Every Friday
lovers-gate
We hope you have planned your Valentine’s Day in advance because OpenTable is looking slim, crew.
It’s a long, lovers weekend incoming (extended weekend for 1/4 of us — Macke, you’re cancelled). Spring may be showing its beautiful, sunny face in the coming weeks; the New York half of Relay is in desperate need. Our first quarter training programs are well underway (not Ian, everyone shame him so that he accomplishes his 2026 marathon goals). The holiday bloat is being shaved off, thank God.
We’re in that lull of the year. February… March… bleh. Every year we see it coming, and every year we underestimate it. February, you are also cancelled. Let’s skip it in 2027.
In honor of the upcoming new album next month, this video from Barry will make Spring come faster (we promise).👇🏼
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape. — Bell Hooks
Don't feel sad over someone who gave up on you; feel sorry for them because they gave up on someone who would have never given up on them. — Frank Ocean
Top of Mind
World First! AI Dating Cafe, (Secret NYC)
Guests are encouraged to show up solo, open the EVA app, and spend the evening talking to their digital partner in a setting that looks like any other cozy NYC wine bar–until you notice everyone is gazing lovingly at a screen.
I (Jack) swear I did my due diligence on this. I was, like you probably are, convinced it was fake. Alas, it seems to be quite real. If only we knew this was happening at the time, this demands boots on the ground journalism from the NYC Relay branch. I rewatched S1 of Altered Carbon a few weeks ago, and I’m seeing it everywhere… (watch the show if you haven’t, S1 only).
my week with the AI populists, (Jasmine Sun)
The country is increasingly polarized based not only on party but on modernity itself—whether we fear it, embrace it, or don’t pay attention at all; whether we think its advance is inevitable or something we can halt; whether we expect to wield technology’s powers or end up drowned in the wave. AI populism is on the rise, and these fights will get nasty—especially as election season kicks in, and as AI’s impacts diffuse.
I (James) have been scrolling through the hellscape that is my X “For You” tab way too many nights in a row for work this week (my sleep score’s in the basement), and the AI slop was even worse than usual. For those that had the good fortune of missing it, a doomer post went mega-viral claiming, essentially, “if you love your family, you have to warn them about what’s coming with AI”. He made a few valid points, but the TL;DR was: the timeline for society upending AI was shorter than anyone thinks and we’re all low-key screwed.
And maybe he’s partially right — our system of government isn’t exactly built to be nimble enough to rapidly address problems at scale. But this piece by Jasmine Sun captured the visceral reaction I had to that whole AI-slop doom cycle.
Both SF and DC are notorious for being uncool and unerotic. This stems from their incredible self-seriousness: what Dan Wang might call the inability to take a joke. “Conversations feel like podcasts and the hosts are not funny.” DC’s off the record is SF’s building in stealth. Both are Signal and Celsius cities—even the messaging apps and energy drinks must be military-grade.
She was in D.C. from SF (via the somewhat newly expanded direct flight list from SFO to DCA — the one Nancy Pelosi lobbied into existence with then–Commerce Secretary and everyone’s favorite ex–McKinsey drone, Mayor Pete. Interesting policy rabbit hole, if you’re curious. Love her or hate her, no one does it quite like Nancy - our brokerage accounts thank her). Anyway — she came to town to get out of the AI mecca bubble and understand how policy folks and other non-tech power centers are actually thinking about AI. Lots of great stuff in her longer piece (you should read it) but her core takeaway is:
All the money is on one side and all the people are on the other. We aren’t ready for how much people hate AI.
This is a really long-winded way of saying that I (and plenty of other people who have already articulated this point) think both the AI doomers and hyper-optimists ignore some hard adoption constraints. Most people in the country still use AI as a slightly better version of Google Search. The economy is still run by massive, lumbering corporations full of stubborn, inefficient people. Widespread AI deployment across the job market is inevitable, yes — but the adoption rate, and the speed of implementation at scale, are going to buy us some time on the shot clock.
But — in the interest of not ending on too high a note — I’ll leave you with some sobering reminders that both ends of the AI luddite-to-technologist spectrum are incredibly bleak:
Education Secretary Linda McMahon confuses AI with A1 (yes, the steak sauce brand capitalized on it)
Sam Altman can’t imagine raising his children without ChatGPT (oof)
ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition
New drop from Satisfy Running❗️ Don’t miss your new LSD Mothtech Tee (it’s 170 dollars). We need to get equipped for the Spring season on the West side highway.
Bethesda games are hitting the Nintendo Switch 2 in April, for all you gamers out there (Macke). Fallout, Skyrim, Oblivion, if you know you know. The Switch 2 has been in my (Jack) shopping cart for ages.
Yass suggested that instead of buying insurance policies for homes in hurricane prone areas, homeowners could bet on the probability of a hurricane, effectively hedging the potential losses from property damage.
Best of Substack this Week
11 White Pills You Might Have Missed on TBPN — Brandon Gorrell
Meet the startup building the operating system for America’s best grocery stores — next play
This Week in Relay’s Shopping Cart
American Flag Key Fob (Classic Navy), (Jack)
My new apartment has a comical amount of keys required to enter… maybe I’ll add this guy to hate them less. Needlepoint for the win.
Single Cigarette Holder in 316L Stainless Steel, (Relay & Dave & 50)
Macke sends us a link to this every time it gets restocked and we’ve yet to pull the trigger.
It’s Not That Deep, Randy
Thanks for reading—or for mega scrolling all the way down here.
The internet is an overwhelming mess of headlines, ads, and mid takes from the worst people you know. Big Tech owns our attention spans. Everything is content. Nothing makes sense.
We’re not here to “fix discourse” or “build a better internet.” Relay is just our attempt to riff on what we’re already talking about at happy hour without feeling like we’ve been hit by a content truck. Some analysis, some memes, call it a day.
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No love for the stainless steel prison mug
Altered carbon mentioned lfg