links, etc American Kakistocracy the atlantic’s considered take on how trump’s grafting wrong. Berlusconi’s shortcomings helped fuel his success, but he wasn’t proud of them. Trump wears his flaws like medals, and is appointing people to his coming administration who have the same attitude. Berlusconi would never have allowed the equivalent of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. near Italy’s department of health. An Italian Matt Gaetz would have been considered for a reality show on one of Berlusconi’s TV channels, at most....

bookshop link notes recommended: yes this has been in the reading queue for a while now. a trip to zenith books provided the irresistible impetus to grab a copy. this was not the book i was expecting. for its page count heft it’s a remarkably sparse book in terms of text. there’s a lot of white space in here. it’s less a treatise on the creative process and … living up to its subtitle, more of a discussion on a way of living/being....

links, etc Silca Chain Waxing System Review: It’s Like Brewing Coffee i must confess, i love this. i too love the wax and am in the process of making the conversion. winter’s offline maintenance opportunities provide the perfect time to make the switch. Cormac McCarthy: Vanity Fair writer Vincenzo Barney explains himself. i absolutely love how the literary folks are losing their shit over this article abot cormac mccarthy. this is, i suppose, my equivalent of “owning the libs” for literary dorks....

links, etc SankeyMATIC: Make Beautiful Flow Diagrams h/t molly white for the pointer to this.

links, etc Don’t call it a Substack. - Anil Dash it’s an email wrappered with a VC driven capture model. get a blog. Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset for the geospatial community | Foursquare this is one of the more interestingin opensource releases as of late.