Link on Clowes.blog

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 21:16:05 +0100

A short piece by Jeffrey Zeldman on writing with brevity.

Anyone can generate words now. A prompt and a few seconds and you have paragraphs, pages, a manifesto.

[…] Brevity was always a discipline. Now it’s a statement. When everything around you is excessive by default, choosing fewer words takes courage.

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 16:17:02 +0100

I’ve written about how we all think we’d take a bullet for our loved ones, but can’t handle putting away clean socks. The mundane is where real battles are won. blot.blog/2025/02/2…

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 15:39:21 +0100

I’ve written about that peculiar melancholy that settles in during your 30s - when time accelerates, nostalgia becomes both comfort and pain, and adulthood looks different than imagined. blot.blog/2025/02/2…

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:49:24 +0100

I’ve written about how consuming excellent content isn’t a search problem. It’s a focus problem. blot.blog/2025/02/2…

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:17:23 +0100

Amazon MGM now has creative control over Bond 😬 blot.blog/2025/02/2…

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:36 +0100

Raising a glass of Wild Turkey to Hunter S. Thompson, who died 20 years ago today. The father of Gonzo journalism, he was a rebel, trailblazer, and master of chaos. (1937-2005) 🦇 blot.blog/2025/02/2…

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 09:28:15 +0100

I hate tiny mug handles. elliot.my/262

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:54:59 +0100

I’ve written a deep dive into the tech that powers my life. imlefthanded.com/2025/the-…

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 10:36:52 +0100

I’ve written about Andrew Roberts' diary routine. blot.blog/2024/10/2…

"Cheating alleged after men’s world conker champion found with steel chestnut"

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 16:57:02 +0100

The Guardian ° The winner, 82-year-old David “King Conker” Jakins that he used a steel conker to win.

This is his first time winning the competition, after 47 years of trying (since 1977).

To be honest, after 47 years I’d be tempted to cheat to win too.

The chap who lost in the men’s final against “King Conker”, said:

“My conker disintegrated in one hit, and that just doesn’t happen … I’m suspicious of foul play and have expressed my surprise to organisers.”

I love stories like this. And I’m pleased and surprised to see it get attention from both Hacker News and Sky News (video).

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 17:50:53 +0100

One of the consistently good sources for interesting websites or news is the Pinboard ‘popular bookmarks’ page.

I visit it everyday.

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 12:38:20 +0100

I’ve written: “On Writing: Short Enough to Finish, Long Enough to Matter” blot.blog/2024/10/0…

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 09:34:47 +0100

I’ve written about ADHD and the struggle with internal expectations. blot.blog/2024/10/0…

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:08:02 +0100

Find out what the weather was like on the day you were born. bdayweather.com

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 13:47:07 +0100

I’ve written about ADHD and the burden of possessions blot.blog/2024/09/2…

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 12:30:28 +0100

“It was illegal until the mid-1960s for bars in New York to sell alcohol to people known to be gay.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_…

Sun, 07 Jul 2024 09:39:31 +0100

I’ve written about the struggle of birthdays in an extrovert-centric world. Ron Swanson gets it.

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 12:12:09 +0100

The AI data gold rush meets its match: Cloudflare – imlefthanded.com

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:30:36 +0100

Cloudflare is making it easier to stop AI crawlers scraping your site.

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 23:38:31 +0100

‘noplace, a mashup of Twitter and Myspace for Gen Z, hits No. 1 on the App Store’

It very much is MySpace the app – even has a wall. I tried it very briefly. It’s ugly as sin, but at least it’s being bold. Though it is a bit young for me. I’m a big fan of the ‘currently’ section on profiles.

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 17:47:29 +0100

What an odd headline in the Times: “No more koala cuddles at sanctuary visited by Putin and Taylor Swift”.

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 10:21:50 +0100

Pipes.digital is a great replacement for Yahoo Pipes. As a keen RSS user I used to love Pipes back in the day. It was good for getting rid of ads and unwanted content from feeds.

You get three pipes for free, or ten for $5/mo. A bit pricey. But hopefully this means it will be able to survive.

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 22:21:15 +0100

The first ever podcast I listened/watched was Diggnation, back in 2005 (nearly 20 years ago!)

If you were a tech geek it was the absolute best. I cannot tell you how excited I was each week to watch it.

Well, the two hosts – Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose – have just done a kind of reunion show! 🥹

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 18:34:27 +0100

A few new posts on my tech blog today, mostly around AI.

Evergreen notes turn ideas into objects that you can manipulate

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 11:33:00 +0100

Evergreen notes allow you to think about complex ideas by building them up from smaller composable ideas.

My evergreen notes have titles that distill each idea in a succinct and memorable way, that I can use in a sentence. For example:

A company is a superorganism
All input is error
Calmness is a superpower
Concise explanations accelerate progress
Cross the chasm
Everything is a remix
Writing is telepathy
You have no obligation to your former self
etc

You don’t need to agree with the idea for it to become an evergreen note. Evergreen notes can be very short.

I have an evergreen note called Creativity is combinatory uniqueness that is built on top of another evergreen note:

If you believe Everything is a remix, then creativity is defined by the uniqueness and appeal of the combination of elements.

Evergreen notes turn ideas into objects. By turning ideas into objects you can manipulate them, combine them, stack them. You don’t need to hold them all in your head at the same time.

The term evergreen notes was coined by Andy Matuschak and you can find more about this method on his site. You can also listen to my interview on the Metamuse podcast for more thoughts on evergreen notes and how I use them in Obsidian.

June 26, 2024

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 09:07:51 +0100

Good morning all. It’s currently 18°C where I am ☀️

📖 Morning links:

Just paying attention to greenery, even in an urban environment, has mental health benefits
There’s a tradition in Japan where grandparents buy their grandkids a $450 bag when they start school
A look back at the now dead newsletter service TinyLetter
The Netflix show “Tour de France: Unchained” is apparently good. With the Tour starting this Saturday I think I might check it out to get me in the mood.

🧍‍♂️Me update:

6hr 15m of sleep 🛌
I have a tiny sore throat this morning. But a happy side effect is that my voice sounds masculine and gravely.
It’s the last day of hot temperatures in the UK, which makes me happy. I don’t mind a hot weekend. But hate a hot weekday. Give me rain and clouds and cosiness.

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:48:45 +0100

Watching Noah Kalina’s “Hotline Show” series on YouTube. I can’t tell if it’s good or not. But it’s cosy, relaxing and weirdly captivating. So let’s say good.

He also described getting sleepy as “sun setting”, which I rather like.

June 20th, 2024

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 09:31:03 +0100

Good morning all. It’s currently 15°C where I am ☀️

📖 Morning reads:

“Vaccines have saved 150 million children over the last 50 years” - Our World in Data. “Every ten seconds, one child is saved by a vaccine against a fatal disease.”
“How This Real Image Won an AI Photo Competition” - Scientific American
“TinyLetter: looking back on the humblest newsletter platform” - The Verge
“Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer” - Aeon Essays

🧍‍♂️Me update:

9hr 22m of sleep 🛌
I didn’t have dinner last night due to my stomach pains yesterday. That didn’t stop me from having a greasy burger though.
I lived up to my promise and didn’t have any caffeine yesterday. I shall do the same today.
My girlfriend has pain at the top of her spine today so will be WFH today with me.

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 08:07:35 +0100

🔗 15 rules for blogging - Matt Webb

Some of the best and most realistic rules for blogging I’ve seen. Though I realise I’m breaking rule 12 with this post:

Don’t use a post just to link to something elsewhere. If there’s a point to make, start with that.

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 17:08:49 +0100

🔗 Why I write and why I won’t – Remy Sharp °

He says that one of the benefits of sharing your thoughts or solutions on your blog is that they’re very easy to find again thanks to search engines.

I’d never really thought about that. Search is difficult. I’m unsatisfied with the search function of nearly all software I use.

And whilst Google isn’t what it once was it will probably still be better at finding something I’ve written on the web than Obsidian will be at finding something I’ve written in my notes.

A place to write where you just don't care

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 16:39:55 +0100

🔗 Stream on

Simon Collison has written about having a longer form blog and also a short one.

A primary motivation for creating my Stream was the paralysing sense that a blog post needed appropriate length and weight.

I understand that feeling well. I am always too aware of my audience when I write. To the point that anything too short or off topic feels like I’m wasting their time. As a result I have created way too many blogs down the years (and I still maintain too many).

So I’ve found my recent discovery of Micro.blog very freeing. I don’t care too much on here. I just share what’s on my mind. No matter how short, long or off topic.

1988 Flannel

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 15:55:30 +0100

Daughter Realizes Dad Has Worn Same L.L.Bean Flannel Shirt Since 1988

I’m a recent convert to flannel. Like pickup trucks they do just look a bit silly in the UK. But the benefits outweigh that for me.

They’re so versatile. Lovely and warm in the autumn, often letting you go out without a jacket. And you can wear a t-shirt underneath and then unbutton the shirt if you get too hot. And in the winter they’re often thick enough that when paired with a jacket you are nice and toasty.

Flannel is also hardy and long lasting (though not as hardy as they once were I’m sure). I drunkenly fell off my bicycle last year wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch one. It has a few scuffs, but it survived very well indeed. And if I wasn’t wearing it my skin would have been covered in road rash.

Another reason I like this story is because it reminds me of the ‘capsule wardrobe’. The idea that you have a default outfit – or a few default outfits. Meaning you don’t spend a bunch of time working out what to wear each day.

I have too many clothes to have a ‘capsule’. But I would say I have a ‘uniform’ at work. I wear the same Cos fleece, Charles Twyitt trousers and Clark’s dessert boots each day.

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 08:59:46 +0100

“Israel Adds a Medieval Weapon to Its Arsenal in Fight Against Hezbollah"°