⚠️ They’re all fake

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📬 Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here. Tomorrow: That thing everyone calls “the cloud” is actually a windowless warehouse, and it’s raising your electric bill. 

Welcome to your Thursday, {{first_name | friend}}. Remember when movie night meant wandering Blockbuster aisles like a tiny movie critic with snacks? Now Netflix stares into your eyes and says, “You seem emotionally ready for a six-part murder documentary.” 

Netflix learned long ago that too many choices can make us bail. So it built a recommendation machine that watches what you watch, pause, rewatch and abandon.

🍿 When you press play, how much of what you watch was served up by Netflix’s algorithm instead of something you searched for yourself? A) 25%, B) 50%, C) 80% or D) 110%? Keep reading, the answer is rolling at the end like the credits.

🛡️ Your antivirus might be asleep at the wheel: Modern hackers don’t merely crash your PC. They install silent software to watch you type. Old antivirus misses this. I use Webroot because it is cloud-based and lightning fast. I don’t put my name on junk, and this is the protection I rely on. Get my exclusive 62% off deal now. Don’t browse unprotected.* — Kim

⚡ TL;DR

📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes

You mash the close-door button in the elevator. The doors close. Victory. Except they were closing anyway. 

Thank the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which says doors stay open a few seconds so everyone gets on safely. Most close-door buttons do nothing for you. Firefighters get one that works, with a key. 

Welcome to the world of placebo buttons. They’re everywhere, built to make you feel in control when you have none.

That button you jab while waiting to cross? Mostly theater. 

New York installed thousands in the 1970s, before computers ran the lights. By 2016, only about 120 of the city’s 3,250 still triggered the walk signal. Dallas turned off every downtown button. Boston, too. 

Why leave the dead ones up? Money. Ripping them out would cost over $1 million.

My brother-in-law worked as a contractor in an office building. When workers complained the temperature was off, he installed a placebo thermostat. Looked real. Wired to nothing. They could set it to whatever they wanted. And every time he checked in, they thanked him for finally fixing the problem, even offering a donut. Nothing had changed. 

He’s not the only one. A Wall Street Journal story confirmed fake office thermostats are real, installed to make complaints disappear.

Ever book a flight and watch “Searching 200 sites... Checking United…”? Often theater. 

Harvard researchers built two identical travel sites. One was instant. The other made you wait while it “searched.” People trusted the slow one more and rated it higher. 

So sites like Kayak still run that animation even when results loaded a second ago. The wait isn’t for the computer. It’s for you.

This one costs you. Your browser has a “Do Not Track” setting. About 75 million Americans flipped it on. The catch? It was a polite request, not a rule, and Google and Facebook ignored it. Apple and Firefox have since removed it entirely. 

The real fix: Turn on Global Privacy Control instead. It has legal teeth. California fined Sephora $1.2 million for ignoring it. Find it in Firefox, Brave or DuckDuckGo. Lock it down.

Psychologists call it the illusion of control. Pressing a button, even a dead one, makes us feel like we have a say. Studies even show people wait more patiently when they think they pushed something. So next time you jab one, know. The button’s pressing you.

I don’t trust elevators, by the way. They’re always up to something. And they always let me down.

📩 Send this to someone who furiously mashes the close-door button every single time they step into an elevator. You know exactly who. Use the handy dandy links below.

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(Starts at 8:57) Iranian hackers claim they breached California Water Service and stole customer data.

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🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

🏭 CPU victory lap: So China just took the supercomputer crown without the fancy AI chips America has been trying to keep out of its hands. LineShine, sitting in Shenzhen’s National Supercomputing Centre, topped the Top500 list at 2.198 exaflops (our El Capitan runs at 1.809). Apples to overworked apples, that’s like 500,000+ MacBooks. Translation? They’ve got a math cannon pointed at the future. Nerd trophy, sure, but also a geopolitical eyebrow raise. 

Mouse money incoming: ESPN might be the reason your skinny bundle got fat. Disney agreed to a $50M class action settlement over claims it made YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream carry ESPN and other Disney channels, allegedly keeping cheaper packages off the menu. If you had YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2026, check the email tied to your account for a notice and ID/PIN. File a claim online at https://www.onlinetvsettlement.com, or mail the claim form by Sept. 8, 2026. Final approval is Jan. 14, 2027, with payments after.

🎵 Music gets moody: Your car radio rant got data. Researchers at Queen Mary University of London analyzed about 380,000 songs from 1960 to 2023 to see what moral themes showed up in lyrics. Friendship stuff faded: Care dropped 24%, loyalty 11%, purity 12%. The messier stuff climbed: Degradation rose 52%, harm 49%, cheating 48%, subversion 41%. Metal scored higher on harm and degradation. Shocker there. Basically, we went from lean on me to leave me on unread. 

