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Cloudflare stopped supporting hate site Kiwi Farms. How defensible is their justification?
Should internet infrastructure companies desert sites that spread hate? That’s a very hard question. Let’s look at one recent instance — Cloudflare withdrawing its product from Kiwi Farms — and analyze the statement they make to justify their extraordinary actions. Who is Kiwi Farms? Kiwi Farms is an online community for trolls who harass people…
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About the Mar-a-Lago documents: why so much paper?
I admit it, I’m having a weird moment right now regarding classified documents. Including the ones that former president Trump stored in an insecure location in his Mar-a-Lago resort. I work on documents for a living. I write them, edit them, post them, promote them. Some of what I work on ends up in printed…
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In praise of Twitter’s edit button
After years of requests, Twitter is finally testing a button to edit tweets. Assuming they don’t take it back again — which is certainly possible — the edit button will allow millions of us who use Twitter to post and react to fix our typos. And to the folks who’ve got their panties in a…
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How older writers stay sharp
I’ve been writing professionally for 40 years. You can’t write the same way in your sixties as you did in your twenties. But you can take steps to maintain that the quality of what you write and the enjoyment you get from doing it. In this post, I’ll break down the elements of the writing…
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The New York Post’s Cindy Adams burbles incoherently — and cluelessly — about Maine
Cindy Adams “writes” for the New York Post. The scare quotes are because I “read” her Page Six columns about Maine and a few others, apparently dictated by text message, featuring incoherent and wandering collections of sentence fragments. Think of the ejecta of the average conspiracy theorist in a comment section and you’ve got the…
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3 essential reasons why all writers should blog
Blogging has gone out of style. But for writers, it’s as current as ever. I don’t care if you post on WordPress, LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, Twitter threads, or even Facebook. The key is to regularly write moderately long (at least 400 words) chunks of prose about ideas and post them where you can get feedback….
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Is inflation surging or is it over? An explainer.
In the wake of last month’s inflation report, I’ve seen headlines that say that inflation is at record highs. Others say inflation is now zero. The problem is that when it comes to rates, it’s easy to get confused — or to confuse people on purpose. So here’s an explainer. Understanding rates Let’s look at…
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How much is brevity worth? If you’re Axios, $525 million.
Online news provider Axios just accepted Cox Enterprises’ acquisition offer worth $525 million. Where did the value in Axios come from? Brevity. Axios articles are short and pointed Below is a screen capture of a typical Axios article. The word count, including the headline, the byline, and the photo caption, is 247 words. What is…
