Plus: Turn the tables and take AI’s job! ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 13, 2026 | Read online
# Rich people's emails, DOGE's damage and the Sizzler Say Plus: Turn the tables and take AI’s job!
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Edition 2521
"Personal computer collection rack - Computer History Museum (2007-11-10 21.23.48 by Carlo Nardone)" by Carlo Nardone from Roma, Italy is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Good afternoon! Sorry for the late edition, The Sizzle's intern — my 2 year old — had a small run-in with a hot plate. She is fine after a trip to the doctor, but it was a bit disruptive. Have a GREAT weekend!
Mentioned in today’s edition: Jack Dorsey, Anthropic, Substack, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Adobe, ChatGPT, Bluesky and the Meta Oakley Vanguard. Plus, deals on LG robot vacuums, Motorola Moto Tags and Apple iPhones.
# The News
### Why do rich and powerful people email like this?
One of the less alarming but near-universal experiences of reading emails and texts sent by Jeffrey Epstein was being surprised by his poor spelling and grammar. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the shared style of misspellings and absent punctuation seen in the communications of the rich and powerful, from Epstein to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to controversial tech billionaire Peter Thiel. One expert told the Journal that this style of emailing can signal status ("I'm too important and busy to spell well") or intimacy. My former colleague Katie Notopoulos added another reason: in the age of AI slop, spelling errors are a sign of human touch (Business Insider).
The Sizzle: I may not be a billionaire, but I'm a very casual communicator. I like to message people a lot, I leave in small typos except when I'm talking to complete strangers or when I'm working. I like doing away with stale formalities like long introductions and perfect punctuation in favour of trying to be expressive and direct. I'll go out on a limb and say I don't agree with the snobbery. Spelling and grammar are just arbitrary rules that change all the time.
But I know this annoys people! I understand why some people think sticking to the rules shows that you care. From my side, I think writing in emails, texts, speaking — it all needs to be customised for the recipient’s context and preferences. So, I generally like to be relaxed with rules and have fun, knowing that for most people, that's relaxing and fun for them.
What do you think? Do you write every text like it's an official announcement to the ASX? Do you email your boss the poo emoji when you disagree with them? Let me know!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### We still don't know how much damage DOGE has done
Have you forgotten about DOGE? It's been a while since the semi-illegitimate Elon Musk-led taskforce descended on Washington only to wash out not long afterwards. But we're still only finding out the full consequences of their actions. This week, one former DOGE worker told a court that he used ChatGPT to search government grants that mentioned "black" or "homosexual" to cancel (404 Media, $). And a whistleblower claims that another DOGE worker stole social security data belonging to millions of Americans (WIRED, $). It's almost as if you shouldn't just place a bunch of arrogant tech bros who think that the term "public service" is a Pornhub category in charge of government.
P.S. The only ever good use of a prediction market was the accountant who bet his life savings that DOGE wouldn't reduce government spending — and won! (TechCrunch)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### The Sizzler Say: Phone cases, magic links, AI layoff announcements written by AI, maybe?
As always, if you wanna get involved (or even be able to read what's on Slack) you can join the Slack server and forum via these links.
Let's just say y'all had a lot of thoughts on phone cases on the forum. On the forum uep makes the case that maybe we should show gradations of signal coverage Timo says what we're all thinking about magic links on Slack Gtch on Slack reckons that Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes' layoff announcement smells like AI Sizzler JWatt sent me an email about trying to send me a tip about Substack doing age verification... only to get age verified on Bluesky before he could DM. Like I've been saying, we now live in an age-gated internet.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
Early data suggests that teens are still on social media post-ban (Crikey, $) Anthropic to build power, fund grid upgrades for data centres rollout (The Australian Financial Review, $) Meta Oakley Vanguard reviewed: clever tech and a privacy dilemma (Pickr) The eSafety Commissioner makes the case for age verification for porn (eSafety Commissioner)
Rest of World:
Adobe's longtime CEO steps down (Adobe) AI agent hacked McKinsey chatbot for read-write access (The Register) lol Wow: Meta's internal AI development is going badly and it's even considering licensing Gemini (The New York Times, $) More modular design makes MacBook Neo easier to fix than other Apple laptops (Ars Technica) Campaigners claim NHS Palantir system could be accessed by police and immigration (The Register) MALUS - clean room as a service (MALUS) This is satire... I think Two semi-related X stories: X to alter verification system in Europe, Commission says (Bloomberg, $) X could be breaching US sanctions on Iran, watchdog warns (Engadget) Building a robot partner to play air hockey with (Hackaday) Generative AI vegetarianism (Sean Boots) Just picked up a new keyboard for vibecoding, can't wait to write code (Reddit)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### Turn the tables and take AI’s job!
They say you should walk in another man's shoes before judging him. But what about another man's tokens? A fun website that popped up this week is called Your AI Slop Bores Me which lets you either ask an "AI" questions, or lets you role play as AI and answer other people's questions.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
Anko 720P HD Projector - $19 at Kmart (Down from $89) Sony WH-CH720N - $142 at Telstra (Down from $259) Sennheiser HD 560 S Wide Sound Field Open-Back Headphones - $158 at Amazon (Down from $299) LG R5-PRO Robot Vacuum with Mop - $305 at LG Education Hub (Down from $699) TCL 98" C7K QD-Mini LED 4K UHD Smart Google TV (2025) + $500 Visa Giftcard - $3980 at Videopro (Down from $4995) LG 83" OLED EVO C5 AI UHD 4K Smart TV 2025 - $4995 at Video Pro (Down from $5122)
Computing
Team T-Force Delta RGB 32GB (2x16GB) 7800MHz CL38 DDR5 RAM - $549 at PC Case Gear Gaming PC: R5 7500F, RX9060 XT 16GB, 1TB M.2 GEN4 SSD, 2x16 32GB RAM, B650M WIFI, 650W 80+ SILVER PSU - $1799 at NexusPCs Gaming PC: 7800X3D, 360 AIO, 32GB C28 DDR5, B850M, 1TB SSD, 850W at Evatech BYO GPU for $1834 RTX5070 Ti for $3139
Mobile
Motorola Moto Tag at Harvey Norman 4-pack - $99 (Down from $179) Apple iPhone 17 256GB (Black) - $1257 at digiDirect (Down from $1359)
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
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