Recommend a person worth following on twitter, and explain why, preferably with some evidence. A twitter thread, article, or what have you, that they have done. Natalia Antonova is one, covering OPSEC, personal security, geolocation methods, and privacy.
1 Like
I am not very social, especially since my kids were born and the last cohort of fellow trainees left my town (and social circle) within a few years. So it’s especially hard for me to cultivate a familiarity of any depth with people who matter in my society, whose causes and wellbeing matter to me, but with whom I have very little contact. Following Tressie McMillan Cottom gives me a window into the world of southern black poverty; not a big one, but enough to remind me that there are whole cultural universes which are unfamiliar to me. She’s an academic, so she can speak my language when she wants, and sometimes does. But she’s perhaps the best example I know of someone refusing to treat me like I’m entitled to her speaking to me my way rather than hers, which is just one facet of her broader willingness to show the privileged that justice will be hard for us. A stark example:
https://twitter.com/tressiemcphd/status/1353501536131969025?s=21
I don’t always love what she writes, or agree with it. But it feels helpful to have her in my feed.
2 Likes
And I’ll offer a bonus second excellent follow: Ryan North. Sure, his Dinosaur comics are great, and he’s the author of some brilliant all-ages Marvel comics as well as a graphic novel adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five and several choose-your-own-adventure versions of Shakespeare (notably To Be Or Not To Be, which was turned into an app I think I reviewed back in my Pocket Tactics days). But what his Twitter feed adds to that is a wide variety of comments which meld uplifting positivity, quirky observations, and an underlying sense of maybe horrifying dread so universal that we need not even mention it. Today’s example:
https://twitter.com/ryanqnorth/status/1353883726359322624?s=21
It focuses on Google’s highlighted answers, which are probably great a lot of the time but sometimes go quite flagrantly awry. Specifically, Google will tell you that running was invented in 1748 by Thomas Running when he tried to walk twice at the same time.
3 Likes
If you don’t already follow @garius (“John Bull” a pseudonym for Gareth Edwards), @OhBollox, I think you’d appreciate him. Covers strategy games (Crusader Kings, EU IV, World of Warships, etc), politics (his Brexit Tapes threads are worth searching out), and, most delightfully, detailed threads on obscure and fascinating bits of history. A few recent examples to give the flavour:
How the US invasion of the Azores in WWII was averted, with Churchill and Salazar finessing the Anglo-Portuguese alliance that had been in place since the 14th century: https://twitter.com/garius/status/1352649363902894085
How the cure for scurvy was discovered, misunderstood, lost, and rediscovered: https://twitter.com/garius/status/1149625650711388160
The 1932 Emu War: https://twitter.com/garius/status/1167470771696033792
2 Likes
I bought To Be or Not to Be years ago based on that review; it ultimately was something that helped me understand writing IF once I moved into doing that. And yeah, I would second following Ryan. Even if he probably isn’t D.B. Cooper.
3 Likes