The marathon was inspired by the Greeks, but measured by the Brits. 

According to legend, Pheidippides ran 25 miles from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, with news that Greece had won.

The exact distance of 26.2 miles came from the 1908 London Olympics, where the course was lengthened to start at Windsor Castle and finish in front of Royal Box.

What’s in store:

Read Time: 5 minutes

SOCIAL MEDIA

TIL, Reddit will make you sign in to read posts.

The front page of the internet will soon require a password. 

In Reddit’s quarterly meeting, company leaders announced that the site will transition to a primarily “logged-in experience,” beginning with tests outside the United States.

The platform has drawn millions of visitors through Google results. Reddit is so trusted that people frequently add “+ reddit” to their search bar, because they want real answers from real people.

But as AI summaries overtake standard search engine results, the forum’s organic traffic has started to dry up. To maintain its leverage and protect its data from AI scraping, Reddit will require an active account to view most posts. However, users will still be able to maintain anonymity (when they want) through a new-and-improved incognito mode. 

And looking at the numbers, it makes sense. Search referrals fell by more than 1M per week in October, while US daily users dropped from 53.2M to 50.7M within the quarter. But what’s interesting is Reddit has become much better at monetizing its audience. In fact, revenue increased to $895M, or 53% year-over-year. 

So where does this growth come from?

The payoff of a loyal userbase:

Quality over quantity

Reddit is betting that a logged-in (albeit smaller) community is more valuable than drive-by traffic. Especially when building long term relevance in the age of AI. 

For starters, registered users are worth more to advertisers. Each username is tied to a series of interests and behaviors. This means sponsors can get more targeted with ad campaigns, while Reddit can offer curated feeds to keep folks on the site.

So the beloved forum isn’t going anywhere. But the lurkers' lounge is closing.

Upvote … for now. -TL

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Riddle Me This

Why did the invisible man turn down a job offer?

Find the answer at the bottom of the email!

Trending Tools

Stroemi turns a few casual selfies into a polished portrait gallery across dozens of styles from LinkedIn headshots to editorial black and white, with a reusable face profile so you never have to re-upload for a new look.

LumiMusic turns a text prompt or lyrics into a complete song with vocals and instrumentals, then lets you remix, extend, separate stems, and convert to MIDI, all in one place with royalty-free commercial licensing included.

TranslateBuff translates webpages, selected text, and YouTube subtitles side by side with the original, using multiple AI models you can compare to find the most accurate expression for any context.

Humanize AI rewrites AI-generated text to read like a real person wrote it, bypassing AI detectors while keeping your original meaning, SEO value, and tone fully intact.

AI Checker scans text and images for AI generation signals, highlighting specific passages and explaining what influenced the score, with built-in reminders that results are evidence to weigh rather than definitive proof.

TELEVISION

The first AI series has dropped… and it's melting.

A fully AI-created TV series has made its debut.

Prime Video’s Castle Walls is the first end-to-end AI created show to appear on a major streaming platform. Produced by the Turkish studio Ay Yapım, it consists of two 17 minute episodes and uses a mix of generative video tools to bring an 11th-century epic to life.

Now, there have been other AI projects. Think Ben Affleck’s AI-assisted thriller Animals or Elon Musk’s seven-minute Odyssey remake. But this is the first time a streaming giant has put a whole series on the line.

The stakes at hand:

Then came the reviews

There’s the feat of delivering the first AI series… and then there’s the task of making it watchable.

The Guardian’s Luke Buckmaster was less than impressed with Castle Walls, specifically the “Vaseline-smeared mess” of characters. He found many of the environmental images vague, yet striking. But once “people” appeared on screen, he checked out. Because they looked like melting Madame Tussauds statues. 

Turns out "make it cinematic" isn't a complete prompt.

Even AI divas can also have an on-set meltdown. - TL

Mindstream Picks

Space: NASA’s Swift space telescope is expected to fall back to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry after a failed rescue mission, with experts saying most of it will burn up in the atmosphere and the risk to people is very low.

Business: National Grid has agreed to buy land on Teesside for what could become Britain’s largest electricity substation, potentially supplying up to 3.2GW of power to support a major AI datacentre development.

Music: Deep Purple have cancelled two concerts in Germany after frontman Ian Gillan was hospitalised following an undisclosed medical emergency, with the band hoping to reschedule both shows.

Don’t Miss: The FBI has blamed North Korea for the $6.3 billion cryptocurrency theft from Binance, calling it one of the largest crypto heists ever. Investigators say the stolen assets are being converted into Ethereum for further laundering, while Binance has reopened customer withdrawals following the attack.

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Poll of the Week Results

“What would you trust AI with first?”

My calendar - 41%

My finances - 5%

My fitness tracking - 50% ✅

Other - tell us! - 4%

Your Views:

“I would trust AI to coordinate my weekly grocery shopping lists by tracking what was needed against three trusted vendors' weekly sale prices.” - t_molen

“I wouldn't trust AI with anything.” - harryh

“My technical problems such as managing my disk drive space to handle a large photo collection for my husband or requesting assistance interpreting both my and my husband’s medical test results and whether or not my physician is on top of the most up to date treatments and medications.” - lindag

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