A space for mostly short form stuff and responses to things I see elsewhere.
Why Substack is nudging you to follow your ex, your hookups, randos who aren’t even writers
I've not quite given up on trying to persuade people I respect off Substack, so I keep on stacking ammo.
They’re building audiences on borrowed land, subject to algorithmic whims and platform policies they cannot directly influence, while helping to subsidize the infrastructure that promotes their ideological opponents.
See?
Podcasters: About to record my first episode using Zoom. I normally record from FaceTime and Skype (RIP) mix-minus to my DAW. It is worth doing the same as a backup for Zoom’s local recording?
I guess I'm asking how reliable is Zoom's local recording.
Eat This Newsletter 279: No Excuses
An attack on industrial agriculture.
Science-based fisheries management works.
Beware the poppy seed, and dodgy drug tests.
Read it at https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-279-no-excuses/
What a rare treat. Someone recommends an episode of a podcast I don't subscribe to. I go to the page in question. I like the look of it. I attempt to Huffudff the episode. It Just Works. I carry on about my business. The end.
I'm not sure I ever forgot how to surf the web, but in case you have, David Cain spells it out at his blog Raptitude: https://www.raptitude.com/2025/06/how-to-surf-the-web-in-2025-and-why-you-should/
And in keeping with his advice, I got there from Tim Bray's latest collection of Long Links: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/08/04/Long-Links
I would also repeat: use RSS
Eat This Newsletter 277: Latest scientific research predicts it is only a matter of time before some valiant entrepreneur offers freeze-dried maggot supplements to gullible eat-like-a- Neanderthal knuckleheads.
https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-277-empty-calories/
I vaguely knew, in a theoretical way, about S-spun and Z-spun yarns, but not about their impact on crochet and knitting. Finally, buried deep within the useless and the slop, a site that was very helpful.
https://yarnsub.com/articles/twist
Pluralistic: Conservatism considered as a movement of bitter rubes (22 Jul 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Trump is the head of a cult that has figured out how to turn fear, precarity and pain into the top of a sales funnel that destroys anyone who gets caught in it.
A fine diagnosis, through and through. The challenge now is, how to mass deprogram the members of the cult.