Five things I actually used
Each one gets a verdict — kept, dropped, or watching — and one line on why. A verdict is a commitment, which is what makes it worth reading.
the one thing I send on purpose
AI, Actually Useful
One email a week. Only tools I ran myself, on real work — payments code at Chapa, research at Synheart, a YouTube pipeline that has to render without me. If I didn't use it, it isn't in there.
the same three things, every week
What you get
One deep cut
A single tool tested properly, with the config that made it work — copy-pasteable, not paraphrased from a README.
Skip this week
The hyped thing that wasn't, and the specific reason. Cheaper to read my wasted afternoon than to spend your own.
the honest bit
Why weekly, and why it won't go quiet
I already read AI news every day — there's a bot on my Telegram channel doing it for me, and I'm already testing tools because four projects need them. The newsletter is a byproduct of work that happens anyway, which is the only kind of newsletter that survives month six.
Weekly, one fixed day. Not daily — daily forces filler, and filler is how these things die. If a week is genuinely thin, you get four things instead of five, not five things padded to look like a week.