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2 Aug 2025

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Congress aims to revive ‘Click to Cancel’ subscriptions after judges kill FTC rule
The United States Federal Trade Commission tried to make it easy to cancel subscription services in 2023. The judiciary threw it out earlier this year, just before it was scheduled to go into effect, on the grounds that the FTC had overstepped its authority and skipped procedural steps. Now the legislature, or at least a few members, will try to achieve the same thing. The newly proposed Congressional bill is being provisionally titled the “Click-to-Cancel Act of 2025.” It’s essentially trying to do the exact same thing that the FTC attempted, explicitly stating that it wants “to codify the rule issued by the Federal Trade Commission relating to click-to-cancel.” The two-page submission merely points to the original FTC filing, which says that customers must be able to cancel a subscription by the same means it was originally agreed upon. So if the bill passes, Americans couldn’t be forced to call or even snail-mail to cancel a subscription that was begun online or in an app. They’d also get an annual reminder before they were charged for re-upping a subscription for another year. It’s being proposed by a trio of Democratic congresspeople from California, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, as Ars Technica reports. And unfortunately, that means it has little hope of passing under the current administration. At the risk of oversimplifying, the US Congress is currently bitterly divided with a slim margin of control held by business-friendly Republicans, who have gutted federal safeguards over industry at all levels. The conservatives are likely to keep any progressive proposals, no matter how popular, stymied. With the Trump administration apparently keeping an iron grip over the judiciary as well, it’s possible that even if the law were passed, it would be either sued out of existence or simply not enforced by federal regulators. The odds of any progress being made in the area of exploitative subscription tactics used against consumers seem slim to none, at least in the short term.

Why a thick mouse pad makes a big difference in comfort and control
Choosing a thicker mouse pad can significantly improve ergonomics and ease wrist pressure. In contrast, thinner pads often become uncomfortable during long workdays or gaming sessions, as they leave the wrist resting more or less directly on the hard tabletop. A padded base provides soft cushioning that reduces pressure. Large models in particular, which serve as desk mats, increase comfort and often make a separate wrist rest superfluous. A thick mouse pad offers many advantages over the thinner variety–from protecting the wrist to cushioning the keystroke. IDG One more benefit is improved stability. Thinner mouse pad models tend to shift or lift off at the corners, which is particularly annoying during fast mouse movements. Thicker versions, with a non-slip underside, ensure a secure hold and level out any unevenness in the table surface. This enables even and precise tracking, which is particularly advantageous for gaming mice with a low lift-off distance. Razer Gigantus V2 thick mousepad for $9.99 on Amazon In addition, a thick mouse pad extends the service life of the work surface. The additional layer of material slows down wear on the underside of the mat. It therefore lasts longer than thin versions. High-quality models can often withstand thousands of hours of use without noticeable wear and tear. Thinner underlays lose stability over time or can become cracked. The keyboard can sit on an oversized mouse mat (like this Corsair one) alongside the mouse, helping absorb unwanted background noise.”Corsair Another benefit is the sound insulation: thick pads absorb shocks and keyboard vibrations, which reduces the noise of keystrokes. This promotes a quieter working environment, especially in open-plan offices or for users who prefer a low-noise setup. Felt pads in particular help to further dampen ambient noise and improve working comfort. Anyone who has ever felt the difference in the material thickness of mouse pads is unlikely to want to switch back to a thinner alternative.

ChatGPT’s new Study Mode makes me actually use my brain. I love it!
It should come as no surprise that students the world over are using ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots to cheat. On homework, on tests, and on anything else you care to mention. After all, why work something out yourself when there’s an AI chatbot waiting and willing to do the hard work for you? This is obviously a problem in need of fixing, and OpenAI’s answer is a Study Mode that’s now baked into ChatGPT. The idea is to stop students from simply asking ChatGPT to tell them the answer to a question, and to have ChatGPT teach them how to answer the question for themselves. Will this work? Possibly. Maybe. Probably not. Either way, I gave ChatGPT’s Study Mode a spin for ourselves to find out what it’s capable of – and I wound up utterly loving it. How to enable ChatGPT’s Study Mode Dave Parrack/Foundry First things first. In order to use Study Mode, you’ll need to be logged into ChatGPT. Then, under the invitation to “Ask Anything,” click Tools > Study and Learn. This will put ChatGPT into Study Mode, forcing the AI chatbot to respond in a very different way than it usually does. ChatGPT offers three default prompts in Study Mode: “Help me with my homework,” “Explain a topic to me,” and “Create a practice quiz.” You can either select one of these or provide ChatGPT with another prompt to deal with. I initially asked it to explain a topic to me, forcing it to ask for more details as to what I was studying and what grade I am in. I answered truthfully that I was a mature adult learning purely for the sake of learning. That way, ChatGPT knew exactly who and what it was dealing with. It then offered up some fascinating topics we could explore together, from ancient empires through to quantum physics. I chose the latter because it’s a fascinating subject. I then got a basic explanation of quantum physics before ChatGPT paused to throw a question back at me. Namely, how do I picture an electron in an atom? The point was to force me to actively think about the subject and what I think I know about it rather than just passively absorb whatever information ChatGPT offered up. Why I love ChatGPT’s Study Mode Dave Parrack/Foundry This is, in a nutshell, why I love ChatGPT’s Study Mode. It forces ChatGPT to teach you, and forces you to learn. I find the interactions regarding a specific subject matter much more useful when in Study Mode than in the AI chatbot’s regular mode. It’s the old adage about teaching a man to fish writ large. Sure, just like a calculator would, ChatGPT could just tell me what 32 multiplied by 53 is, but that only helps me once. Explain the easiest way to multiple 32 by 53, however, and that helps me for life. Beyond that essential raison d’etre, I love the way ChatGPT’s Study Mode seeks to continue the conversation at all costs. While the regular ChatGPT mode is also good at encouraging follow-ups, Study Mode ramps things up a notch — leading to me having a long, ranging conversation about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, for example. ChatGPT has taught me something, I have learned something, and it was a collaborative effort. I also love the way that ChatGPT’s Study Mode changes the essence of what generative AI is and does. So far, AI has been seen as a quick fix for problems. From managing mundane chores for you, to achieving everyday tasks with single, one-line prompts, generative AI has taken the lead. Whereas, once ChatGPT has been switched into Study Mode, it forces you to do the work yourself. Turning it from a lecturer to a teacher, from a servant to an assistant. ChatGPT’s Study Mode: Room for improvement Dave Parrack/Foundry Is ChatGPT’s Study Mode perfect? No. But then this is just the first iteration, with OpenAI committed to improving it. One obvious way of doing so would be to have an option to lock ChatGPT into Study Mode. That would prevent students (or just curious adults such as myself) from getting so far before simply giving up and asking for the answer. However, regardless of how Study Mode evolves, it has already given me a new way of interacting with ChatGPT. If you try ChatGPT’s Study Mode for yourself, I recommend pushing beyond the default options, and experimenting with prompts. Options range from questions as simple as, “What are the three states of matter?” to questions a lot deeper and likely to force a longer back-and-forth discussion, such as “What is the meaning of life?” I asked the latter in both ChatGPT’s Regular Mode and Study Mode, and the responses were very different. In Regular Mode, ChatGPT simply offered up some possible answers based on different interpretations of the question. However, while in Study Mode, ChatGPT asked me what I myself thought the meaning of life was. Which is 42, obviously. Thanks for all the fish, ChatGPT Study Mode.