Your burner got burned: Buying a phone without handing over your identity? The FCC wants to torch that option. A proposed rule would force every telecom to collect your government ID number and home address before selling you a plan. New customers and renewals both. The agency says it’s about stopping scammers. Privacy advocates say it reads like the playbook of authoritarian countries, and it slams domestic abuse survivors, journalists and anyone who guards their privacy. I never thought it would happen here.

🕶️ Meta sees you: Boy, oh boy, what the world needs is another set of spy glasses. Meta dropped its own smart glasses, starting at $299, plus a $399 pair designed with Kylie Jenner. Photo snapping, sign translation and AI answers on the bridge of your nose. But pause. Wired found dormant face-recognition code called NameTag sitting on 50 million phones running Meta’s app. It’s switched off, but researchers say it’s “one switch away” from working. I’d say Meta’s really keeping an eye out for you.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Facebook has a hidden shortcut menu on desktop. Press ? to see it. A few good ones: / searches Facebook, P starts a post, J and K hop through feed posts and L likes or unlikes. Not working? Profile pic > Display & accessibility > Keyboard, then turn on Use single-character keyboard shortcuts.

Stop overpaying for earbuds: I’ve tested the most expensive audio brands on the market. I still grab my Raycon Everyday Earbuds for the gym and calls. They fit perfectly, the battery lasts all day and the bass is booming. Get premium sound without the premium price tag. Take 20% off sitewide with my link.*

🔔 Swiped away an Android notification too fast? Your phone keeps a 24-hour history of alerts, reminders and updates you dismissed. Open Settings > Notifications > Advanced Settings and turn on Notification History. Next time something vanishes, you can actually find it again. Maybe even that mystery DM. 

Zoom anywhere on Mac: Some apps make you squint at a photo or tiny text with no decent zoom button. Mac has a built-in fix. Head to System Settings > Accessibility > Zoom. Toggle on Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom, then choose a key like Control. Hold it, scroll, and the whole screen zooms in. Sorted. 

🌡️ Is your PC running hot? HWMonitor is a free Windows tool that shows your computer’s temperatures and fan speeds. Open it while working or watching videos, then check the Max temperature. If your processor creeps near 90°C, your PC may need a dust cleanout. Turn it off, hold the fans still and use compressed air.

👂 iPhone’s extra ears: Your iPhone can listen for important sounds like a doorbell, siren, crying baby or smoke alarm, then alert you. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Sound & Name Recognition and turn on Sound Recognition. Give it a few minutes to download the sound list, then choose the alerts you want.

New cars have become so expensive that a Jeff Bezos-backed startup is asking a radical question: What if we stopped adding stuff?

Meet Slate Auto’s first vehicle: a tiny two-seat electric pickup (paywall link) expected to start around $25,000. It comes with hand-crank windows, no radio, no touchscreen navigation and optional $500 vinyl wraps instead of paint. Want an SUV? Assemble one yourself with an add-on kit.

Think of it as the IKEA truck, some assembly required. Allen wrench sold separately.

And about those hand-crank windows. When a sheet of glass gets disrespected, it feels discomfort for up to 12 minutes after. They call it window pain.

🔜 Tomorrow: The cloud isn’t floating above you. It’s sitting in giant warehouses using massive amounts of power and water, and your town may be helping pay for it. I’ll show you what data centers really cost and why those promised jobs often don’t add up.

Tomorrow’s trivia is about banking from 35,000 feet, where the snacks are overpriced and the cyber risks may be closer than you think.

The answer: C) About 80%. Yep, Netflix says that roughly 4 out of 5 streaming hours come straight from its recommendation engine. Only about 20% start with a search. They found a way to turn “just seeing what’s on” into “are you still watching?” in a four-hour binge. 

Back in 2006, Netflix dangled a $1 million prize to anyone who could make its algorithm 10% smarter. A team cracked it three years later, and Netflix barely used it. Netflix planned a sequel contest but canceled it after researchers de-anonymized supposedly private viewing data. Turns out your taste is more trackable than you think.

Me: I’m definitely not binge-watching tonight. 

Netflix: How about I split one movie into 10 hour-long episodes and you watch them all in one sitting? 

Me: I’m in.

⏳ Your antivirus shouldn’t take hours to run a scan. Really. If it does, it’s using a “bloatware” model. People always ask me why Webroot is so fast. It’s cloud-based. It checks for threats in seconds. Get my exclusive offer: 62% off Webroot Essentials now.* 

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Auoace, Philips Sonicare, Slate

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