It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
A Florida Billionaire Pays $40 Million for Ferrari EV Everyone Mocked
Philanthropist Herbert Wertheim paid a record price at auction for a Luce sports car in the name of charity
An optometrist turned billionaire philanthropist with an eye for bold design paid a record-setting $40 million for a bespoke Ferrari Luce at auction. Just don’t expect him to drive it much.
“It will not be my personal car to go to Publix to get bananas,” said Dr. Herbert Wertheim, who goes by Herbie among friends.
The 87-year-old bought the Luce mainly for charity, he said. The proceeds of the record-setting sale go to the Ferrari Foundation to support education programs. Plus, he envisions lending it to worthy organizations in the future to help them raise money. It is all part of Wertheim’s goal of dispensing his vast fortune, which he puts at an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion.
“It is hard to give away billions of dollars,” the octogenarian told The Wall Street Journal.
But much like with the Ferrari Daytona SP3 he bought last year for $26 million at the same auction, Wertheim’s bigger plan for the Luce—or the Lucy, as he calls it—is to be a fundraising workhorse for the many charities he supports.
“This is happiness,” he said, of finding creative ways to unload his billions. “I’m going to give it all away.”
Link: Wall Street Journal (Jack Morphet)
‘Polyester’ Is Gen Z’s Newest Viral Insult. Here’s What It Means.
Nobody wants to be polyester. Not on TikTok, anyway.
A recent viral video shows an 18-year-old talking about his dream adult lifestyle. “I want to wake up at 6 a.m. in my New York City penthouse, Bible study with the boys before anything else ... Blue light glasses on, deep work, house music, locked in. I’m not gonna even be doing half of the work because my Claude agent is gonna be running automatic in the background.” “Polyester lifestyle,” reads the top comment on one TikTok, which has racked up more than 40,000 likes.
In short, Gen Zers are using it to call something low-quality or cheap. But the phrase’s revamped meaning is a bit more complex. It stems from a negative perception of polyester fabrics that’s been growing for some years, compared to high-blend cotton fabrics.
In fall of 2025, an edit of Peter Parker from the “Spider-Man” films was shared on TikTok, featuring fast-cut clips of the character layered over one another in a chaotic fashion, set to a metallic, high-pitched audio. The edit recently resurfaced and was dubbed the “Polyester Spider-Man Edit” by TikTok users.
“Gen Z is very insecure, cautious,” says Don Grant, a media psychologist. “They grew up with everything online becoming their social currency and the litmus of who they are.”
“I think everyone, especially in Gen Z, scrolls inherently with this feeling of distrust for every video,” Morgan Hurlock, 24, of Philadelphia, previously told USA TODAY.
Link: USA Today
Inside the World of High-End Matchmaking
As he looks for The One, Joseph Pascaretta is investing in pricey matchmaking services. Will it help him find love?
On a balmy Thursday evening in late July, Joseph Pascaretta, 38, got ready for his fifth first date of the summer. Right away, the date felt flat to Pascaretta. There was no sizzle. After three hours, Pascaretta walked his date back to her apartment, where they hugged briefly. No kiss.
Pascaretta’s contract with Agape Match guarantees him at least one date per month from the company’s massive database of single women. If you counted his previous two arrangements with the company, going back nine years, he had paid the matchmakers roughly $65,000 and gone on approximately 40 first dates, and 20 second dates — only one of which led to a relationship.
“If you called me eight years ago and said, ‘Do you think you’ll be single by 38?’ I would have said, ‘Oh no,’” he said. “This is getting a little old. Some of this is not fun anymore.”
Earlier this summer, Pascaretta thought he may have just found The One — a TV news correspondent. Not long after their four-hour dinner date, she gave feedback to the team: She wasn’t feeling any spark. “Thanks so much for the gesture, but I want to be honest. I’m not interested in pursuing anything romantically. Wishing you the best.”
Link: New York Times (Catherine Pearson)
‘With All My Heart, Natalie.’ Trump’s Most Devoted Aide Emerges.
President Trump’s White House aide Natalie Harp is always by his side. What, exactly, does she do?
She never takes a day off, not even on Sunday. She works out of the Oval Office and she’s got a regular seat on Marine One. She rarely speaks on camera and yet she is never not there, ever-present with a wide smile and her eyes fixed on the president.
She is Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old West Wing aide who is the utmost gatekeeper to President Trump, a one-woman conduit of information operating entirely outside the usual chain of command.
Her moniker is “the human printer,” because she tails the president with a portable printer so she can hand him information in hard copy.
This week she became the subject of a political attack line delivered by Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senator from Georgia, who said of the president:
“He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
The senator’s singling out of Ms. Harp triggered a particularly ferocious response from many corners of Trump world. White House aides, lawmakers on Capitol Hill, conservative influencers and at least one cabinet member.
In the book “Regime Change,” by the New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Mr. Trump is described as explaining to people that Ms. Harp is the only one who loves him as much as his wife and children. All his other staff will go off and make money, Mr. Trump would say, but Ms. Harp will never leave him.
Several videos shared with The Times show Ms. Harp sprinting across great distances to keep up with Mr. Trump’s golf cart as it putters across his course in Scotland. “I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland,” she wrote in a letter to the president that was viewed by The Times.
The letter concludes: “With all my heart, Natalie.”
Link: New York Times (Shawn McCreesh and Maggie Haberman)
Once Banished to Trailer Parks, Manufactured Homes Are Moving to Suburbia
For decades, manufactured housing has mostly been limited to trailer parks and rural properties. Now, a few developers are pitching factory-built homes as the way of the future, trying to sell higher-quality homes in a new context: the typical American suburban subdivision.
