if i thought you were listening, i'd never say a word

I'm pretty sure that Mick Jagger was not setting out an approach to purchasing equipment when he wrote the immortal lines You can'...

(Edited 20/9/2025: In the original version, I was too focussed on device loss, and underplayed the necessity of conventional backups. The tw...

(Are you sitting comfortably? Because you will need to be...) The Online Safety Act got me thinking about VPNs and other gadgets, that got ...

There are two views of the Good Life. The first is that a good life is full of good works : what matters are the kind, useful, constructive...

One of my constant themes is that the meaning and purpose of any person’s life is for them to choose, and exists in the dedication and work ...

Water. Lots of water. High-pressure water. And drainage. Steam is a miracle-worker. Learn how to spray wide and evenly from a spray bot...

Despite all the hype, a salaryman doesn't need any self-discipline or inner drive. What he needs is the ability to grind and the fortit...

You know what I hear far too much? That our collective problem is a lack of meaning / purpose / connection with others / (enter something ...

(The best is to pay for a cleaner. Everyone living in a shared flat or house should do that.) Get a robot vacuum cleaner. Really. Vacuum...

I've been watching how-to-record-your-music videos recently and ran across the wonderfully over-the-top Spectre Sound Studios. In this o...

Lazy is unwilling to do work or use energy . Engineers use the word to describe part of a system that doesn't do anything unless it ha...

... or why you shouldn't spend your money on four mid-priced watches, but save for one premium one. I've heard buying advice like t...

Straight-edge was a movement that started in the 1980s in the punk / hardcore scene as a reaction to the excessive use of drink, pills, and ...

I watched two YT videos recently which hit a number of spots. I'll be riffing on them over the next few weeks. This https://www.youtub...

Expertise is about knowledge. There are two kinds of knowledge: knowing-how and knowing-that. Some knowing-hows require knowing a lot of kno...

According to James Wallman, we Westerners have around five hours a day of spare time, but feel we rushed and don’t have any time for ourselv...

I read James Wallman’s book on how we can improve the way we use our spare time, and in putting some remarks together, kept going off at a t...

There seem to be as many financial You Tubers are there are dating coaches. All of them are, of course, about not spending money, or, as we ...

There should be a snappy title for the law that states: the longer any given thing in your life works, the less competent you will be at fix...

Two things: if you’re a nerd then you will really appreciate Louis Rossmann, who seems to be the King of Macbook board repair, and a general...