Cowork allows people to give AI extensive context and access. You can point it at text files that contain important information for your workflows, projects, goals, tasks, and life. But you also give it access to apps you use through MCPs and connectors. You suddenly have a very powerful AI assistant, tailored to you.

This is exactly what David Sparks covers in his latest Field Guide on “Robot Assistants,” as he calls them. We may be seeing the future of how computers and phones work. The devices run themselves and ask for our input when necessary. It changes the traditional relationship to how files are viewed, organized, and thought of. This is JARVIS from Iron Man, made real. It can handle record creation, updates, deletions, and renames. It can develop a file structure and organization tailored to your needs and follow them without constant user input. David discusses his system in more detail on an episode of Mac Power Users.

The form looks familiar (it’s still a chat interface), but the capability has shifted meaningfully. This isn’t just a smarter search engine; it’s a system that knows your context and can act on it. If that frees people up from the administrative grind to spend more time on the things that actually require being a person, that’s the version of this technology worth paying attention to.

The Shelf Life of a Reality TV Star

The Bachelorette cast Taylor Frankie Paul in an effort to save their franchise with a somewhat already famous lead. Three days before the season’s actual premiere, TMZ released a 2023 video, and now the season has been canceled.

Disney knew. They had footage of this exact incident from the beginning of season one of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. So it got to a point where it would damage the company’s image, and ultimately, they probably thought it would not be profitable for them in the long run to continue the season.

I think it’s very telling of how corporations, like Disney, that produce both The Bachelorette and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, will use these people who put their lives on display for everyone to see for as long as they are entertaining. They make the money, and the moment that they feel like that’s not the case anymore, they discard them and move along. These corporations exploit the personal lives of people, and in this case, children, for money.

Small Talk Isn’t Pretending: It’s the Price of Entry

Making friends is hard, mostly due to capitalism. But capitalism or not, we’d need to make small talk with other humans, and that’s the reality. Dr. NerdLove’s column is fantastic because it explains why small talk is necessary for achieving meaningful relationships. It’s a key stepping stone to understanding whether you align with someone, and skipping steps will lead to mixed results.

Dr. NerdLove’s deeper point is that theory isn’t enough. You can’t just read about socializing; you can’t just read about making friends; you actually have to practice in the real world. You have to challenge yourself to create social interactions with people and put yourself out there. You will only improve through experience.

This connects back to what I was getting at in the Desk Memo: closing the gap between who you are and who you want to become is not just about knowledge; you also need practice. What reps are you putting in? Reply and let me know.

The Dispatch Desk

Got a question about building your own path? Submit it for The Dispatch Desk → Ask here.

Farewell

If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend! If you’d like to submit a story for possible inclusion in a future issue, leave a comment or reply to the email.

Thank you for reading. Live long and prosper 🖖

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Dear Reader,

In less than a month I’ll be back in a classroom, and honestly? I’m equal parts terrified, nervous, and wildly excited. Still, the whole thing feels like the start of a chapter I’m genuinely optimistic about.

Most of the summer has been a paperwork marathon. I’ve hunted down tax returns, chased transcripts, and filled out what feels like a thousand forms just to figure out tuition and financial aid. Now it’s the hurry-up-and-wait phase, hoping I get some grant money.

The season hasn’t been all spreadsheets and signatures, though. It’s also been drenched in love, both falling into new love and nurturing the love already here. Journaling every day has helped nudge me to show up with intention and choose connection on purpose.

I hope your summer is thick with whatever you love most.

Warmly,
Xavi B

Bee My Honey

I was in Sedona recently with my partner, and while we were there, we stumbled into a cute little honey shop called Savannah Bee Company. I picked up an insanely tasty hot honey; sweet up front with a fiery habanero kick on the finish.

Did you know mead is basically a wine fermented from honey? Well, I didn’t. We sampled a flight of their meads, and I’m sold. I don’t drink much alcohol (I’m more of a stoner) but I could definitely get into mead.

Bees, unfortunately, are in a precarious spot right now. Between June 2024 and January 2025, beekeepers lost 62% of commercial honey-bee colonies in the U.S. It’s the second straight year of mass die-offs. The culprit is viruses spread by pesticide-resistant varroa mites, and, naturally, funding for real solutions is throttled by the profit motive.

Capes, Capitalism, and Mommy Vibes

July gifted us not one but two superhero movies—and I’m happy to report, they were both actually good.

