2026-02-27 03:14:00
I was going to post this on the anniversary of my surgery which would have been in April but then I realised that I actually quit drinking alcohol about 6-7-ish months before the big day, so that means I’m technically already 2 years sober.
In all that time, and more-so recently, I have occasionally thought about having a cold one. I quite fancy a larger top in the pub garden when it’s sunny, but I always ultimately decide not to in the end. I’m perfectly happy with a lemonade, a virgin cocktail, or an alcohol-free cider, and some good banter of course.
Here’s to another year. Cheers! 🍻
2026-02-27 01:48:00
I have been developing a theory that there might be something about working with a laptop in a cafe that tends to specifically attract people who suck ass. I don't meant that everyone who works with a laptop in a coffee shop is an asshole, but that assholes in Los Angeles might be living the kinds of lives which cause them to cluster there. We have to work in cafes more frequently now because we are spending so much time driving across the city to deal with construction at our house. Maybe this has turned us into pieces of shit, too, but I think we have stiff competition.
In the last few weeks, I've sat next to a whole range of idiots and losers who insist on holding meetings where they utter loathsome shit I never want to hear again in my life. I sat next to a guy who was designing a chatbot for a web storefront. Nobody was engaging with the chatbot, so he spent half an hour in a meeting proposing, over and over again, that they "make engaging with the chatbot seem mandatory" in order to juice the participation numbers. He had to explain this to the call over and over again; I am imagining that everyone else on his team was confused, cautiously asking him why they'd want to lie to their customers about the purchase experience.
I also once sat next to two women in their 20s who were trying to become Substack stars. They spent about two hours discussing television, which seemed to be their industry - unfortunately their opinions were pretty preposterous, and I was forced to listen to them discuss the "rules" around how a character should be killed in a TV show. Their takeaway was basically that all character deaths should be handled like Game of Thrones, which did it the best. They also discussed juicing Substack engagement, which was worrying for me to hear because of the whole Nazi thing. One of them also mentioned in a quick aside that she disapproved!! of Bad Bunny's completely anodyne and sensible pre-Super Bowl statements about the Trump administration's racism. So I think I found the next generation of Nazi-sympathizing TV writers?
All anecdotal evidence, of course, for my theory of cafe shitheads. But it's possible actually that I'd hate a huge percentage of people in this city if I met them through the lens of their work. Maybe the chatbot guy is kind and pleasant to his peers and loved ones, and also simply completely willing to debase himself for a paycheck. Who knows. I've sat next to too many LLM marketing guys to count, which makes me wonder what percent of all the marketing people I've ever known have now been pressed into the service of chatbot companies. In nearly any cafe in Los Angeles I can count on finding at least one guy in his 20s sweating and fretting over the need to extract business value from a large language model. In Westwood I once sat next to a guy who was trying to incompetently and incorrectly explain LLMs to a client, growing increasingly despairing and agitated throughout the conversation. He looked like he hated his work just as much as I hated his work.
I've never felt more depressed about work itself than I have in the last year. I have friends in games and tech who've been joking that they have to, like, retvrn to the soil and do non-digital work to escape the coming rot. But I've heard enough bad stories about workers in physical industries, too, having to interact with systems of control powered by LLMs. Work seems to just be getting worse.
I'm not writing this because I'm despairing and I want you to share in my despair, though. I'm writing this as a sort of memorialization of the moment, because I am fairly confident that the things I'm seeing and hearing in Los Angeles these days are extremely temporal.
This is the 2026 vibe, but things are changing very quickly. Family members are emailing me about their plans to survive the obvious coming financial crash. Videogame hiring has stopped, but nothing viable has yet appeared to fill the void for this industry, and every publisher's 2027 slate is probably looking pretty thin. My friends are all scrambling to stay employed, but they know it's all going to resolve, one way or another, before the end of the year. The people in these cafes are trying desperately to extract value from a dying fad. Everything in politics, too, has the feel of Wiley E. Coyote's feet windmilling before they begin to fall precipitously downward. I am very, very confident that I won't feel exactly this way next year. Whatever I'll be feeling will be very, very different.
