Hello there, at a different time than usual. I was moving apartments over the weekend, and have been fairly walloped by the entire process. I started to put together something on Saturday, didn’t finish, and don’t have the energy to write the rest. So here it is–an abbreviated edition, and hopefully I’ll be back this weekend with regular programming.
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1. Unmasking Twitter - (Stratechery)
This is an interesting post about Twitter and its reliance on official advice regarding guidelines for the current COVID crisis, in particular about wearing masks. In the USA, the CDC initially said not to wear masks, and now says to wear them.
The answer, obviously, is that Twitter won’t, because this is another example of where Twitter has been a welcome antidote to “experts”; what is striking, though, is how explicitly this shows that Twitter’s policy is a bad idea, not just because it allows countries like China to indirectly influence its editorial decisions, but also because it limits the search for truth.
2. The Age of MPESA - Owaahh
This is a nice essay about the history and beginning of MPESA, a revolutionary mobile-based cash transfer system that first piloted in Kenya and very soon built up a userbase of millions of people. It was started as an experiment involving researchers from the western world, a microfinance institution called Faulu Kenya, and a few of its customers. The aim was to enable the customers to easily pay back parts of their loans from Faulu Kenya, but soon they started using the service to send money to each other , and voila, there it was.
3. Redesign: The Raccoon King of Garbage Mountain - Frank Chimero’s personal website
I really enjoy reading about Frank Chimero’s approach to design and work. Recently, he’s been redesigning his website, and he’s been putting up all the details regarding it on his blog. He calls his website his “mountain of garbage”, of which he is the “raccoon king”. Very fun, informative, and overall a good read even if you don’t care much about website design.
But here, this site? Design? It’s meant to be seen. There is no galley to crouch in and nosh on fries while your customers enjoy scallops and whipped parsnips. All transgressions are visible.
Take a look at this website, this leviathan. It could easily have nine items in the navigation. Possibly more? Sure! Why not? It and I are monsters, perfect representations of all that I detest. I will ignore my best advice. How dare I? Precisely. The garbage king slowly unfolds his toothy smile in hypocrisy and satisfaction. See these sparkling eyes? Something will burn. It is good to be king.
4. An app can be a home-cooked meal - Robin Sloan’s personal website
Robin Sloan, an American author, used to use an app called Tapstack to stay in touch with his family. When Tapstack (without any seeming revenue) closed down and stopped keeping its servers online, he decided that the only natural thing to do was to write a new app by himself that did the same basic thing that Tapstack did. Then he put it on the iOS beta testing program where it could be downloaded by his three other family members. And that’s it! It’s, as he says, a “home-cooked meal”.
5. Wartime for Wodehouse - The New Yorker (paywalled)
I have taught the Wodehouse broadcasts for several years now, in a graduate writing seminar on comedy and calamity. The distance of time makes it difficult for students to imagine how the innocuous and honest Wodehouse voice of the broadcasts could get him into so much trouble. He describes having ten minutes to pack a suitcase while a German soldier stands behind him telling him to hurry up; his wife thinks he should pack a pound of butter; he declines, saying he prefers his Shakespeare “unbuttered.” He also forgets his passport. His privilege and his political cluelessness are included in the joke: “Young men starting out in life have often asked me, ‘How can I become an Internee?’ Well, there are several methods. My own was to buy a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France and stay there till the Germans came along.”
6. This Brand is Late Capitalism - The Baffler
Projecting radicalism onto brands because of superficial differences in their business strategy, like harder-wearing products, or a slightly more relaxed corporate culture, steers the conversation away from what genuine change might look like. The ability that individuals have to change their own patterns of consumption is minimized, too. Instead of buying secondhand, or (god forbid) spending a stretch of time without buying anything new at all, the reevaluation of consumer habits these essays tend to suggest is buying nicer things. And usually more expensive things, at that.
7. For me, social distancing brings back difficult memories - Open Democracy
Peter Geoghegan talks about his mental illness-enforced self-isolation over 20 years ago, and how current social distancing in Ireland brings back thoughts and memories that are difficult to deal with usually. It’s a really nice “memoir”-style essay and I think it’s very brave of Geoghegan to have written it.