The new social network W Social - which purports to be a healthier alternative to Elon Musk’s X, “made in Europe, for the world” - would be a fascinating case study for future business school seminars. Its debut has been messy, filled with controversies - and yet, it has been embraced by high profile personalities from the worlds of politics and journalism. I am about to cover its biggest scandal yet, which puts into question W Social’s core promise: “Trust your feed”.A quick recapW Social was…
It's been very hot in the UK* for the last week, so much so that the weather agency issued a warning, suggesting people should not travel unless they really need to. The last few days have been challenging, sleep-wise. Our bedroom is like a furnace even with an oscillating fan roaring away and three nights of broken sleep have left me feeling a bit rough. On the way into work I stopped off at the shops and bought a chocolate bar and a can of "Viking Berry" Monster Juiced energy drink, which I…
My regular morning view from the hotel gym, looking out across the Rosebank suburb of Johannesburg. When last week’s Sun City-based conference was announced, I decided to extend my stay in South Africa so that I could spend some time with our team members who are based there. It wasn’t perfect timing; Tuesday was a public holiday for Youth Day, so many people chose to take Monday as leave in order to get a four-day weekend. But the time I did get to spend with the team and other colleagues from…
Scotland are floundering at the World Cup and right now everybody knows this is close to nowhere. I'm not in Boston but my t-shirt came from there a few days ago. I'm not in Miami either. I'm in the hoose. I wore it and hoped the t-shirt would be a lucky talisman for the Brazil game. The magic sparkle of a lone couch and TV supporter sending good vibes. Sadly not this time. We've been here before.Scotland have scored one goal in three matches. Now we wait for everyone's success or failure in…
How a kickboxer built an empire on male insecurity and called it freedom. Steve the Hypothetical Gerbil says: This one’s about Andrew Tate. There’s organised crime, a subscription model, and a man who rents Bugattis. I’d summarise it but Paul won’t let me near the keyboard. Steve the Gerbil is also the Head of Communications at JustRodents.com You can read more about him there. About a year ago I watched Adolescence on Netflix. It was a story about a 13-year-old schoolboy who murdered a girl…
Some sad news to share on the blog this week: the passing of Exidy co‑founder and arcade pioneer Howell Ivy. His impact on the early years of arcade gaming is undoubted. After serving in the US Air Force, working on missile instrumentation and drone systems operation, Howell entered the arcade industry in 1972 when Ramtek hired him after seeing his home‑built video game prototype that was inspired after seeing and playing a Computer Space arcade machine out in the wild. Howell photographed…
A splash of colour - Dumbo, New York, USA, 2014-07 The first time I visited New York I really didn’t enjoy it. I arrived with my sister on the way back from New Zealand. We were broke and exhausted. I’ve since been back a couple of times and enjoyed it slightly more. Whilst I have no plans to visit in the near future, I do have some fond memories of wandering around the streets in different parts of the city. When we were here, we wandered into a small gallery that was dedicated to art that…
Has anyone mentioned it's been a bit hot in Europe recently? With 34° - 36° C forecast for today, and red weather warnings for heat from the Met Office, I thought it best to stay indoors in the cool shade of the house. Then I thought I'd write a blog post, because it has been a week or so since I last posted. I know you'll be getting a bit impatient for new posts to read here by now. (That was sarcasm) While it's been heatwave hot, I've been getting up at 6am in order to have my breakfast and…
A Bluetooth T9/multitap keyboard built around the actual keypad of a Nokia E52, talking to a phone or laptop. The engineering is lovely and unfussy–Alps switches, a proper battery circuit, ZMK underneath–and I admire the discipline of doing one small thing really well instead of disappearing down the mechanical-keyboard rabbit hole. I understand the nostalgia, somewhat: multitap was muscle memory for precisely one generation, mine included, and I can still feel the rhythm even if I don’t miss…
Trying to escape the heatwave and the hottest June week ever in western Europe, we headed first to the Belgian coast (a cool 24 degrees) and then to Switzerland and Liechtenstein (both a sweltering 36 degrees). Belgium Switzerland Liechtenstein
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align. Tracks are added to…
Here’s a story that is both totally absurd and a lesson on how not to think about risk. In the early nineties, the US Environmental Protection Agency got into a fight with a company over a toxic waste dump in New Hampshire. The company had already spent a fortune cleaning the site up. They’d removed enough toxic chemicals that a child could safely play there and even eat small amounts of dirt 70 days a year. But the EPA weren’t satisfied. They wanted the chemical levels lower. So low that it…
It's time for even more November 20th, 1980 photos from the grounds of the Disneyland Hotel - photos taken by Lou Perry, and scanned and shared with us by his daughter, Sue B. It's hard to believe that these are over 45 years old!The Marina was built in 1970, and changed the look and feel of the Hotel in a major way - it's fairly incredible that they devoted so much space to this miniature "ocean". But I love a good water feature. Especially a swamp; I told Jack Wrather that people want to see…
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)
