It's Always Tuesday Somewhere

Maybe it’s because it’s probably the last week of Twitter, or maybe it’s the malign influence of McRib Season, perhaps it’s Munchausen by bird flu, or possibly it’s the fact that NASA just discovered the Ninth House:

But whatever the reason, the part of my brain that produces Tabs is apparently offline for maintenance this week. Rather than fight it, I’m going to let the body keep the score and take this opportunity to announce that Tabs will (retroactively to yesterday) be on vacation until Monday the 31st.1

Fortunately Matt Levine has given us more than a week’s worth of reading to do, exercising the right granted to him by the deep magic as a beloved blogger and father of twins to write a whole issue of Businessweek about crypto. You should read it even if you don’t care about (or hate!) crypto, because the story is just as much about trust, and emergent social agreements about value, and the way our lives are mediated by databases now and how crucial that is to understand. It also contains the most lucid and accurate explanation of what cryptocurrency actually is and how it works that I have read anywhere, and that alone is worth it.

You should also read Rose Eveleth on ending her podcast “Flash Forward” and ending popular projects in general (aka “sure, You Can Always Quit, but how??"), lcamtuf on fake books in your area, waiting to scam you, and Blackbird Spyplane’s touching tribute to American Movie’s “extremely kindvibed childhood buddy Mike Schank.”

That’s it, that is all the words I can put in order this week, go forth and enjoy the last week of Elon-free Twitter, and we’ll see what remains on Halloween day.

This Week’s Song: Titus Andronicus, “69 Stones”

You Can Always Quit is not just a slogan on a t-shirt! (I mean, it absolutely is a slogan on a t-shirt, which you can and should buy. But it’s not just that.) I’ll see you next week, until then please try to keep the discourse to a minimum.