STE launch + Getting Started

Greetings

Thanks for signing up to the newsletter! This is the very first one! You’re getting this if you signed up for either the free or the paid version, and paid subscribers will be receiving longer pieces, book excerpts and essays on the general theme of living in the Technic, preserving our humanity, and living in hope.

Big week!

We launched Should This Exist, which hit #1 tech podcast in the world the Saturday after launch! It’s now #32 podcast worldwide in all categories, which, if you realize This American Life is at #21 and Fresh Air is at #49, is amazing, wow, fantastic. Thanks everyone for listening, tweeting, and spreading the word.

I’ve been on a interview binge, in support of the podcast. I appeared on Tim Ferriss’s podcast, where I made a ton of poetry recommendations, as well as reciting a childhood poem (I recited a different poem on Alex Blumberg’s show last fall–this is becoming a habit.) I was also on Y Combinator’s podcast, where I discussed trying to get kicked out of 8th Grade Geology by doing too much homework, and mostly succeeded. Also talked on TWiT TV, doing a lightning round of Should this Exist questions, which comes out this week as a podcast. And keep an eye out for more podcast appearances on NPR’s Marketplace Tech and This Week in Startups.

I was interviewed for a Wired article about the artisanal internet (which we should call the Heirloom Internet?) and talked to Stephanie Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company about STE.

So much talking! I look forward to getting back to writing.

Most recent posts on Caterina.net

Should this Exist: Halo Neuroscience One of the biggest issues that came up when talking about Halo Sport for the podcast was whether or not it would create greater inequality, or if it could level the playing field.

Thoreau the Technophile Turns out the author of Walden Pond was entranced by technology too!

Books I’m reading

As you probably know, I prefer long form to short form writing for about 1000 reasons.

Breathing: Chaos and Poetry by Franco Bifo Berardi. Though my eyes glaze over when I read the sections on Leibniz, there are many insights into the uses of poetry to leapfrog us out of our current techno-dystopia.

Le voyageur de la Toussaint by Georges Simenon. I’ve been trying to get my French up to a working level, so I’m reading French policiers.

Til next time!

Caterina