I don’t need to tell you who he is. … Think of him as the ultimate troll. A billion-dollar troll. King of the Trollkin, that guy.

Maybe he’ll do right by Twitter. Maybe he’ll make it better. Or maybe he’ll give it autopilot and it’ll crash into an orphanage. I’m betting on the latter.

The question is, what do you do about it?

I don’t know.

I really don’t.

(Via Chuck Wendig)

Punching him in his very punchable face is not an option, sadly.

I’ll continue to use the service as a way of altering folks to my musings here (and my new endeavor — stay tuned).

Some reading material, if you care to have it:

Fonda Lee: Twitter Is The Worst Reader

Kacen Callendar: The Humanization Of Authors

Caitlin Flanagan: You Really Need To Quit Twitter

And finally, something else from me (I know, sorry): Does Social Media Sell Books? A Vital Inquisition!

Newsletters are the new podcasts – everyone seems to have one.

The difference is the cost – the podcasts to which I subscribe are free and ask you to contribute; most of the newsletters I read are behind a paywall some or most of the time. As mentioned elsewhere, I do not subscribe to Spotify or whatever corporate matryoshka doll Earwolf is now under.

To what non-tech non-sec newsletters do I subscribe, what do they cover, and why do I subscribe? I subscribe to many, but these are some of the standouts:

• Money Stuff by Matt Levine via Bloomberg. :finance:business:
• The Honest Broker by Ted Gioia via Substack. :music:culture:
• NextDraft by Dave Pell :news:
• The Overspill by Charles Arthur :news:
• The Poynter Report by Tom Jones via Poynter :journalism:news:
• What’s in my … via Revue :edc:tools: “Each week, one interesting person shares four favorite things in their bag or in their desk or fridge or closet or wherever they keep things.”
• Weekly Musings by Scott Nesbitt :misc: “a published-every-seven-days (or so) letter from the keyboard of writer Scott Nesbitt. Each Wednesday, this letter shares my thoughts about something that’s caught my interest. Those thoughts will inform, infuriate, amuse, and I hope enlighten you. Even if just a little bit.”
• Culture Study by Anne Helen Petersen via Substack :culture: “Think more about the culture that surrounds you”
• Axios Nashville & a bunch of other Axios newsletters
• Austin Kleon via Substack :art:culture: “Weekly art, writing, and creative inspiration from the author of Steal Like an Artist and other bestsellers”

This list will continue to evolve as I narrow, whittle, and refine. I get various newsletters from the periodicals to which I subscribe. To be clear, the only newsletters I “pay” for are part of a periodical subscription. That may change.

Thor Vikström has gotten countless calls from developers wanting to buy his seven-acre island that he can see from his Quebec home. He has owned the island since the 1960s, and fiercely protects it as a natural habitat.

Developers pleaded with him to sell so they could build roads, high-rises and bridges on it, he said.

“You think you’re going to destroy my island with that stupidity?” he recalled responding to the developers, who opened their bids decades ago at $500,000.

(Via WaPo article)

Where I live developers are running roughshod over local governments, community groups, neighborhood associations, and any opposition to their unquenchable desire for more and more land under their terms.

Thus I love this story.

YMMV

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi; Author: Nozaki Bunzō; Publisher: Kakumotoya Kinjirō

Being Angry:

Duncan Trussel put it fantastically when he said that “anger is the second wound inflicted by your enemy”. Something he puts down to Buddha, but unfortunately, I can’t find any reference for it currently. Whoever said it, it is dead on. The only outcome is an wound on the person suffering with it, burnt by its toxic effects.

Anger does not bring back my work. In any situation, it doesn’t change whatever has happened, it just affects the future negatively.

Indeed (above emphasis mine).

It’s very close, that quote, to a line in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, XI:

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the cause of it.

Managing my anger is something I constantly work on. Some days I’m better at it than others. I find the variation more to do with me than the thing that angers me, which says something about me.