Issue 108 — 2026-09-08
Tesla's Cybercab — or a death trap
Farzad Boushehri wrote this one up and it reads like a warning shot. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, no driver at all. Tesla wants it on the road by 2026 and is already pulling up 500 units to test in Austin. The pitch is cheap rides — about a dollar a mile — powered by the same vision AI that runs the Model 3. The problem is the math. A full autonomous rig, the cameras, the compute, the insurance — it's not clear the economics actually work once you build the thing. And the safety question is the real one. You're putting a robot on the streets next to real people. No driver to brake. No wheel to spin. If the system fails, the outcome is very bad. Tesla's been building toward this for years. The company has a big bet on FSD and they want the Cybercab to prove it. But the tech is still learning and the roads are not a sandbox. The people watching this are the ones who work for rideshare companies, the ones who drive for a living, the ones who need the fare to make rent. This isn't just a Tesla story. It's a test of whether the industry is ready to replace drivers with software.
Why this matters for us: if a robot without a driver starts running these streets, it's not just a headline — it's the people who drive for a living who feel it first.
Google is quietly killing self-promotional content from AI writers
AHrefs just tested what happens when you pump out self-promotional posts with AI and try to rank them. The result: Google is pushing them down. The search engine is actively filtering content that sounds like it was written to sell something, and AI makes that problem worse because the output leans harder into the sales pitch.
The experiment used a fresh domain and ran multiple articles through an LLM, then watched how they fared in Google's results. The pattern was clear — the more self-promotional the angle, the lower the rankings. This isn't a one-off; it's a signal about how Google is treating the wave of AI content flooding the web.
For the folks trying to outrank the noise with cheap AI drafts, this is a reality check. The old playbook of churning out promotional fluff doesn't work anymore. Google is learning to spot it and the machine-generated stuff stands out even more because it's so obviously trying to sell you something.
Esto te toca: the sites that'll win are the ones writing actual useful stuff, not the ones regurgitating the same pitches with a thesaurus. La gente can smell a sales pitch from a mile away, and Google is starting to too.
Why this matters for us: if you're running a small site or blog, stop leaning on AI to write promotional content and put real words on the page — the search engines are already catching on, and your readers will too.
WordPress hasn't lost ground. The alternatives haven't eaten into it.
— therepository.email
#wordpress-still-runs-43-of-the-web-and-nobody-s-closing-the-gap-6cacfeSoccer's taking over — and America's finally paying attention
Soccer is no longer the sport that shows up at the back of the gym. It's the one kids actually play, and the one the money's starting to chase.
A new piece from TLDR Marketing tracks this shift — the sport has been growing in the US for years, quietly, through the backyard and the bodega parking lot. Now it's getting the spotlight.
The numbers are plain: more kids playing, more TV deals, more brands building around it. It's not a trend anymore. It's the new baseline.
Grand Theft Auto VI preorders are open — two editions, same perks
Rockstar is releasing Grand Theft Auto VI on November 19, 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. Digital only — physical boxes contain codes, not discs. Preloading starts November 12 so you've got a week to get it installed.
Two editions. The Standard is $79.99, the Ultimate $99.99. Both include the same preorder bonus — the Vintage Vice City Pack with vehicles, outfits, and other cosmetics.
If you're just going to play it, the Standard is fine. The Ultimate is mostly cosmetic upsells. Pick whichever fits your wallet.
NASA's free space photos: where to find them and how to use them
NASA keeps a massive archive of space images and videos. Most of it is free to use and share — no paywall, no permission slips.
The images span decades. Stars, planets, moons, galaxies. You can grab them and put them on a poster, a flyer, a website, whatever.
The archive is organized by mission. You search by mission name, by date, by wavelength. The search tools are built right in.
Why this matters for us:
We make flyers for the community, posters for the block, graphics for the group chat — NASA's free images let us make things that look professional without paying a cent.