Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
I love this so much:
Recently there was a cold snap and a road nearby iced over – it was in the shade and cyclists kept on wiping out on it. For some reason the council didn’t come and salt it.
Somebody went out and created a sign on a weighted chair so it didn’t blow away. And this is a small thing but I LOVE that I live somewhere there is a shared belief that (a) our neighbourhood is worth spending effort on, and (b) you can just do things.
From Matt Webb of Interconnected.
Something about live radio really intrigues me. That you can turn something on and speak, and people could hear it, but you don’t really have numbers or metrics to see who’s tuning in. Not like YouTube and Twitch streams, you know?
With Macrowave you can do that straight from your Mac, and anyone with a web browser can listen in.
I messed around with Blast Radio years ago, streaming from Abelton Live, and people could listen via the app. Afterwards you could download your “show,” and I pieced them together into a HUNTERTHEN album.
Meta employees get rich making sure you never leave by making you believe you’re life will be over if you break up with Instagram.
This is classic abusive relationship behavior, and it takes a long time for the fog to lift before people see it.
Rekall is a “A cyber-retro-futurist aesthetic image blog,” and it’s updated every night since 2010 by Steve Gaynor.
We’ve all come across image feeds like this on social media platforms, but.. well, platforms come and go, but our websites endure so long as we keep paying for our domain name and hosting.
(link via Rodrigo Ghedin)
Woke up to a few inches of snow outside my window, and thought of how difficult it’ll be to walk10 miles. Sidewalks filled with snow and ice slow down my walking pace, and sometimes forces me into the road, which isn’t ideal.
This photo was from my first walk, around 9:11am. I had a Zoom call at 10am, and knew I had to get some distance in before that. It was just 0.5 miles, but every bit helps for later in the day.
It’s a Saturday, so town is pretty quiet, aside from snow blowers and plow trucks.
I walked through the college campus twice. Doubled back on some streets. Slipped a few times, but never fell.
The photo above was from my 2nd walk of the day, at 1:17pm, just after an hour-long live stream I did on Substack talking about Break Up With Social Media Day.
After this walk I was at 4.46 miles for the day, with 5.54 miles to go.
My third walk of the day was my longest. When I set out at 4:17pm it was 33°F, but 84% humidity, so I felt comfortable wearing my new shorts (Path Projects, sooo nice).
The photo above was at 4:34pm, with the sun setting nicely.
By 5:07pm there was a good amount of steam fog, where moisture evaporates off the snow. Can’t really tell from this photo, but it was wonderful.
This walk was 4.17 miles in one hour and 15 minutes, which brought me to 8.55 miles for the day.
I stopped at my house, grabbed something to drink, and checked my mileage: just 1.4 miles to go. I went back out for my fourth walk of the day, which took about 30 minutes, bringing me to 10.1 miles total.
Total walking time was three hours, six minutes.
According to my Apple Health app that’s 24,628 steps.
So 17 days into the new year I’m at 177.3 miles, about 10.4 miles per day.
I wrote recently, “I felt a pang in my stomach, of how I’m not writing and publishing enough, or sending enough newsletters every week.”
That’s especially true for this blog, but I’ve been posting every day over on my Social Media Escape Club site.
And setting up interviews. And planning things out. Raising rates on my sales pages. Sending video messages to people. I talked on the phone for FIVE HOURS the other night with my best friend.
Just now I hosted an hour long Zoom call with a special guest and it was lovely. The right people came together into the right space to be together for this one magical moment that we’ll never have again.
Afterwards I got an email from our guest, saying “Your gang is a hoot.”
I love my job.
Sure, leave it until January 6 of 2026 to finally update my About Page.
That photo above is from like 2008 or 2009.
The shirt is from the music blog I started in 2001, freaking 25 years ago.
I see this quite a bit. People posting photos of old tech, old gear, things from the 90s, colorful iMacs – “bring this back.”
Yes, do it. You don’t need permission. You don’t need the OK. Just fucking do it.
Write in cursive, buy a Polaroid camera, make a mix tape, burn a CD, buy a VCR from the thrift store, get a skateboard, collect old magazines.
No app, no platform, no techbro is gonna deliver this to you on a plate, so make the retro tech 90 worship life that you’re craving.
Back on the 10 mile per day grind, this time by way of walking and running. Also interesting to note that this year is the 10 year anniversary of when I started running at the age of 40. I can’t believe 10 years has zipped by this quickly.
I finally have a “books I wanna read list” finally (below), and also built a little tracker in Notion to so I retain more of what I do read in a given year.
So it worked out nicely that Josh Spector just shared an easy way to read more in the new year:
When you go to watch YouTube videos or scroll your social feed, pick up a book and read for 5 minutes first. Connecting a thing you want to do more of to a thing you already do too much of is a great way to build a new (and improved) habit.
On my list for 2026:
Favorites I read in 2025: