Kev QuirkModify

2026-01-18 21:21:00

My wife recently asked me at what point in my life was I the happiest. The answer surprised her.

First, a little context. I’m currently in my early 40s. I’m married with 2 kids, many pets, and lots of other responsibilities. According to this site I am in the top 1% of earners in the UK (that’s not a flex - the relevance will become apparent later).

So 2 lovely kids, lots of animals, a beautiful home in the countryside, nice cars on the drive, and 2 motorbikes in an incredible garage. I should be the happiest I’ve ever been, right?

Wrong.

The happiest I’ve ever been was when I was in my mid 30’s, when it was just me, my wife, and 1 dog (who’s now getting very old and it breaks my heart). Back then I was earning around £100,000 less than I earn today. We lived in a much smaller house. We had older cars that needed regular repairs and maintenance. Generally speaking money was tighter, we had 1 pet, no kids.

But life was simpler then. I worked in a role I enjoyed and was good at, with far less stress (I’ve recently taken steps to get some of that balance back). We would go for long walks with the dog at weekends, then cuddle up on the sofa in the evening to watch a film with a glass of wine. I had time to exercise, to visit friends, to just do what I wanted.

This was when I was at my happiest, and it really shocked my wife.

So you regret having the kids and you’re now unhappy?

That was her response, and she was so wrong.

Happiness is a scale

The misunderstanding here is that happiness is binary. You’re either happy, or unhappy. But that’s simply not true. I’m happy now, but I was happier then.

How could I be unhappy now? Sure I have a stressful job, far less free time, and a dog that I love dearly that only has a couple years left if we’re very lucky. But I also have 2 wonderful kids, a beautiful and supportive wife, and many other animals that I also love. We also have money in the bank, which lets us do nice things without worrying. We have security.

The rare times when my wife and I do get to curl up on the sofa with the dogs and a glass of wine mean far more to us these days, as they’re so rare.

But the simplicity of my life a decade ago made me so much happier. I don’t wish I’d stayed there, though. Life moves on. We mature, we progress, we change. And I’m happy those things have happened to me, and continue to happen to me.

My hope now is that my kids will grow up and start their own lives. My wife and I will pay off the mortgage on our house and (hopefully) retire in our mid-late 50s. At which point life will become simpler again and we can enjoy each other’s company for many more years. And as we grow old together, we can look back on a life that was well-lived, and happy. That’s enough for me.

2026-01-18 19:36:00

I'm seeing a growing number of personal blogs that don't use upper case letters and for some reason it really irks me.

One of my favourite ways to discover new and interesting personal blogs is on the Bear Blog discovery feed but there’s a trend I’ve noticed recently where a number of sites on Bear simply don’t use uppercase letters. Like, at all.

Now, I’m no grammar gremlin - goodness knows that my own grammar is far from perfect, and I have absolutely no problem if there’s an errant comma here and there in one’s writing. I could even forgive you if you were one of those lunatics that does CAPS ON types uppercase letter CAPS OFF. At least you’re using uppercase. But to remove all uppercase letters with reckless abandon? Nope. Absolutely not.

The weird thing is, I don’t see this anywhere else. It’s literally just on the Bear Blog Discovery feed. I have a lifetime account on Bear Blog, so I know that Herman doesn’t require his members to hand in their shift key when they sign up. So what’s it all about? Does anyone know?

The irony is that pretty much all of the posts I see do contain other punctuation. It’s just the humble uppercase letter that has had the chop.

I’m not going to link to specific blogs/posts here, but if you go check out the Bear Blog discovery feed you will likely see a handful of posts with no uppercase letters; a pattern which often infects the entire post, unfortunately. As I write this, 6 of the 20 posts on the front page of Discover are lowercase.

Personally, I can’t abide it. When I come across one of these posts, even if the title sounds genuinely interesting, I just can’t bring myself to read the content. Instead, I end up focusing on the obvious lack of uppercase letters. I know I’m missing out on interesting posts because of this, and that makes me sad.

Please, for the love of all that’s UPPERCASE and holy, stop doing it. ❤

</rant>

2026-01-13 18:49:00

I think a lot of this Linux revival is thanks to a perfect storm going on in the OS space, namely:

• Microsoft forcing many users to buy new hardware because of arbitrary hardware requirements, as well as forcing users to have an online accounts.
• Apple completely screwing up MacOS Tahoe with their Liquid Glass update.

