Definition: clar·​i·​ty | ˈkler-ə-tē  

1

: the quality of being easily understood.

ANTONYM: am·​bi·​gu·​i·​ty

2

: name of a bill, Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, that establishes a regulatory framework for digital commodities, defined by the bill as digital assets that rely upon a blockchain for their value. The bill sets out to clarify how digital assets are classified and regulated: splitting them into categories like “digital commodities,” “investment contract assets,” and “permitted payment stablecoins,” while including protection for software developers.

Read the latest version that was released last Friday, September 5 at Congress.gov.

Definitions sourced from BitcoinMagazine.com, Congress.gov, Kiplinger, and Merriam-Webster.

9.7.2025

Definition: Sonn·tag | ˈzɔntaːk

noun

1

: German translation: “Sunday”
: the first day of the week, kept for rest, in secular.
: day of the Sabbath, a day of religious observance and abstinence from work.

2

: word that appears in title of “Schon vieder Sonntag” by SSIO, German rapper of Afghan descent whose work is influenced by 90s US hip-hop groups such as 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., and Dogg Pound.

In an interview with laut.de, a German online magazine covering music and entertainment, SSIO describes the sound as “‘Harte Drums,’ ‘Kopfnicker-Style.'” To translate:

“‘Hard drums,’ he describes. ‘Head-nodder style.‘. . . “I attach a lot of importance to a vintage sound. I don’t want my sound to sound so digitally modern, but rather to have that roughness.” [Translation]

Listen to “Schon vieder Sonntag” on YouTube Music: Schönen Sonntag! SSIO will release a new album “Alles oder Nix” on Oct 17, 2025

I’m shifting focus temporarily away from general finance & investing language to use my blog to spotlight independent music. Major music streaming platforms pay artists less than 1 cent per stream. Discover new artists through other platforms and show your support of the artists you love by streaming and buying from them directly.

Definitions in this entry were sourced from Britannica, Cambridge Dictionary, Google Translate, laute.de, and YouTube Music.

9.4.2025

Definition: fea·ture | ˈfēCHər

noun

1

: a distinctive attribute, quality, or aspect of something or someone.
:  the structure, form, or appearance of something or someone.
: a newspaper or magazine article or a broadcast program devoted to the treatment of a particular topic, typically at length.

2

: a characteristic in a product technology that ignites delight in its audience.
: part of the catchy subject line, “It’s a feature,” used in today’s Morning Brew newsletter before listing the profitability of companies who have gone through recent transformations.

Definitions compiled from Merriam-Webster, Oxford Dictionary, and Morning-Brew and edited for clarity.

08.30.2025

Definition: Des·​cartes | day·KART (US English) |ˈdeɪkɑːrt/ DAY-kart (UK English) | rənedekart (Middle-French)  

Proper noun

1

: surname for René Descartes (1596-1650),  was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher.
: author of philosophical works, The World (1664). Discourse on Method (1637), and then later to describe his more metaphysical thinking, Meditations (1641)
: FAMOUS WORDS: “Je pense, doc je formulation” | “Cogito, ergo sum” | “I think, therefore I am”

2

: song taken from SPRINTS’ new album “All That Is Over” out September 26.
: MUSIC VIDEO: WATCH.

Definitions sourced from Britannica, Wikipedia, and KEXP Radio.

08.27.2025

Definition: perplex| per·​plex | pər-ˈpleks or pɚˈpleks (US) | pəˈpleks (UK)

Verb (Transitive)

1

: to make unable to grasp something clearly or to think logically and decisively about something
: to feel unable to grasp something clearly or think logically or decisively about something.
: to confuse a person slightly by being difficult to understand.
: to cause someone to be confused or uncertain over something that is not yet understood.

2

: to make intricate or involved
: to complicate

Definition: perplexity | pɚˈplek.sə.t̬i (US) | pəˈplek.sə.ti (UK)

Noun

1

: a state of confusion
: a complicated and difficult situation or thing.

2

: an artificial intelligence start-up that offers a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question with cited sources.
: considering how intricate, complex, and challenging the AI-landscape continues to be, it makes sense to name a company that is striving to be a more reliable, fact-checked version of other AI engines after the situation that it finds itself in.
: privately held company that was last valued at $14 billion, according to Reuters.

Try it out!

Definitions sourced from Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Wikipedia, and Yahoo Finance.

Fake websites are now everywhere!

There are people out there creating realistic fake websites that look identical to the originals with the intent to scam consumers: that means you and me, both. The fake websites imitate popular retailers such as Amazon and PayPal, toll-collection agencies, employment portals, law firms, and financial institutions. In this cybersecurity notice, we’re going to look at how to identify fake websites when doing any type of commerce online, such as online shopping.

It’s too easy to set up a fake website. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“Attackers buy an AI-powered tool on a criminal marketplace or dark-web forum. They feed in the URL of a legitimate site, and the AI-powered tools instantly scrape the real page, clone its look and feel, and add fake forms designed to capture personal or financial details. Scammers can tweak the pages, translate them into multiple languages, and deploy them—often in minutes—without writing a single line of code.”

