good things
Well. Here's some things that are good that I haven't talked about here before. Stardew Valley I have a penchant for the sort of game which can be summed up...
personanxiety and the schedule
I alternate between two modes of living, right now, that I like to think of as About a Schedule and Personanxiety. They both have their roots in this...
four short story openings inspired by the now
1 One of the more impressive features of modern videoconferencing software, when you think about it, is the echo cancellation. The microphone you're talking...
install the app
Contact tracing This month has been one of the first times I've had to really question what my job is. It's easy to reach out for high-handed aphorisms like...
wasting
After two months in lockdown, I'm now underweight. I'd say "I don't know how this happened" but I think I can guess: the loss of gyms caused me to switch to...
shop
I'm writing a fifth of a book and you can pre-order it now. It's called A Little Light. It's a collection of essays, from me and four other journalists, on...
denounce the roman empire?
There's a lot of activities that will forever be linked with this period in my head, I think. Whether or not I carry on running post-lockdown, it'll be hard...
it's thursday
I know we all joke about not knowing what day of the week it is any more but this newsletter is a day late because I sincerely thought today was Wednesday....
someone is wrong on the internet
It's been a while, but this week I allowed arguing with strangers on the internet to get the better of me. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday, and more on...
please don't tell my work I wrote this
I currently have seven different communications channels with my colleagues. That's counting all of Google's nightmarish mishmash of chat platforms as one...
What is there to say?
We're in the second week of social distancing; the second day of lockdown. It's weird. There's definitely going to be a rash of lockdown nostalgia in thirty...
Well, fuck.
I've just finished the second day of working from home as I write this. It's a change which is likely, based on the projections from the Imperial College...
Should columnists?
There is an argument that newspaper columnists are a relic of an earlier age that should be dispatched as we move in to a new era of publishing. Once upon a...
unaccountably nothing about the virus
A new paper published by the US NBER this week concluded: "the arrival of ridehailing is associated with an increase of approximately 3% in the number of...
£163.16, to be precise
Trivial Blitzscaling has a compelling narrative weight. Find a deep-pocketed backer, a market with clear economies of scale, and comfortable incumbents who...
vcs i will sell you this idea for £5bn
consumer apps of the future Here is a product I want: a privacy-preserving camera app, for street scenes and found events. Taking pictures of people without...
the scammer race
Here's a story: Once upon a time, you had to make money to run a business. You could probably take out a loan to cover you for the initial capital, but even...
bear size, pig cunning
American't One of the problems with speaking English is Americans. I mean no offence, American readers. It's just, you see, there are an awful lot of you,...
not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed
Risky games It's always a bit of a bittersweet moment when I get mentioned on Radio 4. A flurry of texts from friends and family members, excited to hear my...
read to the end for a tasty recipe
AI is expensive Subreddit Simulator is one of the sillier products of the explosion in machine learning tools. The subreddit is populated entirely by bots,...