Across the street, a cat is sitting on a doorstep. It’s raining. Yesterday, the neighbours were clustered together, talking, but I was taking an urgent call, and it was school pick-up time. Later we found out why. Not having seen the lady opposite for a couple of days, another neighbour went to see her and there was no answer. Worried, she called the police, and they forced entry from the garden, and found she had died....
When things aren’t going well, and people are dissatisfied, the most popular calls are usually for things to be stopped. “This is bad, and it should be banned.” “This is unfair, and it shouldn’t be allowed.” “That is dangerous, and people should be stopped from doing it.” The odd thing is that much the same happens when people are very comfortable. It becomes very important to stop anything that disturbs that comfort....
My day-to-day work is all about processes. Processes are a good thing. They mean repeatability, predictability, they can be honed until good outcomes are guaranteed. I work with computers, and software that enables business to run efficiently. If you can’t define a really good tight process, that software can’t help you, usually. Computers are great at process because they don’t make mistakes. If there is a problem, it’s because of the process, not the computer....
Two books I read in recent years stay with me and keep bouncing off each other: One is called “The Invention of Good and Evil”, and one of its core themes is that human society is the product of evolution just as much as any species. That what that society considers important and moral and ethical is shaped by its response to the pressures on it and the solutions collectively found that allow it to thrive....
“It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.” I have never really understood the English class system. I’m English. Very English. I nodded to myself when Hugh Grant said we’re born one gin-and-tonic below par. And we all swim in this sea of class consciousness, whatever we might like to say about it being a relic of the past. For all we ignore it and pretend otherwise, it makes a massive difference to almost everything experienced by anyone, like me, who comes from a very obvious long-standing English background....
If you like, feel free to abandon this post and read this instead: Beyond Elon Don’t worry, the title is basically clickbait, but the essay itself is very good, and says what I’d like to say myself, very well. If you’re still here, or have come back … When I was at school, the teachers loved me. I was the kind of child they went into the career for. I came from nowhere, a family with no expectations that had nobody with a university background, and I picked up pretty much everything effortlessly....
I regularly mention, when talking about other things, that I am a great believer in “the wisdom of crowds” and democracy in the absolute. And people are regularly baffled. What, I see all the idiots around, and what they vote for, and how all around people say stupid things and are mean and terrible, and wrong … and I think that’s a good thing? I do think it’s a good thing....
Everybody knows you shouldn’t only eat what you like. Whatever it is that you like best, a varied diet is better for you than just that thing, however healthy it may be. Some of the necessary things seem pointless or borderline harmful. Roughage, for example, goes right through you and you get nothing from it. There is strong evidence that some things that are mildly toxic prime your body in useful ways, not to mention that some elements that would be poisonous in large doses are vital in trace quantities....
We’re all tired of takes on working from home, back to the office, and remote working, aren’t we? So now seems a good time to bore everybody even more with my thoughts after four years of exclusively remote working. Remote working works Here I am. I’ve worked from home for four years, and business has been good. Satisfaction levels have been high all round, mine and the clients’. I’ve also worked for long stretches from different time zones far afield....
Right now feels like an excellent time for any British citizen who cares about the direction of the UK to join the Conservative Party. Wait, don’t go, I know how that sounds, considering “right now” is April 2024, and everybody in the UK hates Tories and wishes they’d go away. And yes, it feels very important to spell out that this is April 2024, because this take will date very fast and won’t apply in a year’s time at most....