THE STATIC - Issue 24

Hey You, Welcome! Here’s your weekly dose roasting tech spin, bluster and puffery. Laugh at the cringe, unjam your message.

This week in:

• Tech Waffle Torture - Responsible AI: we say ‘careful’, we mean fast

• Shallow Values - Integrity: the delicate art of virtuous signalling

• Savage Takedowns - Meta’s embarrassing AI demo fail

• Corporate Contagions - Lingua-Bullshitia virus is on the rise

• LinkedIn Templates - Rejoicing putting in that extra effort at year-end

• Not Good News - Atlassian carbon-emission fail; Other news: From AI hype to bust

• WTF can I do about ‘sensor drift’? Stop attending Teams calls!

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Tech Waffle Torture Explained - We tell you what corporate speak really means. You’re welcome.

Responsible AI: Driven by a Mysterious Data Source

Original:
“We’re deeply committed to Responsible AI, anchored in transparency, safety, and trusted data foundations.”

Translation:
We have absolutely no idea what our models were trained on, cannot legally confirm it even if we did, and are hoping the phrase ‘trusted data foundations’ distracts you long enough for us to ship v3 before regulators wake up.

Meaningfully Shallow Values – You get them as short and sweet ugly truths

 Integrity

🛡️Integrity First
“Telling the truth boldly – the one sanitised by the comms team.”

🛡️Practising Integrity
“Transparent on all matters that don’t matter.”

🛡️Integrity in Action
“Doing the right thing… eventually… when the headlines settle.”

Savage Takedowns – Spectator sport or heed the lesson

Meta’s Demo Tried To Roar, Mostly Whimpered

At Meta Connect in September, the company aimed to demonstrate that its AI-powered smart glasses were ready for prime time. Instead, they froze, lagged, ignored commands, and forced executives into frantic improv. Meta blamed ‘demo conditions.’ But when your defining product is real-time AI, and it falls apart in a real-time moment, that excuse lands somewhere between adorable and insulting.

Spectator Sport
Watching Meta fail at its own signature magic trick is corporate theatre at its purest. ‘Demo issues’ is the spiritual cousin of ‘the dog ate my homework,’ only spoken by a trillion-dollar company with a lab full of PhDs. And the awkwardness wasn’t just technical, it was reputational. If you’re selling a vision of seamless human-machine interaction, perhaps ensure it works in a more intense setting than a lab with perfect Wi-Fi and one polite engineer.

Heed the Lesson
Perception is the whole product. A live demo is a trust ritual: you’re saying, “This works even when we can’t control the variables.” When it doesn’t – and when your official explanation sounds like hand-waving – people don’t doubt the demo; they doubt the roadmap. If you want us to buy a future where AI blends invisibly into daily life, don’t show us a future that collapses under the weight of a conference crowd.

Corporate Contagions – A field guide to the behaviourial disorders infecting the tech industry

Lingua-Bullshitia

A pseudo-Latin term for a fast-spreading viral disease where people start inventing terms, exaggerating capabilities, and describing half-baked features as ‘revolutionary.’

Lingua-Bullshitia thrives in environments where hype outruns reality and confidence replaces evidence. Prolonged exposure leads to inflated promises, imaginary roadmaps, and teams rabidly nodding at concepts nobody can define.

However if you ask for proof - all of a sudden Lingua-Bullshitia is cured because the afflicted person(s) stop talking.

LinkedIn Popularity Templates – Syrupy, self-congratulatory. Surprisingly effective.

Template 24: The ‘Finishing 2025 Strong’ Post

Proud to enter the final stretch of 2025 with relentless momentum, unshaken focus, and absolutely no intention of slowing down. 🚀

Rest is important, of course, for other people.

I’m choosing to honour the season by doubling my workload and encouraging my team to “lean into even longer hours joyfully.” ✨

 If you also believe burnout is just passion with a tighter deadline, hit ❤️ and comment “FINISHING STRONG.”

#EndOfYearPush #PeakPerformance #HustleButMakeItFun

Got some naval gazing or philosophical musing you’d like to turn into a syrupy LinkedIn post? Reply to this email with your request and I’ll do my best.

Not Good News – Tech’s weekly highlight reel of hubris, hypocrisy and cringe

Atlassian: Failing Loudly
Atlassian has admitted it won’t meet its big, public carbon-emissions targets - the same ones it proudly held up as proof of its climate leadership. After years of bold declarations and strong sustainability messaging, the company now says some goals were simply “too ambitious.”

My Take
Atlassian built this reputation as the cool, progressive Aussie tech company we all admire. But when the targets crumble, the image goes with it, and that cool factor starts circling the drain. Stop talking about this stuff. Just do it and then say something!

The AI Bubble Pop: Hype v Reality
The AI boom is starting to resemble the Dot-com bubble, characterised by sky-high valuations, trillion-dollar spending promises, and companies acting as if future revenue is already guaranteed - like Sam Altman announcing $1.4 trillion AI infrastructure plans based on $20 billion in annual revenue, then joking about needing government help when asked how they’ll pay for it. Big investors are noticing the cracks and some like Michael Burry who called the 2008 crash, are betting against AI tech companies. Analysts warn that if it weren’t for AI spend propping everything up, we’d already be in a recession.

My Take
It’s no surprise that as the AI hype hit its peak, the market started to sag from all the wishful thinking propping it up. Let’s hope it’s not as dire as some predict.

What The Fluff (WTF)?! – Decoding tech, something that linguists, philosophers, and your boss refuse to do

Layer 8 Insights – Regular deep dives that explore the human error in tech.