Espresso Shots 7-27-25

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 ☕️

• Just One Good Thing. 'Today's culture seems to reward and celebrate the hustle. The neverending idea that one should always be productive, working, producing, shipping... In the last year, a mindset shift and approach appeared as a very simple idea: just do one thing, that I want to do today.' Amen.
• Copyright Your Faults. I enjoyed this piece on 'celebrating your constraints'; 'Some people have hyperfocus. Some have none and are really good at noticing disparate connections. Some are borderline OCD which makes them really, really good in medical or highly regulated environments. I think part of growing up is taking what it is that people tease you about at school, and figuring out how to make it a superpower.'
• Learn the Hemingway Method: Cut the Shit, Keep the Truth. 'People assume that minimalism is easy. That simplicity is laziness. But you have to be brave to leave things out. You have to trust [people] will feel the thing you didn't say.' I've often found that the practice of subtraction is a good place to start, perhaps even just burn the ships and only add back what's important. It's been a long time since I've read Hemingway, maybe when I get some time, I should read more.
• Sound is Spatial. I never realized how architectural acoustics determine who commands attention, who listens, and who remains outside the field of awareness. It's all about reinforcing power dynamics. Fascinating.
• The Psychological Secret to Longevity. A great one on how your perception of time speeds up and slows down depending on what you are experiencing, and ways to get better value from your time. Simple things, like 'memory is enhanced by significant, emotionally evocative activities', are handy. Still, this one spoke volumes to me: 'The most important principle in managing your time well is not how much of it you have, or how long you can extend it, but how you use each moment of it.'
• The Most Important Word in the English Language. Curiosity is what I would have guessed it to be, but I was incorrect.
• World's most frequent flyer bought 'lifetime' United pass for $510K, can fly first-class anytime. I guess this one has been going around for a while, but I just learned about it this week. Tom Stuker, in 1990, bought a 'lifetime pass' on United Airlines for him and a companion for $510,000. That pass allows him to fly first-class anywhere, anytime, and while it may seem like a lot, he's far exceeded the value. 'I'd take my brother and say, 'Hey, let's go down to Dallas and buy some cowboy boots.' So, the next day, on Friday, I say, 'Honey, let's go to Paris for the weekend.'' What's wild is that he also earns reward points on those miles, and had enough miles to get $50,000 gift cards at Walmart.
• Rule #15: The Bar is Low. It's somewhat disappointing to recognize how low the bar is for most things in life, so I enjoyed this piece's perspective that 'the best low bar argument is that by doing something you learn more about yourself. You get to discover what you are capable of. You will experience the fun and the challenge of deciding the real details of your book, or movie, or startup company, coffee shop or whatever project you've been thinking about.'
• Coming Soon: Your Professional Decline. I was unfamiliar with the terms crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence before reading this post. 'Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use knowledge gained in the past. Think of it as possessing a vast library and understanding how to use it. It is the essence of wisdom. Because crystallized intelligence relies on an accumulating stock of knowledge, it tends to increase through one's 40s, and does not diminish until very late in life.'
• A Behind the Scenes Look at NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. Over the last few years, I've enjoyed several of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series (even Taylor Swift has done one). This behind-the-scenes look offered some fascinating glimpses of the show. Video here.
• I Drank Every Cocktail. Adam Aaronson drank every single cocktail on the International Bartenders Association (IBA) list of 102 most requested drinks. A wild read on where he had to go to get some of them - a journey across seven states and three countries. Next up: The 100 Best Restaurants of NYC.
• Japan Stationery of the Year. The iA Notebook recently won the 2025 Japan Stationery of the Year ISOT Awards. Not that I'm surprised, I cannot say enough about the notebook - it's truly a work of art. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I have two - I couldn't bring myself to write in the first one I got. It's so cool.
• If I ran NPR and PBS. I am making a greater effort to listen to NPR and PBS, and I have recently donated to both. I found Ben's examination of how public media works in America interesting, as well as how funding cuts affect different parts of the US.
• Using a MacBook Trackpad As a Scale. File under weird, not sure if useful, but indeed cool.
• Are High-Protein Snacks Worth the Hype?. Guess what - they're not all they're cracked up to be. Learn how to read those labels!
• On Achieving Goals By Ignoring Them. Another piece on how time can be interpreted differently, this one, is more about distraction. 'What if the key to consistently exercising was shifting my attention away from the exercise itself? This realization reshaped my approach. Instead of concentrating on reps or minutes, I found a way to make exercise feel less like a chore and more like an integrated part of my day.'
• Questions for a New Technology. Some great questions to think about when evaluating new technology to get a good understanding of the tradeoffs.

Amor Fati ✌🏻