2026-01-20 16:30:00
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
While I don't fully subscribe to the above quote, since I think it's important to continually improve things that aren't explicitly broken, every now and then something I use works so well that I consider it a solved problem.
In this post I'll be listing items and tools I use that work so well that I'm likely to be a customer for life, or will never have to purchase another. I've split the list into physical and digital tools and will try to keep this list as up-to-date as possible. This is both for my reference, as well as for others. If something is not listed it means I'm not 100% satisfied with what I'm currently using, even if it's decent.
I'm not a minimalist, but I do have a fairly minimalistic approach to the items I buy. I like having one thing that works well (for example, an everything pair of pants), over a selection to choose from each morning.
Some of these items are inexpensive and readily available; while some of them are pricy (but in my opinion worth it). Unfortunately sometimes it's hard to circumvent Sam Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
These are the products I'm using that may make the cut but I haven't used them long enough to be sure.
I like to be very intentional with my purchases. We live in an 84m^2 apartment and so everything has to have its place to avoid clutter. I understand how possessions can end up owning you, and so I try to keep them as reasonable as possible. A good general rule of thumb is that new things replace worn-out and old things, not add to them. This applies both digitally and physically, since there's only so much mental capacity for digital tools as there is for physical items.
Make things as simple as possible but no simpler.
— Albert Einstein
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2026-01-20 04:17:00
I have a good job. Still, from time to time, I feel the urge to build something of my own again.
I try to do it the reasonable way. I keep my job, work on small things on the side, and hope one of them slowly sticks. On paper, this sounds perfect.
In practice, it is hard.
A while ago I heard a story from Pieter Levels. When he was feeling low and did not know what to do next, his dad told him to go outside, grab a shovel, and move sand from one place to another. No goal. No meaning. Just movement.
“Sad? Shovel sand.”
That line stayed with me.
I have limited time. I have a three-year-old. When I finally find an hour, I want it to count. That makes it frustrating when new ideas excite me at first, then slowly lose their spark as I explore them deeper. Not because they are bad, but because the magic fades and what remains is work.
This is usually where I get stuck. Not because I lack ideas, but because starting over again and again takes more energy than I want to admit.
So when I feel stuck, I shovel.
Not literally. I shovel code. I fix a small bug. I refactor something boring. I open an old side project and clean up one tiny part of it. The goal is not progress. The goal is movement.
And strangely, that is often enough.
While doing something dull, I notice small things that could be better. Something that could be simplified or removed. Sometimes a new idea appears without trying.
I know I should probably finish things before moving on. But even if an idea never becomes more than a thought, it still serves a purpose. It pulls me out of stagnation and back into motion.
When nothing sparks interest, I shovel.
2026-01-19 06:34:00
I've been realising lately how much our brains are bombarded every day - constant WhatsApp messages, push notifications, news alerts... it's a lot!
We’re taking in more info in one day than people used to in weeks, and honestly, no wonder we feel fried sometimes.
Add in all the normal life stuff - family, health, stress, just trying to keep on top of things - and my head can feel so overstimulated that even replying to a nice message can feel like another "task" on the list.
So if I'm slow to reply (or miss a message completely):
I know loads of people feel the same but don't feel they can say it out loud. So if you're reading this and nodding along, you're not bad at keeping in touch, you're just human.
Let's give each other a bit more grace.
2026-01-18 06:15:00
The president is tweeting nonsense again.
People will say, and have said, all sorts of things about this. That it's bad policy, or dangerous policy, or completely counterproductive. And partisan morons will defend the policy. And other partisan morons who don't want to defend the policy will say zany stuff like the president has the right to make foreign policy and other such pap, as if wisdom springs from legality and there's no room or reason to criticize the legal.
But for me, it just sounds like the ramblings of an old man. As I tweeted, if an old neighbor said this to you at a neighborhood party, you'd smile and nod, and then tell your wife to check and makes sure he isn't living alone.
This isn't complicated:
Trump is too old to be president. So was Biden. It's not impossible for someone who is 80 to do the job of president, but it is impossible to know that someone that age will still be able to do the job 3 years later. The cognitive decline of people in their late 70's is steep and quick.
Trump has obviously declined in the last five years. It's jarring to watch a tape of him during his first term, he looks like a completely different person. It has been more gradual than Biden's decline, and that has made it less starkly obvious.
I don't trust Trump---and I didn't trust Biden---to throw in the towel when they can no longer do the job. It's just not in the nature of a president to think that way, anymore than it is for a starting pitcher to admit he's out of gas. And I trust the staff around the president even less; as the saying goes, it is very difficult to make a man understand something when his job specifically depends on not understand it.
We shouldn't leave this to the voters. There are too many cross-cutting substantive and partisan concerns that get in the way of principled avoidance of too-old presidents. We've now seen both parties nominate and win elections with people who were plainly in the danger zone. I'm in favor of a constitutional amendment barring anyone from becoming president who is over 72 at the time of inauguration. And don't bother me with any ageism crap.
I don't believe we need similar age limits in the legislature; I wouldn't have a problem with them---one huge distortion/bias in Congress is how old the Member are---but old people can do the job of representative. The problem on the executive side is that there are too many emergency decisions and too many situations where less-than-perfect faculties are a problem. I saw Bobby Byrd many times when he was essentially a corpse in a wheelchair in the Senate. Did it reduce his capacity to represent West Virginia? Sure, on on the margins. Did it endanger the nation? Not even close.
2026-01-17 12:38:00
We were in our late thirties. Only together about a year. She had a career, I was still a grad student. A random search and she’s just gone. For almost ten years now. Some short posts from people who knew her, a few low-resolution pictures. A memorial scholarship in her name, established but now dissolved.
I hate when books and movies lean on extreme events like illness and death to raise the emotional stakes. This isn’t that.
I haven’t been close to many people. I guess there are what ifs with every ex. We were clear eyed at that age, not making wild teenage promises. Together until we weren’t, both decisions made sense at the time. Even a rare-for-me healthy kind of closure, with good memories and few regrets.
Still.
Even before I knew she died, in retrospect our what ifs seemed solvable. Our maybes were close. We could have worked out. Just timing, distance, all the adult excuses. But if we’d given it a little more time, then it wouldn’t have been the same, and maybe she’s still here. I’m stuck on that. I don’t know why.
I've built a life I'm happy with. Several, since we were together. But that phrase. Disenfranchised grief. I get it now.
