Craig Constantine

Subservient

Only with Substack does anyone perceive creator branding as being subservient to the platform — something that ought to be seen merely as an interchangeable CMS — like that.
~ John Gruber from, Daring Fireball: The Substack Branding and Faux Prestige Trap

slip:4udate3.

I’ve tried a few different things on Substack. (None of them ever took off, and each of them I subsequently moved to web sites I directly control.) I’ve always felt something was off, and lately I’ve been souring more on the whole platform. This piece by Gruber puts a clear, fine point on what I dislike about Substack.

Changing the name of a podcast?

October 5

My podcasting-friend, and coach, David Nebinski has a question for podcasters over on his Substack…

Should I change the name of the podcast? I have gone back and forth on changing the name… What do you think? Reply back and let me know!
~ David Nebinski, from Should I change the name…

I don’t have a login for Substack (an intentional choice) so I cannot reply there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have changed the name of a podcast. The Movers Mindset show had a very different name in the beginning. For me, I realized I was always spending time explaining the meaning of the name— and I realized I wanted to spend that time explaining the show itself rather than the odd name I had.

So I think that’s one reason to change a name: When the name just doesn’t fit.

When people ask me this, I direct them first to Eric Nuzum’s classic question: Can you describe your show in 12 words? …10 words?

Our show titles don’t have be our one (or 2 or 3 even) word answer to that question. But I think they have to at least not detract from describing our show.

Work only we can do

December 31, 2023

No, this isn’t about AI. I mean the work that we want to do. That’s why only we can do it. I want to sift through a certain amount of things. (For example, I like to sift through all dogs.) I want to find things that are interesting and surprising. And I want to have way more books than I can ever read.

Because the meaning isn’t going to emerge on its own—you have to create it. The algorithms and tag searches and bookmarklets will only get you so far; afterwards, it’s work only you can do, work the machine has no need for. The reader is your own personal anthology, but you are the editor: you are the sum of its parts.
~ Mandy Brown from, Three definitions of “reader”

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RSS Tip: Every Substack publication has an RSS feed. Go to the front of any Substack publication—the page after you ignore the sign-up dialog. Then copy the URL, and add /feed onto the end. (If the URL has an “?gobble-dee-gook” on it, trim that off before adding that /feed ) Add that edited URL to your favorite feed reader. (RSS nerds: Nope the RSS feed URL is not listed in any <link> tags. These are stealth feeds.) Ta-DAH! You’ll find the entire posts from the publication appear in your feed reader. This of course will only work until everyone starts doing it. Then Substack will modify those feeds to just be an excerpt of the article . . . and that’s still awesome, because that’s how web sites work on the Open Web. Protocols, not platforms.

Tis’ the season to be thankful

January 1, 2023

Thank you for reading! I appreciate your time and attention, and I don’t take it for granted.

In years past I’ve posted some links to things which I pay for—if I’m not paying for something, then I’m probably the product being sold. So I prefer to pay for things when I can (when I’m able and when paying directly is possible.) Here are few things I use, which I pay for: Hindenburg, Overcast, Reeder, Feedbin, Tower, Transmit, OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, iaWriter, Discourse, Basecamp, Bluehost, Hover, Zencastr, Zoom, Otter, Mailchimp, Substack, Supercast, and Front.

The balance

November 28, 2022

Ultimately, there was a part of me that wanted to express my physicality and I wasn’t ever going to be able to do that through the robotic, linear approach to fitness. I realized that only through circularity can one truly express themselves through movement.
~ Galo Narajo from, Issue #48: Circularity & Interconnectivity

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This is taken from Narajo’s Motus Made publication over on Substack. If you’re interested generally in movement, I recommend subscribing, and there’s also an episode of Movers Mindset, Philosophy – with Galo Alfredo Naranjo. This issue of Motus Made reminded me of a conversation I heard recently (a podcast episode, The Process with Dan Gaucher from Life’s Tee Time) where two golfers discussed the balance between mechanistic and holistic approaches to coaching and learning advanced golf. In the earliest days, sure, mechanistic is necessary, but beyond beginner levels, the holistic approach has to be addressed. The balance question (they were discussing) is whether you can go all-in on the holistic? …can you ever be advanced to a point where a mechanistic approach—as a learner, or as a coach—is definitely no longer useful. I’m not sure they reached a conclusion.

And so that discussion, and question, came to mind as I was reading Naranjo’s comments.

Thoughts on Conversation

August 7, 2022

A few weeks ago I finally got around to starting a dedicated newsletter for my thoughts on conversation over on called Open + Curious. This new, weekly newsletter is free to subscribers through Substack—you can read it on the web or via email.

Over on Substack I’m publishing more polished work. I’m sharing what I’ve learned and hopefully engaging in discussion.

The blog here at constantine.name remains the same; same posts, same quotes, same same. Here on the blog things are messy as I’m working with garage door up. There’s a lot of discovery and reflection happening here. If you’ve not been to the actual blog web site in a while, you may want to swing by my Projects Page to see what I’m up to.