2026-10-12 22:37:12
I literally just bought a new notebook to replace the near-full battered Moleskine that permanently lives in my back pocket. Then I saw this!
The lines are watermarked, not printed so they basically are invisible!
One of those ridiculously simple solutions that you wonder why no-one thought of it before.
£62 whole English pounds is a little steep for my to-do lists but, with that Japanese paper quality and outstanding engineering, it will likely strike a chord with hardcore journalists that keep their notebooks forever.
A notebook with lines when you write. Without them when you read.
2026-10-12 04:09:33
Not claiming to be wholly responsible but, shortly after I mentioned it on my website, the water board were back looking at the leak at the junction.
It was clearly a quick fix because now there's a square of fresh tarmac and, sadly, no midnight mountain stream.
Today's soundtrack has been Air's OST for Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" which has made driving to the tip to drop off a couple of broken chairs 42% more epic! There's a long straight tree-lined suburban road I have to drive down to get there and,at that time in the morning, the rising sun lancing golden through the trees mixed with the French dream pop and landed me squarely in a Coppola vignette.
I have mentioned before how my work has an internal awards thing where we showcase noteworthy work and hand out prizes. This year is no different except one of the projects shortlisted is the one I've spent the best part of the last twelve months working on!
This week, we had the first pitch: presenting the project product to a panel of judges comprising senior leadership of the agency and some clients for an outside perspective.
We are in the "Opportunity Unlocked" category and, I feel, we've got a good chance as we identified a niche ahead of the market and built bespoke software to supply the need meaning when clients ask (and they do!) we're already ready to go.
I can't say too much about it because it's a confidential, internal methodology with proprietary software but what I can say is (a) it's pretty cool, and (b) I'm really proud of my teammates for presenting it so well.
Fingers crossed! 🤞
Obviously, doctor, you've never been a thirteen year old girl
Jeffrey Eugenidies, "The Virgin Suicides"
2026-10-06 02:55:44
Newly-wed investigative journalists Mike and Phyllis Watson witness unearthly fireballs plunging into the sea from their cruise ship and embark on a years-long mission to uncover the truth with the aid of a madcap scientist and the military.
Although Wyndham is generally considered to be rather left wing in his ideas, he is also a man of his time; and a very middle class white man of his time at that.
Progressive though the lofty ideas of the plot may be, some of those 1950s attitudes are writ large in the text. Arguably, it's all necessary for the characterisation but it can be a bit much if you're used to a more modern tone.
An anti-Communism theme prevails but, I'd argue, this is more a commentary on the narrator and the general attitudes of the era. Given the Cold War in full swing and the Stalinist regime, it's more anti-Soviet than a nuanced critique of actual social political theory.
That said, the "othering" language that colours talk of the Russians is a lovely foil for comparing and contrasting attitudes to the invading aliens.
What Wyndham does exceptionally well, however, is to create an extraterrestrial threat that wreaks havoc on the planet in a way that parallels humans giving us, should we choose to glimpse below the tissue thin veneer, a tale of speculative apocalyptic fiction.
Here the monsters destroy the ice caps causing sea levels to rise catastrophically. Wyndham goes into detail about the ensuing social fallout — destruction and lawlessness, food shortages, and mass migration.
A nightmare scenario that clearly echoes mankind's own actions to catastrophically raise sea levels with a climate crisis. Remember, this book was written seventy years ago!
The ending is a bit "rah rah hockey sticks stiff upper lip old chap" but, without it, the future is just bleak.
2026-10-05 03:33:25
The sky is milky white; an impenetrable ceiling of cloud so pale the contrails are barely legible. In passing overhead, Two planes have described a giant "X marks the spot" denoting where there is no treasure.
The previous evening, a trick of perspective meant an approaching aircraft's blinking lights temporarily replaced Merak in The Plough. Fun fact from Wikipedia (citation needed): in 50,000 years' time, the stars will have so drifted as to form a Plough facing the opposite direction!
Later in the week, it's absolutely heaving down. The perfect weather to curl up under a blanket on the sofa with a cup of tea and some classic horror. If only it wasn't for that pesky work…
Speaking of work — the biggest achievement this week has been getting the go ahead on the medical education programme build. It's been on pause while we work to accommodate multiple complex requirements.
This led to having to present options to all interested parties at once, foster a discussion, and extract enough confirmation to start building. It was tense building up to this meeting. We had to quadruple-check our approach to ensure the chosen approach was a genuine compromise; where no-one is completely happy but everyone is ready for the next step!
A couple of weeks back, the water board had our road dug up to fix a cracked water main. Since then, there's been a steady stream of water bubbling up through the tarmac like some kind of urban mountain spring! An entire junction is sodden and the excess water trickles down a nearby grid which sounds lovely — a babbling brook in the dead of night.
I'm a reliable witness, you're a reliable witness, practically all God's children are reliable witnesses in their own estimation--which makes it funny how such different ideas of the same affair get about.
John Wyndham, "The Kraken Wakes"
2026-10-03 15:43:32
I've been reading that YouTube has just released a feature that lets you A/B test videos. I have opinions on A/B testing, which I've mentioned before.
The crux of the problem is that A/B testing presumes either A or B is the right answer, and it optimises for popularity. In YouTube's case, engagement is probably what you want, but it isn't necessarily the best outcome.
The other issue is how much the variants can differ. A/B tests are usually used for something small, like the wording on a button, to see which is more compelling. With videos, the variants could differ enormously.
That also means it could easily be weaponised into a misinformation campaign: posting multiple videos with different viewpoints, all under the same title. The purpose of a misinformation campaign isn't to convince anybody that a falsehood is true, but to sow enough disbelief that you can't trust anything.
This mechanism feels baked into the software as a feature, not a bug. It doesn't really matter to YouTube why people are engaging, only that they are, because of the ad revenue.
2026-10-01 20:45:10
Happy Spooky Season!
Here are a few photos from my phone from the last month with neither rhyme nor reason to the theme.
