Category: Random

There is a town of 1,471 happy souls in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!. The second “Ha!”, amazingly, is part of the town’s name, not my commentary on the first “Ha!”. Unlike, for example, the Devon town of Westward Ho! Ho! There, the second “Ho!” is mine.

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Over at Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick discusses A Unified Theory of Online Anger, noting how algorithmic social media has effectively been weaponized (notably by the right, but let’s be honest, not just by them). They’re not wrong.

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There’s something to be said for the Blockbuster video store of my youth. It was what we had in the suburbs, and it suited the way my mind worked.

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Thanks for reading. Please check out some recent issues of Hell World including a devastating essay on loss during Covid and a dispatch from India. Subscribe to read those two and everything in the archives.

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On Thursday, Congressman Joseph Morelle (D-NY) filed national right-to-repair legislation with Congress. The Fair Repair Act would require manufacturers to provide device owners and independent repair stores access to the tools, parts, and information they need to fix electronics.

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Reminder! The Art of Noticing newsletter is expanding! Become a paid subscriber to enjoy all the fun + useful new additions, like this bonus post: $5 a month, or $50 annually. All details here. Your support is deeply appreciated. The Prompt: Put an anti-appointment on your calendar.

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Developing a “rest ethic” can make work time more productive. The DealBook newsletter delves into a single topic or theme every weekend, providing reporting and analysis that offers a better understanding of an important issue in the news.

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Hyperlinks are a powerful tool for journalists and their readers. Diving deep into the context of an article is just a click away. But hyperlinks are a double-edged sword; for all of the internet’s boundlessness, what’s found on the Web can also be modified, moved, or entirely vanished. 

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That was Derrick’s go-to whenever I started to moan about something – a bad review, a crap project, an editor I wanted to punch, that sort of thing. He knew just when to deliver that line, too.

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