Espresso Shots 4-5-26

It's that time again for my weekly update, which includes a short collection of noteworthy finds, posts that inspire, as well as a few reflections from the past week or two. I'll aim to land these in your inbox by the weekend, in time to pair with your morning coffee (or your preferred cup of inspiration).

The Latest Drippings ☕️

• The Machines Are Fine. I'm Worried About Us.. Everyone I know is trying to figure out what this AI thing is (I'd argue it's not even "AI" as we think of it in books and film, but rather augmented intelligence). There are three camps: 1) Love it, it's going to replace everything we know and give me time back. 2) Hate it, it's going to replace everything we know. And 3) The middle, who are seeing some interesting things, and trying to figure out the right way to apply it. I really liked this post about what we may lose. 'The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding. Who know what buttons to press but not why those buttons exist. Who can get a paper through peer review but can't sit in a room with a colleague and explain, from the ground up, why the third term in their expansion has the sign that it does.' This is one of the most important things that I try to keep in mind when offloading tasks - you gain wisdom by doing things by hand. With tools. With craftsmanship. Now it's more important than ever not to forget that.
• LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer. Sad trombone. Before you freak out, it doesn't appear to be entirely accurate, but again, another instance of breaking a user's trust. 'In reality, it’s checking for browser extensions. That’s a fairly common component of modern browser fingerprinting: at this point it’s fairly well-known that, because of the individual mix of extensions, fonts, etc available to a browser, this can be used to track individuals on the web without using cookies.' It's sad that in 2026, my default stance now is to assume that everything is trying to track you. Highly recommend having tools like Wipr2 and setting up your own PiHole Ad Blocker on your home network. For reference, I had 10,307 ad tracking queries blocked in just the last 24 hours.
• Inside the Stealthy Startup That Pitched Brainless Human Clones. This one kinda stunned me. What reads somewhere between the plot of a bad sci-fi movie and techno-elite-wacko, how much better the world would be if this brain power were put into real societal problems. But it's brainless thinking that got us to this.
• Against the Smartphone Theory of Everything. 'The smartphone is not a cigarette. It isn’t a toxin that we can isolate and test and ban. It is an information-delivery system — a relentless, inescapable IV drip of news, connection, outrage, friendship, conspiracy, solidarity, and garbage — whose effect on any individual depends entirely on what’s in the drip.' Turn off the drip and fill the cup with something better.
• Generative AI Vegetarianism. I love this term, 'generative AI vegetarianism,' which is defined as 'avoiding generative AI tools as much as you can in your day-to-day life.'
• The Resilience Paradox: When Pushing Through Makes Things Worse. A great one from neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff. 'We tend to treat resilience as an unqualified good. We praise the quality in entrepreneurs, caregivers, students, and leaders. Resiliency has become a moral injunction — a signal of maturity and strength. But a growing body of research suggests that resilience, when applied blindly, can do real harm to our health and our ability to change broken systems.' The key takeaway (which I'm adding to my quotes collection): 'Resilience stops being a positive when it keeps people tolerating what should be fixed.'
• Say the Thing You Want. While it's slanted toward 1:1s with your boss, this is great advice in general about advocating for yourself. Remember: 'when people know what you want, they can help you get it.'
• Closest Thing to Crazy. I'm still processing this piece, but it did give me some food for thought on when people ask, 'is this thing I'm doing crazy?'. Perhaps it's the use of the word 'crazy'. 'Here's to the crazy ones The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.'
• You Will Never Be Satisfied. I love David Pinsof's posts - they always make me stop, read, and re-read. In this one, he breaks down why most people will never be happy because of 'the hamster wheel of being alive.' When I read: 'Yea, life is beautiful and every moment is precious or whatever, but there’s another side of the story you almost never hear: most of life is pretty stressful, mediocre, and unsatisfying, and then you die' I guess my takeaway is that it's an important reminder to try to tip the scale away from those meaningless things, and put more energy in curiosity and joy. Just remember: 'The bullshitter can trick you into thinking they have the satisfaction you’re seeking.'
• KitKat's Chocolate Heist Turns into a Marketing Masterclass. One of the fondest memories of my grandfather was him always surprising me with a KitKat bar when he visited. But this week, there was trouble in chocolate town: 'Nestlé this week confirmed that 413,793 KitKat bars - weighing 12 tons - were stolen while in transit from a factory in central Italy to distributors in Poland, triggering a crisis response that rapidly became one of the most-watched brand marketing moments of 2026.' The way in which the company decided to tackle it was nothing short of amazing: 'The company decided to go public specifically to highlight what it described as a systemic problem'. As part of their product traceability infrastructure, they had a way to crowd-track the stolen bars. 'Each KitKat bar carries an eight-digit batch code printed on the back of its wrapper. According to Nestlé, law enforcement can trace stolen products through these unique batch codes assigned to individual bars. The tracker extends this capability to the public: a consumer enters the eight-digit code into the tool's input field, and the system returns a result indicating whether that specific bar is from the stolen batch.' One of the best "fix the system" over goals moments I've seen.
• New Music Is Slowly Dying. A look at the current state of the music industry and its seemingly rapid decline. More here on Chart Metric's observations that there were only 23 songs cracking the top charts.. Some interesting insights and data in here. Personally I've found a new discovery mechanism: by listening to more global streaming and college radio.
• Magic and the Brain: How Magicians "Trick" the Mind. Another thing I have been wanting to understand more is the connection between a magician, their tricks, and how they use psychology and neural processes to influence thinking.
• Why Do Flight Attendants Sit on Their Hands During Takeoff?. Today I learned why. 'Should anything untoward happen that would cause them to suddenly have to act, the positions of their hands would stabilize their bodies, thereby minimizing the risk of injury due to any unexpected turbulence or movement of the aircraft.'
• A Brief History of Mazes. I've been thinking a lot about mazes lately; partially because it would be an awesome-looking tattoo, but also because I'm finding that, in some ways, I'm still trying to navigate where I'm going. because I still don't know where I'm going. Maybe life is more akin to labyrinths, where there's one continuous path, no dead end, and you'll get to the center if you keep going. But the deeper meaning is that the path itself is the point. Or maybe, the maze wasn't meant for you.
• Do What You Want. Let's wrap this week up with another one for advocating for yourself. 'When I talk about reorienting your life toward what you want, I should be clear that I don’t just mean finding a couple of hours a week for fun, before heading back to the grindstone. What matters – and what helped me immeasurably – is to start viewing everything, your work and relationships and life as a whole, through the lens of how you truly want all that to be, then steering your course as appropriate.'

Amor Fati ✌🏻