Espresso Shots 8-3-25

Here's my weekly update with a few interesting random findings that I came across the last week or two. I am going to try to make sure they're here in time for you to enjoy with your morning coffee (or beverage of choice) every Saturday or Sunday, and include some of my thoughts around them.

Vibes 🎯

Been a long-time fan of The Bear, and with season four recently dropping, this season delivered in some unexpected ways.

(SPOILERS)

While many focused on Carmy and his realization that the only path forward to healing is to step away from the environment he was born into.

However, for me, the character evolution of Ritchie (someone I didn't like in Season 1, but who is now my favorite) is where the real heart of the story lies. In Season 2's "Forks", in what I'd argue is the series' best episode, Cousin discovers the gift of the origin story of the "Every Second Counts" sign. (Which I proudly have in my office now.

In Season 4's special "Wedding" episode, it clocks in as a close runner-up to Forks.

There's a moment in the episode where Richie is telling Uncle Jimmy a story about film director William Friedkin visiting a Zen garden in Kyoto with rocks and sand. When he arrived, he found only a few stones and a large amount of combed sand. He mused that the rocks might've been planets or countries, but then started to consider that they might be families, and the garden might've shown how people are separated.

Richie goes on to explain that he's been looking at this all wrong. He thinks he's the sand that binds people together.

'I think I am the sand.'

The Latest Drippings ☕️

• Friending. I've been a weekly listener to the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher (audio here) for some time now, so I was happy to see his new book, 'Notes on Being a Man' being released soon. This week, on Scott's blog No Mercy/No Malice, there was an excellent article on the importance of friendships in shaping one's life. Some staggering statistics in here, too: 'American men have fewer friends today, with only 27% reporting at least six close friends, compared to 55% three decades ago. Alarmingly, 15% of men have no friends at all.'
• Changing Your Life Is Not a (Mid-Life) Crisis. Exploring Life 2.0 is been something of a hobby of mine for several years (and I'm working on 3.0 now), so I really appreciated a lot of what Scott wrote about this week. 'We need a term for life long growers, people who continue to examine and explore their own potentials and passions, making new and bigger bets as they change throughout life. With or without a label I’ve learned more through my so called mid-life crisis about myself, my friends and the possibilities of life, than I could any other way and I plan to make similar changes throughout my hopefully long and fulfilling life.'
• Let’s Talk About Tools. 'Combining a bunch of tools that are all really good but not exceptional. It also means there is not one app to rule them all, no matter how fancy the marketing.' I enjoyed this post on the frustration of combining multiple good-but-not-exceptional tools, which feels like something I have to deal with daily.
• The Trap of the Deadline High. An exploration of the 'wiring your brain to depend on urgency instead of intention.' Some good tips in here on how to break the cycle.
• Walter Martin Radio. As I have been spending a lot more time walking and rucking as of late, I've been enjoying a bunch of streaming radio sites from across the world (mostly colleges and new music). As part of that, I came across Walter Martin, who is not only a songwriter and musician, but also started an upstate NY radio station. 'I play vinyl records from my record collection and talk about why I like them and why other people might like them'. New episodes weekly can be found here. Hrm.. perhaps I should fire up a "Listening To" page on the site next week.
• You Can't Fight Enshittification. Cory Doctorow coined the term Enshittification, which refers to how platforms die. 'Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.'. This week, he discusses how you, essentially, can't avoid it. 'If you turn your personal campaign to live an enshittification-free life into a set of rigid practices that isolate you from your community, you will be miserable – and you will undermine your ability to address the systemic roots of enshittification.'
• How the Onion Is Saving Itself From the Digital Media Death Spiral. I'm a subscriber to the paper edition of the Onion, so I was really interested in the story of Ben Collins and why he believes in the and why human-created satire matters in a landscape saturated by noise and A.I. slop. Also, here's a link from a 2008 episode of This American Life hosted by Ira Glass.
• Make the Other Mistake. Some incredibly simple, but valuable, advice. 'If still you’re in the crazy loop of doing the same thing again and again and hoping for a different result. Stop the insanity. Stop it now. Make the other mistake.'
• The 18-month Career Is Here. 'The brief, wondrous life of a bridge job' is explored in this post, as the world (especially those of software engineers), is radically changing right now. Prompt engineers, a year ago, were commanding crazy salaries, and there's evidence now that it's probably already obsolete.
• Comfort TV Is Overrated. I didn't think much of my television watching, but I found myself nodding my head when I came across this post on how 'today's most talked-about shows all have something in common - they are wildly anxiety-inducing.' Fascinating: 'People have always sought excitement by being spectators; doing so causes, vicarious stress — a fight-or-flight response that feels good because it involves zero risk.'
• Dance. Robots.. Some awesome advice on how to think about using the magical robots as part of your daily dancing. Great stuff.
• The Problem With Rewards Credit Cards. I am so over the credit card game; recently Chase Sapphire announced a crazy annual fee hike to almost $795/yr (an additional card fee of $150). Now AMEX Platinum is talking about a hike to $995/yr. Feeling that I'm going to revisit all my credit card choices shortly.
• Blue Man Group Hears 'Welcome To The Black Parade' For The First Time. I think I saw the Blue Man Group once in concert; but here's a recent video from them that I just couldn't tear myself away from.
• But... Therefore... Matt Stone and Trey Parker on Plotting Advice. I'm not saying that Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, haven't posted controversial topics and episodes in the past (especially in the last weeks). And I probably haven't watched the show in 15 years. But I did enjoy coming across this video from NYU's "Stand In" on the plotting device they use. They call it the but and therefore method, and why the words 'and then' just will be a total failure.

Amor Fati ✌🏻