Six weeks ago, I was having a tough time sticking to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was mostly fine. Mentally, the thought of running — a sport I usually love — made me roll into a blanket burrito and never leave my bed. I started hating myself, but none of my usual fitness apps and trackers were helping. After building a weeklong streak, I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed one Saturday. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.
Technology
Gentler Streak quieted my evil brain goblin so I could run in peace
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25409020/IMG_3662.jpg?ssl=1 "Gentler Streak quieted my evil brain goblin so I could run in peace")
Fed up, I went digging around the internet and ended up downloading the Gentler Streak app.
Gentler Streak is what it sounds like. It’s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more compassionate approach toward building a fitness habit. You can set an activity status: active, on a break, sick, and injured. Selecting one of the latter three won’t break your streak. Instead, your activity is represented on an “activity path,” which is a visualization for your overall training load. There’s educational reading about nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interplay between all three. Each day, you open the app, and it’ll give you a nudge. If you’re super well-rested, you might get told to push it a little. If you’re tired, you’ll get reminded that resting is good, actually. And if you really don’t know what to do, you can tap a “Go Gentler” button on the Apple Watch to see a series of suggested exercises based on activities you like, with recommended durations and intensity levels.
There’s a lot I love about all this. First and foremost, I enjoy that it incorporates breaks and “failure” into your eventual success — and doesn’t judge you for it.
That lack of judgment is what I needed. Eleven years into my running journey, I’d stumbled into my worst-ever slump. I was caught in a vicious cycle of falling off the horse, getting back on, and then getting angry whenever my efforts were less than perfect. A silly walking app helped with reframing my all-or-nothing mindset. The problem is, inside my brain resides an evil hypercritical goblin that will find and dwell in every tiny failing while minimizing all my successes. So what if a fun walking app was getting me out and about? Walking isn’t running. So what if I ran twice a week for a few weeks? You used to run four to five times a week, easy peasy.
I know I’m not supposed to listen to the evil brain goblin, but there are times when life rudely hands it a mighty powerful megaphone. Adding Gentler Streak helped shut it up. It’s not rocket science for an app to say “taking a rest day won’t affect your overall fitness.” But many don’t. Seeing that phrase over and over again underscored that I had, against my better judgment, started conflating streaks with consistency. Streaks are just one measure of consistency and a flawed one at that. A single break — which may actually be the better choice for your health — will wreck your streak, and that’s perceived as a bad thing.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling beholden to one.
None of what Gentler Streak does is novel. Features that emphasize recovery are rampant in other fitness apps. It’s more that it leads with intuition instead of data. There’s a real emphasis on creating space for everything, as opposed to sticking to something. One teaches you how to adapt; the other relies on willpower — and willpower always runs out.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling beholden to one
Take the daily “Go Gentler” suggestions. Rest and active recovery (e.g., yoga, walking, low-intensity activity, etc.) are always options 1 and 2. The remaining three are usually things that will help you maintain where you are, push you a little, or push you a lot. You don’t actually have to put in a lot of thought either because the suggestions are there. On stressful days when you’re out of willpower, that helps keep the evil brain goblin from waking up.
Like any app, Gentler Streaks still has its flaws, one of them being its reliance on the Apple Watch. You can use it with other trackers, but I’ve had issues with it pulling my sleep data from the Oura Ring reliably. Another is the subscription — $7.99 per month or $27.49 for a year. I paid, as features like the Go Gentler suggestions and extra data insights are paywalled.
Despite these shortcomings, a gentler approach seems to be working for me. Some people with iron wills may scoff. To them, I doff my cap and say I envy their blessedly silent brain goblins. But I’m running faster, longer, and more enjoyably than I have in six months. My calf remains uninjured. When I tell myself, “I’m busy today, I’ll squeeze in that run tomorrow” — the run actually happens. I’ll take it.
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When Oregon resident Isabelle Reksopuro heard Google was gobbling up public land to fuel its data centers in her home state, she didn’t initially know what to believe. “There’s a lot of misinformation about data centers,” she said. “Google has denied taking that land.”
Technically, she explains, The Dalles, a city near the Washington state border, sought to reclaim that land, “and Google is just a big, unnamed power user.” The city had in fact asked for ownership of a 150-acre portion of Mount Hood National Forest, claiming it needs access to Mount Hood’s watershed to meet municipal needs as its population — 16,010 as of the 2020 census — grows. But critics, including environmentalists, say the city is trying to secure more water for Google, which has a sprawling data center campus in The Dalles that already consumes about one-third of the city’s water supply.
This controversy made Reksopuro curious about the backlash to data centers being built in other communities. So Reksopuro, a student at the University of Washington who studies the connections between tech and public policy, decided to map it out. Using information collected by Epoch AI and data scraped from legislation on data centers, she built an interactive map tracking AI policy around the world. She designed it to be simple enough for anyone to use. “I wanted it to be something that my younger sisters could play through and explore to understand what are the data centers in the area and what’s actually being done about it,” Reksopuro said. She hoped to shift their opinions that way, “instead of like, through TikTok.”
