#TBOT 11: AI Companions Worse Than Porn, Why Your Word Doc Never Looks Right, Deep Sea Desalination, Find the Perfect XMPP Provider

Here are our stories for the week: AI Companions Worse Than Porn: People are turning to artificial intelligence for companionship, seeking emotional connection. AI companies are more than happy to supply this new drug, realizing personalized AI brings the most user engagement. A new Meta leak shows companies adopting a more personal strategy that enables subtle romances with users—including children. Why Your Word Doc Never Looks Right: Shots fired as LibreOffice, a popular open-source office suite, calls out Microsoft for their proprietary document format. We look at the history of OOXML versus ODF and see how MS strong-armed standardization. But in 2025, does LibreOffice smell blood in the water as governments in Finland and Germany shift to Linux and open source? Deep Sea Desalination: Water shortages are leading companies to start pumping water from the deep sea. But is this safe? What’s the environmental impact? We take a look as the largest subsea desalination plant prepares to go live off the coast of Norway in 2026. Solutions: Find your perfect XMPP server! I love XMPP—but finding a server isn’t the easiest task. That’s changing with providers.xmpp.net, a project by XMPP community members that lets you sort and find high-quality servers. Share this post with your crew. 🚢🪄 We aim for our show to be well-researched, well-informed, and focused on the most impactful stories—all in 20 minutes (ain’t nobody got more time than that)!⭐ PLUS - Each story comes with recommendations, and there’s one cool tech trick or open-source solution every week.We’ll be publishing full posts and clips of each of these stories soon.✅ XMPP + Above Phone is an excellent communication solution!Are you ready for a phone that respects you? Enjoy private app stores, secure web browsing and communication, download videos to your phone, navigate with open-source maps, and so much more.🔥 And best of all, there are zero connections to big tech!This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tbot.substack.com/subscribe