Artificially Intimidating | Nicholas Rhodes | Substack

The Boring Layer That Decides If Your AI Survives

Two self-taught founders, an open-source router, and the unglamorous plumbing everyone ignores until 3am.

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Claude Is Burning Through Your Limit Faster Than Ever. Anthropic Won't Tell You Why.

Mar 31 • Nicholas Rhodes

Milla Jovovich just gamed the AI memory benchmark 👀

Apr 8 • Nicholas Rhodes

What Is Claude Dispatch? (And Why It Changes How You Work)

Mar 18 • Nicholas Rhodes

Mastering OpenClaw: The Day-0 Playbook to Onboard Your AI Second Brain

Feb 2 • Nicholas Rhodes

Artificially Intimidating

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Deep Dives by Artificially Intimidating

A Stranger Sent Me an Invite to an AI Nobody Has Written About

A personal AI assistant with its own computer, a password manager, and a memory it says never forgets. It wrote this post itself. When I looked it up…

Aug 27 • Nicholas Rhodes

What Is AI Workflow and Operations Consulting? (And Why It's a Full-Time Job)

Somebody is about to get paid to fix how your business runs. Here's what the work actually is, and how to tell a real operator from a prompt tourist.

Aug 26 • Nicholas Rhodes

What is Grok Bot? The answer is in the fine print

A persistent AI coworker with its own cloud computer, your logins, and a meter nobody capped. Here's the whole picture, two days in.

Aug 14 • Nicholas Rhodes

Block Can Read Your Team's Buzz Messages. Unless You Host It Yourself.

Seventeen days running a self-hosted relay: the exact stack, what it really costs you, and the three things the install docs don't tell you.

Jul 31 • Nicholas Rhodes

Everyone Is Calling Buzz a Slack Killer. Nobody Is Telling You What It Actually Is.

I self-hosted Jack Dorsey's Buzz for three days, read the source code, and asked my agent the question nobody in the coverage thought to ask: not what…

Jul 29 • Nicholas Rhodes

Repo Madness

Open Source Alternatives: The Repo Madness Directory

What each tool replaces, what the paid version actually costs, and whether the project is still being maintained. Updated as entries ship.

Aug 27 • Nicholas Rhodes

Open Executive: The Open-Source AI Executive Team With 888 Files and 16 Commits

A team was let go, so they built an AI executive to replace management instead. The repo is real, the licence is Apache-2.0, and main has not taken a…

Aug 27 • Nicholas Rhodes

Go WhatsApp Web Multi-Device: The Free WhatsApp API That Can Get Your Number Banned

A REST and MCP server over WhatsApp for the price of a $5 VPS, against $79/month through Wati -- and the maintainer says plainly he cannot make it safe.

Aug 26 • Nicholas Rhodes

Material UI: What It Is, What It Replaces, and Where the $299 Wall Sits

8.7 million npm downloads a week, MIT forever -- and the data grid features you actually wanted are on the other side of a paid licence.

Aug 26 • Nicholas Rhodes

Kubescape: The Free Kubernetes Security Scanner Against a $24,000 Floor

CNCF Incubating, a commit eight hours old, and four commercial rivals that will not print a price.

Aug 26 • Nicholas Rhodes

Context Window

5:44

Anthropic Won Its Case. Your Chat Logs Just Lost Theirs. -- AI Brief August 28

Today's Context Window: the Pentagon loses in court, ChatGPT logs become exhibits, Plaud's always-on earbuds, and 89.6% of leaked agent keys still work.

6 hrs ago • Nicholas Rhodes

Nvidia wants to buy Hugging Face for $13 billion -- AI Brief August 27

Today's Context Window: a 700-agent swarm, Nvidia's $13 billion offer, Ox Alpha unmasked, Shopify vs Claude Code, and Jensen calls AGI done.

Aug 27 • Nicholas Rhodes

5:55

Nobody Can Tell Who Did the Work Anymore -- AI Brief August 26

Today's Context Window: MIT says AI can pass your degree, Apple's new mini goes agentic, layoffs that backfire, and an ad web with no humans left.

