A Twitter Thread of Threads
All of my daily microblog posts are also posted to Twitter as threads, and while I hate the existence of Twitter as a company/monopoly, composing posts as threads has been an incredibly useful constraint for me. I’ve also met some wonderful people on Twitter, so for now, I’ll keep putting these things in both places until the day that Twitter eventually meets its deserved fate.
Here’s the main thread of threads now pinned to my profile, and below it is that full list of threads as it stands today.
I write threads every day and copy them as blog posts to little dot zachphillips dot blog (my big blog gets no love).
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) April 4, 2021
This is a growing thread of threads that provide an introduction to my interests and why someone might care to be internet pals with me. 👇
Here’s one where I fight in vain (I do that a lot) against one of my least favorite words:
Here's a thread in which I will attempt to destroy the word "content." First, I acknowledge that this war has already been lost. Most of us who write, filmmake, shoot photos, teach courses, make radio, or do anything creative have already surrendered.
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) December 30, 2020
I will not. pic.twitter.com/2ChXVbRJ40
The main reason for publishing all this is to learn in public/show my work. I do write about the metawork of that work. Eventually I will focus less on this but it’s a prominent topic at the moment.
Today I am making a solemn commitment: Going forward, I will do as much of my learning as possible in public. One reason I’m doing this is to repay my debt to the thousands of generous people who have publicly shared their learning, immeasurably improving my life. 👇
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) February 27, 2021
The fact that this thread exists, or any of the writing in it, is thanks to a major attitude shift I had about work in 2020. I switched to a non-coercive approach. The shift has been so incredible and so “productive” that I’ve written a lot about it.
I'm excited! I figured out why pretty much all "frameworks" can never spark creative work. They all look exactly in the wrong direction.
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) January 22, 2021
They address the Digital Brain rather than the Analog Brain.
A better frame: They address the Computer Brain vs. the Bonfire Brain. Thread 👇
I have more useful outlets for my politics, but when emotions run high I do have takes. My persuasions are leftward but I’m open/gentle to conservative ideas and always gentle to people. After the murder of George Floyd I was angry about the media focus.
1 | I need to admit something: I am an active participant in looting. As a business owner (or, as the elected leaders and ruling class like to call me, a “JAHHB creator”), I received $177,835 in taxpayer money last month, which I’m free to do whatever I want with. ~ thread 🧵
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) May 31, 2020
Here’s a more fun example of my political writing. It’s also an ode to my beloved city of Philadelphia.
The drive from Center City to Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia is one of the prettiest drives in any city in America, up the Schuylkill River (pronounced "skookle") down Kelly Drive to Lincoln Drive…
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) April 3, 2021
I want to talk about Lincoln Drive. 👇
I love photography. I hope I can help other people love it too. Here’s me trying to deliver a complete photography course in 5 tweets.
I'm going to attempt to deliver a complete photography course in 5 tweets.
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) January 2, 2021
I originally made this on 5 index cards for my wife, corresponding to the 5 concepts you need to know.
In short: There isn't much to it, and everyone should understand photography, particularly today. 👇
I love filmmaking/radio/storytelling and have devoted most of my professional life to it. Here’s one where I offer some beginner screenwriting tips.
First: Screenwrite however you like. Aside from formatting, there really aren't rules. There can and should be as much style, personality, and nuance in screenwriting as any other form, but here are a few tips/frames that might help beginners. 👇
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) March 2, 2021
I write other things about filmmaking too. This one is about 24 frames per second and some fundamental misconceptions about the medium.
Here's a thread on why 24 is the best number of frames per second for everything but sports and gaming. It has to do with a fundamentally broken default assumption about the motion picture medium. 👇
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) December 28, 2020
Oh, and I LOVE mechanical tools, mostly cameras and watches, but other things too. Here’s me talking about one of my favorite mechanical things (there’s also video of me actually talking).
I love mechanical things both for their objective coolness and their implications for a green future. A future with nice things that we take care of, less waste, and dignified manufacture.
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) January 22, 2021
One of my mechanical favorites is the Bolex H16 Camera. Thread https://t.co/VgZpK6e6yR 👇 pic.twitter.com/WMONgl1VTC
My love for mechanical things extends also to bicycles and trains and a general nostalgia/yearning for things that I believe society prematurely threw in the trash.
I'm going to attempt to explain one of many reasons I have a dead-inside feeling when I use Google. I'll use the analogy of Driving vs. Biking. 👇
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) January 24, 2021
I’m definitely not all gears and springs. I also love—love isn’t the right word—let’s say I “have an unhealthy obsession with” software. I’m the chief of product at a web startup and I’m always thinking about ways to make the web better. Here’s one idea.
The most exciting implication of @RoamResearch block references is the design of a protocol for the open web built on the blockification of original sources, allowing clean/easy block attribution, connection, and translation into different formats. We could call it Quoteblock. 👇
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) December 26, 2020
I have product ideas on a daily basis—way too many to ever dream of making them all. I’ve found writing about them and offering them as wishes to the world is a nice way to make the ideas not bother me so much. Here’s one example.
In his newsletter, @david_perell asked for "the Sonos for home audio-video setups—without the wires and complexity—with the ease and quality of an iPhone camera," and offered to help/invest in such a company.
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) December 22, 2020
1) His assumptions are dangerously wrong.
2) I built a prototype. 👇 pic.twitter.com/k3DA6FCplB
I’ve been “on my own” as a freelancer and eventually a business owner dealing with things like payroll and performance reviews for the past 10 years. I sometimes write about lessons learned from that experience.
Creative workers are, for some reason, the one class of workers that lots of people think it's totally cool to solicit volunteer work from. Here's a thread about when and how to offer volunteer work as a creative person.
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) December 31, 2020
First Rule: If anyone but you initiates, immediate NO. 👇
I’ve been practicing various forms of meditation for a few decades. This doesn’t mean I’m “good at it,” whatever that means, but I do write about it in the hope it might leave some breadcrumbs for similar-minded folks looking for entrypoints to practice.
I've practiced many forms of meditation over the years. While my current practice doesn't include it much, I'd like to offer my experience with Transcendental Meditation™ and why it's such a great "beginner" meditation for a certain kind of person (and definitely was for me). 👇
— Zach Phillips (100/100 posts) (@zachphillips) January 16, 2021