Spencer Tweedy

Pop Tarts

If the world were ending tomorrow
I’d eat some Pop Tarts

Oliver Burkeman: You have to do the living yourself

I don’t mean to suggest … that environmental or pharmacological tools have no role to play in behaviour change. … Willpower has severe limits; you can’t reliably use it to power through problems that are emotional at their core. … And yet … There seems to be something crucial about … actively committing and recommitting, again and again, to going in the direction you want to travel, instead of acting as a spectator to your life, watching to see whether the systems you’ve put in place perform as you’d hoped they would or not.

Eleanor Friedberger:

If you’re not in that gathering mode, you won’t be making anything. It’s easy to flip the switch and say “I’m in gathering mode,” but you have to mean it.

Regulate online markets

To operate smoothly, economies have long depended on essential platforms, be they city markets, Main Streets or infrastructure like railroads and bridges. … Historically, the government has imposed limits on how much money the platforms could take from the people and businesses that relied on them … These limits were imposed not to constrain economic growth but to foster it: They protected the incentives for other economic actors to invest and build on the platforms. …

Last year, Amazon charged private sellers, on average, between 50 and 60 percent of their sales in fees, according to the research firm Marketplace Pulse. You don’t need a degree in economics to see how that can discourage investment and innovation. … It’s effectively a system of private taxation.

Mowed the lawn on a show day.

Rob Walker:

The traditional goal [in customer service call centers] is to handle calls as quickly as possible — if there’s even a number for customers to call at all … Uniqlo has flipped this idea on its head, treating the call center as a site of R&D, inspiration, and opportunities they otherwise would have overlooked.

Can someone remind me how to write a newsletter again?

I didn’t think I would like Blade but I loved Blade.

Recommended: B-grade pencils.

I look at all my loves sideways.

I bought some vegan Blundstones.

I realized my to-do list was upside-down.

I had admin work at the top, daily routines in the middle, and creative hunches/dreams/plans at the bottom.

The first list keeps your house running, the second list keeps your hair from catching fire, and the last list gets you up in the morning. Why would the list that gets you up in the morning be last?

Depression isn’t a choice but being a sorry son of a bitch sorta is.

(See also: Keep On the Sunny Side.)

Crape myrtle trees are beautiful.

OMG. Thank you for the kind words, Walter!

(And Austin for the heads up.)

Embrace seasonality.

Damn, this is nice. Thank you, Joey Sweeney.

Jeremy O. Harris explains how he got started

The Guardian: Man who fought for Hamas in October 7 attack fled to US and lived in Louisiana, FBI alleges

Did you know that whales and dolphins evolved from a wolf-like mammal?

Cara Giaimo:

“Our current boom of species diversity is newish. We haven’t always had so many different kinds of life, and in the past, the world has looked really different. It changes and shifts. We are having a huge impact on the earth but other species have before and others will again. I find calm and acceptance in that feeling of being along for the ride.”

Paste Magazine: It’s a Tweedy Family Affair

Ooooook another new word. (What am I, five?) Sexton: “an officer of the church who is in charge of sacred objects.”

From Anne Kadet’s interview with a street pastor.

Two more new words learned: leonine and veld. Resembling a lion. And a type of grassland, especially in South Africa, with scattered shrubs or trees.

Hallie Bateman bought some stamps

In Portland, Maine, I bought pens and pencils from a 105-year-old office supply store proprietor.

Learned a new word: echt—true, genuine.

Another new word: bosky, having abundant trees or shrubs, or of/or relating to a woods.