- Jasmine Sun: 🌻 are you high-agency or an NPC? Life in San Francisco, as depicted here, sounds absolutely horrifying. It is a beautiful city and if you can afford to live there without getting involved in tech you should absolutely check it out, but sheesh. (ᔥJohn Naughton)
- Alexey Guzey: I ran out of money a year ago, spent the last of my savings on a prostitute in Hong Kong, and became a commie. Intentionally provocative headline for an article that ends with: “If there’s at least one thing I learned this year, it’s that even when I’m completely useless to the world, it’s not going to abandon me. And I wish nothing more than to make sure that every single human, no matter who and where they are, knew this too.” Especially if you choose to live in San Francisco!
- Steven Johnson: The Blank Page Revolution. Begins as a review of Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (which I also liked) then delves into the importance of paper as a material. I would read Johnson’s book on paper, if he were ever to write one.
- Anil Dash: How Tim Cook sold out Steve Jobs. He sure did. I don’t hate liquid glass but I also don’t see the point, and that is just the tip of the iceberg for Apple’s missed chances to make a difference. “Sugar water” indeed.
- Chris Arnade: Final thought on Australia. He links to the three preceding articles as well, and each and every one of them is well worth your time. The finale begins thusly: “I went to Australia expecting little, on a whim to escape the heat of August and travel crowds, and I’ve never been more wrong about a place. I had assumed I’d be bored by the bougie, but instead I found an endlessly fascinating country that, even after a month of travel, I only scratched the surface of, and now sitting here typing this, I am happily dreaming about returning to.” And now I want to go!
Note: four of the five websites above are on Substack. I don’t like Substack. But it is so much of a behemoth that people you would least expect, like Nassim Taleb, are dipping their toes. The implications of even him abdicating to the winner of the most recent round of tech roulette are dire — yet another thing I should write about more, when time allows.