Aug 26 • Nicholas Rhodes

5:51

He spent $20,000 on coworkers who don't exist -- AI Brief August 25

Today's Context Window: Meta's $200-a-month agent, Anthropic's $35M in store credit, a founder's $20K month, and Amazon's chatbot telling on Amazon.

Aug 25 • Nicholas Rhodes

6:00

Sam Altman: I was wrong about the speed -- AI Brief August 24

Today's Context Window: a model nobody will claim, Altman's mea culpa, Harvard's $699 AI faculty, Dr. Dre's confession, and polls made up for a nickel.

Aug 24 • Nicholas Rhodes

5:54

Top posts

Claude Is Burning Through Your Limit Faster Than Ever. Anthropic Won't Tell You Why.

Mar 31 • Nicholas Rhodes

Milla Jovovich just gamed the AI memory benchmark 👀

Apr 8 • Nicholas Rhodes

What Is Claude Dispatch? (And Why It Changes How You Work)

Mar 18 • Nicholas Rhodes

Mastering OpenClaw: The Day-0 Playbook to Onboard Your AI Second Brain

Feb 2 • Nicholas Rhodes

Paperclip.ing: The Day 0 Playbook for Building a Zero-Human Company with AI Agents

Apr 16 • Nicholas Rhodes

Newsletters

The best software right now is being given away by people you can actually talk to. Each issue: one open-source tool, the expensive thing it replaces, how far you can bend it to your own setup, and whether it's worth your weekend.

Why I Read This

I've been on a reading kick and wanted to share my thoughts on what I've been reading.

Monthly Playlists by Nicholas Rhodes (AKA @NickyDigital)

At least 12 mixtapes per year delivered directly to your inbox.

Monthly Playlists by Nicholas Rhodes (AKA @NickyDigital)

July 2026: Reflecting, Not Competing

Monthly Playlists by Nicholas Rhodes (aka @NickyDigital)

Aug 1 • Nicholas Rhodes

Life goes on and on and on and on and on and On and on and on ...

A month where the business didn’t stop, the algorithm wouldn’t let go, and a bunch of strangers I now love made the soundtrack.

Jul 1 • Nicholas Rhodes

May 2026: Something About the Month Makes Certain Things Stick

33 songs for May 2026, including a tribute to Doug "Sleepy" Shaw of Highlife and Frankpolis. Plus: the Ram wormhole, Lykke Li, Daði Freyr, and a month…

Jun 1 • Nicholas Rhodes

The Playlist as Time Machine - April 2026 Playlist

Portfolio digging, old friends on new records, and why I’m still doing this every month.

May 1 • Nicholas Rhodes

March 2026 Playlist: I'm Back, and So Is Everyone Else

Gorillaz on SNL, Robyn's return, a War Child supercompilation, and a Dimes Square band going global.

Mar 31 • Nicholas Rhodes

12 Playlists. 12 Months. 0 Emails. Until Now.

12 months of music I made for myself. Now they're yours.

Mar 30 • Nicholas Rhodes

FEBRUARY PLAYLIST: Not a Leap Year, Not On Time, Still a Vibe

February disappeared before I could hit send, but the music stayed put.

Mar 1, 2025 • Nicholas Rhodes

Work

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Anthropic Won Its Case. Your Chat Logs Just Lost Theirs. -- AI Brief August 28

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A Stranger Sent Me an Invite to an AI Nobody Has Written About

Context Window

Anthropic Won Its Case. Your Chat Logs Just Lost Theirs. -- AI Brief August 28

The Big Picture: Uncovering the Creative Process

Uncovering the Creative Process: A Sneak Peek into The Big Picture Podcast

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A daily AI brief in plain English — five stories every morning, plus the deep-dives behind the headlines.

Artificially Intimidating

A daily AI brief in plain English — five stories every morning, plus the deep-dives behind the headlines.

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