Hello Dear Subscribers (DS).

You may have received a Lorem Ipsum message from me earlier. Apologies. Apologies.

This is what happens, DS, when you are demoing a product and forget that things are live and have consequences and maybe you shouldn’t hit publish on that random moment you drafted to show off the interface.

So perhaps I owe you some context? It’s raining. We’re in Berlin. It’s chilly — much colder than Barcelona but warmer than Switzerland was last week. We’re sitting at the Readmill HQ. We gave a little presentation on what we’ve been up to lately. We then ate a delicious wrap with vegetables and the Readmill CEO served us very hot coffee.

We spoke about Africa and ereaders and the difficulties in getting books to places without books. And we spoke quickly about the often undiscussed moral issues underlying such work. We talked about reading cultures — building them and nurturing them. We talked about infrastructure and companies as APIs or companies as service providers.

We talked about Hi, too, of course. Which, DS, is when that last extended moment hit your inboxes. The moment we hit the “Publish” button we realized bad things were afoot and simultaneously that, maybe, we need a ”Do you really want to publish” dialog. We then decided that, yes, we need that dialog.

Following that, DS, was the tour of the offices by the very CEO himself. Led about like curious ethnographers we poked our heads in rooms and around beams. It was then we saw it. In a secret room — their creepy ping pong table. As soon as I finish with this I’ll go snap a photo (update: done). Trust me. It’s creepy. The creepiest ping pong room you’ve ever seen. You think this isn’t possible — how could ping pong be scary? Well, let me just say: brace yourself. Ping pong nightmares to follow.

So, DS, my apologies once more. The last thing we want to do is send gibberish to your inboxes.

For now, I need to photograph the ping pong room. Wish me luck. If I don’t make it out, live your lives knowing you were all dear to me.

Yrs, CM