Every Friday
For the chronically online girlfriends and boyfriends
Swipe right for Relay
Happy Friday, lovers. We hope you're celebrating Valentine’s Day with someone special. But even if you're flying solo, we’ve got good news for you this weekend: our first Sunday edition, I Love the Sunday Scaries, is heading to your inbox. You're welcome!
Another whirlwind week down and once again, we’re halfway through the month. Pennies are out. Plastic straws are in. And somehow, HBO execs seem to be directing 2025—Chernobyl’s back in the headlines, a Last of Us-coded zombie fungus just surfaced in Ireland, and Succession is playing out in real time.
A slate of cabinet nominees—Tulsi, RFK, Rolling—were confirmed. FBI Director is next on deck - some of us think Kash is dead on arrival, but hey, we’ve been wrong before.
Veep took his first international trip in an attempt to inject some techno-optimism into the general malaise of European regulation (yes, in 2025 Pharrell and JD Vance are on the same panel - we were surprised too).
Thanks for being here. Lots of movement outside of Relay. We’ve got job interviews, a Tokyo marathon taper, grad-school prep, and SO’s moving back to the big city.
Top of Mind
Behind The Screens
AI’s workforce role skews toward collaboration, with 57% of tasks augmented rather than automated—mostly in mid-wage tech roles like programming (36% of occupations use AI for ≥25% of work). Current tools excel in structured domains but falter at extremes: low-wage jobs face adoption barriers, while high-skill roles demand irreplaceable expertise. The study’s value hinges on broader data and its exclusion of API, team, and enterprise usage creates critical gaps. Free and pro-tier user data alone misrepresent real-world adoption patterns.
In Richard Hanania’s, Why You Shouldn't Worry about AI Taking Jobs, he says AI-induced mass unemployment is overblown and argues that job loss fears are distractions from the real priority: ensuring AI systems remain aligned with human interests and safety requirements.
Phantom, a humanoid robot designed for military logistics, swapped defense for nightclubs, headlining a DJ set at Temple Nightclub. Surely we’re not using tax dollars for robot DJ gigs... right? This feels like a win for the AI-doomerism camp, but honestly, a military robot dj feels symbolic for 2025 so far. Those damn coastal elites just couldn’t stop at robot vacuum cleaners, could they?
Flying fucking sucks, unnecessarily. Boom is trying to make it suck less, Boom Supersonic Announces Boomless Cruise.
From Washington
The U.S. healthcare system's complex network of insurance companies, subsidies, and opaque pricing isn’t just broken—it’s actively fleecing everyone. Enter Zero-Toll Medicine (ZTM), a blockchain-fueled moonshot to torch today’s employer-based plans and bureaucratic bloat. ZTM’s radical promise? Transparent pricing, outcome-based incentives, and a single market where patients control their care dollars. This crypto-utopian reboot might just be the disruptor we need—Bernie if you’re reading this, no you didn’t.
@palmer_luckey Microsoft transferred its troubled $22 billion Army IVAS contract to Anduril, freeing itself from a faltering project while retaining a supporting role via Azure. Anduril, led by VR/AR innovator and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, focuses on tactical heads-up displays that enhance warfighters' capabilities. "These displays transform them into technomancers and pair them with weaponized robotics for a reason," Luckey wrote in his blog. Anduril is likely the only entity that can breath life into the IVAS program, as it remains the leader in marrying hardware & software in the defense technology space. This is yet another major milestone in Silicone Valley’s deepening integration with the American warfighter & definitely bullish for Hawaiian shirts.
Ctrl+Alt+Culture
"Two Chairs (Race Point)," 2025 offers an escape from our cursed news cycle by inviting you into the meditative rhythms of artistic creation. His focus on detail and simplicity was a gentle reminder for us this week to slow down and find solace in creating something step by step. To dissociate less and to lean into your work.
Nikki Glaser receives endless amounts of love. Meanwhile, her old co-host Brian Frange gets filthy rich as he “makes $700,000,000,000 per week providing apple advice for wealthy fruit enthusiasts.” Damn. More headlines for Brian and applerankings.com please.
For our stoic readers, this 2018 piece by Ryan Holiday still holds up: 40 Ways To Live A Full Life (And Leave Nothing On The Table) By Age 30.
It’s Not That Deep, Randy
There is something about Fred Again’s music that is a little bit sad to me. Maybe it's nostalgia, though that doesn't quite capture it. Whatever it is, I will be opting in on my run tonight. — Ian
“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once.” —Audrey Hepburn
“I wanna please you, but I want to stay true to myself. I want to give you the night out that you deserve, but I want to say what I think and not care what you think about it.” —Bo Burnham
ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition
Decarbonization 2024: Stocks and flows, abundance and scarcity, net zero (Nat Bullard)
Former President Joe Biden signs deal with Hollywood talent agency CAA; here's what he plans to do (The Economic Times)
How America fracked itself and remade the world (Arena Magazine)
Post Neo-liberal Delusion (Foreign Affairs)
Why Silicon Valley Lost Its Patriotism (The Atlantic)
Nucleus Genomics announces $14 million in new funding to scale software-first health care (Nucleus)
Gameto Announces FDA IND Clearance for Fertilo, the First iPSC-Based Therapy to Enter U.S. Phase 3 Clinical Trials (Business Wire)
Thanks for reading—or for mega scrolling all the way down here.
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Relay is a collective effort to distill information across tech, politics, and culture. It stands in direct opposition to the hollow drift toward cheap consumption, regrettable minutes, empty engagement, and a distorted understanding of the real world. It’s a refusal to let algorithms erode our ability to think critically—and an invitation to participate meaningfully, despite apathy becoming the social norm.
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chronically online girlfriend loved this!!!