Looking at South Redondo Beach from Palos Verdes. The large silver building in the distance is Sofi Stadium, one of the venues where the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament is taking place. レドンド・ビュー パロス・ベルデスからサウス・レドンド・ビーチを眺めた光景だ。遠くに見える大きな銀色の建物は、FIFAワールドカップの開催会場の一つである SoFiスタジアムだ。
Woman with Hand in Hair, Lee Miller, 1931. I woke up at 6am so here’s a quick link dump before I head out to work. On existential cringe / reading another Ben Lerner book and one of the characters talks about milieu therapy / Slavenka Drakulić was pretty kick ass and I hope her last book comes out in English some day / on colours you can’t see on screens / putting a hat on a hat is a terrific expression / my friend Scott wrote an excellent essay about trillionaires / if i could afford the time…
Went to Ashford outlet mall with a monstrous toothache in 30°C heat. I didn't make the most of it.87 words · 1 image
Just in time for pride month, wow. [canned studio laughter] I'll admit, this one took longer to write because it's longer than my usual film reviews. In the past, even before this blog, I'd just do short reviews. I've had this sitting in my drafts because it became more than just reviews and sort of thoughts, sort of analyses. The initial draft was more joke-y and feral but I started fleshing the review out and pruning sentences and, gah. Writer's block or writer's fatigue. I shelved the draft,…
Cal Newport has a useful framing for knowledge work: every active project carries administrative overhead. A project includes the work itself, but also the emails, bugs, customer questions, alerts, and old decisions that create ongoing work and context shifts. As the number of active projects grows, the fixed overhead starts to crowd out the real work. I have been feeling that overhead in my own projects. When I started Contraption Company, I imagined a small studio building many calm,…
It’s real, and it’s the exact opposite of what the far right says it is. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 17th June 2026 “If you are targeting people on the basis of the colour of their skin,” the Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn, asked last week, “how else can you describe them? That is racist thuggery.” It is. But there is another way of describing the actions of the rioters burning people out of their homes in Belfast, though ministers somehow cannot bring themselves to…
If your blog doesn’t have an RSS feed, then it’s not a blog.
What they found was remarkable. Over a single winter, this targeted thinning increased snowpack by 30% on north-facing slopes and 16% on south-facing slopes. That additional snow amounted to about 12.3 acre-feet of water—around 4 million gallons—per 100 acres on the cooler, north-facing slopes, and 5.1 acre-feet (about 1.5 million gallons) per 100 acres on the sunnier, south-facing slopes. Forest Thinning and Snowpack Not a surprise. It was my first thought as I read the headline. During the…
Reaching out to my younger self to say "it happened". 08h06 from Berlin / Germany
The phantom closure of Bus Stop M has ended, to the relief of many Bow residents. It closed on Saturday for roadworks that never happened, reopened sequentially on Monday morning and was finally given the digital all-clear on Wednesday evening after a slew of impressively unhelpful messaging. Friday evening Bus Stop M is operating normally. Saturday morning Bus Stop M has been coned off and buses are not stopping. There are no 'Bus Stop Closed' signs but it's fairly apparent buses won't be…
It's exactly forty years since I finished university. Forty years since I discovered that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Forty years since I stopped drinking coffee at three in the morning and wondering who'd nicked my milk from the fridge. Forty years since I packed away my books and waved goodbye to certainty. All in all forty years since I've been out here making a go of things on my own. And I was lucky, I got through the system back when it pretty much guaranteed you a job, not…
If you love the ease of a quick bread but crave the tender, fluffy crumb of a homemade biscuit, these Biscuit Muffin Breads are about to become your new favourite little kitchen shortcut. This quick Biscuit Muffin Breads bake up soft, fluffy, and golden in just 30 minutes. A cozy, 6‑ingredient comfort bake you’ll want to make on repeat. There is nothing like accompanying a meal with a delicious morsel of bread on the side. Soups, salad, stews, etc. If you have a roll on the side, the meal…
Congress Stands Up to Trump ... and Trump Stands Up to Congress Republican senators are starting to stand up to Donald Trump on a few issues. One of the big ones is the "SAVE America Act," which makes it more difficult to vote in a variety of ways. Trump really, really wants this bill but Republican senators do not. Passing it would require abolishing the filibuster (which Trump wants) but it is doubtful that there are 51 Republican votes for the bill in the Senate at all, even if the…
Pastors are often told that the solution to better AI output is a better prompt. I think that is only partly true. A better prompt can help. But if you have to re-explain your church, your sermon series, your theological boundaries, your congregation, your voice, and your approval standards every time you open an AI chat, the workflow is already leaking energy. That is not a small inconvenience for pastors. It is the difference between a tool that helps and a tool that becomes one more thing to…
John Gregory Dunne was married with Joan Didion. In 1973, he'd had enough of life, of his marriage, of more things; he left his wife and their child and moved to Las Vegas. As he left, he didn't know he was going to stay there for a year. This experience turned into a book: Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season. I am always being told things like that on first meeting, being told by strange women that they have cancer of the uterus, by men on airplanes that they have a colored mistress in St. Louis.…
