Delivering Good, Sun Tzu's Confusion
When Yakult first hired a team of women to deliver its sweetened probiotic fermented milk beverage directly to the front doors of people living in Japan, the goal was to spread the word about the benefits of the gut-healthy consumable and increase sales. That part worked. “These women appealed particularly to other women, who were more likely to make decisions about household groceries, and were often already known to the people they delivered to – a familiarity that helped foster trust.” The drink became a hit in Japan, and it’s now sold in 40 countries. But over the decades, as Japan’s population has aged, the company and its customers realized that the service delivered a benefit beyond the microbiome. It provided a bit of a social infrastructure. It turns out that hanging out, even briefly, with one other human being can be as valuable as spending every day with the 6.5 billion live and active Lacticaseibacillus paracasei Shirota strains found in each small bottle of Yakult. “Japan is the world’s most rapidly aging major economy. Nearly 30% of its population is now over 65, and the number of elderly people living alone continues to rise. As families shrink and traditional multi-generational households decline, isolation has become one of the country’s most pressing social challenges. The suited woman is a Yakult Lady – one of tens of thousands across Japan who deliver the eponymous probiotic drinks directly to people’s homes. On paper, they’re delivery workers, but in practice they’re part of the country’s informal social safety net.” BBC The yogurt delivery women combating loneliness in Japan. (Alt link.) As far as I can tell, Yakult delivery addresses the two biggest challenges we face as we age: Isolation and regularity.
Contradicting Around
“I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” No, that wasn’t George S. Patton or Ulysses S. Grant. That was Donald Trump’s general message to the world (generally) and the markets (more specifically, and perhaps, for him, more importantly). The Pentagon is giving a different message. The Pentagon says this will be ‘our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.’ And from The Hill: Trump, Pentagon give conflicting signals on end to Iran war. Sun Tzu said that “all warfare is based on deception.” We’re taking it next level by not only deceiving the enemy, but often deceiving ourselves.
+ “If the conflict turns into a protracted war of attrition, Russia looks set to become a clear beneficiary, raking in profits from spiking oil and natural-gas prices.” WSJ (Gift Article): U.S. and Iran Predicted a Very Different War Than the One Now Being Waged. Russia has shared targeting Intel with Iran. Trump just gave them sanction-busting waivers to sell oil. So CNBC asked Steve Witkoff about that odd sequence of events. CNBC: “Do we think the Russians have shared intel about US military assets, and if so, why would we be giving waivers on oil sanctions?” Witkoff: “I can tell you that on the call with POTUS, the Russians said they have not been sharing. That’s what they said. We can take them at their word.” (It’s gonna take a few hundred gallons of Yakult to fix my gut after reading that quote…)
+ Here’s the latest from the NYT, including the increasing damage being done in Lebanon and this: “The U.S. Navy has ‘successfully escorted’ an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a post on X. He did not provide further details. The escort would appear to be the first of its kind since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has paralyzed shipping through the strait. UPDATE: Shortly after the post was published, it disappeared from Wright’s account without explanation.” What did Sun Tzu say about establishing dominance over your enemy through the art of deletion?
Waste Case
“Americans are really, really good at throwing things away. The country produces nearly 300 million tons of trash a year, and billions of dollars in reusable materials end up in landfills, even after passing through recycling bins. The problem has always been sorting it all — pulling the wheat from the chaff or in this case, the aluminum can from the dirty diaper.” Can AI solve the problem? Robots, cameras, and lots of data about garbage: Inside the recycling industry’s new bet. (With our luck, sorting through garbage will be the one job our AI overlords let us keep…)
Drop Til You Shop
“We learned to focus on the rare thing at the expense of what was around it—psychologists call this ‘tunneling’—and to prioritize avoiding loss over gaining rewards. It was typically smarter to fight for something everyone else wanted than to waste time looking for something else. That animal wisdom is a reason our species survived. It is also a reason that, in late 2025, you could find a grown adult—a person who lives in the kind of material plenitude our distant ancestors could never dream of—in a Starbucks parking lot before dawn, desperately seeking a coffee cup shaped like a teddy bear. You see, this coffee cup was available only as a drop.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Highly Exclusive Way That Everybody Shops Now. “When everything’s a drop, what’s the point of a drop?”
Extra, Extra
Limp Election: “President Donald Trump said Monday he won’t sign any other legislation into law until Congress passes a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill that he says also must end Americans’ ability to vote by mail, a startling demand months before the midterm elections.” (He’s definitely clear and consistent when it comes to waging war on democracy.) From The New Yorker: The Latest Republican Efforts to Make It Harder to Vote in the Midterms.
+ You’re Getting Warmer: “Scientists determined that on average, those 65 and older experience a month a year when heat prevents them from routine activities. Parts of Asia, Africa, Australia and North America are becoming unlivable for senior citizens … Overall, more than a third of the global population resides in regions where heat severely affects daily life.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Extreme Heat Is Making Life Increasingly Unlivable. (How do these people not know climate change is a hoax?)
+ On Radioactive Duty: “Fifteen years later, 4,000 workers struggle to control the ongoing disaster. The three melted reactors remain so radioactive that they destroy the robots sent to explore the damage.” Fukushima at 15: The Fallout Continues. And a photo essay from AP: An innkeeper in Fukushima measures radiation to revive her hometown.
+ You’ve Got Ice in Your Names: “Iceland, the Nordic nation, has prevailed over Iceland, the British supermarket chain specializing in frozen foods, ending a decade-long legal dispute over the supermarket’s exclusive rights to the ‘Iceland’ name.” NYT: Iceland Defeats Iceland: A U.K. Supermarket Ends a Trademark Dispute.
+ Plug and Play: Winners of the British Wildlife Photography Awards 2026.
Bottom of the News
Have GLP-1s finally met their match? Lindt, which makes chocolate Easter bunnies, says weight-loss drug users are eating more chocolate, not less.
+ “He’s just one guy. One freaking guy. You have got to stop coming here, day after day, screaming into me about him.” McSweeney’s: The Void Would Very Much Like You to Stop Screaming Into It. (That’s the beauty of NextDraft. I scream so you don’t have to…)
