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Issue #02 · November 6, 2026
I SERIOUSLY screwed up because this was supposed to go out last Friday. It will continue to go out every Friday, pinky promise. But let’s carry on.
This week I’ve been on the road, and I broke my own record: almost 900 kilometers (~600 miles), driven in a single day, from Rapid City, SD, to Boone, IA.
I can’t tell you exactly what I’m working on just yet, but you’ll see in about a month. I can tell you about stuff I learned and some gadgets that were lifesavers for me.
It starts with…, Claude has a CarPlay app (what?!). I’ve been known to chat with bots when I get bored of driving, but so far that had been very ‘unofficial’.
There’s only so much music and podcasts you can listen to, so I went from asking Claude about the cows and the Sandhills in Nebraska, to why there aren’t any trees, to why Iowa has so many wind turbines and endless cornfields along the I-90. (I gave my Claude a soothing British voice, BTW).
It also made me realize how inferior Siri still is. ‘She’ struggles to keep a conversation going, and as much smarter as she’s gotten vs. iOS 26… it’s still 2 steps behind what I experienced with Claude.
The more I drove, the more I felt that AI for solo drivers is a hugely untapped opportunity. Maybe I’m a weirdo: a desk worker/nerd who needs to do a 600-mile road trip by himself… BUT, for people who drive for a living, I see a real opportunity: learning something new, asking about what’s around you, even paying your bills and getting things done, all while keeping your eyes on the road. Heck, even the companionship.
All this to say, I’m dictating this as I drive because the show must go on. This isn’t an AI newsletter by any means; I just dictated to make the most of this time (crossing the Missouri River as I write this line). Let’s gooo!
-Caya
The Cool Shit Section
Momax 70W Universal Charger
Easily the cheapest and most useful device I carry. It has two USB-C ports, two regular USB ports, and one USB-C port that outputs 70 watts, enough to charge your laptop, so you can leave your MacBook charger behind.”
Disposable Camera Lens
Disposable camera lenses: Someone out there takes apart 35mm disposable cameras and mounts the lens on a 3D-printed adapter that plugs right onto your camera. They give you insanely old-school-looking footage.
PD Travel Backpack (45 L)
Beyond being a great photography backpack, its biggest perk is that it passes as a personal item when it’s really almost the size of a carry-on.
Movie of the Week
Drive
★★★½ "Flirting with awkward silence"
Staying on theme with my life this week, ‘Drive’ is such a weird mix of action, but also chill slow-mo vibes with an awesome soundtrack.
As I am writing this, I just realized ‘The Driver’ character doesn’t have a name… which I never seem to notice during the movie. In a way, Ryan Gosling is always Ryan Gosling.
Video of the Week
Your TV can not only watch what you are watching, but it’s also probably been reporting it to the mothership.
All this time we (half-jokingly) thought it was the Zuck listening through the Instagram mic, and it seems that some TVs were ACTUALLY listening.
There has been a lot of reporting about ACR, but mostly focused on the stuff inside the TV. We went a step further, found the guy that invented the whole thing, and traced the data: how it’s sent, and where it goes.
(Other) Cool Newsletters
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Hidden Feature
Mini LED TV after some setting tweaks
Your TV can look MUCH closer to an OLED
We have been testing every TV technology in existence as part of an upcoming video (which by far will be our most expensive video this year).
Out of the box, our OLED screen was SO MUCH better than every other TV, including newer technologies like microRGB and mini-LED… HOWEVER, the settings made all the difference.
Using the OLED as a reference, we got to calibrating our other screens and found that we could get them much closer to the deep blacks that OLED offers.
Here’s what you want to do,
If you already have an OLED, enjoy your privilege. You don’t need to do anything (for now).
Go to your TV Settings and find the ‘Black Point’ or ‘Black Level’ setting.
The default setting is probably going to be 0, or maybe even +5.
Bring that bitch down. I found -3 or -5 (depending on the TV) to be so much better at hiding ‘dark grays’ that should have looked black.
Use that sequence in ‘The Batman’ as a reference. It’s at ~10:00.
This is especially noticeable in Mini-LED and Micro-RGB TVs. Less noticeable in older full-panel backlit screens.
There’s a lot more to come on how to improve your TV, including an app we are in the process of launching. If you’d be interested in testing it out, just hit reply.