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I Wrote This

“Never read the comments” may be a fine defensive posture, but we would be better off fixing the problems with comments.

I guess maybe “The comments are a place to show how smart I am” is better than “The comments are a place to be an asshole,” but if so, it’s not much better.

Sometimes I think maybe it is even worse.

Either way, it is a gross and all-too-common pattern/behavior. Part of it is the result of social media platforms that incentivize attention-seeking over community, but I see it happening frequently enough on Mastodon to make me think that algorithms focused on driving engagement at all costs are not solely to blame.

So I have gone ahead and ordered an old Walkman…

Twenty-two bucks for the same model Walkman that I had my first year of college? Sure—why not?

“Nothing spins but motor seems to work,” reads the item description… odds are good it just needs a new belt.

I had been thinking about getting one of those We Are Rewind things—the Bluetooth and USB-charging battery are compelling features—but by all accounts, they are built around garbage motors and read heads because no one makes the good ones anymore.