🤝 I want to be your helper and mentor: I’ve been around tech forever. My business has thrived for over 20 years without any debt or investors, and I continue to innovate or else I might evaporate. I’m a mom and have been a caregiver. If you have an issue, problem or question about your life or business, I would love to help you. Ask me your questions here on my site. I read every single note.
$11.99 per month
Spotify’s new price after another $1 increase. The Premium Family plan went from $16.99 to $19.99. If you have a student in the fam, you can score a $5.99 monthly rate that includes Hulu with ads. You’re welcome.
🛸 This is far out: In Haywood County, North Carolina, a man found a strange three-foot object on a remote trail. He thinks it might be from outer space. It has burnt carbon fiber dotting the surface, heavy-duty metal plates, and it’s held together with thick bolts. It was so heavy that he had to move it with a lawnmower. What do you think it is?
Hard pass: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wants to bring AI clones to the platform. “Digital twins” will attend meetings on your behalf and even make decisions, freeing up your schedule and maybe leading to shorter workweeks. Uh, no. Digital Kim is not making decisions for Real Kim.
🙏 Faith palm: Meet Carlo Acutis, a British-born teen who might be the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint. Known as “God’s Influencer,” he preached online before dying at 15 of leukemia. Now, he’s recognized for miracles and resting in a glass tomb in Assisi, drawing pilgrims from around the globe.
The phone call etiquette battle: More and more folks insist on a “text-me-first” rule. The two sides (WSJ, paywall link): 1.) “Cold” calls are too intrusive, so text first, and 2.) Calling without a text first is totally fine. I always text before calling. I never leave a voicemail, either.
Heads up, Verizon users: A weird glitch in Android messaging apps is causing photos to come through blurry. The issue only pops up when multiple images are sent in a single message. Sending them individually seems to bypass the problem. Why? It’s a mystery. In the meantime, make sure your apps are up to date, and hang tight for a fix.
🐷 He got butchered: A 75-year-old Midwestern man is broke after giving $715,000 to a sly romance scammer. It started with a LinkedIn message but quickly turned into a classic “pig-butchering” scheme. The crook promised huge returns on investments. Hit this link to read the texts between the man and his fraudster. So very sad and so very avoidable.
News from X: This is what happens when you buy a company for $44 billion that’s now worth $12 billion — advertisers leave and no one wants to pay $8 a month for a dumb blue checkmark. X is now officially open to adult content, whether it’s AI-generated, photographic or animated. The rules? It must be “consensually produced and distributed,” labeled, and kept out of profile pics and banners. Maybe they’ll change the name to “XXX.”
$257 to $213
The average projected concert ticket price this summer compared to the summer of 2023. More major acts are canceling their tours as the post-pandemic live music boom cools down. Still, ticket-seller Live Nation hit $3.8 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2024. Bet they say a prayer for Taylor Swift every day.