Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as a podcast about alternate realities, early tax season tips, AI in 2026 and beyond, the global migration megatrend, the 100k Venture X Card offer ends, attention spans and Ponzis and ugly memes, New Year’s Eve traditions around the world, the weakness of strongmen, the world’s busiest flights, the best white sand beaches, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. Have a great weekend!

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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

 

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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

See you Tuesday for the third edition of the 2025 Annual Best of Lists collection. Or I may shift it to Friday giving me a week “off” from the regular Friday type of posts, we shall see.

This blog will continue to resist enshittification in 2026 as well. Maybe I add this to the blog mission? To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. And Resist Enshittification. Or something like that…

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 

“Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind” – Plato

 

MUST READ GEMS

Well, this is not a read. But a podcast. Of a son trying to save the family from a father who is all in on conspiracy theories. It stunned me…while banging my head on the wall trying to get this guy to snap out of it. Sometimes, you just give up, so sad. You may inflict similar emotions to yourself, you have been warned.

Alternate Realities

 

There are now many of these lists but this one I think is the best one: 52 Things I Learned in 2025.

Before the October 19, 2025 heist in which the French crown jewels were stolen, the Louvre’s video security password was LOUVRE.

ChatGPT’s efficiency per prompt has improved 33X the past year, falling to 0.0003 kWh, roughly the energy required to stream Netflix for 8–10 seconds or conduct a Google search in 2008. Total AI data center water usage is also now equivalent to 3% of the water used by all U.S. golf courses.

The average American consumes around 100GB of information per day, up from 75 GB/day in 2015, 63 GB/day in 2012, 34 GB/day in 2008, and 7.5 GB/day in the 1970s.

The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, exerts less pressure on the ground than a person standing in stiletto heels. The building weight 500,000 tons, but exerts a ground pressure of only 90 psi, compared to the 850 psi exerted by a single stiletto heel. The Burj Khalifa would need to be about 18 miles tall to exert the same amount of pressure on the ground as a person standing in heels.

No NFL game has ever ended with a score of 36–23. Across the approximately 17,000 games that have been played in NFL history, this score should have happened 2.68 times by now. The probability of this score never occurring is 4.9%: across roughly 20 parallel universes, we happen to live in the one without this score.

 

PERSONAL FINANCE

Starting in 2026, we have the following numbers to take into account:

401(k) and 403(b) elective deferrals: $24,500

Age 50+ Catch-up: $8,000

Total for age 50+: $32,500

Total catch-up for age 60-63: $11,250 for a total max of $35,750

Traditional and Roth IRAs: $7,500

Catch-up: $1,100

Total for age 50+: $8,600

Standard deduction Married Filing Jointly: $32,200

Standard deduction Single: $16,100

HSA contribution Single: $4,400

HSA contribution family coverage: $8,750

Estate Tax Exclusion: $15,000,000 (Phew, that will shelter my profit from selling this blog eventually LOL)

I am excited for yet another tax season. Here are some early 2025 tax season tips.

Some key benefits that could boost refunds include:

• A new $6,000 additional deduction for many who are 65 and older. That tax break starts phasing out for taxpayers with a modified adjusted gross income of $75,000 if single and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.
• A new auto loan interest deduction that can apply to up to $10,000 in interest paid in a year. That deduction phases out by $200 for every $1,000 of modified adjusted gross income above $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for joint filers.
• A new, but fairly complex deduction for up to $25,000 in tip income that starts phasing out when taxpayers earn more than $150,000 if single or $300,000 if married filing a joint return.
• A new deduction for up to $12,500 in overtime income for singles or $25,000 for joint filers. That deduction starts phasing out when taxpayers earn more than $150,000 if single or $300,000 if married filing a joint return.
• A maximum child tax credit increase of $200
• The standard deduction will increase by $750 for single filers and $1,500 for joint filers.

 

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

Here is the latest December 2025 Ponzi Scheme Roundup. Dominated again by crypto where fraud is the killer app. Anyway, sometimes I wonder about people believing this smh:

…Fund had a cumulative return since inception of 4,384%.

We all need help with this, good video: How to Fix Your Attention Span (Before It’s Too Late).

Why does this shit still exist? The ugly memes driving crypto sales. A grotesque set of manufactured characters have emerged on social media to inflate memecoin prices. Barf!

 

AI

We need to ask this: What If? AI in 2026 and Beyond. According to the authors, there are two possible scenarios: 1) AGI is an economic singularity or 2) AI is a normal technology. Actually, the article goes ways deeper, I really enjoyed reading it.

I can concur that AI did not transform my life too. Anyway, here we go: Why A.I. Didn’t Transform Our Lives in 2025. This was supposed to be the year when autonomous agents took over everyday tasks. The tech industry overpromised and underdelivered. 

This time last year, leaders like Altman were making it sound like we’d raced over a technological cliff, and that we were tumbling chaotically toward an automated workforce. Such breathlessness now seems rash. Lately, in an effort to calibrate my expectations about artificial intelligence, I’ve been thinking about a podcast interview with Karpathy, the OpenAI co-founder, from October. Dwarkesh Patel, the interviewer, asked him why the Year of the Agent had failed to materialize. “I feel like there’s some overpredictions going on in the industry,” Karpathy replied. “In my mind, this is really a lot more accurately described as the Decade of the Agent.” [“some overpredictions” is putting it extremely mildly by the way]

Not a surprise: The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.