2026-02-27 00:29:00
Those people who feared MODE was going to be some sort of AI implementation should breath a sigh of relief to know it's actually a three-day festival in a city that epitomizes everything that is wrong with our country right now.
No wonder why the people outside the US were so confused about this. This does seem like a big middle finger to photographers outside the States. And why on earth would you invite those willing to jump over the pond to Minneapolis!?
I really thought they were going to do something like start a film company and merge the best parts of Flickr and SmugMug together and build a whole new website but I guess a three day even in Minneapolis costing six-hundred-and-sixty dollars while most people I know struggle to deal with a rapidly-changing economy and the risings costs of being a home-owner is the way to go.
What is MODE? An economically tone-deaf disappointment. Good luck, Flickr.
🎧 Zero 7 - Distractions via Groove Salad Classic
2026-02-26 07:38:00
Nothing on the internet is private. We all know that. But to what extent is it not private? And are we powerless to do anything about it?
I personally don't know. But I'm sure it's something we should all look into and inform ourselves on, instead of just burying our heads in the sand while Big Tech seruptisiouly practice anti-consumer and downright creepy behaviours; all for the sake of our exploitation and their profit.
I highly recommend a YouTube channel called Reject Convenience who has a lot to say about online privacy and the dodgy (and yet completely normal) practices of modern tech companies. I also watched this video by Ivan Banov which offerered the motivation to make the changes I've listed on this post.
Online privacy necessarily requires good security practices, which I think every Tom, Dick, and Harry (myself included) need to work on.
So, below are some (initial) changes I'm making to my online presence and practices. Note that I'm not an expert in this sort of stuff, but I think it's worth sharing anyway.
Let's get started with the low-hanging fruit:
Social media isn't in the business of promoting socialisation. It's in the business of maximising engagement, screen time, and advertising.
To keep you glued to the screen, they track nigh on every aspect of your usage of their platform to build an idea of who you are, and then serve you content tailored to excite or enrage you.
To advertise to you, they track nigh on every aspect of your usage of their platform to build an idea of who you are, and then serve you adverts tailored to entice you.
To inflate their bottom line, they track nigh on every aspect of our usage of their platform to build an idea of who you are, and then sell that information on to a plethora of third parties.
If you aren't paying for a service, then you are the product.
If you want to remain private on the web and free from political or institutional influence, then social media should pretty much be avoided entirely.
I have many opinions on modern social media (many of which are negative) and they'll most likely kindle a future blog post. See Feeding the Fire: Psychology, Engagement, and Algorithmic Media by Technically Good for a fun and very much related read.
So -- I've deleted pretty much all social media. My Instagram account remains, but I try to use in on my PC only. I still use YouTube regularly because I think I'd literally die without it.
There are some privacy friendly alternative platforms, but none of my friends know about them or use them, so that seems to be a no-go.
The other benefit to shunning the big platforms is that I'll be less tempted to doom-scroll my life away.
Like a lot of people, I find myself trapped in the tar that is Google's ecosystem. Google Photos, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Maps, the list goes on. A lot of others find themselves in one tar pit over: that of Apple's ecosystem. These tools and services are well-established and convenient, but there are alternatives.
I personally don't want Google to be able to read all my emails (which it currently does) or flick through all my Keep notes (which is currently does). The more I think about it, the more dystopian it feels. I have pay slips and confidential work information in my inbox which can be read, summarised, packaged, and sold on to third parties, including credit scoring agencies.
So -- I'm slowly jumping ship to Proton Mail. I also now use Proton Drive to back up my files. These emails and files won't be read by anyone but me, which is how it always should have been.
Also, I don't want ads in my emails! And if I was okay with having ads, I wouldn't want them to visually emulate surrounding emails!
Google photos remains for the time being, because I regularly use it's social/sharing features with friends and family. The cost of switching is just too high at the moment.
I'm finally starting to use secure, randomly generated passwords that look like this:
D#fxhrg8ny@9RXDgS3
instead of my usual password which, in my defence, wasn't the exact same across all sites: it was the first two letters of the service (e.g. "pi" for Pinterest) followed by a fixed string with a healthy dose of numbers and symbols. Which isn't as insecure as it could be, but also just isn't nearly as secure as it could be with a password manager (Proton Pass in my case).
