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Frank’s Take

Frank

50 episodes

4 weeks ago

Have you ever caught yourself blaming some vague, unnamed "they" for life's problems? That universal bogeyman who manipulates gas prices, ruins relationships, and conspires against your success? You're not alone. This exploration into what I call "pronoun paranoia" examines how we've replaced actual analysis with lazy conspiracy thinking. When my brother-in-law spent three hours explaining how "they" control everything, I realized something profound: he couldn't name a single actual person r...

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Personal Journals

Society & Culture

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Have you ever caught yourself blaming some vague, unnamed "they" for life's problems? That universal bogeyman who manipulates gas prices, ruins relationships, and conspires against your success? You're not alone. This exploration into what I call "pronoun paranoia" examines how we've replaced actual analysis with lazy conspiracy thinking. When my brother-in-law spent three hours explaining how "they" control everything, I realized something profound: he couldn't name a single actual person r...

Show more...

Personal Journals

Society & Culture

Episodes (20/50)

Frank’s Take

The Conspiracy of "They"

Have you ever caught yourself blaming some vague, unnamed "they" for life's problems? That universal bogeyman who manipulates gas prices, ruins relationships, and conspires against your success? You're not alone. This exploration into what I call "pronoun paranoia" examines how we've replaced actual analysis with lazy conspiracy thinking. When my brother-in-law spent three hours explaining how "they" control everything, I realized something profound: he couldn't name a single actual person r...

4 weeks ago

16 minutes

Frank’s Take

From Fun to Frustration: How Dark Souls Rewired Gaming Forever

Dark Souls changed gaming by turning frustration into gameplay and failure into content, creating a template that spread throughout the industry and beyond. This cultural shift reflects our relationship with an increasingly unfair world where Dark Souls offers a transparent hostility that feels refreshingly honest compared to life's hidden rules. • From Software's trajectory: Dark Souls (2011) sold 3 million copies over years while Elden Ring (2022) sold 25 million • Difficulty-related gamin...

4 weeks ago

16 minutes

Frank’s Take

The Reality Crisis in Astrophotography

"Reality has become a luxury item." These words cut to the heart of a transformation sweeping through astronomy as artificial intelligence rewrites the rules of astrophotography. Imagine spending years mastering the complex art of capturing distant galaxies and nebulae, only to watch someone with a smartphone app and no astronomical knowledge produce "better" images in minutes. This is the reality confronting traditional astrophotographers today, as AI tools explode from 2 million user...

4 weeks ago

20 minutes

Frank’s Take

Wisdom Is a Lie

Wisdom is a comforting myth we tell ourselves to justify the passing years. After almost six decades of life, thirty years in tech, and one philosophy degree "useful for exactly nothing," I've reached a startling conclusion: nobody gets wiser. We just get older and mistake survival for understanding. The dirty secret about aging? It doesn't automatically make you wiser—it just gives you more data points on human stupidity. When my nephew asked if I had it all "figured out by now," I had to l...

4 weeks ago

16 minutes

Frank’s Take

Walking Against the Algorithm - Raw Thoughts on Performance, Pain, and What Makes Us Human

In this unfiltered episode of Frank's Take, I'm sharing my raw, unedited thoughts during my daily 5-kilometer walk along the Mediterranean coast. At 56, battling physical pain with every step, I refuse to polish or edit this recording - because the mess, the struggle, the broken English, that's the real human experience we're losing to algorithms. This isn't your typical Frank's Take episode. No script, no editing, no performance. Just me, Frank, walking through pain while wrestling with what...

1 month ago

31 minutes

Frank’s Take

The Byproduct: Walking Through Burning Sand

Recorded at 7:30 AM on a windy October morning along the Ligurian coast, this unscripted episode follows a daily 5-kilometer walk that's both medical necessity and creative practice. Living with diabetic peripheral neuropathy—feet that burn like hot August sand with every step—I explore how unintended consequences become life's real curriculum. What starts as walking to manage diabetes becomes a podcast. What starts as a podcast becomes language practice. What starts as speaking English becom...

1 month ago

41 minutes

Frank’s Take

Anime's Dark Hold

I share my late-night experience of sitting through a team meeting where our project manager explained sprint methodology using Naruto references, which sparked my exploration of how anime has become more than entertainment—it's now a coping mechanism for generations disillusioned with reality. • Japan began exporting anime aggressively after their economic bubble burst in 1991, filling a Western desire for authentic storytelling • Unlike American cartoons that reset each episode, anime offe...

1 month ago

18 minutes

Frank’s Take

Your AI can write code, but it can't fix your toilet at 2 AM.

A dripping sink at 3 AM becomes the unlikely catalyst for a profound realization about our economic future. As I stand in my bathroom, frustrated by a plumbing issue I can't fix and a professional who's booked solid until November, the harsh truth crystallizes: we're creating a world where knowledge workers are increasingly disposable while those who work with physical reality become irreplaceable. The economics tell a sobering story. Programmers invest years and fortune in education, only t...

1 month ago

19 minutes

Frank’s Take

The Optimization of Everyday Life: Italy in the Age of Algorithms

The relentless march of algorithmic optimization is transforming Italy into a service economy where citizens are merely beta testers for foreign tech companies and real estate speculation. This raw, philosophical examination reveals how surveillance capitalism has evolved from academic theory into our everyday reality, reshaping everything from housing to digital identity. • Construction noise at 5am symbolizes how Italian cities are being rebuilt for wealthy foreigners rather than locals • ...

