What happens when you give ChatGPT $500 to invest
These are the best things I found on the internet this week!
What’s up everybody,
I was talking about this newsletter the other day and was reminded that it’s now been up and running multiple times per week for more than seven years. Nearly a quarter of my life I’ve been doing this thing. That’s crazy! Thanks for those who have been here since the beginning and are still reading.
My “conversation starters” came about later, starting in July 2021, so we’re only four and a half years into giving you a rundown of the best, most interesting and most entertaining content on the internet each week. I’ll tell you now what I told you then—I think if you read, watch and talk about these stories this week, it will improve your media diet and your water cooler chat!!
What’s the coolest story or thing you found on the internet this week? Reply to this email and shoot me a link. Would love to hear from you!
A writer for Fast Company gave ChatGPT $500 to invest over six months. Its stock picks were surprisingly clever, and even more surprisingly, very aggressive (put another way: risky).
This Long Read of the Week is a doozy, a profile of the fallen talk show star Wendy Williams, who is being held in a dementia care facility against her will. Is she sick? Is she imprisoned? What do we believe? Who can we trust? This New York Mag writer snuck her way into Williams’ orbit to find out.
Here’s an incredibly useful bit of information for people, like me, who have to fly home for Christmas. The lowest air fares for Christmas time are reported 51 days before departure, so the best time to buy is roughly late October (take that Mom, who asks me for my plans in mid-September!). Still, the same data shows a nearly 10% increase in prices this year no matter what….sigh.
A topic I’m endlessly fascinated in is how parents are meant to handle smartphones while raising children. The latest development is a genius one because of how stupidly simple it is — the return of landline telephones, for kids! Turns out it’s not just healthier, but the tactile nature of the whole thing is actually more fun.
Only 16 percent of Americans are reading for pleasure these days. So New York Mag asked 18 readers how they find the time to get through dozens of books per year. It’s crazy how out of the ordinary their lifestyles now seem, and I’m jealous of them.
It’s 2025, and at this point it’s kind of weird of if you don’t use your phone while in the bathroom. But new research shows that people who use their phone while sitting on the toilet have a 46% higher chance of hemorrhoids than those who don’t, because they are five times more likely to spend 5+ minutes sitting there. This doesn’t mean I’m not taking my phone with me, but from now on I’m cutting my Duolingo lesson off halfway through if I’m done with my business.
If you’ve ever watched an F1 pit stop and thought, “How do they do all that in 2.5 seconds? And, actually, what are they even doing?” then this slow-motion breakdown of an F1 pit stop is the best (and coolest) explanation you’ll ever find.
Thanks for reading and sharing! We’re back talking about The Smashing Machine and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s star power on Friday!