Friday, May 9, 2025
My therapist once pointed out that ‘everyone is not your mother’ - ie don’t respond to everyone like they’re a malign narcissist. Dont let that dynamic dominate everything. But that’s how the world seems to be reacting to Trump and his fascist minions. I heard a UK politician talk about the increasing price of eggs the other day. Egg prices haven’t increased much in the UK. They were picking up on US issues.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
The US media must be incredibly supine for this to be remarkable. That exact tactic is utterly normal in the UK www.huffpost.com/entry/abb…
Trump’s best thought of as a social media platform in himself. He exists to keep people’s attention; that’s his remuneration. more than the money. He has to come up with more and more weird, demanding stuff to keep that attention. The rest is just a means to that end.
I’ve lost interest in politics. British politics isn’t relevant, I don’t have the appetite to the learn the detail of Canadian politics, and anyway, it’s all mad and scary, and will happen whether or not I know about it.
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Just watching the Trump Not State Of The Union. Do you think Americans understand what a bunch of thick twats they come across as when they chant ‘USA USA USA’?
Trump planned the ambush to make up ground with his base after he was nice to other foreigners earlier in the week, but the angle of attack was a straightforward narcissistic rant because Zelensky wasn’t being grateful enough to placate the big fragile orange ego.
Friday, February 28, 2025
For at least the last 25 years, since I read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, I’ve flirted with Linux every so often, and it’s so much better now than it was. I think Apple’s pricing and Windows' cruft and AI might be making it time to move. My latest flirt is with the Linux partition of my Chromebook, partly for sheer tinkering, and also because there’s a specific notes app which is best in Linux, and also ChromeOS’s file management app is execrable and even a lightweight Linux file manager is vital.
Monday, February 24, 2025
I’ve been using a Chromebook as my main computer for months now, and for almost everything, it’s a great laptop. Almost everything. The one thing it lacks is halfway usable file management. The ChromeOS file manager is like using a particularly clunky website from 2009 which needs to sync to the server every time it as much as breathes. Trying to organise my files has been agony. Then, in a belated flash of inspiration, I realised the solution, and now I have a file manager that works as well or better than Windows file explorer and Mac’s Finder.
Snotty upmarket opticians: no sir, that loose hinge on your glasses is irreparable. You will need a new pair. Walmart opticians: give me five minutes, I’ll glue it, no charge.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
I’m spending far too much time recently figuring out my best options for writing apps across a bunch of platforms, and having finally been forced to tabulate my findings for my own benefit, though I might as well stick them as a blogpost. Table below, for the impatient, but for the more patient, some context: I’m mostly Apple-based (iPhone, iPad, Mac Mini) but for the next few months a lot of my writing and other work type things will be on a Chromebook, for various reasons.
TIL that Google Keep doesn’t have a way to add photos from Google Photos. Image files from your drives, yes. Photos Google already knows about, not so much.
When I log into iCloud in Chrome I get a weird serif font in Reminders. On the other iCloud account, same browser, literally logging out of one account and into another, I get the right design. I’ve cleared the cache, logged in and out, and the wrong font has persisted for months. Thoughts?
I find I’m filtering all the coverage of the US through my ‘what would the Germany-in-1933 version of that be?’ touchstone to gauge implications.
Disturbed to find Martin from Friday Night Dinner as a murderous baddie in the very bad final Da Vinci Code film. He has yet to say ‘shit on it’ and his shirt remains on, however.
Most journalists (some of my best friends etc.) want to get the story right, but they need your help. Find out what you can do in this close analysis of me getting the wrong end of the stick over a story this week. truesciencestories.substack.com/p/how-to-…
Most journalists (some of my best friends etc.) want to get the story right, but they need your help. Find out what you can do in this close analysis of me getting the wrong end of the stick over a story this week. truesciencestories.substack.com/p/how-to-…
A planned post for my True Science Stories substack about how a study got covered in the media didn’t turn out how I expected. Always good to figure out when you’re wrong why you got it wrong.
Full confession in tomorrow’s newsletter.
I think humanity is safe from AI for the moment. I just had to beat Google’s Gemini into submission after it had come up with four erroneous ‘solutions’ to a thing I wanted to do on Substack before admitting it couldn’t be done. It’s like dealing with a toddler who’s just discovered lying.
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Just heard Fi Glover on Times Radio being immensely dense about a study saying banning phones in school doesn’t materially affect educational benefits. However much the lead researcher patiently explained the point was that school use made little difference because most use is out of school, Glover was determined that the take away was that phone use overall makes no difference. I double checked the story quickly on the BBC (https://www.
Trump trying to outsource taxation and make other countries pay for the US via tariffs is a kind of analogy for how he wants likes to manage his narcissistic emotions, by forcing other people to make him feel good inside.
A dudebro behind me in this café, having grown weary of praising Trump oh-so-ironically, is now explaining to a fellow dudebro how Kraftwerk invented synthesisers.
Thursday, January 30, 2025
I asked it to collate contact names from public websites like LinkedIn and employee profile pages. But it can’t use that dataset. It can make up researchers, departments and institutions and only admit it when you point this out. I’m only getting scared of AI when it stops recommending I buy a Very Expensive Thing because I just bought an identical one.
When you realise that of your five Substack readers, one is yourself, another is your ex wife keeping tabs, and another is a bot. The other two are old clients.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Reading through some old journal entries about the whys and hows of my writing. I’d come a long way when I wrote them nearly three years ago, and I’ve come further now. I needed the healthy, supportive relationship I have now and also, I’m realising, the time and distance I’m getting by moving to Canada.
When accidentally leaving your laptop at home reminds you that sometimes scrawling stuff into an actual physical paper notebook hits a vein of way better ideas.