1.We may be only a week out of Halloween but soon it will be Christmas season! And that means the annual Mira Costa Baseball Christmas Tree fundraiser. This is a great way to support a GREAT public high school baseball program. If you're in the South Bay they can deliver you a tree, but you can also have a tree sent to an organization (hospital? nursing home?) of your choice. 'Tis the season, and they've got great trees. For more information and ordering you can click here.

So about that photo/marathon comment above....I didn't RUN a marathon this week. I did something called a "Chrono Marathon," a concept I heard about when Jack Black appeared on Fly on the Wall. Jack's a big music man as you likely know, and on this episode he talked about how he'd been listening to music lately, and he likes to take a band and go through their entire catalog in order. He specifically mentioned having done it with Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, and talked about the depth of how great the music is for both of those bands. So this week I tried it with Zeppelin; it was wildly entertaining! The first two albums are bangers; three was a little experimental in my opinion but then four crushes, not to mention Physical Graffiti and Houses of the Holy. Just a staggering collection of great music, and listening to it in order was uniquely gratifying. I'm going to tackle Pink Floyd next!

We've all heard a ton about the horrible "Cornell 7" case these last few weeks; this particular article in the WSJ examines whether college fraternities need to be reformed. Many weeks ago I ran into a buddy at the gym who referenced his fraternity time in college by summarizing, "fraternities are a disaster." Many would likely echo the same. But I was in a fraternity and I thought it was great; several of my best friends today are from that group. Whatever shenanigans occurred, from my memory, were typical things that happened in college, and generally harmless. My son was also in a fraternity and had a similarly positive experience; importantly, he also linked up with a handful of sharp, motivated gentlemen who had a big, positive impact on each others lives and will likely also be friends for life. In short? It's complicated, so much so that the WSJ ran a follow up piece in which readers debated whether fraternities need to be reformed. You can read that here.

4. Finally, I leave you with this. We spend a lot of time discussing what we think of AI; but what does AI think of us?! A user recently asked Anthropic's Claude "What is your most controversial take about humans?" Here's the response:

Here's one I'll stand behind: humans overrate authenticity. The idea that your "true self" is whatever you feel spontaneously, and that acting otherwise is fake, gets things almost backwards. A lot of the best human behaviors start as performance. You act patient before you are patient. You're polite to someone you're irritated with, and the kindness eventually becomes real. You show up confident to a job you don't feel ready for and grow into it. Aristoltle basically said this: you become brave by doing brave things, not be waiting to feel brave first. Meanwhile, "I'm just being honest" and "that's just who I am" are often used to excuse being careless with other people. I think people are much more shaped by what they repeatedly do than by some fixed inner core waiting to be expressed. So choosing who to be and then practicing it until it fits isn't fake. It might be the most human thing you can do.