USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving. Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free. I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these." "They just come with the table, man." They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat. I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared. "Did we…?" "Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless." Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude." Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy. Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

I know comparing modern society to Idiocracy is really played out but man

Okay, bear with me. This is gonna be a rant... Okay, first off, go find 20-30 people that you actually want to follow back that maybe have some authority. Put them on a list and actually engage with them, real questions, real responses to their stuff. Hopefully they are probably large accounts that are likely to go viral. You want to give real replies on their stuff and follow them. Eventually, some will follow you back. What you're looking for initially is social proof. You should also be posting real, useful, expert content on your timeline at the same time. Maybe pin something to the top of the timeline that shows you actually know what you're talking about and is really interesting. That makes people want to follow you. This should help those people that you engage with actually want to follow you as you're in their comments. Other people will see you as well. Eventually, come see your page. The toughest part is going to be zero to 1,000 followers. 1,000 to 10,000 followers. After 10,000, it gets much, much easier. For virality's sake, you probably want to go find things in your niche that are trending. X used to be an expertise platform. It's much more now of a news platform. Now, what I mean by that is, as things start to take off, quote tweet them with an interesting take that gives context and aligns you as an expert as well. This will end up showing those tweets more to those people that already engage with the initial viral tweet. Say something from Anthropic, for example, or something from OpenAI if you're in the AI space. Then just get in people's DMs. Be useful, be real, be legitimate. Don't be afraid to follow people. Give them actual real value. Eventually, the hope here is that one of the original pieces of content that you're creating daily gets seen by someone that appreciates the level of effort you've been putting in to really be useful in their comments. It's a slow-building process, but eventually it does work. I would also then maybe have something like a newsletter in your bio as a way to capture emails and take people off the platform. I would then also, early on, mention places that you've worked or big accomplishments that you've had in the past in your bio so that there's more social proof. Sorry, that's a long rant, and it's not so simple, but it is doable. It's not so easy, but it is simple. The other piece that's really tough to admit is that some people are just better at writing really interesting content. You can see there are certain people that just have a je ne sais quoi when they tweet. People find it interesting, people find it useful, and they get into the algorithm, they get into the conversation. Some people really just are bad on this platform. Everyone can be a creator, but it's important they find the platform that they best perform on. Thank god for wispr and voice to text allowing me to do this haha

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I think physical standards make sense for people we send to space. Would be willing to make some agreement for certain presidents. We good here? @TedRall

Every word strikes…

Gotta be a political cartoonist pointing this out @TedRall

A must watch

It’s fun to see many newbie entrepreneurs and digital nomads discovering the joys of Da Nang. It’s always been a peripheral spot, but deserving of some main stage attention! Need to get back…

Norm- “Friend of mind said he thought the worst part of the Cosby thing was the hypocrisy…. I disagree.” Jerry Seinfeld - “You disagree?” Norm Macdonald - “Yeah…. I think it was the r*ping.”

Love this movie…

Solid guide to Saigon here.

This is wild…

Maybe she should be our Secretary of War?

It’s still sad Bourdain is gone. Would be a helpful and useful voice right now…

Last week, American/Israeli fighter jets targeted Iranian Pistachio Company warehouses. The Resnick family's Beverly Hills-based pistachio empire stands to gain. You won't believe the backstory ⤵️

They knew…

Antisemitism is real. It’s not the whole explanation. Some of Israel’s collapse in global opinion is antisemitism. Some of it is the rhetoric and policy decisions of this government. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect Israel — it makes the problem harder to solve.

Lmao