Another week is in the books, and another is closer to spring!  Today we are inspired by overcoming odds and learning how to reset and write off.  In our Big Things section, we ask more Twitter questions and start the awkward conversation about wills.  Finish up with a one-hit wonder and tunes before the mystery.

In a sweet tweet thread from Polina M. Pompliano comes a story about Tanitoluwa (Tani) Adewumi, a 12-year-old chess player.  Tani and his family fled Nigeria to seek asylum in the U.S., and in 2017 living in a homeless shelter, Tani started to play chess with an actual chess board and chess pieces that weren't made of paper. 

Many people and organizations got behind Tani and his family in this story; with donations and encouragement, Tani was able to play chess with his school's chess club and went on to win the New York State chess championship in his age category. 

The writer Polina Pompliano also wrote about Tani on her Substack, and in the article, she quotes Tani, who says:

Every Friday, Sahil Bloom sends out his newsletter, The Curiosity Chronical, and we have yet to read one that doesn’t spark good ideas.  This week Bloom talks about The Reitoff Principal, a creation of a friend of Bloom's named Ali Abdaal, a YouTuber and productivity guru.

The principle is similar to others; the benefit is that if you find yourself stuck and struggling to push through, you can walk away, and the separation will benefit the project when you regroup later. 

Twitter has announced a 4,000-character tweet option for subscribers of Twitter Blue.  We did some quick unofficial research and asked Google to give us the average length of a Substack post.  300 to 500 words are average; more unofficial research suggests 200 words is about 1,000 characters, un-officially 4,000 characters is 800 words, almost twice the length of the average Substack post.

Few of us understand Twitter's mass appeal or why other apps have yet to be able to replace it; now, it wants to be a blog site?  One comment we hear from artists and musicians is how certain restraints lend to greater creativity.  A musician will say that the notes you don't play make a song.  There has always been a fascination and energy for the limited characters allowed on the Twitter platform and people who could make the platform sing using those restraints. 

More and more new Twitter looks like a game of Don’t Break the Ice.  Every recent change, tweak, and unwanted ad or suggestion is another block falling to the ground. 

The Tim Dowling Column is becoming a regular feature in our newsletter.  His topics are both relevant and boring; when Dowling gets a hold of them, he turns the mundane into something you would have expected to see on a Seinfeld episode.  Today he is talking about his will. 

Most of us don't think about our will when we are young and broke.  When you are young, a will is something you grown-ups do; when you are broke, what could you possibly need a will for.  Next thing you know, time flies by, you've got kids and probably some life insurance, and now the grown-ups will come and find you.  You need a will if you've got a house, a family, and people who depend on your income and assets.

Dowling doesn't preach the way we just did; he writes a funny story about putting a simple will together with his wife and Janet, who you will read about in the story.  It concludes with the two signing their wills with their attorney and two witnesses in a church after a funeral. 

The Guardian has a story on The Vapors and the hit Turning Japanese this weekend.  The song is what the kids call "a banger" these days.  The unique part of the story about the song is how it was born out of the U.K. Punk Scene, and what many bands who came out of that scene say is that punk's "anyone can do this" attitude launched a lot of bands and a lot of music. 

Relationships.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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