229 lines
9.1 KiB
Plaintext
229 lines
9.1 KiB
Plaintext
[1]Rands in Repose
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[2]
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• [3]Archives
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• [4]About
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• [5]Books
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• [6]Slack
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• [7]Speaking
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• [8]Podcast
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• [9]Feed
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[10]Rands Seek understanding
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The Cleanse
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I’m in the midst of a media cleanse. This started before the election when I
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canceled my Washington Post subscription. Jeff Bezos can do whatever he wants
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with the Washington Post, and he’s 100% correct that I don’t trust large media
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organizations.
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After the election, I removed all news sources from [11]Feedly except the [12]
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Atlantic because I find their writing informative and compelling.
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A friend calls this turtling. Pulling your head inside your shell and hiding.
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It’s quite comfortable here. With most of my free time, I’m leveling a dragon
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Holy Priest in World of Warcraft. #ama
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Next on the list is Twitter. Since it was sold and turned private, my
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engagement has been significantly lower, and my follower count has shrunk as
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the humans have moved off the platform, but quite soon, I’m deleting my
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account. My finger has been over the DELETE button for a few days, and I’ve
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wondered why. Two facts: First, there are thousands of folks with whom I share
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stuff there. I can see they are there via much reduced but real engagement.
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Second, I have just under 20k tweets since 2007 that, upon review, tell an
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interesting story… at least to me.
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I’ve downloaded the complete archive, and I’m sad to say I’m about to create a
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bunch of 404 errors when my corpus of tweets vanishes from Twitter. Why? This
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is my content, and I don’t want whatever Twitter has become to benefit from its
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existence. I’ll share the archive here at some point, but for now, I’m
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cleansing.
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Like FaceBook before it, Twitter turned into something else. They both, early
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on, felt like a means of connection. Unfortunately, building that social graph
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allowed these businesses to target you and your engaging, clickable content
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expertly. What was a means of connection turned into hot, juicy, bite-sized
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content. Over the past two decades, this practice has made us intellectually
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lazy because these media services are paid not on the quality but the quantity
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of service. More clicks, more engagement. Truth and facts. Optional.
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And what was a clever means of connection turned into a raging stream of
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clickable things.
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So, bye, Twitter. I’m late to the funeral, but better late than never. It was
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fun before it got terrifying.
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While I am profoundly turtling and have little desire to see a path forward, I
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have two related observations:
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First, the lack of healthy debate on most social media is one of the core
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issues with the platform. Humans must disagree, but these platforms do not
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provide a proper bi-directional medium (or set of tools) for these debates.
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It’s liking, then not liking, then yelling, then ALL CAPS, and NOW I’M
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UNFOLLOWING YOU and YES BLOCKING BYE.
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Debate is a tricky act between two humans who can both speak, listen,
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understand, and possibly evolve. Two humans. Often, there will be more, but
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let’s keep it simple and assume it’s two. Both humans are required to do this,
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and in the primarily anonymous world of social media, it’s normal not to
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consider the other human a human. They are the last thing they wrote that you
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disagree with. There is no relationship; it’s simply the last thing they
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posted. And how do you feel about that post.
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The stakes are higher in person. You have to stare at that human in the eye,
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especially after they say something you don’t like. So, what do you do? You
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can’t yell, you can’t ignore them, and you certainly can’t block them, so what
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is your move? Mine: seek understanding. Put on that empathy hat and try to
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understand why they’re saying what they’re saying. That’s the first step. There
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are many more — [13]read the book.
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The continual failure to do this in social media results in a growing echo
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chamber where the humans agree, and those who disagree are quickly voted off
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the island. Some of these echo chambers are low stakes. Think about your
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favorite sports team. Those fans are aligned on what’s important. Who needs
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debate? The only debate we care about is what $OTHER-TEAM we hate the most. Go
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$OUR-TEAM.
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There are higher-stakes echo chambers, too. Use your imagination here.
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Second, it’s not a short or medium-turn fix to what ails us, but I am curious
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about investing in local and independent news organizations. Large media
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organizations have to compete with social. They desperately need those clicks,
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and that means mimicking the patterns they see in social. The headline must
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engage in one second or less, or it will be forgotten. It’s an economy of
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attention, not understanding or truth.