James Gunn's Superman feels like a palette cleanser after the grayscale grit of Zack Snyder's version. A friend of mine summed it up perfectly: “Snyder only uses about three colors in each film, and two of them are black and white.” Gunn’s take, by contrast, is drenched in saturated color. The new suit is somehow both classic and modern, and the tone is hopeful even if a bit naive. I submitted a full review to the paper, but here’s a clip:

[Lex] Luthor is shown to be the system, just stripped of its polite mask. He runs a pocket-universe prison for metahumans and political prisoners, backs the Boravian war effort in exchange for stolen land, and brazenly steers the national security apparatus. Yet the film doesn’t question the legitimacy of the state his corporation is fused with. His downfall is framed as personal corruption, not as a structural consequence of capitalism. In this way, the film offers a bourgeois fantasy: evil is a matter of bad individuals, not a consequence of the class relations capitalism produces.

As for Fantastic Four—Pedro Pascal’s take on Reed Richards is delightfully unbearable. The man radiates charisma in most of his roles, but here he had to play a character who’s almost allergic to charm. He nailed it! Vanessa Kirby brings real depth to Sue Storm, and yeah, she’s giving major mommy vibes throughout. It works.

This might also be my favorite depiction of Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm. Johnny’s that perfect blend of lovable asshole and fiercely loyal. Ben’s hilarious, a damn good cook, and the kind of uncle I hope my future kids have.

Big Glass, Big Feelings

The public beta of upcoming iOS 26 is out, and it’s a big one! It’s a complete redesign known as “Liquid Glass.” To say it’s been polarizing might be putting it lightly. After its initial sneak peek back in June, social media was ablaze with people who loved it and others who absolutely hated it.

I’ve gotta say, I was a bit hesitant at first. Big change is scary. I haven’t tried the beta just yet, but I think we’ll get used to it. The real egregious design issues seem to have been ironed out during the early beta period. The early sneak peek was an accessibility nightmare, with what looked like a lot of unreadable text.

I’m excited about the call screening, iMessage features, and new CarPlay design, among a few other features that MKBHD highlights in his video about the new operating system. He points to many of these features being copied over from Android, and I for one hope that trend continues.

The Bots Are Coming for Our Jobs

Everyone and their grandmother seems scared of AI. People fret about what it’ll mean for students and jobs. Others worry about sci-fi coming to life with robots taking over. I think this quote from a New York Times opinion column puts the fear succinctly:

I came to feel that large language models like ChatGPT are intellectual Soylent Green — the fictional foodstuff from the 1973 dystopian film of the same name, marketed as plankton but secretly made of people. After all, what are GPTs if not built from the bodies of the very thing they replace, trained by mining copyrighted language and scraping the internet? And yet they are sold to us not as Soylent Green but as Soylent, the 2013 ‘science-backed’ meal replacement dreamed up by techno-optimists who preferred not to think about their bodies.

Under capitalism, every breakthrough in technology mirrors the system’s dystopian streak. How could it not? Instead of freeing us, a leap like this usually means layoffs and shattered livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of workers. In 2024, more than 130,000 tech workers lost their job.

Under socialism, the same technology could serve human need. It could shorten the workweek, push the worst jobs onto robots, and lift living standards across the board. Imagine what we could build with AI under democratic control, not in the hands of a few shortsighted parasitic billionaires.

Red Is the New Black

We’re only halfway through the year, and it feels like history is speeding up. The war in Ukraine grinds on. Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinians continues. Trump tried to start a trade war with China and had to awkwardly walk it back. It’s disorienting—the tectonic plates of the world situation have shifted massively.

The International I’m part of published its World Perspectives document—a sweeping analysis of global developments that will be voted on at our upcoming World Congress. There’s a lot to unpack, but a clear through line is this: conflict between imperialist powers is intensifying. As the article puts it:

The struggle against militarism and imperialism has become a central point of our epoch. We are staunch opponents of imperialist wars and imperialism, but we are not pacifists. We must stress that the only way to guarantee peace is the abolition of the capitalist system which breeds war.

The ruling class has no issue burning through lives and precious resources in pursuit of profit. But for many young people, these wars are waking up something deeper. Today’s 18-year-olds were born in 2007. They’ve spent their entire conscious lives watching one capitalist crisis after another. So it’s no surprise that even the Cato Institute—a right-wing think tank—was recently horrified to find that 62% of Americans under 30 have a favorable view of socialism. And a third say the same about communism.

Folks, it's no exaggeration to say that it’s socialism or barbarism. And the kids seem to get it.

Farewell

If you enjoyed this, it would mean the world to me if you shared it with a friend. If you come across something you think I might find interesting, please send it my way!

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Thanks for reading. Live long and prosper 🖖