Every Friday I highlight the most interesting or entertaining items from my media diet of the past week.

Articles:

• 33 Things I Stole from People Smarter than Me on the Way to 33 (ryanholiday.net): The author of Ego is the Enemy and the Obstacle is the Way ruminates on choice bits of collected wisdom.
• Building a DIY Second Brain (tanners.blog): Tanner Reklaitis teaches readers Tiago Forte’s note-taking system via free/inexpensive sources online (rather than the $1000 course).
• Building a Second Brain: The Illustrated Notes (maggieappleton.com): Maggie Appleton blogs essay-level thinking in clear, vivid illustrations.
• The Grandmaster Who Got Twitch Hooked on Chess (wired.com): The result of elite chess players coaching trash-talking Twitch streamers? Solid entertainment.
• How I Made $3,300 on a Short Niche Philosophy Book (theotherlifenow.com): A former academic tests the market to see how well a book on a niche topic can be monetized.
• News by the Ton: 75 Years of US Advertising (ben-evans.com): The collapse of the newspaper industry in a series of charts.
• Not All Slopes Are Slippery (the-tls.co.uk): “How to decide which statues can remain and which need to go.”
• Pyrrhic Victory (granolashotgun.com): Amazing photo-journal of an eerily empty downtown San Francisco paired with a thoughtful essay on the interconnectedness of the US economic system.
• Top 100 Economics Blogs of 2020 (intelligenteconomist.com): If you’re looking for some new economics blogs to subscribe to, this is a good launching point.
• Why America’s Institutions Are Flunking (theatlantic.com): “Lost in the anxieties and illusions of the past, United States institutions have forgotten the art of change in a changing world.”
• You Won’t Kill Racism by Replacing Words (codingnagger.com): “There will always be another word as long as a racist intent is there.”

Podcasts:

• Bundyville (npr.org): Multi-part series about politics and ideology behind the Cliven Bundy family and their standoff with the federal government in rural Nevada and Oregon.
• History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (historyofphilosophy.net): Professor Peter Adamson’s series has over 300 episodes and started in 2010 with the Greek proto-philosopher Thales; today Adamson’s only reached the Italian Renaissance.
• It Could Happen Here (iheart.com): Journalist Robert Evans’ podcast about the possibility of a second American Civil War doesn’t seem so far fetched given current events.
• Slow Burn: David Duke (slate.com): Slow Burn’s 4th season explores how the former KKK leader went mainstream in the late 1980s and early 1990s.