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✏️ New Word Learned:

Therianthropic: combining human and animal form; esp. relating to religions in which the deities worshiped are partly human and partly animal

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📚 Let’s goooooooo

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💬 Found in Cas Holman’s Playful, which I am enjoying immensely:

“You will find the future wherever people are having the most fun.” — Steven Johnson

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✏️ New Term Learned:

Caveat Emptor: a Latin phrase meaning “let the buyer beware”; the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made

Should a business student like me have known what this meant before today? Probably… but here we are.

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💬 Marshall Mcluhan on his pioneering work in media ecology:

“It is now perfectly plain to me that all media are environments, all media have the effects that geographers and biologists have in the past associated with environments. The medium is the message because the environment transforms our perceptions governing the areas of attention and neglect alike… All of my recommendations, therefore, can be reduced to this one: study the modes of the media, in order to hoick all assumptions out of the subliminal, non-verbal realms for scrutiny and for prediction and control of human purpose."

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🫶 NYC stores that provide free and clean public restrooms

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Dear Ritz, I’m sorry for buying these Lemon sandwiches with the expectation that they’d be trash. They are, in fact, really really good.

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📰 FT on Yann LeCun’s impending exit from Meta. Now there will be even less adults in the room:

Zuckerberg has pivoted away from the longer-term research work of Meta’s Fundamental AI Research Lab (Fair), which LeCun has headed since 2013, to focus on more rapidly rolling out models and AI products after deciding that Meta had fallen behind the competition. Over the summer, Zuckerberg hired Alexandr Wang to lead a new “superintelligence” team at Meta, paying $14.3bn to hire the 28-year-old founder of data-labelling start-up Scale AI and acquire a 49 per cent interest in his company.

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🎵 Been listening to:

I’ve added songs that I recommend on Micro.blog to a Youtube playlist and will try to keep updated.

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🎵 Here are some predictions and wish lists of Grammy winners for 2026 based on the nominations. Having Clipse and Kendrick on so many of the same tickets puts me in a tough spot, but here it goes:

Record of the Year:

  • Wish: Luther by Kendrick and SZA
  • Predict: DtMF by Bad Bunny

Album of the Year:

  • Wish: Let God Sort ‘Em Out by Clipse
  • Predict: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS by Bad Bunny

Song of the Year:

  • Wish: Luther by Kendrick and SZA
  • Predict: Golden from KPop Demon Hunters

Best New Artist:

  • Wish: Leon Thomas
  • Predict: Leon Thomas

Producer of the Year:

  • Wish: Sounwave
  • Predict: Dijon

Pop Solo Performance:

  • Wish: DAISIES by Justin Bieber
  • Predict: Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter

Best Pop Duo:

  • Wish: Defying Gravity by Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande
  • Predict: Defying Gravity by Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande

Best Pop Vocal:

  • Wish: SWAG by Justin Bieber
  • Predict: Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter

Best R&B Performance

  • Wish: Folded by Kehlani
  • Predict: It Depends by Chris Brown, Bryson Tiller

Best R&B Song

  • Wish: Folded by Kehlani
  • Predict: Folded by Kehlani

Best Rap Performance

  • Wish: Chains & Whips by Clipse, Pusha T & Malice ft. Kendrick Lamar & Pharrell
  • Predict: Chains & Whips by Clipse, Pusha T & Malice ft. Kendrick Lamar & Pharrell Williams

Best Melodic Rap Performance

  • Wish: Luther by Kendrick and SZA
  • Predict: Luther by Kendrick and SZA

Best Rap Song

  • Wish: The Birds Don’t Sing by Clipse
  • Predict: The Birds Don’t Sing by Clipse

Best Rap Album

  • Wish: Let God Sort ‘Em Out by Clipse
  • Predict: Let God Sort ‘Em Out by Clipse

Lot of repeats, but you can tell who I am pulling for most. That being said, it is an unusually strong nomination list this year. I am not mad for any wins that Dijon, Leon Thomas, Doechii, Tyler, or Billie get, as I am huge fans of each.

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💬 A classic zinger from the incomparable Peter Drucker:

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence. It is to act with yesterday’s logic.”

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🖍️ My sketch notes from this week’s “Managing the Growing Company” course. I find that interacting with the material while listening live is the best way to help it stick and spark more thought. May not be the prettiest, but it is effective (and fun).

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While Mamdani is being showered today with celebrations of his hard-earned victory, I hope Lindsey Boylan is somewhere also being applauded. There can be no doubt that this outcome, at least slightly, started with the courage she had four years ago to be the first to blow the whistle on Cuomo’s sexual harassment. That particular issue may not have reached its ideal conclusion, but the knock-on effects of her bravery are inextinguishable; keeping a man who is unsuited for public office away from the halls of power.

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✏️ New Word Learned:

Polysemous: the capacity for a sign, symbol, word, or phrase to have multiple related meanings

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💬 Thinking a lot on Phillip Larkin’s poem Aubade lately and taking comfort from it. May write on it soon. Here is one glorious snippet:

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood.

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I love to read, but I also believe that thirty minutes of conversation with real people is worth two hours of reading any literature.

I know it’s a little apples to oranges, but the sentiment, I think, is mostly true.

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💬 From Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”

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🎵 Been listening to:

I confess, I didn’t know that the Dennis Edwards song was the original sample for Hit ‘Em Up until NLE released his diss track, KO, this week. KO is a fun track, phenomenal video, but forgettable as a diss, especially when imitating Pac.

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📚 I am officially hooked on humor writing. I cannot believe that I have never explored the genre before, but diving into it now feels as significant (and as exciting!) as stumbling into philosophy was as a teenager.

Came across this classic from Woody Allen today that is an absolute must read.

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✏️ New Term Learned:

Kufungisisa: a Shona idiom from Zimbabwe that translates to “thinking too much.” It is a cultural term used to describe a state of mental distress that causes other kinds of bodily ills.