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.
Grey Area
Abandoned: Death Under Little Sky by Stig Abell 📚
This is what happens when an arts journalist thinks he’ll knock out a cosey whodunit during lockdown and it turns out he’s never heard a human speak and can’t manufacture a moment’s suspense. Holy fuck it’s awful. Did not finish.
Finished reading: Sociopath by Patric Gagne 📚
I had far more sympathy for sociopaths after reading this than I did before. Which is exactly what a sociopath would want, when you think about it…
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.
Finished reading: [The Seventh Floor: A Novel](https://micro.blog/books/9781324086697) by David McCloskey 📚
Thursday, March 27, 2025
As everyone says, McCloskey’s very good, and shifting more to character and personal betrayals just makes him even better.Finished reading: [Careless People](https://micro.blog/books/9781250391247) by Sarah Wynn-Williams 📚
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Another one of those tech bro biogs where all the good bits have been in the news anyway.Finished reading: Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper 📚
Well executed LA Confidential/Chinatown update. Quality pulp fiction.
Finished reading: Patriot by Alexei Navalny 📚
There’s a really good doc with him on BBC iPlayer, which would be time better spent.
Finished reading: Daughter Of Mine by Megan Miranda 📚
Murky past and the web of family tensions in small town America wrapped round a murder mystery. Smart and nuanced, if a bit complicated to keep tabs on if you listen rather than read it.
The standard metric for measuring written English clarity in science is called Hemingway. I assume that’s because he worked hard to write clear, simple, concrete prose, rather than ending up alone with his cats, a bottle of rum, and a shotgun.
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’?
Finished reading: Fire Weather by John Vaillant 📚
Scary and inclusive, with a nice linking of the fire’s voraciousness with the oil industry’s greed.
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.
The stroppy, awkward independence of open source
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.Up your Chromebook game with this simple file manager trick
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.Finished reading: Harlan Coben - Win by Harlan Coben 📚
His books are so much smarter and snarkier than his TV series.
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.
Writing across iOS and Chromebook - the options
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.Finished reading: We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets 📚
Douglas Coupland lite, hyped because of the social media moral panic.
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.
Roses are read Violets are blue The ASCII for ‘space’ Is Code 32
Snowy, innit.
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.
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.
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.