You should read - Apr 8

This week, let's start off with the ephemera—the interesting distractions. All the doom is still there, but let's leave it at the bottom this week.

(I know it seems like I read Vice a lot. I don't. But apparently Reddit does.)

If You Only Read One Thing

• s4e10: Stages of Transformation (Dan Hon)
  Important insights into how to think about the implications of transformation and improvement on the organizational psychology and behavior of those responsible for prior, less-than-great solutions, and gaining collaboration to make things better. Dan deals with civic technology, but 100% applicable to corporate organizations (they're less different than people like to think.)

Collected Ephemera

• The Incredible Satisfying Birth of a Marble (Andy Baio, waxy.org)
• I would like to be paid like a plumber (Letters of Note)
  This is what business correspondence sounds like when written by human beings.
• The Real Reason To ‘Learn To Code’? Automating Your Life (Debugger)
  My life is delightfully, if marginally, improved by iOS keyboard macros... "mtf" --> "May The Force Be With You"
• BeReal Is the App Challenging Instagram's Pursuit of Perfection (Vice)
  Will this be the app that finally frees us from our social media dystopia? Hope springs eternal.
• How Defamatory Is “Goblin Mode” to Real Goblins? (Slate)

American Oligarchy

• Is Crypto Re-Creating the 2008 Financial Crisis? (The Atlantic)
  An extremely rare violation of Betteridge's Law.
• IBM deliberately misclassified mainframe sales to enrich executives, lawsuit claims (The Register)
  I'd say this is another example of the unintended consequences of motivation through performance target incentives, but it's entirely too predictable.
• As VP of Comms For the Newsletter Company, It’s Really Important That I Make Sure Everyone Associates Our Brand With Being a Huge Unaccountable Dipshit
• Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz Says Companies Are Being ‘Assaulted’ by Unions (Vice)
  He absolutely knows he shouldn't say this on camera. Says as much. And then says the quiet part out loud anyway.
• Leaked: New Amazon Worker Chat App Would Ban Words Like “Union,” “Restrooms,” “Pay Raise,” and “Plantation” (The Intercept)
• The real cost of Amazon (Recode, from 2020)
  In case you haven't heard me say it before, #CancelYourPrime.

You should listen - The Iron Dice

The Iron Dice's  is easily my favorite current podcast. From antifascist YouTube sensation Dan Arrows, "The Fight for the Republic" is a narrative history of the post-World War I conflict between Left and Right in proto-Weimar Germany. Gripping and illuminating.

• Episode 5
• Episode 4
• Episode 3
• Episode 2
• Episode 1

Threads of Note