A skeptical dive into the weird, sketchy, occasionally life-changing world
of self-improvement.

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  • Day 26: All we can do is do all we can.

    Day 26: All we can do is do all we can.

    tworuru

    ,

    This evening I baked a cake for my son’s birthday celebration at his preschool tomorrow. In an attempt to be inclusive, I made it gluten, dairy, and egg-free. From the taste, this will work perfectly, because no-one will eat it, and so won’t have to worry about allergies. Occasionally when I’m typing up a cute

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  • The 7 most effective self-improvement subject lines

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, You’ll be pleased to know I have been extremely productive in nearly every facet of my life except writing this newsletter. Subscribe As far as writing goes, I’ve been busy. On top of a fairly…

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  • Self-Improvement In Spite Of The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, Important news: There is a new video game out called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it is the best video game I’ve played in years, possibly ever, and it is ruining my…

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  • Fellas, are you OK?

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, We’re a few months in to this project now and I’ve noticed something interesting: the most engaged subscribers here aren’t men. Subscribe There’s nothing wrong with this. But it’s definitely not what I expected. I…

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  • Always read the comments?

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, It has been a Week. The day job Matrix has me, and while this is definitely cause for celebration — having a job is an increasingly rare privilege these days, plus I actually like what…

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  • The life-altering magic of “meh”

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, I hope you like my new idea, which is to give every newsletter a title that looks like it’s straight from a self-help book. Readers should be able to pick which one I’m riffing on.…

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  • An Actual Neuroscientist’s Guide for Adults Who Can’t Science Good

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, First, a warm welcome to the new readers who’ve signed up after reading my Webworm guest post “An Insult To Life Itself” on AI. It was… interesting to write. AI is complicated and confusing, but…

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  • A Scientist’s Guide To Self-Improvement Science (For Non-Scientists)

    tworuru

    ,

    Gidday Cynics, Thanks for waiting for this newsletter. There’s a lot of info here, so I wanted to take extra time to make sure it was as solid as possible. Subscribe This one has been brewing for…

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  • Noot me on Noots

    tworuru

    ,

    Hello, Cynics. If you subscribe to one or more Substack newsletters, you are now likely drowning in requests to join Notes, the noo feature Substack just launched. Obviously, you should ignore all those other emails, and pay…

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  • Inside you, there aren’t two wolves

    tworuru

    ,

    Hi, Cynics! I hope you don’t mind if I call you that, because I’m going to anyway. I think we could all use a break from ultrapersonal infodumps, so I’m going a bit lighter for this newsletter.…

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  • The Electric Needle ALS Test

    tworuru

    ,

    Hi, This is another personal one, I’m afraid. Bear with me. The longer I go on with this project, the more I realise I can’t continue without telling this story. It’s the foundation for much of my…

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