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Local media has taken it on the chin for decades because social media consumes
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advertising dollars. Local media has withered without that support, with
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remaining big media sources bending to social media engagement patterns. The
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idea of investing in local media news organizations is because they report on
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the events that happen in my neighborhood. This makes them more human to me.
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They have skin in the game because, like me, they live here. My problems are
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their problems, which means we have a solid foundation to start to understand.
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How do I go about this investment? Where do I start?
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I don’t know. I’m turtling. For now.
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[14]# November 15, 2024
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See also...
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• [15]Hold Your Breath
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• [16]“I Am Very Concerned About This Election”
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• [17]Shields Shirts
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• [18]The Cello in Soho Square
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• [19]10 Things I Love & Why
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Next[20]The One About Dapper
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Merch
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[21][svg]
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[22]Rands Schwag: Leadership leading with the letter R.
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[23][svg]
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[24]The Software Developer’s Career Handbook: Chaos is an Opportunity.
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[25][svg]
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[26]Managing Humans: Tales of leadership from the Silicon Valley.
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[27][svg]
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[28]Small Things, Done Well: Practice becoming a better leader. Daily.
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Don't Skip [29]This
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Thank you for scrolling to the bottom. If this is your first visit, I recommend
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starting by reading [30]don't skip this.
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Categories
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• [31]Apple
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• [32]Biking
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• [33]Buzz
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• [34]Design
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• [35]Excerpt
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• [36]Fake Notebook
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• [37]Hollywood
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• [38]Management
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• [39]Media
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• [40]Photo
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• [41]Plugs
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• [42]Rands
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• [43]Surf
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• [44]SXSW
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• [45]Tech Life
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• [46]The Important Thing
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• [47]Tools
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• [48]Vegas
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• [49]Writing
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The Very Bottom
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I've recently become very interested in performing magic. I did a talk recently
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in Switzerland where I performed three significant tricks. Magic is teaching me
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about how to focus an audience's attention. [50]watch this.
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[51]Copyright © 2002-2024 · Rands in Repose Crafted by [52]Alex King
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References:
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[1] https://randsinrepose.com/
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[2] https://randsinrepose.com/
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[3] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/
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[4] https://randsinrepose.com/about/
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[5] https://randsinrepose.com/books/
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[6] https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/
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[7] https://randsinrepose.com/speaking/
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[8] https://randsinrepose.com/the-important-thing/
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[9] https://randsinrepose.com/feed/
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[10] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/rands/
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[11] http://theatlantic.com/
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[12] http://theatlantic.com/
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[13] https://amzn.to/40Lk67j
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[14] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-cleanse/
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[15] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/hold-your-breath/
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[16] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/i-am-very-concerned-about-this-election/
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[17] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/shields-shirts/
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[18] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-cello-in-soho-square/
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[19] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/10-things-i-love-why/
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[20] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-one-about-dapper/
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[21] https://cottonbureau.com/people/rands
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[22] https://cottonbureau.com/people/rands
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[23] https://amzn.to/3LSu0vs
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[24] https://amzn.to/3LSu0vs
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[25] https://amzn.to/3z3AiRe
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[26] https://amzn.to/3z3AiRe
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[27] https://amzn.to/3eq8ACY
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[28] https://amzn.to/3eq8ACY
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[29] https://randsinrepose.com/dont-skip-this/
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[30] https://randsinrepose.com/dont-skip-this/
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[31] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/apple/
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[32] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/biking/
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[33] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/buzz/
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[34] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/design/
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[35] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/excerpt/
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[36] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/fake-notebook/
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[37] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/hollywood/
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[38] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/management/
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[39] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/media/
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[40] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/photo/
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[41] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/plugs/
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[42] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/rands/
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[43] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/surf/
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[44] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/sxsw/
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[45] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/tech-life/
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[46] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/the-important-thing/
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[47] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/tools/
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[48] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/vegas/
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[49] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/category/writing/
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[50] https://www.hulu.com/movie/derek-delgaudios-in-of-itself-19b9d405-40b2-483e-8e1f-e25fe10c7299
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[51] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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[52] http://alexking.org/
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