October 2026

Hey all,

Happy Halloween! I got a little off schedule this month, and this newsletter is being delivered at the last possible moment. But for good reason: last weekend was spent in Arizona for my younger sister’s wedding.

We decided to turn the trip into a real vacation and stayed at the Camelback Inn. Our weekend was filled with wedding festivities as well as swimming, hiking, spa, and one of the best daily buffets I’ve had.

Congrats to Elissa and Rich! And thank you, the reader, for your patience with this month’s newsletter.

-Dann

P.S. — Want to see how this issue stacks up against the archive? Check out the stats page to see it all by the numbers.

👁️ Possible spoilers?

Last month, I talked about the then-upcoming documentary You Can See Everything, following Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos. Opening weekend grossed $15.6M from just 855 theaters, an extraordinary achievement for any film, let alone a documentary. The online discourse about the film has been non-stop, with videos and posts transcending the typical bubbles that often keep people in their own separate online worlds.

I approached the topic last month through the angle of Lance Oppenheim, the co-director of the film (along with Nathan Fielder), whose filmography added to my excitement for the film. Now that the film has been released, and to such great acclaim (99% on Rotten Tomatoes, 99 on Metacritic, and a 91% “definite recommend” from PostTrak exit polls), it’s time to focus on the one-and-only Nathan Fielder.

Specifically, I want to share this Wired interview (paywall bypass), where my former co-worker Katie Drummond back at The Verge sat down with Fielder three weeks before the film’s release.

It’s a fascinating read because it’s a rare conversation with the person not the character of Nathan Fielder. And because the story of how this documentary got made in the first place is a wild one in its own right:

She was about to go to prison, so we didn’t know what was gonna happen. I was like, “If you guys want, I’m down to go down and start filming and see what emerges. But we need the ability to deliver nothing to you guys if it doesn’t work out.” And [film production company A24] said sure.

Ultimately, it’s a film about interpretation. I think that’s why there’s been so much conversation, because everyone goes into the movie with their own life experiences, knowledge of the story, and ideas about Holmes. But then even with the shared experience of viewing footage that’s been edited and crafted together, there’s a multitude of ways to interpret each moment, both for the audience and the creators themselves:

At the end of the day, I would have in my head what I thought was a very clear idea of what was happening, and Lance or our camera guy, Jonathan Mitchell, or our DP, David Bolen, or our sound guy, Richard Carlos, they would all have a different take on what actually happened.

💸 Programmatically malicious

There was some buzz in the engineering world this month over Reverse Engineer Anything, an MCP server that (theoretically) allows people, with the help of AI agents, to understand how software works, in detail. Software has historically been a one-way street: raw code compiles into software, but software can’t be turned back into code. “Reverse engineering” is the term for going backwards, figuring out the lines of code behind how something behaves.

That specific REA project isn’t as exciting today as what it signals: a proof-of-concept that’s basically DRM-cracking for software, the same shape of thing Napster was for the music industry.

What that looks like applied to software you actually use came from a completely different direction this month. A TikTok user, ayoships, posted a video that went viral after he reverse engineered the mobile game Block Blast! (revenue $127M) and exposed exactly how it programmatically extorts the player:

• It calculates your value to them, based on your phone model, location, past ad revenue or spend, and even if vibration is toggled on or off
• It then adjusts the difficulty in ways to either make you pay or watch a high-value ad, calling code such as BoostThenKill, EndlessDeathBoard, FastHandPunish, DeadlyToHard, and the always-available deathAlgorithm.
• If you’re scoring high in the game and a high-value ad is queued, it’ll specifically deal you an unwinnable hand to make you watch the ad to revive.
• It runs experiments on the exact minute it makes you lose, to increase your chances of watching an ad

This all runs locally on your phone, so there’s no blocking it. And the most nefarious code downloads from their servers after you install the game, meaning none of it is visible during Apple’s App Store review process.

I think this is something that people sort of knew was happening. But it feels different to actually see it in the code. Even the function names are damning.

Ayoships posted a full code breakdown of Block Blast! that goes into even more detail. The term for this is “dark patterns,” and reverse engineering is a fantastic way to force these dark patterns into the light.

After his Block Blast! video went viral, he followed up with new posts exposing Duolingo, Subway Surfers, Tinder, and Candy Crush. But fair warning: it’s depressing.

📺 Very nice

I remember watching Da Ali G Show when it first aired on HBO, and found it hard to believe that the three original characters on that show (Ali G, Borat, and Bruno) were all played by the same actor. It wasn’t until years later when I saw my first interview with the Cambridge-educated out-of-character Sacha Baron Cohen, and I was even more confused. Confused, but mostly impressed.

To promote Cohen’s new film Ali G: Who Iz I?, he sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes. It’s one of the best peeks behind the curtain that we’ve seen.

The original Borat film created a new genre by asking: what if real people, who didn’t know they were in a movie, moved the plot forward? Later, films like Johnny Knoxville’s Bad Grandpa and Eric Andre’s (criminally underrated) Bad Trip would carry on that legacy. But Borat was the start.

I was absolutely captivated by this impossible-to-verify story of Cohen almost dying in the jungle on the border of Burma before his first big break, only to be saved by two mysterious hunters.

Cohen’s newer films don’t receive nearly as much acclaim as his early work, but they’re still wildly entertaining. It’s impressive that he can still pull off pranks, even after achieving the level of fame and recognition that he has. That alone, for me, makes it worth the watch.

👝 An ode to pouches

I’ve become a full-on pouch convert in my middle age. Objects are no longer stored loose in drawers or in bags, but carefully curated in pouches of various sizes. I even carry an empty pouch in my backpack, which has come in handy several times.

I have a few nicer pouches that I carry in my backpack every day (like the Orbitkey Tech Accessory Pouch for cables and chargers and this TUMI Alpha 3 Electronic Cord Organizer Pouch for everyday toiletries), but my favorites are these cheap mesh bags that cost $8 for six bags (three A5-sized and three A6-sized).

“Toiletry bags” have been a thing forever. But that same concept can apply to almost anything.

Pouches are such a low-effort, high-impact piece of personal organization, and I only wish I had gone down this road sooner.

✏️ Pencils down

Let’s wrap up this newsletter with a year-old sketch from Almost Friday TV: Professor has MENTAL BREAKDOWN and accuses class of cheating.

It’s about 11 minutes long and takes you on a ride. Fall weather still makes me think about the start of a new school year, so this video seemed fitting this month.

End note

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I send these newsletters once per month, and I’m happy you’re along for the ride. I’m trying to make it one of the best things that arrives in your inbox each month, so thoughts and feedback are always appreciated. You can just reply to this email.

Also, if you find anything interesting, send it my way.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, Dann