Every morning when I sit down at my computer I engage in the same routine of checking websites and my email to bring myself up to speed with what is occurring in the world around me. Reddit and the Washington Post provide a view of the larger world, but when it comes to California news nothing beats the California Sun email newsletter.

The California Sun is a daily weekday newsletter written by two men, a former correspondent and a former staff editor for the New York Times. They compile a list of the most important news articles about California and provide the list in a format that is easy to quickly digest. Each newsletter follows the same format: The first section is called The Lede and focuses on the most important California story. Next comes statewide news followed by a section with Northern California stories and another section with Southern California stories. The final section usually contains three stories that do not fit neatly into other sections of the newsletter. Several subjects are summarized in each section and each summary comes with a link to a media outlet for the full story. When relevant, subjects will contain links to multiple media outlets which provide different views.

I have a remarkable appreciation of the California Sun because it is comprehensive and well built. The newsletter allows me to both quickly bring my understanding of the news up-to-speed as well as dive deeply into topics I want to know more about. After reading 6 email newsletters and listening to 7 news podcasts every day, I feel that removing the California Sun would have the largest impact on my understanding of current events.

Give the California Sun newsletter a try for one or two weeks. They won’t send you anything except the newsletter and unsubscribing is as simple as a single click if you want the subscription to end. I promise that you will not be disappointed.

The California Sun

Update 8/27/18: I stumbled across an episode of the podcast Friends and Citizens which features Mike McPhate, one of the two people behind the California Sun newsletter. The conversation covers news media in California, subscription based journalism, and other interesting topics. It’s worth a listen. [Episode 8 – Newsletters, Journalism, and California Tomorrow with Mike McPhate]

This documentary provides a fantastic look at the life of Robin Williams. I was quite surprised to learn that while he attended the Claremont Men’s College, now renamed to Claremont McKenna College, Williams spent a good portion of his time chasing the girls who attended Pitzer College. This struck me as odd given that CMC is closer to Scripps College, an all-girls school, than it is to Pitzer. I suspect that Pitzer’s drug-loving, hippy reputation had something to do with it.

IMDB
HBO

Sortem for Amazon is an extension for Google’s Chrome web browser which provides an additional sorting option when looking at search results on Amazon.com.

To find the best products, one might think that sorting by product rating (avg. customer review) is the best way to find the highest quality products. After all, if people like a product they will rate it highly. However, that sorting method does not consider that products with fewer ratings are more likely to be rated higher than products with many ratings.

For example, if product A has a single 5-star rating, it will be ranked above product B which has 1,000 4 and 5-star reviews. This is because a single perfect 5-star rating is ranked above 1,000 reviews which average out to a 4.5-star rating.

While sorting by the number of reviews doesn’t magically display the absolute best product as the first result, it does provide a useful sorting option that can be used in conjunction with filtering by product rating.

Sortem for Amazon – Chrome Web Store