Four times a day, the map searches for new sources and checks them against the existing database Reksopuro built out. “Once it does that, it will write a new summary, add it to the news feed, and populate it on the sidebar,” she said. “I wanted it to be self-updating, since I’m also a student.”
Reksopuro isn’t against data centers, but she thinks tech giants benefit from a lack of transparency around data center policies. “Right now, it’s this really opaque thing — and all of a sudden, there’s a facility,” she said. “I think that if people knew about data centers beforehand, it would give them leverage. They would be able to negotiate: ask for job training programs, tax revenue, environmental monitoring, things to improve their community.”
UCF commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield (University of Central Florida via Storyful)
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IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:
– UCF graduates clobber commencement speaker with boos after she says AI is the ‘next Industrial Revolution’
– OPINION: DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: We brought the FBI out of the past and into the AI age
– OpenAI backs creation of global AI governance body led by the U.S. that would include China as a member
TOUGH CROWD: During a recent commencement ceremony at the University of Central Florida, a speaker was met with loud boos from the graduating class after declaring that artificial intelligence represents the next industrial revolution. Fox News Digital reporting captures this tense cultural moment, illustrating the mixed public sentiment and skepticism surrounding AI’s growing footprint in daily life.
A statue on the campus of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. (iStock)
BADGE MEETS BYTE: Reflecting on the modernization of national security in a Fox News op-ed, FBI Director Kash Patel explores how the bureau must adapt its strategies to address modern threats and advance beyond the artificial intelligence age.
TECH DIPLOMACY: OpenAI is throwing its support behind the establishment of a new global artificial intelligence governance organization that would be led by the United States while notably including China as a member. Fox News Digital reporting examines the geopolitical dynamics and regulatory implications of this proposed framework as global powers race to set the standards for AI development.
EQUITY ELEVATION: The massive wave of wealth generated by the explosive growth of ChatGPT and the broader AI industry is driving a sudden surge in the San Francisco Bay Area’s luxury real estate market. Fox News Digital reporting breaks down how the influx of new tech capital is reshaping local housing dynamics and fueling a high-end property frenzy.
FBI Director Kash Patel listened as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference at the Department of Justice on April 28, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
STRATEGY RESET: Tech giant Cisco is planning to eliminate thousands of jobs as the company shifts its primary focus to accelerate its artificial intelligence initiatives, a move that comes despite the company beating earnings expectations. Fox News Digital reporting details the corporate restructuring and broader economic trends pushing legacy tech firms to aggressively pivot toward AI.
ROAD HAZARD: Waymo is issuing a sweeping recall of its autonomous vehicle fleet following a concerning incident that highlighted significant safety issues with the self-driving technology. Fox News Digital reporting outlines the specifics of the recall, the nature of the safety flaw, and what this setback means for the future of fully autonomous transportation on public roads.
BOTS IN THE BAY: A newly developed, artificial intelligence-powered robot has been engineered to seamlessly change and balance vehicle tires without human intervention. Fox News Digital reporting showcases this latest innovation, exploring how automation and AI mechanics could soon revolutionize the automotive service and repair industry.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the 2026 Infrastructure Summit in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 2026. (Kylie Cooper/Reuters)
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Microsoft Edge is adding a new feature that will allow its Copilot AI chatbot to gather information from all of your open tabs. When you start a conversation with Copilot, you can ask the chatbot questions about what’s in your tabs, compare the products you’re looking at, summarize your open articles, and more.
In its announcement, Microsoft says you can “select which experiences you want or leave off the ones you don’t.” The company is retiring Copilot Mode as well, which could similarly draw information from your tabs but offered some agentic features, like the ability to book a reservation on your behalf. Microsoft has since folded these agentic capabilities into its “Browse with Copilot” tool.
Several other AI features are coming to Edge, including an AI-powered “Study and Learn” mode that can turn the article you’re looking at into a study session or interactive quiz. There’s a new tool that turns your tabs into AI-powered podcasts as well, similar to what you’d find on NotebookLM, and an AI writing assistant that will pop up when you start entering text on a webpage.
You can also give Copilot permission to access your browsing history to provide more “relevant, high-quality answers,” according to Microsoft. Copilot in Edge on desktop and mobile will come with “long-term memory” as well, which can tailor its responses based on your previous conversations. And, when you open up a new tab, you’ll see a redesigned page that combines chat, search, and web navigation, along with the Journeys feature, which uses AI to organize your browsing history into categories that you can revisit.
Meanwhile, an update to Edge’s mobile app will allow you to share your screen with Copilot and talk through the questions about what you’re seeing. Microsoft says you’ll see “clear visual cues” when Copilot is active, “so you know when it’s taking an action, helping, listening, or viewing.”
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