👋 Heading home to see family this weekend? Keep it “demure.” That’s Dictionary.com’s pick for 2024’s word of the year — contenders included “brainrot,” “brat,” and “weird” — with a 1.2k% rise in usage between January and August. It’s also a great way to stay out of trouble with that one uncle of yours.
Also: We’re off the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. Enjoy your turkey and stuffing, and we’ll see you back here Dec. 2.
🎧 On the pod:Unpacking Drake’s claim that Spotify and UMG conspired to boost Kendrick Lamar’s diss track.
NEWS FLASH
☎️ Phone scams are on the rise, but an AI granny is on the job. Daisy, who looks and chats like your grandmother, is a conversational AI-powered chatbot built by British phone company O2 to fight fraud. Daisy tricks phone scammers into thinking they’re speaking with a real human, and rambles on to keep fraudsters occupied and away from real people. While one AI granny doesn’t have enough knitting stories to stop phone fraud, it’s worth a shot: Global consumers lost $1T+ to online scams last year, and Virgin Media O2 blocked $315m+ in fraudulent transactions — the equivalent of one every two minutes.
🎤 The beef continues: Drake filed a legal petition accusing Universal Music Group — which distributes both Drake and rap rival Kendrick Lamar’s music — and Spotify of using bots, payola, and other means to inflate the metrics of Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us” to make it seem more popular. UMG rejected Drake’s claim, saying that no “contrived and absurd legal arguments” could hide that “fans choose the music they want to hear” — which, TBH, also sounds like a bit of a diss. Drake later filed a second petition accusing UMG of a similar scheme with iHeartRadio and releasing a song that alleges he’s a sexual predator.
🤖 Nvidia’s Fugatto is a new experimental AI model that can create or modify audio based on text prompts. Possible applications include experimenting with song ideas or styles, changing existing sounds in video games based on player choices, and generating speech in various voices. Nvidia released a video showcasing how Fugatto can change audio over time, such as shifting from the sound of a passing train to an orchestral swell, or alter the musical style of an existing melody. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to give it a whirl, Fugatto is not currently available to the public.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Spotifylaunched Spotify for Authors, a set of new tools for audiobook authors and publishers to track insights and analytics and promote their books. The analytics will show authors not only the demographics of their listeners, but also what other audiobooks and podcasts they listen to.
Wealth might not be all it’s cracked up to be. Around 59% of Americans say that the ability to spend money on things that make them happy is the most important marker of success, per a report by financial services firm Empower. Only 27% say wealth is the best measure of success.
Walt Disney will pay $43.3m to settle a claim that, over eight years, it paid women employees in California $150m less than men in similar roles. LaRonda Rasmussen filed the claim in 2019 after learning that six men with the same title earned much more than her; ~9k other women later joined the suit.
NONPROFIT GROWTH GUIDE
Tips for nonprofits navigating growth
Have a seat, all you money-grubbin’ capitalist fiends (though you may want to read this, too).
For our more beautiful/benevolent readers: please see three pivotal points from the 2025 Nonprofit Trends Report:
Foundations = the biggest givers. And the giving is predicted to grow 5.3% in 2025 (outpacing households, estates, and corporations).
Less than three in 10 nonprofits currently use AI — so those opportunities are definitely out there.
Hiring issues will continue: Over 70% of nonprofits have a vacant position, and 30% of those surveyed said, yeah, that’s tough. (Primary drivers: high-stress, low wages.)
Read on for six more trends, a trove of resources, and examples of inspiring campaigns.
Alternative milks are steadily making headway in the traditionally cow-based dairy industry, though most are made from boring, old plants.
But what if you could get dairy from a splashier source? Enter: fish milk.
We’ll give you a minute…
… to finish picturing how you might milk a fish — Maybe with a tiny bucket? — but that’s not what’s happening here. (Unfortunately.)
The Berikan Protein Initiative, an Indonesian nonprofit, is turning fish into “milk” through a chemical process called hydrolysis, perThe Wall Street Journal.
Fresh fish are deboned, dried, and “reduced to a white protein-rich powder.”
The powder is combined with strawberry or chocolate flavoring, plus sugar.
Add water, and you get something that supposedly “tastes like normal milk.”
The organization believes fish milk could be a $4.5B industry.
But not everyone…
… is hooked on fish milk. The consensus is that the chocolate variation is too fishy.
Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Indonesia’s health minister, told WSJ he’d prefer to raise cows or import milk from nearby Australia.
“There are many, many, many options to do before we are milking the fish,” Sadikin said.
Here in America…
… market research group NielsenIQ says overall milk sales are declining due to rising costs, with alternative milks declining faster since they’re already more expensive.
That said:
People are specifically buying lactose-free dairy milk despite the higher cost.
Despite the dip for other alt milks, this suggests consumers will continue buying alt milks in general, per NielsenIQ.
So, maybe fish milk has a chance?
The next time someone offers you a glass of thick, hearty, strawberry-flavored fish milk, remember that drinking cow milk also must’ve seemed weird at first.
AI Jesus? You’re not just having a weird dream — it’s a thingin Switzerland.
You’ve seen the news… but what’s it actually like to live in a country with a 193% YoY inflation rate? We found out.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
How many Slurpees 7-Eleven sold in 2023. The chain, owned by Japan’s Seven & i, has 85k stores in 19 countries, and is currently navigating a bidding war:
Circle K parent Alimentation Couche-Tard offered $47B, which Seven & i rejected.
Junro Ito, a Seven & i exec, has offered $58B.
Seven & i has been struggling with slumping sales due to inflation and declining cigarette sales, which are at an 80-year low, and plans to close ~450 North American stores.
That could give Couche-Tard an in if it bumps its bid — but unlike US companies, consultant Hidenori Yoshikawa told WSJ, Japanese companies care less about selling to the highest bidder and more about “what the proper shape of their community should be.”
AROUND THE WEB
🎤 On this day: In 2005, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry joined rapper 50 Cent to headline a 13-year-old’s $10m bat mitzvah in Long Island. Her father, defense contractor David H. Brooks, was later arrested for tax evasion and using company funds for personal gain… like that bat mitzvah.
🥌 That’s interesting:Crokinole is a game that’s kind of like tabletop shuffleboard and curling.
🎧 Another Bite: This founder offers a new way to protect sports players’ pearly whites.
Yesterday, we asked you to disclose the worst thing you’ve done at work, and y’all are more unhinged than we thought.
Some of the wildest reader confessions, for your entertainment:
“I stole a variety of things from several employers. Toys. Electronics. Books. I would log it as “damaged,” then hide it next to the dumpster out back, then drive around back after work and take it home.”
“Placed dog turds in a co-worker’s desk and office.”
“I once made a $27m mistake… I pulled a number from the wrong report.”
“I planted rotten eggs and rotten potatoes all around cubes and offices of people I despised before I left.”
“Broke two big screen projectors by spilling coffee all over the mainframe laptop, and started a data leak by getting hacked after I thought to enter a raffle for an iPhone 16 with my work email and details.”
“Dated the boss. Ended up marrying him — best bad choice ever.”
Also, a concerning amount of confessions related to funny business with co-workers in the office. Some things we can’t unread…
Despite the wrongdoings, almost all reported that they didn’t get caught, or, if they did, they still work there.
SHOWER THOUGHT
Slang goes out of fashion quicker now because adults have access to social media.SOURCE
