Hey everyone.

I don't often mention negativity or politics on the newsletter, as thats really not my thing, but this week has been especially hectic with the recent political unrest, anarchy, looting and rioting in my province of South Africa, basically think of Mad Max, and I'm not exaggerating, local communities are arming themselves and are locking down their own communities which is unreal. When walking into town, it feels like something out of the The Walking Dead, quiet, eerie and abandoned. 

Western media haven't really gotten a grasp of what really is going on but rather they show the a slight gist of what is taking place and I'm definitely not going to go down that rabbit hole here. 

The South African sub-reddit has been a great place for non-bullshit news and also first hand accounts of what is going on, so if you're curious, take a look there and you will probably get a better understanding and grasp. 

South Africans are known for our sense of humour, especially in times of turmoil, so in typical South African fashion, this was legitimately and I do mean LEGITIMATELY me yesterday buying groceries 😂😂

In other news.

In the last few days I have opened up new sponsorship and classified slots, as well as made the offerings a little cheaper as well as a nice discount for those that purchase multiple slots! 

Here is a little Sponsor Kit that I made in Slides to give you a better idea.

- Nic 

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This weeks newsletter of the week is Tech Productivity, a weekly newsletter for tech professionals who want to get stuff done, put together by Louis. Tech productivity shares a lot of similarities with The Slice, and I myself have been a subscriber for as long as I can remember. Not to mention that I've even stolen a link or 3 for the Slice😶

Every week you can expect a heap of new productivity related tools and articles on work culture, well-being, remote work and bunch of other nuggets! Check it out

Two economies. Two sets of rules.
At one point early this year, Elon Musk briefly became the richest person in the world. After a 750% increase in Tesla’s stock market value added over $180 billion to his fortune, he briefly had a net worth of over $200 billion. It’s now back down to “only” $155 billion.

Understanding how our economy produced a result like this—what is good about it and what is dangerous—is crucial to any effort to address the wild inequality that threatens to tear our society apart. Read More

Building a Vision of Life Without Work
The number one question that people ask once you tell them you’re considering early retirement is:  What will you do with your time?
They ask it urgently, with earnest expressions indicating a mix of confusion, fear, and excitement. Read more

People Staring at Computers
In 2011 I published a series of photos taken with the laptops in two New York City Apple Stores, as part of my ongoing exploration of surveillance, face analysis, and computer-mediated interaction. In response, Apple contacted the Secret Service and they raided my apartment. Read more

Dead Startup Toys
Here is a a collection of dead startups products, and a little write up on why they failed. Check it out

The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday 
When I first started working on Typesense six years ago, I set myself a simple rule:

"I shall write some code everyday before or after work."

That’s it. No deadlines, no quarterly goals, no milestones.
I did not have a choice really — I was about to get married and was already working full-time in a demanding role. As you can imagine, building a search engine from scratch is not a trivial undertaking, so that was my way of not having to deal with additional stress. Read more 

Counterintuitive truths of pricing.
We had launched our product, revenue was doubling YoY, and the business was rapidly scaling. We were getting ready to IPO and had a huge vision for our product evolution. But we were missing a critical leverage point that ended up being one of our key growth drivers: Pricing Strategy. Read more

Cleavr - Has managing servers and deployments got you down? Cleavr takes the sweat and tears away so you can spend your valuable time focused on customers and growth

Juliette Tech - A Weekly newsletter of technology trends, the future of education, and insightful behaviours. Feel a lil smarter after 3 brain farts, 2 intellectual goodies, and 1 funky audio. All paired with a bit of sass.

Doing Content Right by Steph Smith - The Internet has created an age of infinite leverage. But with easy access comes competition. This resource has the answers.