Substack serves the same purpose as the preprint or Patent Insides services. Substack makes it economically feasible for small writers and publishers to reach a large public without the massive overhead needed for a separate website with its own SEO and payment methods and publicity spreaders.
Web services often make weird changes at the start of a month. At the start of September, Substack made a change in its code that breaks the CSS when I click into an article. The page looks like this:
I recognize the pattern easily. When a page of my courseware loses its ‘stylesheet’ link to the corresponding CSS page, it looks the same. All the text parts and images are there, but distributed randomly and unsized.
I have a feeling this change was designed to match updates to iPhone code. Keeping up with the iPhoneses. Developers no longer care about compatibility with dull UNFASHIONABLE LOW-STATUS desktop computers.
Would Ansel Kellogg suddenly change his preprint format so it didn’t fit in less expensive presses? Hell no. His whole business model was based on serving the less wealthy papers. Substack’s business model is the same, or at least it was until this month.
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9/7 Looks like Substack has fixed the bug now, after I submitted a ‘ticket’ and they asked me some questions about browsers and Windows. I think it was a failure of compatibility with older Windows, not desktops as such. In any case they found it and fixed it.
I took advantage of the bug to turn down my social media time. I was clearly spending too much time in the bubble created by panicators. Now let’s see if I can maintain will power after the system is easy to use again!
Polistra's Mill 