Message from Francine : We've moved!
Dear loyal newsletter peeps:
We've moved! This platform is called Buttondown.email and it's very easy to use. It costs me $29 per month because the community is large, but I'm absorbing that. Like all my other newsletters, this one is free.
Now I can really write to you instead of just commenting on things, so I will lead off by telling you that if you want to have some cheap fun, sign up for an ID on a site called Rally.io and buy a few $KARMA coins. They're a cryptocurrency, and this is my personal coin because, of course, I have always lived in the karmic universe. Holding these coins will make you eligible for RLY rewards, which is another cryptocurrency that can be converted to cold hard cash. But since the coins are about $3.00 a piece, you can use them to tip me for articles you like, or to trade for another kind of coin.
$KARMA coin is what's called a social token, and I chose the name for my token with extraordinary care. I'm using this exercise to help people who don't know anything about cryptocurrency learn how to take part in this "next new thing" without much risk.
I fell down this rabbithole in 2013, when I put $100 into bitcoin. I was just trying to be my usual early adopting self. In 2017 I bought a house and moved, and while looking around for extra cash for decorating, I went to my crypto wallet, logged in, and found that my $100 had become $53,000. I immediately took out $50,000. About a week later, bitcoin crashed and went down to $4000 from $18000. I didn't care. I left $3000 in there and began playing with the house's money.
This winter, trapped by the pandemic, I wanted to do some work on my back patio. Once again I went fishing for extra money and found out that my $3000 was now $20000. I took out the "extra" $17000. My patio is now slate, and beautiful. And there's now another $14000 in my Coinbase account.
All this is just to say you should buy $6.00 of $KARMA, if only to say you did it.
Here are some things you can read:
This guy had a heart attack and re-evaluated his life: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/business/jonathan-frostick-heart-attack-vows.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/technology/welcome-to-the-yolo-economy.html
I am a member of the YOLO Economy.