I love this latest entry! So many new words...my two favorite are "navel-spelunking" and "yakshavers!" You introduced me to a deeper level of technology that I had not known...if you do leave Substack please do include software tutorials that help me find you and then find your mental wanderings. Please.
Andrew, happy belated birthday. I will be 45 in 9 days. If/when you leave Substack, please know I'd like you to migrate my email to whatever site you decide to use. I have a couple of friends in 2025 decide to also leave Substack. One is using Squarespace, the other Ghost. We've had interesting conversations surrounding these. Good luck to you.
Counterpoint: yes, do the badass open source hacker newsletter, but please also stay here. My unpopular opinion is that, like, it’s more than just this newsletter app that platforms Nazis. It’s the goddamn world. But Nazis aren’t the only thing that gets platformed by the world, or by apps. Social media is annoying and brutal, certainly. And lord knows I’ve burned myself out before trying to harness others’ attention, but your work is SO DAMN GOOD that I’d rather it be readily accessible in a variety of ways instead of fewer and fewer ways because the world is unprincipled!
I had no idea Signal Hill wasn’t supposed to be for my 70 year old ears! I’ve listened to all their pieces and only disliked one of them (not the snail one). It’s a really nicely done podcast. I’d still like to hear your theories of why the exceedingly lefty crowd are about the only pro-masking holdouts left. If you’re looking for other Vile Jelly topics maybe you could tell us all about your recent blind skiing adventures. Yeah, I could watch a YouTube video but you could write something much more interesting.
As a wife and mother of very nerdy software engineers please extend my sympathies to your poor wife for all the computer chatter she must endure.
Congratulations on another translation. I hope they sent you a copy to show off on your bookcase.
Ahh, my erudite nephew delights once again - not only with the "many new words" Marsha mentions here, but with the hilarious self-referential asides (indirectly satirizing "Poor Young Werther" as he long has). The pronoun story recalls my similar excessively diplomatic response to pre-teen grandson's first referring to a peer as "they" and his quashing of my inquiries with the same pre-teen eye roll you describe. More praise to come later, but meanwhile, thank you for another marvelous essay (asides included), and for staying on Substack (which despite everything is friendly to at least this user).
Loved the yak-shaving reference and how it captures the whole FOSS rabbit hole experience. The bootstrapping description is dead-on too, especially that absurd tutorial-for-a-tutorial situation with emacs. I went through something similar last year trying to set up a plaintext workflow and the reward-to-effort ratio felt completely backwards until it suddenly clicked. The comparison to ski poles or vinyl collecting really nails why this stuff can be simultaneously important and deeply boring to anyone not already invested in it.
I love this latest entry! So many new words...my two favorite are "navel-spelunking" and "yakshavers!" You introduced me to a deeper level of technology that I had not known...if you do leave Substack please do include software tutorials that help me find you and then find your mental wanderings. Please.
I am experiencing inexplicable joy reading this. Yes even beyond my paternal love 💕 Congrats on your new lifestyle book award! 😃
Andrew, happy belated birthday. I will be 45 in 9 days. If/when you leave Substack, please know I'd like you to migrate my email to whatever site you decide to use. I have a couple of friends in 2025 decide to also leave Substack. One is using Squarespace, the other Ghost. We've had interesting conversations surrounding these. Good luck to you.
happy bday jeannie! halfway to 90 year olds! :)
Counterpoint: yes, do the badass open source hacker newsletter, but please also stay here. My unpopular opinion is that, like, it’s more than just this newsletter app that platforms Nazis. It’s the goddamn world. But Nazis aren’t the only thing that gets platformed by the world, or by apps. Social media is annoying and brutal, certainly. And lord knows I’ve burned myself out before trying to harness others’ attention, but your work is SO DAMN GOOD that I’d rather it be readily accessible in a variety of ways instead of fewer and fewer ways because the world is unprincipled!
I had no idea Signal Hill wasn’t supposed to be for my 70 year old ears! I’ve listened to all their pieces and only disliked one of them (not the snail one). It’s a really nicely done podcast. I’d still like to hear your theories of why the exceedingly lefty crowd are about the only pro-masking holdouts left. If you’re looking for other Vile Jelly topics maybe you could tell us all about your recent blind skiing adventures. Yeah, I could watch a YouTube video but you could write something much more interesting.
As a wife and mother of very nerdy software engineers please extend my sympathies to your poor wife for all the computer chatter she must endure.
Congratulations on another translation. I hope they sent you a copy to show off on your bookcase.
Ahh, my erudite nephew delights once again - not only with the "many new words" Marsha mentions here, but with the hilarious self-referential asides (indirectly satirizing "Poor Young Werther" as he long has). The pronoun story recalls my similar excessively diplomatic response to pre-teen grandson's first referring to a peer as "they" and his quashing of my inquiries with the same pre-teen eye roll you describe. More praise to come later, but meanwhile, thank you for another marvelous essay (asides included), and for staying on Substack (which despite everything is friendly to at least this user).
Loved the yak-shaving reference and how it captures the whole FOSS rabbit hole experience. The bootstrapping description is dead-on too, especially that absurd tutorial-for-a-tutorial situation with emacs. I went through something similar last year trying to set up a plaintext workflow and the reward-to-effort ratio felt completely backwards until it suddenly clicked. The comparison to ski poles or vinyl collecting really nails why this stuff can be simultaneously important and deeply boring to anyone not already invested in it.
Very much enjoyed listening to your story on Signal Hill!
That all sounds about right, and nicely put. Thanks!