What a fantastic idea for a Kickstarter project. It’s a beautiful deck of cards with helpful tips for writers who are stuck.

Via John Gruber, who adds:

Nicely illustrated and designed (including excellent use of Univers). It’s a Kickstarter campaign that aimed small and has exploded way past their original goal. But the coolest thing is they’re donating packs of the cards to youth writing programs, and the more decks they sell, the cheaper each deck becomes to produce, and the more they’ll have to donate.

If you do any type of long-form writing regularly, either professionally or as a hobby, this is well worth your consideration.

Rolling Stone profiles Alayne Fleischmann, the woman who was forced to keep JPMorgan Chase’s dirtiest secrets for over eight years:

Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it’s not exactly news that the country’s biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That’s why the more important part of Fleischmann’s story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.

She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. “Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way,” Fleischmann says.

Via The Loop.

One of the best explanations of Net Neutrality out there.

TL;DW explains the Iron Man movies:

The Black Hockey Jesus writes a beautiful letter to his daughter:

Second. Girls rock. I know I’m being redundant but I want you to understand that you rock intrinsically. In and of yourself. You, yourself—you—rock as a unit. Wholly. Completely. Rock. What this means is that you don’t need a boyfriend before you can rock. You already exist fully in a wholesale state of unblemished rockitude. I did not just now tell you to never have a boyfriend. I said you don’t need a boyfriend. You have grown up, and will continue to grow up, in a culture that bombards you with kajillions of impressions that constantly tell you otherwise. It’s lies, all lies. Listen to your dad (at least this once): you rock. If you feel needy or hungry or incomplete, that’s a call from deep within to fulfill your destiny of rocking as only you can rock. The extent to which you mistake that call for needing a boyfriend is the extent to which you muffle the triumphant sound of girls rocking.

So great.

Fantastic review by Josh Ginter, as usual. Beautifully written, masterfully photographed, and with the personal warmth that Josh so skillfully imbues into his pieces. I really enjoyed this one, and I’m sure you will too.

What better way to celebrate the site’s birthday than by sharing a great article by Patrick Rhone:

I think there an increasingly prevailing notion that the internet, wifi, or some other new technology automatically makes everything better. That adding more technology means convenience or ease of use. It doesn’t. And, in many cases it means the exact opposite. It means one more point of failure or one more thing to manage or one more corporation to be beholden too. In many cases, sticking the internet into the middle of things makes them worse.

Exactly. Technology just for technology’s sake is never the right answer.

Patrick has been a huge source of inspiration for me since the very first day. Thanks to kind, generous people like him, the Internet is a better place.

Thank you, Patrick. For everything.

Let’s keep the words flowing.

Dear readers,

Today, Analog Senses turns five years old. I’d like to take a moment to thank those who have been reading since the very beginning, and to welcome the many of you that have recently joined. Without you, what I do here wouldn’t mean anything. From the very bottom of my heart, thank you.

These are interesting times for Analog Senses. A lot has changed since the early days, but my passion and dedication for this site have never been stronger. I’m convinced its brightest days lie ahead, and I’m deeply honored to have you along for the ride.

I can’t wait to see what the next five years look like.

My best,
Álvaro.

Chris Gonzales:

Today is Fountain Pen Day — there really is a holiday for everything these days — and to celebrate the occasion we thought it would be fun to share some quality linkage related to fountain pens and analog writing in general.

Wonderful reading material for a rainy weekend.

This documentary looks amazing. One of my closest friends is a magician, and through him I’ve learned to appreciate and love this beautiful craft. I can’t wait to see it.

By the way, seeing Juan Tamariz in the trailer made me feel quite emotional. He’s a living legend, a truly beloved icon in the world of magic. I remember I used to watch him perform unbelievable tricks on TV back when I was a little kid, and I was always enchanted by his character. A couple of years ago I finally got to meet the man — alongside my friend — and it was one of the most, well, magical experiences of my life.