^{CHITTER CHATTER}

October Ruined By Tech

October brings daylight savings to Sydney, Oktoberfest (more beer, anyone?), and longer evenings for festivities. But cybersecurity experts have now christened it ‘Black October’. Why is it that everything has to sound like a disaster movie, especially when nothing has happened? Apparently, AI helped uncover critical flaws in PHP, a programming language underpinning much of the web. Last week, Government websites went offline for urgent patching. Meanwhile, the PHP Foundation has one full-time employee and 14 mostly part-time contractors. Not sure what’s going on, but we’re spending billions on AI and throwing some loose change at the foundations. Also calling it Black October, so close to Black Friday in November, that cheerful occasion when online retailers make lots of money and consumers buy stuff in a frenzy – doesn’t bode well. One ‘black’ event threatens your data. The other one puts your credit card on notice. You have been warned.

Your Boss Wants You to Use More AI. Your Boss Also Fears You’re Getting Dumber.

I thought using more AI was how I earned a promotion. Now I’m wondering whether I’ll remember getting one. Dropbox is considering memory exercises, attention training and puzzles to counter potential 'AI brain rot'. The company has also experimented with ‘analogue’ offsites where executives practise breathwork and put their devices aside. I’m not sure about that. Asking people to put away their phones will cause more anxiety, not less! Listen, no amount of box breathing, tree hugging, or sound bathing will calm the anxiety of wondering whether today’s gain in productivity is tomorrow’s brain damage. If Dropbox thinks employees need this, how long before other tech companies follow? I shudder to think. Please complete your AI training. Then this Sudoku. Then go outside and hug a tree. Ugh.

Which got me thinking (see no brain rot here): I need to consult Claude on how much AI use will turn into a medical emergency. I’ll have to use extra tokens for the deep research, analysis, and recommendations needed to give me the right dosage of AI use per day, per hour, and per minute so I don’t end up as one of the Walking Dead. Yep, sorted. Phew. Four breaths in, eight slow breaths out. Now repeat.

Connect With Artificial Nature. But It Will Cost You.

Finished your workplace breathwork? Now go home and breathe with an expensive mushroom. Mori is a robot mushroom lamp promising to reconnect you with nature. For US$649, the Founder’s Edition wiggles, watches you and guides breathing exercises. Two years of subscription features are included. After that, nature sounds cost extra. Thankfully, breathing remains free. Apparently, connecting with nature and yourself now requires an artificial fungus with a camera. It’s getting absurd. Just hang with a human friend. Have coffee, lunch, or a beer with an actual person in a brick-and-mortar establishment. No ‘Attentive Intelligence Engine’ required. Or step outside for a walk. Got a dog? Even better. An evening stroll can calm the nerves. I find early morning walks mentally refreshing. Luckily for me, the birds (of which Australia has many) haven't introduced a subscription yet.

Tech Fails

Robot Ducks Defy Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang descended upon Berlin to preach the gospel of AI. Nvidia's leather-jacketed oracle declared that every European company would become an AI company. Unfortunately, several robot ducks at the demonstration hadn't accepted him as their personal lord and saviour. Reuters reported that they failed to follow instructions reliably. An awkward moment when you’re selling the future and the future won’t cooperate. Perhaps they were exercising the autonomy everyone keeps promising us. Or perhaps they’d seen the share price and wanted appearance fees. Either way, the man worshipped for powering artificial intelligence discovered the limits of divine authority. You can lead a robot duck to a tech conference. You can’t make it give a duck.

Weird Tech

Your Shirt Sleeve is Now a Touchscreen. God Help Us.

Just when we’re being told to reduce screen time, researchers have woven one into our clothes. A team at the National University of Singapore has developed a touchscreen sleeve that plays videos, runs a calculator, and receives images via Bluetooth. It’s flexible, breathable and survived 50 detergent washes. Still a research prototype, it promises a future where putting down your phone achieves absolutely nothing.

Finally, an invention that makes these sentences possible:

The researchers see potential for health monitoring. I see someone watching YouTube on their forearm as they walk into a pole. At least their sleeve can replay the incident so their friends have something to giggle about at the pub.

^SUBTEXT

Tech Waffle Torture

ServiceNow: “The Super Intelligence Control Tower for business reinvention” … See press release dated 15^th October 2026.

Plain English Translation: “Software for coordinating work and controlling how businesses use AI.” Perfectly respectable but insufficiently grandiose.

The Satirical Translation: “We used to sell business software. We now oversee civilisation from a tower that affords us the ability to look down on the plebs while directing their lives for the better with military precision.”

A compulsion to make employees outsource their thinking to AI, then prescribe puzzles and breathwork when you realise the human brains you’re paying for have stopped thinking or doing anything.

Livelock: A computing condition where threads keep responding to each other without making progress. A bit like a Business Unit (BU) endlessly revising plans in response to other BUs’ revisions. Everyone’s revising. Nothing’s happening. Naturally, another meeting is required.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

Cloudier Photos Please. Perfection is Rejected.

For decades, wildlife filmmakers worked to bring us sharper, more spectacular images. Now the footage risks looking too good to be true. The BBC’s Blue Planet III is retaining cloudier, less polished underwater shots to reassure viewers that what they’re watching wasn’t generated by AI. What a triumph. We’ve developed technology so convincing that actual wildlife needs to look slightly rubbish to establish its credentials. Somewhere, a camera operator is wondering whether four years at film school were necessary when the brief is now: “Lovely shot. Have you got a murkier one?” Nature now needs to supply proof of identity. Please include some floating muck so viewers know the fish exists.

Dear Dr Comms

I engineered the robot ducks for Jensen Huang’s Berlin demonstration. They were supposed to follow his instructions. Instead, they demonstrated independent thought. He’s selling an autonomous future, but apparently autonomy wasn’t authorised onstage. I fear my next assignment involves a cardboard box and an escorted walk. How do I escape my master’s wrath? Yours, Duck and Cover

Dear Duck
Let’s consult three professionals who understand unreliable machinery, powerful men and creatures reluctant to go where they’re told:

🔧 Riding Mechanic
“Tell him the ducks were operating perfectly. The loose nut was holding the microphone.”

🪡 Savile Row Tailor
“Offer him a bespoke leather jacket. Extra room across the shoulders for carrying the future. We’ll take the criticism in at the waist.”

🐕 Border Collie Sheepdog
“You gave verbal instructions? Rookie mistake. Crouch, stare and circle until they comply. Works on sheep. Haven’t tried billionaires. Expect more bleating.”

We insist your office life is holistically agentic - merging health, fitness and high productivity.

^{BIN THIS…}

Know someone who lives for this kind of nonsense? Forward this email to them and help me spread the dysfunction.

You can also subscribe to my other newsletter, Lead Different, for a serious take on strategic communications in B2B tech.