{"id":9,"date":"2012-11-16T17:51:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T01:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/attnplea.se\/?p=9"},"modified":"2012-11-16T17:51:51","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T01:51:51","slug":"attn-you-should-read-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/attn-you-should-read-this\/","title":{"rendered":"ATTN. You should read this"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because I read a lot, I\u2019m probably going to write a lot about reading. Because you subscribed to this letter, sometimes you\u2019ll get to read what I write about what I read. Convenient! This edition takes a look at some cool reading options that have popped up lately.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read this<\/h2>\n
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    1. Amazon\u2019s\u00a0Kindle singles<\/a>\u00a0offering is a super handy place to find good stuff to read quickly. When it launched there wasn\u2019t a whole lot to choose from, but I think authors and publishers are starting to realize there actually is a market for short, inexpensive, high quality writing. You don\u2019t need Kindle hardware to read these offerings, but you\u2019ll at least need the Kindle app for your computer or smartphone. I\u2019ve read\u00a0Lying<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Walk Up Nameless Ridge<\/em><\/a>. Very curious about\u00a0Do No Harm<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ol>\n

      <\/p>\n

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      1. Another good place to find stuff to read is\u00a0Byliner<\/a>. Sign up for their email list to get notified of new material. I enjoyed readingThree Cups of Deceit<\/em><\/a>. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s typical, but buyers of that particular book were notified of several\u00a0updates<\/a>\u00a0to the information, which was kinda nice.<\/li>\n
      2. Similar to Byliner,\u00a0Atavist<\/a>\u00a0is a new platform for reading. I haven\u2019t gotten anything from them yet, but they keep popping up on my radar. It\u2019s something to keep an eye on.<\/li>\n
      3. A more recent entry to story platforms is\u00a0Matter<\/a>, which grew out of a successful Kickstarter campaign. The\u00a0Do No Harm<\/em><\/a>reference earlier originated on Matter. I\u2019m looking forward to seeing what else they produce.<\/li>\n
      4. The New Inquiry<\/a>\u00a0is a source that I subscribe to via RSS1<\/a><\/sup>. All of their content eventually becomes offered for free on the web, but they do produce a subscription \u201cmagazine\u201d for $2\/month. The magazine editions are themed, so articles probably make more sense in that context than the way they\u2019re later dripped out on the web. Regardless, there is some thoughtful and challenging writing happening there.<\/li>\n
      5. Quora<\/a>\u00a0is an unconventional reading source, but I find a ton of interesting material there\u00a0(to wit<\/a>)<\/em>. I occasionally pop in with aresponse<\/a>\u00a0to a question. I really like being able to subscribe to questions so I can track answers as they filter in. Quora is one of those places where you follow a rabbit trail and often end up somewhere serendipitous.<\/li>\n
      6. Like Quora, this is a little less conventional, but I really like browsing through\u00a0ask.metafilter<\/a>. It\u2019s another one of those serendipitous sources. Unfortunately you can easily lose a whole day in the larger Metafilter universe. Don\u2019t ask how I know this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Rules and privacy<\/h2>\n

        The recent revelation of General David Petraeus\u2019 affair with his biographer is a bummer (on a few levels<\/a>), but one redeemable interesting (kind of) outcome is that his\u00a0Rules For Living<\/a>\u00a0were re-publicized, though mainly for the purpose of point-and-laugh (#5). I think his rules have value, though he forgot the rule about\u00a0ensuring Internet privacy<\/a>. He was a knucklehead, but fortunately for the world, good ideas and knuckleheadism aren\u2019t mutually exclusive (David Simon\u2019s perspective<\/a>\u00a0is also interesting). Those rules reminded me of some other rules I admire, written by another guy I don\u2019t really like.\u00a0Rumsfeld\u2019s Rules<\/a>\u00a0(PDF) were written by Donald Rumsfeld in 1974, or thereabouts, when he was serving his first stint as Secretary of Defense (the youngest at the time). I liked his rules when I came across them years ago, and I still like them today\u00a0(caveats apply, obvs)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

        And speaking of Petraeus and reading, it\u2019s probably a good idea to\u00a0not assume privacy<\/a>\u00a0of anything you send via open email. And speaking of no privacy, here\u2019s a little parody post that was spawned by the recent outing of a creepy Redditor (person who really loves Reddit.com) about how to know\u00a0whether you are on the Internet<\/a>, for the purpose of ensuring \u201cprivacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

        Rikki Tikki<\/h2>\n

        This is some sweet taxidermy that has nothing to do with Internet privacy or befuddled generals. The image reminded me of Rikki Tikki Tavi. I love that book.
        \n\"\"<\/p>\n

        Thanks for being a reader,<\/p>\n

        \u2013Bren<\/a><\/p>\n

        \n
        \n
          \n
        1. RSS stands for \u201cReally Simple Syndication\u201d. In practice it\u2019s just a way to keep track of content on Web sites without actually visiting the site on the web. You use an RSS \u201creader\u201d like Google Reader<\/a> to read and track the content. If you aren\u2019t familiar with RSS, but like to read, you need to investigate and get yourself set up. It\u2019s really not as confusing as it sounds.\u00a0\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Because I read a lot, I\u2019m probably going to write a lot about reading. Because you subscribed to this letter, sometimes you\u2019ll get to read what I write about what I read. Convenient! This edition takes a look at some cool reading options that have popped up lately. Read this Amazon\u2019s\u00a0Kindle singles\u00a0offering is a super […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ckgU-9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendonconnelly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}