Dolly

Been a while since we met, eh? So, tell me, do you like maps? Me, I’ve never been one for cartography. Maps haven’t liked me much either, I’d say. History, though, is another thing altogether. While I may not have enjoyed history much as an academic subject, the legend-making aspects of history were always enjoyable.

2023 has been quite the trip already, eh? There was an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government, there was a ship running aground in the Suez Canal, BMW has launched a car that can change colours over and over and over again, China has joined the rest of the world in “posting” disastrous Covid numbers… and it’s not even the 15th of January yet.

Yesterday, Proiti introduced you to some of her favourite posts from Just One Thing last year. Which is what all of us will be doing all week long. If we miss any of your favourites, write and tell us.

First up, my absolute favourite post of the year came from our guest contributor, Thing. It is everything you wanted to know about emoji, the modern language of communication. But beyond introducing emoji, this post also gives you more reason (if you needed more, that is) to avoid buying a Samsung device.

Welcome to the final Just One Thing of 2022. The JOT team is taking a break to ring in the new year, hoping that the year is one to celebrate for all of us.

Seeing as this our last dispatch for the year, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to look back at some numbers from last year. Unlike made-up statistics and Twitter polls, what I’m sharing today are real stats about the year gone past.

Are you getting ready to have yourself a merry little Merry Christmas? Have you ordered your plum cake and wine? Me, I’m just sitting here hoping we all get to see another Christmas on this little blue rock so fine.

One of my pet peeves is how little people seem to care about online privacy. Or even offline piracy, for that matter. However, what people do offline is beyond the purview of this newsletter. Online privacy though… that is something people should care about way more than they do.

Pre-pandemic, remote work was considered a no-no, frowned upon by corporates the world over. The managerial assumption was that remote workers will while their time away and not contribute output at the same level as they would in the office. Of course, the pandemic upended that assumption, albeit temporarily. Lots of companies around the world are scrapping their remote work policies and making in-office mandatory. A few others are using a “hybrid” model where you can work remotely, some of the time.

Today’s Just One Thing is not, strictly speaking, a thing. 

I happened to see the ridiculously hilarious trailer for Cocaine Bear last week. As the name implies, the movie features a bear. And cocaine. A large amount of cocaine. Which the bear consumes.

Heard of Sex Education? Not the Netflix series, which I confess to not having watched. (Sorry, Scully, it really should have been called Sex Files.) But the actual process of educating young ones about sex, sexuality, anatomy, reproduction, the whole shebang.

It has been more than 30 years since Bono and gang sang about not finding earthly satisfaction. And I suspect some of you are still in the same boat. And I don’t blame you.

Because it is only today that I’m sharing the one thing that will give you everything that you’re looking for.