The new houses going up on Acacia Lane look a lot like one-story versions of the taller houses on the other side of the street. The same California Craftsman look; almost identical plank siding; a similar tasteful yet cheery color palette.
But the new houses were built in a factory, then plopped down on this suburban street by a crane.
Stigmatized as low-quality, less-safe housing for the poor, factory-built housing was banned for decades by many towns and cities. But as soaring home prices prompt a search for affordable options, some policymakers have been willing to give manufactured homes a new look.
“They had a really bad reputation, and a lot of localities put in exclusionary zoning to prevent them from being used in neighborhoods,” said Rachel Siegel, a housing analyst at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “There’s almost no other way right now to build smaller homes that people can truly afford, that are new, outside of manufactured housing.”
In Santa Rosa, Villa’s new neighborhood is going up in a high-cost-of-living community. Villa doesn’t trumpet the innovative nature of the neighborhood. Its banners promote “New Single-Family Homes,” with pictures of wide front porches, wooden fences and children running across the grass, no mention of manufacturing.
“I think we’re going to see this accelerate for the next probably decade, at least,” Villa CEO Sean Roberts said. “This is a different moment in home building than it has been in decades.”
Link: Washington Post/Yahoo News (Julie Z. Weil)
Did Someone Wearing Meta Glasses Film You Today? Are You Sure?
‘Here we have a leap in the erosion of our privacy rights through this slick technology that big tech promises will enrich our lives,’ says Ryan Clarkson, one of the lawyers bringing a class-action suit against Meta over its privacy assurances.
The man I’m talking to runs a business called Ghost Metas. He’s one of hundreds of vendors, easily discoverable online, who specialise in disabling the flashing LED light embedded in Meta’s smartglasses that blinks when wearers capture photos, videos and audio. After Ghost Metas disables the LED, it’s impossible for someone to know they’re being filmed.
“In public, I don’t think we have privacy any more, period,” he says, when I ask whether what he’s doing feels wrong. “My argument is if you’re really worried about your privacy, don’t go outside.”
“I honestly felt extremely violated,” said Brek Mettra, a mother of two in Utah who was secretly filmed in her home by a stranger using Meta Glasses during a Facebook Marketplace transaction, and did not know it until a stranger recognized her in the clip online.
“These products aren’t designed for user control and privacy,” said Ryan Clarkson, managing partner of Clarkson Law Firm, which filed a class-action suit against Meta. “In my opinion, they’re designed to maximise profits, and to turn every person who buys one into a Trojan horse of surveillance.”
Link: The Guardian
What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?
Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I. And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.
After years of studying how human beings write, the cognitive psychologist Ronald T. Kellogg concluded that drafting a basic persuasive essay was as mentally taxing as digging a ditch was physically exhausting.
Somewhere between two-thirds and 90 percent of high school and college students are already using A.I. for schoolwork, according to recent surveys, often requesting help with writing assignments.
“Writing is a technology for thinking,” Dr. Kellogg said.
Last year, a small study from M.I.T. showed that individuals who wrote in partnership with A.I. chatbots recorded lower brain activity while they wrote, compared with those who worked without chatbots. The writers who used A.I. struggled to remember what, exactly, they had written, and felt little ownership over their work.
When Cassady Tondorf, 17, learned how chatbots produced writing, she realized their utter lack of originality. “The entire internet is open to it,” she said. “It’s just regenerating the same things, over and over.”
Link: New York Times (Dana Goldstein)
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend. See you in the comments!
So many good ones today Bill. A billionaire giving away his money via buying Ferraris for charity? A novel approach if nothing else.
Not too sure what to make of Gen Z and their thing about polyester. Having actually lived through the worst of everything polyester, I can assure them they will survive and maybe stop scrolling so much. Sounds like a weird way to live life.
The only question I’d have for Mr Pascarella would be, “Who wants to be married to a man with a grueling work schedule?” Sounds like he’s using his height as a convenient excuse for not really wanting to get married in the first place. He’s a mess of contradictions. Perhaps his money would be better spent on a shrink?
Enough has already been said and written about Ms. Harp. That’s all everyone has been going on about since Senator Ossoff’s comment. As has already been said by others, had the pearl clutches just let sleeping dogs lie, the story probably would have died in the churn of the news cycle. There is the possibility though that someone in the president’s circle with a ax to grind, let those really damming letters out. Ho hum. Just another day in Crazyville. On the other hand, no one seems to be concerned about the Freedom 250 Grand Prix that’s going to be going down this weekend in our Capital city.
As a former owner of a very good manufactured home, I can vouch for them especially when I’ve seen some of the “quality” of conventionally built homes. The home my(late)husband and I bought in 2000 was 4 years old. The studs were all on 16” centers, we had drywall interior walls, crown molding, baseboards, plenty of closets; everything our previous homes had had. These homes are NOT mobile homes. When properly tied down and settled on a brick foundation, it’s difficult to tell them from “conventional” homes. People are desperate for affordable housing and these homes, if the manufacturer is well researched, will provide that.
META glasses are a horrible nightmare and a pox on the world.
As for AI writing, it looks like teachers and professors are going to have to get creative in their writing assignments. Maybe just limiting phone access while writing in class. Turn in outlines along with bibliography along with notes. Get basic and build from there. The really sad thing is these kids don’t see how they’re cheating only themselves.
Have a great weekend Bill.