Artisanal Sudoku, Volume 104

Happy New Year, hope you all have a great 2024!

Quick digression for Important Stuff. I don’t know if there’s any need for me to weigh in on the recent news about racist content on Substack, but I’ve gotten some questions about it, so I’ll just say a few things, starting with this: Substack, to me, is a place where I’ve been able to share puzzles with people who like puzzles (and make a little bit of money in the process), and that experience has been nothing but positive.

But I’m not surprised, given the nature of the internet and social media, that there is also content on Substack that promotes violence, hatred, and bigotry. I don’t want to be associated with that content, and I don’t think I am associated with it, any more than having an account on X or Facebook associates one with those platforms’ worst users. There are real concerns, though, that Substack’s response to all this—which featured a tepid denunciation of Nazism followed by a re-assertion of their commitment to open discourse without centralized moderation—will be seen by racists and bigots as an implicit invitation, and the problem will only intensify.

Going forward, I’m not sure I’ll have the bandwidth to follow things as closely as I’d like, so I’ve chosen two writers for whom I have a great deal of respect—Ken White and Radley Balko—to serve as canaries in the coal mine. I fully endorse their comments on this issue, and note that they’ve both decided to stay, for now. So I’m staying too. If in the future White or Balko decide they need to move to another platform, I won’t be far behind.

[Edit: Ken White left Substack a few weeks after I posted this, but he made it clear that this controversy was not a significant factor.]

If you’re a premium subscriber (or are thinking of becoming one) and would like to access bonus content without having a portion of your subscription fees going to Substack, let me know by emailing me at jwsinclair at gmail dot com, and we’ll see if we can work something out.

Alright, thanks for reading. Puzzles below.

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1. Nth Degree