Espresso Shots 2-1-25

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.

The Latest Drippings ☕️

• Addiction Economy. I've really been enjoying Scott Galloway on both his blog and the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher. In this latest post, Scott dives into how various industries, including food, alcohol, and technology, thrive on creating and sustaining consumer cravings. These cravings are especially present on today's social networks (a reason I've been pulling away from them), and they are modern forms of addiction that can not only cause mental/personal isolation but also cause broader societal conflict.
• Caffeine Calculator. In perfect 2025 form, here's a handy calculator to determine, based on weight, how much consumption of your favorite drink or snack will kill you. FYI - 190.6 espresso shots would be terminal if consumed in one day.
• A web version of Pitfall is a wonderful, and as far as I can tell, near-perfect recreation of the classic Activision game, Pitfall. While it's not an emulator, 'it was developed in TypeScript through careful observation of gameplay and in-depth analysis of the original's 6507 assembly language source code.' Play it here.
• How AI can help in User Research. I enjoyed this deep dive into how NotebookLM was used to research a thesis. Despite all the conversations on whether GenAI is good or bad for us, leveraging it for auditory learning or discovery is fascinating.
• Two Laws of Explanation. A post from 2004 popped up again this week from Tim Bray on the 'Two Laws of Explanation.' Kinda a simple one, but incredibly valuable when you think about it.
  'The First Law; When you're explaining something to somebody and they don't get it, that's not their problem, it's your problem.
  The Second Law; When someone's explaining something to you, and you're not getting it, it's not your problem, it's their problem.'
  The key takeaway: 'You have to be totally courageous and truthful in saying 'I don't understand; please explain again.'**'.
• Ignore this if you are a complete success. Annie's blog has become my favorite new find in the last few months. This post highlighted the benefits of failure and was particularly insightful: "Experiencing failure leads to the realization that one can survive it, often making the fear of failure worse than the failure itself." YES.
• Seventy per cent. People often say, "perfect is the enemy of good." Still, I agree with 'The Imperfectionist' here: "Such advice is usually well-meaning, and true so far as it goes: perfectionists should indeed beat themselves up less, and be satisfied with less-than-perfect outcomes. But it still carries the subtle implication that being less than perfect is merely forgivable or excusable – that it would be nice to do better, but since you can't, there's no point fretting about it; instead, learn to settle for less.". Instead, Oliver offers up the '70% rule' - read more at the link to find out what this is. Great stuff.
• Organizing for urgent. Sound advice: 'Waiting for trouble means that you're going to spend your days dealing with trouble.'
• Life-Affirming Choices. Why delayed gratification is important in tackling those hard things head-on. 'Anticipate a future that will be better because I welcomed friction.'
• Google's NotebookLM AI will change my life-maybe yours too. Another post on the power of NotebookLM, but this time, as a 'queryable database from users' digital files.' I just wished there was a way I could run something like this self-hosted in my own private home lab.
• Build a life you can live in. Yes, another one from Annie on the 'importance of creating a personal path amidst the uncertainty of life, where no definitive truths can guide us.'
• Swiss Cheese Model. How familiar does this sound: 'failures typically result from a combination of factors rather than a single root cause.' Welcome to the 'Swiss Cheese Model'.
• Can dogs smell time?. Whhaaaaaa!??!
• Vangelis' The Tegos Tapes' Edits. If you are a fan of Vangelis (who composed classic film scores for Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner), you aren't going to want to skip this one. (Side note: check out his score for 'Conquest of Paradise' if you've not previously listened; it's one of my favorite background scores to listen to.)

Amor Fati ✌🏻