Volume 3, Resources 22: Bypassing, Fact Checking, and Myths About Hydrating

This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!

Hi friends! Well, Halloween might be over for you but it is always Halloween in my heart and also in our apartment. This year we carved pumpkins and honestly, I don’t think I had carved a pumpkin in adulthood. It was incredibly fun and I already can’t wait for next year. The one on the right is mine, based off of the character Enoch from Over the Garden Wall, which is a Netflix cartoon based on a comic. The completely fucking unhinged one on the left is my lovely wife’s creation:

On Halloween proper we took the day off as always. May I present, Velma Dinkley and Coco Diablo from the newest Scooby-Doo movie:

Let’s get to resources!

Resource #1: 12ft Ladder

“Show me a 10ft paywall, I’ll show you a 12ft ladder.” 12ft.io helps you bypass paywalls by showing you cached versions of sites. It doesn’t work for every site but I also mentioned some helpful tips about a year ago in Volume 2, Resources 21. It came to my attention from this Tweet by @AWizardIsYou that says, “Everytime I hit a paywall on some respected journalism site and then simply don't read the article rather than subscribing, I think about how Fox, Breitbart, The Daily Mail, et al. never ever ever paywall their content. I think about this constantly.”

Resource #2: Reuters Fact Check

Disinformation abounds and Reuters Fact Check is here to help. They also have a Twitter account but for how long? Really, how long are any of us going to be on Twitter any longer? I think it’s a testament to my good curation that I have scrolled through some of the things that Reuters has fact-checked and thought, “I have never seen this in my life.”

Resource #3: Busting 5 common myths about water and hydration via NPR Life Kit

It’s a podcast episode but it’s also an article, depending on how you would rather get your information. Almost every day on Twitter I post a daily check-in, often encouraging people to hydrate or drink some water. In all honesty, what I post is usually a reflection of my own needs in that moment but it seems to ring true for many people. This ~19 minute episode (or article) talks about common myths around how much water we should actually be drinking (it’s not necessarily 8 cups). The unveiling of the myth around caffeine making a person dehydrated made me laugh out loud when I learned what that is based on. It’s a good listen/read and worth your time.

Bonus Fun Thing: Make My Drive Fun

Plug in your start point and end point in this site and it’ll give you a bunch of quirky and silly and neat things to do or see on your journey. I foresee a lot of little local adventures for Nicole and I in 2023. This site is a delight.

That’s it for this week! You can shop any books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481. If you are a subscriber and would like for me to send you some happy mail, feel free to give me your address.

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