What a wonderful privilege to be an outsider.
With distance can come perspective, yes, and that is vital but distance also removes you from responsibility.
What a wonderful privilege to be an outsider.
With distance can come perspective, yes, and that is vital but distance also removes you from responsibility.
Following up on last year’s inaugural, two friends and I returned to the rural county we grew up in together and had a day-long nerd out on personal finances.
Yes, after cocktails and dinner and catching up, we literally gave presentations and shared tips on things we were learning about navigating the very complicated personal finance world. It’s all about fun and self-improvement.
We shared and discussed and debated over ideas and rules of thumb and data — like the above pictured Zillow chart predicting longterm real estate growth in my neighborhood of Fishtown.
Below, I share a few notes that aren’t top secret.
Continue reading What I learned at our second annual ‘Personal Finance Day’
When you’re growing a team, it’s easy for you to get the attention. You have the power to always take the final word. You can always be the focus of the meeting or the team social event or the group discussion.
Don’t be.
Continue reading Founders need to find moments to not show up
The importance of artificial intelligence and the algorithms that power them is still understated.
That’s among the big themes from Weapons of Math Destruction, an important book published lat year and written by Kathy O’Neill, a computer scientist.
Proudly, Technical.ly had a small contribution, as this story of ours was cited in the book — this story informed that later reporting. There have been a few other examples of that sorta thing but I haven’t captured them. Just kinda fun to see.
A version of this essay was published as part of my twice-monthly newsletter several weeks ago. Find other archives and join here to get updates like this first.
I’ve been struggling a lot over the last couple years, and of course particularly in the last six months, with how mean the social web can be. How mean we are to each other. And how naive I sound to others when I think we can be something else.
This has gotten me into reading about the New Sincerity movement of the 1980s that then got a major boost of attention in the 1990s by beloved and troubled writer David Foster Wallace. It’s what I’ve been searching for.
Continue reading New Sincerity is the answer to snarky post-modern web culture
Facts do not matter in arguments.
This is a big idea I first began wrestling with meaningfully last year — I shared in my newsletter back in June a mess of links I had been reading. Since then, my interest in the topic has only grown — the post-truth era certainly helped.
Profit. That’s where the experimentation and funding for long-term projects came from.
As the near monopoly on the distribution of information that powered the advertising business that kept newsrooms well-stocked has faded, so too has the profitability of the companies that back them. And it has coincided with tightened budgets and, therefore, fewer commercially viable journalism products.
Continue reading Why the 20th century had such celebrated local journalism
I first visited the Pen and Pencil Club in January 2009, as a spunky, 23-year-old. After visiting frequently, I finally became an official member of the country’s oldest surviving open daily press club in early 2012.
Then, in 2013 I ran and was elected to the club’s board of governors, with some encouragement from then club President Chris Brennan, a celebrated politics reporter and columnist who worked hard to grow the kind of members in the club. I was growing a reputation with Technical.ly and an active local organizer of the Online News Association.
I was proud. I learned a lot, and I put a lot of effort into being a board member. Next week, rather than run for a fifth term, I am stepping down. Here I share some of what I accomplished during the last four years.
Continue reading What I accomplished as a Pen and Pencil Club governor
More than a year ago, I got married. It’s fun and challenging and rewarding. I’ve learned a ton — even before the big day. One of the great challenges of any marriage is how two people merge their finances.
I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned over the last two years.
Continue reading Getting married? here’s some advice on handling joint finances
I’m struggling with how clear it seems we’re on a path culturally in which we won’t be able to like or admire people we disagree with. Or, worse, that if we disagree with someone on one topic, we’ll have to disagree with them on everything.
I tweeted this week that I both respect Barack Obama and I can understand his administration made decisions that have a complicated legacy. Likewise, I’ve long admired John McCain but do not agree with many of his stances. There are lots of people whose views might diverge from mine.
It reminded of that image above that I made last fall out of exasperation. I like people and disagree with them, and I mostly dislike people who I disagree with. Also, opinions on people and topics may shift, because we are all adapting. Some of that surely has to be ok, doesn’t it? I worry if not.
Here, this should help pic.twitter.com/Wow6y12zHL
— Christopher Wink (@christopherwink) October 18, 2016
I want to say a *controversial* thing: I deeply respect and admire Barack Obama AND I believe his administration made some crucial mistakes.
— Christopher Wink (@christopherwink) February 9, 2017