I guess this one's a bit more personal, but I'm currently considering limiting the number of photos of myself that I post online, especially those with metadata that were taken at sensitive locations (e.g. at home).
Furthermore, I'm looking at replacing my various profile pictures with glitched alternatives (see my bio page for an example).
This may sound a little paranoid, but my intent is to limit the aggregation of my face by services such as PimEyes. If you haven't yet, do a reverse image search of your face on their site. I did one and was a little creeped out by the results. Information like where I work, the towns in which I've lived, club associations, and even who my girlfriend is, can all be inferred from these results.
It's well known that Google manipulates search results. See this article by the WSJ.
So -- I'm currently trailing Kagi as an alternative. So far I'm really liking it! It's really refreshing to have the first 3-5 results actually being results, not promoted hits or ads. I also like how they value and promote the small web
The browser I'm using is Firefox with the uBlock Origin plugin installed. I was looking at using Brave, but for some bizarre reason, the Android app doesn't let you set custom search engines and Kagi isn't in their pre-populated list.
I've not mentioned VPNs because, to my knowledge, they're only really useful in specific circumstances and for location spoofing.
I expect the migration away from some of my Google services to be slow and even painful at times. But for me at least, I think it's worth it. I'll post an update some time in the future if I make any more changes or fail to implement any of these I've mentioned.
Just as we need to stay healthy and practice a little preventive maintenance in our physical lives, so too should we practice digital hygiene in our online lives.
Just something to reflect on.
2026-02-26 05:21:00
Andy is an author sitting in his usual cafe on Whitechapel Road. Mick the owner has an idea...
—You should get one, said Mick.
He put the mug down in front of Andy. The coffee was the colour of a brick. It was always the colour of a brick. Andy had never once complained about this, and he wasn't going to start now.
—Get one of what?
—A blog, said Mick.
—A what now?
—A blog. One of those blog things. On the internet.
—I know where blogs are, Mick.
—Well then.
—Well then what?
—Get one.
Andy looked at him. Mick was wiping the counter with a cloth that had seen things. Terrible things. Things no cloth should have to see.
—Why would I get a blog? said Andy.
—You're a writer, said Mick.
—I am.
—So write.
—I do write. That's what makes me a writer. The writing. That's how it works, Mick.
—But no one reads it.
—People read it.
—Who?
—People.
—Name one.
—My Amazon readers.
—What all three of them?
—They still count.
—Hmm, not much.
—They do.
Mick dropped the cloth on the counter. He leaned forward. He had his serious face on. It was the same as his regular face, only closer.
—Gracie's got one, he said.
—Gracie, said Andy. —Your Gracie?
—Yeah.
—She's fourteen, Mick.
—She's fifteen.
—Right.
—She writes about her life.
—She's fifteen. She hasn't got a life.
—She writes about what she had for breakfast.
Andy looked at his coffee. Then he looked back at Mick.
—And people read this, he said.
—Yeah.
—People read about what your fifteen-year-old daughter had for breakfast.
—Hundreds of them.
—Hundreds.
—Yeah.
—Hundreds of people want to know what Gracie had for breakfast.
—That's what I'm telling you.
Andy picked up the mug. He put it back down.
—What did she have? he said.
—Wha'?
—For breakfast. What did she have?
—Granola, said Mick.
—Granola.
—With yoghurt.
—Right.
—And blueberries.
—Blueberries as well?
—Yeah. She took a photo of it an' all.
—Of the granola.
—Of the granola, the yoghurt, and the blueberries. All of it. From above, like. Looking down. Like a bird looking at granola.
—And hundreds of people looked at this.
—Yeah. Well. Sixty-seven. But that was just the first day.
—Sixty-seven isn't hundreds, Mick.
—It's on its way to hundreds.
—It's on its way to seventy.
Mick wasn't listening. He'd gone somewhere behind his eyes, somewhere warm, somewhere full of clicks and shares.
—Even Americans, he said.
—You what?
—Americans are reading it. Gracie showed me. She's got this thing on it, shows you where the readers are. Little dots on a map. And there's dots in America, Andy. America.
—Which part?
—Does it matter?
