Links from the past weeks

  • Can You Actually Fix Your Tech By Smacking It?
    Years after I began admonishing my parents for hitting gadgets in an attempt to fix them, I learn about percussive maintenance.


  • It is always nice to have labels.



  • I love useless details. This article on Economist cites a survey and tells you things like how correcting typos takes up an average of 20 minutes in every white-collar worker’s day, which adds up to 180 days, over a 45-year career. Apparently, deleting emails takes up about six weeks of your life.


  • A brief history and investigation into Wancher. I stopped buying fountain pens and inks in 2019 (my consumption frenzy renews itself every 10 years or so), and this sprawling, fascinating investigative piece was fun to read. We all do our own swaps on pen parts but mixing up parts, calling them limited edition and creating demand for them is a masterful move.


  • I never knew about the federalist society. But the idea of religious groups infiltrating government and taking over thought leadership in politics/ culture/ society is not new. I am not looking forward to how bad things can become, if we continue on this insidious intolerance.