The Paid Subscriber Edition

Hi all, we are interrupting our regular programming for a promotional message. We are going to be moving our Wednesday edition to be Subscriber only. We’re doing this because we have some new ideas of fun stuff to do with WITI, but part of that is going to require expanding the community. So if you enjoy what we do, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

As part of our new subscriber push, we’re also opening up a subscriber-only Discord. An email already went out to subscribers with details on how to get there and get yourself verified, and we hope that can become both a worthwhile space for engagement and also a platform where we can do some other fun stuff (like interviews, conversations, and so on). 

We’re now 3.5 years into this thing with almost 1,000 editions under our belt, and it’s time to try some new things. Thanks for riding along with us on this journey, we appreciate your time and attention.

- Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN)

Now onto some links …

Quick Links:

• Was reminded yesterday of this excellent Aeon article about how Nespresso machines are taking over Michelin restaurants from 2013. “In the UK, more than 15 Michelin-starred restaurants use Nespresso, the market-leading capsule system, to make their coffee — including Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck in Berkshire, and The Ledbury in London. In France, Nespresso supplies more than 100 Michelin restaurants, including the legendary L’Arpège in Paris. Even in Italy, where the first espresso machine was patented in 1884, more than 20 Michelin restaurants use the new capsule system, and many others around the world use it or its rivals developed by Illy, Kimbo, Lavazza and Segafredo.” (NRB)

• Reward research for being useful — not just flashy. (NRB)

• What Is the Purpose of a Fashion Gimmick? On the Bella Hadid spray-on dress from Rachel Tashjian. (NRB)

• FT with an essential big read on the Chinese property crash (CJN)

• There’s some interesting stuff happening with alternative leagues for basketball players that don’t want to go to college. Report: London Johnson Signs Record NBA G League Ignite Contract, Bypasses College (NRB)

• How bots corrupted advertising (CJN)

• Another excellent essay from friend of WITI Drew Austin: Babylon Sisters. “Although the internet is now the primary transmission vector for culture, cities remain the physical nodes that the culture is routed through. As the digital universe expands exponentially, the physical world remains rigid, and the mismatch between the abundance of one and the scarcity of the other feels increasingly urgent at every scale.” (NRB)

• An excellent 3 hour ambient mix from friend of WITI Philip Sherburne. (CJN)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN)

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Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. This is a subscriber-only edition, so thanks for being part of the WITI community.