Here are ways to protect yourself:

✅ DO be extra vigilant when interacting with website links from a mobile phone. It’s harder to verify information on smaller screens.

🔴 DON’T click on unknown links to websites in text messages, emails, and social media DMs. 

✅ DO get in the practice of holding down on a link that you receive and are interested in viewing. It will show you the web address in the preview, or you can select “copy” and paste the address in a notes application to verify the address manually.

✅ DO navigate to any company’s official website by typing the address directly into the search bar, ESPECIALLY for any financial institution that you do business with.

✅ DO install apps only from official stores (i.e. Apple’s App Store, Google Play Store, Amazon App Store, Samsung Galaxy Store)

✅ DO study web addresses carefully.

⚠️ WATCH for variations of legitimate domain names and any subtle misspellings or substitutions in URLs. Look for “HTTPS” in the URL and a 🔒 padlock icon in the search bar.

🔴 DON’T always count on spelling mistakes or grammar errors to spot a threat. AI-generated content can produce text that is free of spelling mistakes or grammar errors. (AI may not always choose the best word choices, so look for semantics).

⚠️ DO be extra cautious of any language that sounds urgent or demanding.

⚠️ WATCH OUT for heavily discounted prices or unusual offers, especially with back-to-school shopping.

✅ DO ask your friend messaging you who you suspect may have been hacked to take a selfie and send to you immediately as a way for you to verify his/her/their identity.

🔴 DON’T move conversations about purchases to WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other platform (especially a platform you don’t use or recognize) at a seller’s request.

🗡️ REPORT misleading websites to the @betterbusinessbureau_ or FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at www.ic3.gov.

⚠️ PLEASE NOTE: Scammers are also impersonating the IC3. The IC3 will never directly contact you for information or money. Always type in the web addresses directly into the search bar.

🔴 DON’T assume it won’t happen to you.

It’s not always about making money. You also have to protect money and/or your credit.

#cybersecurityeducation #cybersecuritytips #fakewebsites #notfinancialadvice #responsibleAI

Works Cited:

Snow, Jackie. “Cybercriminals Use AI to Create Fake Websites That Look Just Like the Real Thing.” Wall Street Journal. 20 Aug 2025, 10:00 a.m. ET. Link: https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/ai-fake-scam-websites-8a9e0ef6?st=fnSDKF&reflink=article_copyURL_share

A sunk cost expense refers to the loss of time, money, or effort, which you can’t get back. It’s one of the most basic economic concepts, and it can work for both consumer and commercial finance. If you let sunk costs influence your future decisions, even when it’s not in your best interest, it may cause you stress or decision paralysis. According to Investopedia, the sunk cost fallacy causes people to stick with a failing decision because they already paid for it – it’s loss aversion.

For example, I stayed in a hostel that offers a free drink to every guest, though I didn’t end up redeeming the coupon. It’s OK because I didn’t lose anything. 

It’s OK to pivot. Think long-term. You can only carry so much. You don’t have to redeem every coupon.

Although you can save a lot of money. Here is a resource from Nerdwallet on 8 Tips for Getting Started on Couponing.

I heard about this term recently through the July 30 episode of NPR’s Planet Money show titled, “Summer School 4: Who are all these regulations protecting?”

In the Planet Money episode, the hosts interview business managers and economists to explore how patents specifically within intellectual property can lead to a monopoly in the one thing that they are designed to protect and invites questions on whether a patent can either promote or hinder innovation and further progress in the field.

In an interview, Professor Joan Ricard-Uget explains, “Regulatory capture is when an agency that should act in the public interest instead advances the special interests of individuals or of entities like companies that it is meant to regulate. And that’s bad because instead of fostering the interests of society at large, it fosters the interests of a particular group of people with something to protect.”

CFA Institute Research & Policy Institute: “The concept of Regulatory Capture (Reg Capture) typically refers to a phenomenon that occurs when a regulatory agency that is created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate an industry or sector the agency is charged with regulating. When regulatory capture occurs, the interests of firms or political groups are given priority or favor over the interests of the public.”

Investopedia: “Regulatory capture is a process by which regulatory agencies may come to be dominated by the industries or interests they are charged with regulating. The result is that an agency, charged with acting in the public interest, instead acts in ways that benefit incumbent firms in the industry it is supposed to be scrutinizing.”

Georgetown Law: “Regulatory capture is a phenomenon where regulators become unduly influenced by the industries they are tasked with regulating.”

Regulators typically have specialized knowledge in the industry that they regulate, and so this necessitates the need for an economic theory to check the special interests and motivations of government agencies. “Captured” agencies may not be inherently corrupt, but there is the risk we the public must continually check and question, of course.

7.16.2025

Scientific Notation

1.

: method of writing large or small numbers in a shorter form, often used in fields such as engineering, chemistry, microbiology, physics, and astronomy.

2.

: mathematical lesson often taught to students in the 7th and 8th grade.
: a great way for a student who struggles with math to become more comfortable learning the subject. Learning the basic concepts of scientific notation is taught visually by counting the zeros like how you would count the stars when you look at the night sky.