Nat Voisey

Reading print

Since returning from camping, I’ve been trying to continue the routine of reading at night. My final crutch was removed by using our HomePod as an alarm instead of my phone.1 My hope is that this is now a freestanding habit.

While researching Ezra Klein from something I was reading, I found an article from 15 years ago describing a similar approach:

At night—if all this goes perfectly—I want to read print.

I also—if all goes well—want to read print in the evenings.

Most of my friction to achieving this has been removed. Although there’s just so many things to do in the evenings; so much to research and find, so much fun to be had. If I really feel the need to read an article, it is printed out. The biggest step is always my first; getting off my computer and going to bed.

My mornings have a similar tune, although I’m not like Ezra, who gets up at 6am to read news clippings. I’d like my mornings to be standardised, relying on a run for energy and mediae I’ve already collected to read; not new media that has come into my inbox.

In the time since that article in The Atlantic, it’s crazy how little the world has changed over 10 years. Articles from the past 10 years still describe my present moment, whereas articles from the past 20 years feel nostalgic and utopian, almost foreign to a young adult.

My hope is also, that writing and publishing this will solidify this habit even further.

How I got here:

  1. Hacker News Algolia search, because I’m waiting for my Hacker News Weekly to come through (was using Digest, but it doesn’t always send; before that was Newsletter, but it’s editorial and contains too many links)
  2. Hacker News post
  3. The suck is why we’re here by Niklas Göke
  4. Nik mentioned an interview with Ezra Klein (which I saved the podcast version of). I’ve heard of his podcast, but didn’t know he started Vox, or used to blog.
  5. Wikipedia
  6. Trying to find Ezra’s old blogs, Reddit post
  7. Ezra’s original Typepad with original and newer designs2
  8. Ezra Klein: What I Read on The Atlantic

  1. Turns out ‘Forest’ sounds are very similar to the ‘Bird’ sounds alarm.↩

  2. The fact that Ezra used Typepad, then went to The American Prospect and WaPo, is a reminder that the author of the blog is the thing that matters, not the technical aspects or design. Ezra is his own person; platform agnostic. However, John Gruber is Movable Type, Manuel Morale is Kirby, Nicolas Magand is Blot (along with me), Jason Fried and DDH are Hey World, Sam Altman is Posthaven (investor), Todd Vaziri is still on Blogger.↩

#linked