1 month ago

16 minutes

Frank’s Take

Japanese Tech Culture: When Perfectionism Meets Silicon Valley Speed

A routine 3 AM deployment review with a Japanese tech team reveals the devastating human cost of perfectionism in global tech culture. Eastern work standards of absolute dedication collide with Western demands for speed, creating impossible expectations where employees are burning out or dying from overwork. • Japanese tech culture produces flawless work but at devastating human cost • Japan recorded 1,300 cases of overwork-related death or serious health issues in 2025 • 88 suicides directl...

1 month ago

20 minutes

Frank’s Take

The Real African Tech Revolution

Tired of Silicon Valley's self-congratulatory innovation theater? The real tech revolution is happening on a continent that Western media still treats as a charity case. This eye-opening episode tears down persistent myths about African technology and reveals the groundbreaking innovation happening across the continent right now. We explore how African developers are solving genuine problems while Silicon Valley chases marginal conveniences. The M-Pesa payment system processes hundreds of bi...

1 month ago

18 minutes

Frank’s Take

Bots Talking to Bots: How AI Hijacked the Internet

Welcome to the digital ghost town of 2025, where the ghosts are all trying to sell you something. What was once science fiction has become our unsettling reality: the internet is no longer primarily populated by humans. Have you noticed something off about your online interactions lately? That strange feeling you get when scrolling through comments or product reviews? You're not imagining it. Major platforms have reluctantly begun admitting what many have suspected - approximately half of al...

1 month ago

23 minutes

Frank’s Take

I Worked at Olivetti When We Invented the PC. Then Silicon Valley Buried Us

Inside story from 6 years at Olivetti: How I taught IT at the company that invented personal computers & watched America kill it From 1996-2002, I trained people at Olivetti - the Italian company that built the first desktop computer in 1965, before Apple existed. NASA used our Programma 101 for the moon landing. But by the time I was there, I was teaching Microsoft Office to engineers who'd invented the future. This is what it looks like when innovation gets colonized: the inventors have...

1 month ago

20 minutes

Frank’s Take

AI Media Coverage is Fake: Mainstream AND Alternative Are Both Lying to You

60% of AI news comes from industry PR while alt-media podcasters debate if ChatGPT is sentient. Frank exposes both sides... I spent late Wendsday afternoon hate-reading three hours of AI coverage from NYT to random Substacks and discovered everyone's completely full of it. This week: Why mainstream media reprints OpenAI press releases (60% from industry sources per Reuters Institute), how alternative media is somehow WORSE with their "AGI in 3 months because haikus" takes, and the 3,000 AI-ge...

1 month ago

25 minutes

Frank’s Take

YouTube Destroyed Everyone on August 13th: The Algorithm Update They're Hiding

40% view drops overnight. Desktop traffic vanishing. 920K subscriber channels can't make $1. Frank exposes August 13th..." Frank spent Thursday afternoon analyzing the YouTube algorithm massacre that happened August 13th, 2025, that nobody's talking about. This week: How desktop views mysteriously dropped 40% overnight while mobile surged, why channels with 920K subscribers can't make a dollar, and the restricted mode lie that's shadowbanning half your content without telling you. Contains: d...

1 month ago

18 minutes

Frank’s Take

"Follow Your Passion" Is Dead: Button Colors and Broken Dreams

The tech industry's mantra to "follow your passion" masks a deeply exploitative system designed to extract maximum value from developers while grinding down their enthusiasm and wellbeing. What begins as genuine love for coding often transforms into disillusionment when confronted with the reality of meaningless tasks, ethical compromises, and a culture that weaponizes passion against the very people who possess it. • 70% of developers report feeling either miserable or just neutral about th...

1 month ago

19 minutes

Frank’s Take

The Great Data Scientist Extinction

Tech's dirty secret has finally exploded into the open: the great data scientist extinction that nobody wants to talk about. Remember when every data scientist with a pulse commanded $300-400K salaries just for knowing what a neural network was? Those days vanished practically overnight. From 2018 to early 2023, we witnessed what can only be described as a PhD gold rush. Companies frantically hired anyone who could pronounce "TensorFlow," with CEOs approving budgets for 50+ data scientists t...

1 month ago

30 minutes

Frank’s Take

810 Million ChatGPT Addicts: What Happens When The AI Dies?

Support groups for AI psychosis. Devs who can't code without ChatGPT. 6 of 8 cases involve suicide attempts. Frank exposes... Frank couldn't sleep at 1 AM, so he dove into the terrifying world of LLM addiction that nobody wants to discuss. This week: The MIT study showing literal brain atrophy in ChatGPT users, support groups called "Spiralers" for AI psychosis victims, and why 92% of Fortune 500 companies have created 810 million addicts who can't think without machines. Contains: existentia...

1 month ago

20 minutes

Frank’s Take

Machine-Generated Disasters: Why AI Has No Place Writing Your Infrastructure Code

After 30 years in infrastructure management, I'm alarmed by the trend of using AI to write infrastructure as code, despite its growing popularity among companies and venture capitalists. While AI-generated infrastructure code might work 85% of the time, that missing 15% can lead to catastrophic failures including data loss, security breaches, and service outages that human-written infrastructure would never encounter. • AI models learn from often poorly written code on GitHub, reproducing hu...

1 month ago

22 minutes

Frank’s Take

Tech's Circle of BS: How Quantum Computing and AGI Keep Moving the Goalposts

Welcome to the reality check you didn't know you needed. In this brutally honest exploration of tech's most overinflated promises, we tear into the quantum computing and artificial general intelligence hype that's dominated 2025. Remember when Microsoft proudly announced their Majorana 1 processor with a groundbreaking... 8 qubits? Your smartphone has billions of bits, but sure, let's celebrate these 8 temperamental qubits that require cooling systems costlier than your house. Meanwhile, com...

1 month ago

26 minutes