—I suppose not.
—Texas, said Mick. —And one in Ohio.
—Ohio.
—Yeah.
—Someone in Ohio is reading about your Gracie's granola.
—Yeah. And she wrote about the bus as well.
—What bus?
—The 25. To Oxford Circus. She wrote about the fella who was eating a kebab. At eight in the morning.
—On the 25.
—Yeah.
—Was it any good?
—The kebab?
—The writing, Mick.
—It was brilliant. She said he was eating it like it owed him money.
Andy said nothing for a bit. That was a good line. That was a very good line. A fifteen-year-old girl in Whitechapel had written a better line than anything he'd managed in six months. He felt something cold settle in his chest. It might have been jealousy. It might have been the coffee.
—She uses something called Bear Blog, said Mick.
—Bear Blog.
—Yeah. It's simple, she says. No fuss. You just write and put it out there. No messing about with pictures of yourself or putting your face on things. Just the words.
—Just the words.
—Yeah.
—That's what I do, Mick. I do just the words. I've been doing just the words for a while. I've got a few books. On Amazon.
—Did they sell?
—Now and then.
—Right, said Mick. —But to someone in Ohio?
Andy opened his mouth. Then he closed it.
—She'd help you set it up, said Mick. —Gracie. She'd do it in five minutes, she said.
—She knows about me?
—I told her. I said there's this writer who comes in, sits in the corner, drinks coffee, stares out the window for two hours, and writes one sentence in that little notebook. And she said you should get a blog.
—She said that.
—She said, Dad, he sounds like he needs an audience.
—I've got an audience.
—Who?
—You. You're my audience, Mick. Every day. I come in, I sit down, and you watch me write.
—That's not an audience. That's a hostage situation.
Andy almost smiled. Almost.
—What would I even write about? he said.
—Whatever you want. That's the point. Write about this place. Write about Whitechapel Road. The bloke in the phone shop who's always asleep. The woman who sells the roses outside the Tube. Write about the coffee.
—The coffee’s terrible, Mick.
—Write about that then. People love that. Americans love that. A terrible cup of coffee in a cafe in London. They'd eat that up.
—Like the fella on the 25 ate that kebab.
—Exactly.
Mick picked up the cloth again. He started wiping. A man came in and asked for a bacon roll and Mick went to deal with it and Andy was alone with his coffee and his notebook and the window and Whitechapel Road doing what it always did outside, which was everything, all at once, all the time.
He opened the notebook. He clicked the pen.
He wrote: Bear Blog.
Then he crossed it out.
Then he wrote it again.
Author's note:
Hi there, Andy here. This is a flavour of what you can expect. I'm a 61 year-old novelist, writing about ordinary life and the extraordinary people in it. This story is sort of how I ended it trying Bear Blog. Sort of...
2026-02-26 05:11:54
Read something from Zarsace today that’s been sitting with me.
“The ‘New Money’ entrepreneur claims they are ‘buying back time’ to build global empires, but there is a fine line between optimizing your schedule and losing the human grit required to lead. When you automate every real-world problem, you aren’t becoming a master of your time. Rather, you are forgetting how to navigate the very world you seek to disrupt.”
Everyone’s trying to buy back time, remove themselves from anything that feels like friction.
I get it.
Nobody wants to waste time on things that don’t matter.
But somewhere along the way, we started confusing efficiency with avoidance.
You’ve removed yourself from the parts that actually make you capable.
All in the name of efficiency.
But what are you efficient at? Being present? Or being absent?
There’s a difference between optimising your time and removing yourself from your own existence.
One makes you better.
The other makes you irrelevant.
I’ve started doing ‘done with you’ services over ‘done for you’ because I actually want to have that skill too.
Not just pay someone 5K a month and never look at it again.
I want to get good at that thing myself.
Because I can’t understand something I’ve never done and I can’t lead something I don’t understand.
You don’t master your time by avoiding hard things.
You master it by getting so good at navigating them.
So yeah. Optimise. Delegate. Build systems.
But don’t remove yourself from the very experiences that made you capable in the first place.
Because the moment you stop doing hard things is the moment you stop growing.
And if you’re not growing, you’re dying.