Hi. I've been writing.
Hello! It's good to see you again. I've been busy. I started writing at Lifehacker around a month ago and am having a lot of fun with it. I thought I'd quickly highlight a few of the pieces I'm proudest of lately. Let me know if you like this format or if you'd prefer I go back to the old one. Let's dive in!
How to Stay Sane at a Culty Tech Company (Lifehacker)
I spent some time reflecting on a truly surreal period of my career: when I was working for a tech company instead of writing about them.
Culty tech companies thrive on the metaphorical Kool-Aid. They depend on members buying the hype, or at the least pretending like they are. That's why public communications—Slack, let's say, or all-hands meetings—are always uniformly positive. Everyone is SO EXCITED about how well things are going; everyone is reacting with way too many happy emojis. It's enough to make someone who is unhappy, or even just questioning the status quo, feel like they're absolutely insane. Everyone else is happy, after all—why aren't you? You're not crazy, though. If the vibes feel off, you can be certain that you're not the only one who feels that way. read more
How I Learned to Ignore the Worst of the Internet (Lifehacker)
It's an election year, which means all kinds of nonsense is about to be thrown at us. Reading is valuable, but even more important is knowing what to ignore.
Your attention is valuable in that human consciousness—your consciousness—is a profound miracle. You are a collection of atoms that is capable of thought, and which can also decide what to think about. The things that you pay attention to shape, in a tangible way, what you think about and, ultimately, how you interact with the world. It's important, then, to be intentional when deciding what to pay attention to. And part of deciding what to pay attention to is deciding what to ignore. *read more
A little bit of tech news
In honor of their IPO here's how to delete your Reddit account.
You should probably also delete your Glassdoor—that site is less anonymous than ever before.
Oh! and Shopping on Amazon is about to get even worse, as Amazon announced plans to pour AI-powered jet fuel on the garbage fire that is their search results.
A couple of tech tips
Here's how to stop LinkedIn users from knowing that you looked at their profile (WIRED)
Here's How to open Spotify links if you aren't a Spotify user (WIRED)
And here's how to get the retro WordArt back in Microsoft Word (*PopSci*)
Obligatory Mira photo
