We’re now in March, and spring is upon us. With the backdrop of war in Ukraine & exploring efforts to help, now feels like another time to compartmentalise.

• Twitter has been full of some of the wildest content in years. The irony of writing this in weeknotes is palpable, but I’m truly impressed by people who’ve attempted to make the war about them.
• Trying to suss out which side of the fence your late Russia-based Ukrainian family members would have come down on is emotionally ruinous. I don’t think non-Russians understand how powerful & effective state-run media is. Independent journalism is vital.
• Bottom line: There’s a huge influx of Ukrainian refugees who now need support, food & shelter. Your employer may offer donation matching, and if so, definitely consider taking it. Separately if you happen to be UK based, the government will match some charitable donations.

Compartmentalising? Well that’s made easier by continuing to avoid social media, sort-of.

• Commutes this week weren’t great, however in some ways I’d come to miss the chaos. More I’m looking forward to a time when office routine won’t feel like a big novelty worth reporting on.
• The Raspberry Pi turned 10 last week and to celebrate the FT ran an 18 minute video-essay, it’s pretty good, and guest-stars one of - just - the best people. Also the Pi Zero 2 is still out of stock. ☹️
• In Netflix News: The finale of Love Is Blind was suitably awkward - but, the drama hasn’t concluded and now there’s a proper feud between some of the cast on Instagram. Oh, also, The Tinder Swindler is pretty good — although this recent wave of true-ish crime releases on Netflix doesn’t exactly make for the most uplifting content!
• Brandon Sanderson announced a new novel and broke Kickstarter which is kinda cool I guess.

I moved back to RSS-by-default, Trying to mimic the nostalgia of how I read the internet in 2013: Before “doom-scrolling” existed in the zeitgeist, and, before social media firms spent millions perfecting it.

• RSS-by-default is nice. Sort-of. Before this when I followed only a few blogs - basic clients were enough — However, now I get to experience the varied quality of different feeds & clients. Reeder & Lire are the the best cross-platform Apple options I’ve found so far.
• Optimising my reader’s quality-to-quantity balance, I tried sending newsletters to it. For some busier sites, the regular human curation & summarisation is far more readable than a standard firehose feed. A side-benefit is that I can now follow Substack/Twitter publications!
• Purely anecdotally, I’m already reading more mindfully. The distance between me & algorithmic curation is teaching me to move beyond engagement towards understanding.