I’ve been back on Linux (specifically Ubuntu) since I bought my Framework 13, and I’ve been very happy. The only issues I’ve really had are with some apps being blurry under Wayland, but I’ve been able to easily work around these issues. Sal has had some similar problems with Wayland, but has also managed to work around them.

My son also runs Linux on his iMac, and I’m about to replace Windows 10 on my wife’s X1 Carbon with Ubuntu too. So we’re going to be a Linux household very soon.

And you know what? It’s fine. My son doesn’t know (or care) that he’s running Linux. My wife will be in the same boat - as long as she can check her emails, browse the web, and manage our finances in a spreadsheet, she’s good.

Linux based operating systems are great, and I’m thrilled they’re going through this revival. If you’re thinking about switching, I’d implore you to do so - remember you can always try before you “buy” with a live USB. So there’s no commitment required.

If you do switch, please remember to donate to your distro of choice. ❤

2026-01-06 20:28:00

I’m not sure where I first heard about Joan and her superb writing, but I’ve been following her for around a year or so now, I think.

Anyway, I was catching up on my RSS feeds and came across this post from a few days ago. It’s fantastic, as it most of what Joan puts out.

Start a blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking.

I couldn’t agree more.

2026-01-05 21:42:00

Two days ago I published a simple survey asking how you read the content I put out on this site. Here's the results of that survey.

Originally I was going to leave the survey running for at least a week, but after less than 48 hours, I received an email from Zoho telling me I’d hit the monthly response limit of 500 responses. If I wanted more responses, I’d have to pay.

Nah. 500 responses is enough to give me a good indication on how people consume my content, so I was good with that. Also, 500 responses in less than 48 hours is bloody brilliant. Assuming only a small proportion of readers actually responded (as that’s usually the case with these things) that means there’s a healthy number of you reading my waffle, so thank you!

The results

The survey simply asked “how do you read the content I put out on this site?” and there were a handful of options for responses:

• RSS
• Mastodon / Fediverse
• Email
• Occasionally visit the site
• Something else

If someone selected the last option, a text field would appear asking for more info. There were a few people who used this option, but all were covered by the other options. People just wanted to add some nuance, or leave a nice message. ❤

So I updated all the something else responses to be one of the other 4 options, and here’s the results:

A highly accurate pie chart

What this tells me?

Well, quite a lot, actually. It tells me that there’s loads of you fine people reading the content on this site, which is very heart-warming. It also tells me that RSS is by far the main way people consume my content. Which is also fantastic, as I think RSS is very important and should always be a first class citizen when it comes to delivering content to people.

I was surprised at how small the number was for Mastodon, too. I have a fair number of followers over there (around 13,000 according to Fosstodon) so I was expecting that number to be a bigger slice of the pie.

Clearly people follow me there more for the hot takes than my waffle. 🙃

This was a fun little experiment, even if it did end more quickly than I would have liked. Thanks to all ~500 of you who responded, really appreciate it.

See, you don’t need analytics to get an idea of who’s reading your stuff and how.

2026-01-04 20:35:00

I've yearned for a Blackberry form-factor for years, and now Clicks have made that wish come true. I had to pre-order one!

If you don’t know what the Clicks Communicator is, this 12 minute video should help:

BlackBerry’s design will always have a special place in my heart. I much prefer a physical keyboard over a touchscreen, and I’ve said many times that smartphones are far too big these days.

The Clicks Communicator is smaller and it has a proper QWERTY keyboard. It is all very BlackBerry, and I love that.

The team have also teamed up with the Niagara Launcher developer to deliver a more focused UI. That was yet more good news for me, as I already use Niagara Launcher on my Pixel 9a.

It felt like a match made in heaven, so I pre-ordered one immediately.

Companion device?

In all honesty, I do not understand why Clicks are marketing the Communicator as a companion device. I assume they are positioning it as a slimmed down alternative for people who still want a flagship phone, but that framing feels odd.

It will be running full fat Android 16, and their FAQ confirms (in the very first question, no less) that the Communicator can be used as a primary device. That is exactly how I intend to use it.

The companion device messaging is confusing. At first, I assumed it was something closer to the Light Phone, but it is not that at all. It’s a normal phone. I am not a marketer, so perhaps there is a strategy here that I am missing, I just hope it does not hurt their sales.

Either way, I am genuinely looking forward to receiving my Clicks Communicator later this year. I will, of course, write about it once it arrives.

Has this cool new phone piqued anyone else’s interest?