When we learned about the extent of far-right extremism, Hitler worship and Holocaust denial on Substack, you pressed us to investigate. And when we published our findings, you overwhelmingly encouraged us to find a new home on the web.
During this time, I talked to several high-profile writers who collectively make millions of dollars writing on Substack. Their readers were also asking them to leave, too. In the end, almost none of them did. They bet that they could simply put their heads down and wait for the controversy to pass. And it worked!
Substack’s Nazi problem continues, but the news cycle has moved on. I suspect it will swing back around eventually. But in the meantime, I’m proud that when Platformer was asked to actually live its values — to stand up for the idea that basic content moderation is good and necessary — we did.
Having principles can be annoying and expensive. (And make you insufferable to talk to at parties.) But it beats the alternative.
Huge respect to Newton and the Platformer team for making the move from Substack even though it was inconvenient and painful.
Don’t ever hand your phone to the cops. “Handing your phone to a police officer grants law enforcement a lot of power over some of your most intimate personal data.”
Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake. “The rise of sports gambling has caused a wave of financial and familial misery, one that falls disproportionately on the most economically precarious households.”
Huge study from The Economist about car bloat in the US. “For every life that the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save, there are more than a dozen lives lost in other vehicles.” ‘Safety for me, danger for you’ is an American motto at this point.
The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.
Think, for a moment, just how crazy this is. If you’re in Boston and someone tells you that they heard a sound coming from New York City, you’re probably going to give them a funny look. But Boston is a mere 200 miles from New York. What we’re talking about here is like being in Boston and clearly hearing a noise coming from Dublin, Ireland. Travelling at the speed of sound (766 miles or 1,233 kilometers per hour), it takes a noise about 4 hours to cover that distance. This is the most distant sound that has ever been heard in recorded history.
A much much smaller eruption occurred recently in Papua New Guinea. From the video, you can get a tiny sense of the sonic damage unleashed by Krakatoa:
Holy smoking Toledos indeed. On Reddit, a user details how loud a Saturn V rocket is and what the effects would be at different distances. At very close range, the sound from the Saturn V measures an incredible 220 db, loud enough to melt concrete just from the sound.
At 500 meters, 155 db you would experience painful, violent shaking in your entire body, you would feel compressed, as though deep underwater. Your vision would blur, breathing would be very difficult, your eardrums are obviously a lost cause, even with advanced active noise cancelling protection you could experience permanent damage. This is the sort of sound level aircraft mechanics sometimes experience for short periods of time. Almost twice as “loud” as putting your ear up to the exhaust of a formula 1 car. The air temperature would drop significantly, perhaps 10-25 degrees F, becoming suddenly cold because of the air being so violently stretched and moved.
Even at three miles away, the sound is loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. But that’s nothing compared to the Krakatoa sound. The Saturn V sound is ~170 db at 100 meters away while the Krakatoa explosion was that loud 100 miles away! What happens at 170 db?
…you would be unable to breathe or likely see at all from the sound pressure, glass would shatter, fog would be generated as the water in the air dropped out of suspension in the pressure waves, your house at this distance would have a roughly 50% chance of being torn apart from sound pressure alone. Military stun grenades reach this volume for a split second… if they are placed up to your face. Survival chance from sound alone, minimal, you would certainly experience permanent deafness but probably also organ damage.
The word “loud” is inadequate to describe how loud that is. (thx, david)
But the whale is not really as loud as the rocket, she told me. Because water is denser than air, sound in water is measured on a different decibel scale. In air, the sperm whale would still be extremely loud, but significantly less so - 174 decibels. That’s roughly equivalent to the decibel levels measured at the closest barometer, 100 miles away from the Krakatoa eruption, and is loud enough to rupture people’s ear drums. Suffice to say, you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time swimming with the sperm whales.
[This is a vintage post originally from Oct 2014.]
What you have with a restaurant that you visit once or twice is a transaction. What you have with a restaurant that you visit over and over is a relationship.
My wife and I eat out at least once a week and we used to travel all over the city to try all sorts of different places, just-opened hot spots and old favorites alike. It was great. But now we mostly go to a bar/restaurant1 around the corner from where we live and that’s even better. Bruni covers the experience pretty well, but I just wanted to share a couple of seemingly small aspects of being a regular:
1. Our local is popular and always crowded, especially during the dreaded 7-10pm hours and double especially Thu-Sat nights. But even when I go in by myself at a peak time, when the bar’s jam-packed, there’s always a seat for me. It might take a bit, but something opens up and they slot me in, even if I’m only stopping in for a drink and they could seat a two-top for dinner at the bar. (A regular in the hand is worth two in the rush.)
2. This is a totally minor thing but I love it: more than once, I’ve come in early in the evening, had a drink, left without paying to go run an errand or meet someone somewhere else, and then come back later for another drink or dinner and then settle my bill. It’s like having a house account without the house account.
3. Another nice thing about being a regular at a place that values regulars is that you meet the other regulars. This summer I was often left to my own devices for dinner and a couple times a week, I ended up at my local. And almost without exception, I ended up having dinner with someone I’d previously met at the bar. Routinely turning a solo dining experience into dinner with a friend is an amazing accomplishment for a restaurant.
Something I read in one of food writer Jeffrey Steingarten’s books has always stuck with me. He said there are certain restaurants he frequents that he never writes about critically. Those places are just for him and he would never recommend them to his readers. Having written for so long here on kottke.org, there are certain things I hold back, that are just for me. Having a public opinion on absolutely everything you love is no way to live.
So, no, I’m not going to tell you what restaurant I’m talking about. It’s beside the point anyway…Bruni’s not trying to persuade you to try Barbuto or Charlie Bird, it’s about you finding your own local.↩
[This is a vintage post originally from Sep 2013.]
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