Playing with children can be pretty exhausting. My daughter loved her Lego pirate ship set and had me narrating the lives of ten swashbuckling sailors on the high seas every day. I needed to be on top form or she would catch my day to day continuity errors 😅

I also wear a hardhat to write software.

I feel blessed that I like my current job. Good manager, interesting work, limited amounts of bureaucracy. Most of this is a lucky coincidence but there are some things we can do. I had to explain many times to people which tasks I’m good at and which ones they should ask other people to do. I regularly defend this position. I set aside the morning for creative work only, no meetings, no admin, just thinking and solving. In the afternoon I down tools and do something physical, outside in daylight. A regular sleep cycle is absolutely critical for the maintenance of health and mood. Fresh food and companionship. Regular meditation. Do the basics well. These are the things that have made me happy.

Maybe we become more extreme in our existing beliefs. My political compass position drifted right from bottom left as I hit my thirties. After the Iraq invasion of 2003 and recessions following 2008 it swung back towards Ghandi. I became convinced that conservative politics isn’t working in my late forties and that has only been reinforced as I try to access the creaking UK healthcare system.

An extinct civilisation called Heetzah Putt, rumoured to be near the lost city of Atlantis.

Me at 40. This bangs shit

Step aside Russia, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, China, Cuba, Al Qaeda and ISIS, America is yet again demonstrating it is the real global terrorist threat.

That’s a fine looking sheep

Please accept my sincere condolences, I’m sorry for your loss.

Is data storage a car for guys with micropenis?

Do you have excess creative energy?

Pour it into discussion that achieves nothing of value.

Reinforced concrete was the gift that kept giving to Soviet-era architects. Le Corbusier also approves this post.

Swipe on. It’s okay if you don’t understand how this stuff works.

Ah yes, the classic centrist position. Why does it matter if the government performs mass surveillance if you have nothing to hide? Why does it matter if I drive a huge and inefficient car? I can make all these choices secure in the knowledge that I never do bad things so they never occur as a result of my actions.

Barry Shitpeas

America is the real terrorist state.

The vast majority of people are techno illiterate, even within firms that make technology. A handful of people (relatively speaking) are making most of the stuff. Everyone else is just feeding that process. The legal system is set up to motivate the concealment of information about products. You cannot find the documentation to repair embedded systems, even if you have the desire to fix them and the ‘right to repair’.

In our village we have a wildly popular ‘repair cafe’ where people bring their faulty electrical items to be repaired by volunteers. People don’t want to toss their duff appliances in landfill but we need the tools and education.

Products are developed and in that process technology is created. Once the technical problems have been solved, manufacturers seek to remove as much cost from the process as possible and this generally degrades the durability of the product. The biggest problem with a lot of technology is that virtually no consideration is given to the long term maintenance of the product. There’s no way to interface the system with other parts and re-use the product. We throw it away and buy the next thing because that’s good for capitalism but it’s horrible for people and the environment.

Oh man, he only just got his dream job.

Hey leave some pussy for the rest of us.