🔥 The Only Rule You Need: Hell Yeah or No

Hi everyone,

This week, I uncovered something remarkable. No, it’s not a new AI tool. This week, posting a real job on LinkedIn actually provided the most reach and interactions of all my other posts.

Lesson: LinkedIn remains an effective platform for sharing work-related content and job opportunities. Focus on providing real content, and people will find it.

Brian

The Byte’s Bits

🧠 Your Human OS: One Interface to Rule Them All

🇨🇭 Apertus: Switzerland’s Open-Source AI Platform

🍏 Siri’s Glow-Up Stumbles, Google Steps In

🏛️ UK Gov Tried Copilot. Productivity Didn’t Budge

🔥 The “Hell Yeah or No” Rule

🧠 Your Human OS: One Interface to Rule Them All

Managing endless apps and logins is like juggling flaming swords with oven mitts. Enter the idea of a “Human OS” a single interface that connects every tool, service, and workflow you use. Think less chaos, more control.

🧑‍💻 One Brain, Many Apps: Stop context-switching like a caffeinated squirrel. A unified interface acts as the central nervous system for your digital life.

🔌 Plug & Play Productivity: Email, docs, CRM, project boards — all stitched into one hub where actions flow seamlessly instead of splintering across tabs.

🤝 Humans in the Loop: AI assistants make it powerful, but humans remain the decision-makers. It’s not automation replacing you, it’s augmentation backing you up.

🚀 Future of Workflows: The dream isn’t just fewer logins. It’s building a layer where your tools talk to each other without you doing the diplomatic heavy lifting.

The “Human OS” vision is bold: a single cockpit for your entire digital universe. Whether it’s a utopia or just wishful thinking, it’s clear that the future of work is headed toward consolidation, not more chaos.

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🇨🇭 Apertus: Switzerland’s Open-Source AI Platform

This week, Switzerland announced its own LLM focusing on transparency and underrepresented languages (like Swiss German). Forget black-box AI models locked away by big tech. Apertus (Latin for Open) is Switzerland’s answer: an open-source AI platform designed to keep AI transparent, accessible, and actually useful for everyone.

🌐 Open to All: Researchers, developers, and companies can build, share, and collaborate without gatekeepers.

🔍 Transparency First: No mystery meat algorithms — users can inspect, tweak, and trust what’s under the hood.

🤝 Community-Driven: A project shaped by academia, startups, and industry, making sure it serves more than corporate giants.

🚀 Boosting Swiss AI: By fostering collaboration, Apertus positions Switzerland as a serious player in the global open-source AI movement.

Apertus is helping to enable developers to build tools for even more languages based on this new model trained on 15 Trillion tokens across 1,000 languages.

🗣️ Parlez-vous français ?

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🍏 Siri’s Glow-Up Stumbles, Google Steps In

Apple’s grand AI overhaul for Siri has hit the snooze button, delaying its big debut. To avoid being left in the AI dust, Apple might lean on … wait for it … Google’s tech to power up Siri. Yes, the same Google it’s been side-eyeing for years.

🐢 Siri Slows Down: Apple promised smarter AI features, but delays mean the assistant is still stuck in 2011 vibes. Honestly, who is using Siri right now?

🤝 Frenemies at Work: Apple could borrow Google’s AI to catch up, proving even trillion-dollar giants sometimes need a cheat sheet.

💰 Business as Usual: The two companies already have a cozy $20B+ deal for Google Search on iPhones, so why not tack on AI too?

📱 User Impact: Don’t expect Siri to suddenly ace trivia night — improvements will be gradual and quietly rolled out.

Siri’s delayed glow-up shows that even Apple can’t build the future alone. Sometimes, even the walled garden needs a neighbor’s lawnmower.

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🏛️ UK Gov Tried Copilot. Productivity Didn’t Budge

Copilot sells the dream but delivers hallucinated Excel formulas. A three-month trial of Microsoft 365 Copilot inside the UK’s Department for Business and Trade showed small time savings in some tasks, but no solid uplift in overall productivity. People liked it, sure, but liking a tool is not the same as getting more done.

🧪 The pilot: 1,000 licenses, Oct to Dec 2024, evaluated by the department’s monitoring team.

🙂 Satisfaction: 72% of users were satisfied, NPS clocked in at 31.

✍️ Where it helped: drafting emails, summarizing docs, transcribing or summarizing meetings saw modest time wins.

📊 Where it stumbled: Excel data analysis was slower and less accurate, and PowerPoint got faster but worse, requiring fixes.

👀 Hallucinations: 22% of participants reported spotting them, with many others unsure.

Copilot looks handy for admin grunt work, not a magic productivity fountain. File under useful assistant, not workplace revolution. Hmm, doesn’t Microsoft own a large share of OpenAI? I think it’s only a matter of time before we see an Apple move where Copilot will eventually merge with OpenAI.

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🔥 The “Hell Yeah or No” Rule

One of my favorite blog posts of all time. I often revisit it to recenter my yes/no filter. Derek Sivers lays it out simply: if an opportunity doesn’t make you say “Hell yeah!”, then it’s a no. Life’s too short for half-hearted maybes.

⚡ Clear Filter: Use this rule to cut out the noise and focus only on what excites you.

🧹 Declutter Life: Saying no more often leaves room for the things that truly matter.

💡 Energy Check: If you’re not buzzing with enthusiasm, it’s a red flag.

🚀 Focus Multiplier: Every no frees up time, energy, and attention for your real priorities.

It’s a blunt but liberating mantra: only commit to what sets you on fire, and stop wasting time on the rest.

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What are your thoughts about the mix of stories? Reply and let me know in the comments section below!"

…That’s this week’s newsletter!

-Brian

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