Category Archives: Thoughts on the World
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Walker’s Reserve
With timing more serendipitous than deliberate I spent the eve of Earth Day at one of Barbados’ newest features – the nature reserve being created as the old sand quarry at Walkers in St. Andrews is being wound down. This … Continue reading
A Heretical Proposition
Here’s a heretical proposition: Quantum of B**locks is clearly the worst of all the “real” Bond films, but is No Time To Die the second worst? The release of a new Bond film is always accompanied by almost hagiographic sycophancy, … Continue reading
"This is Bloody Dangerous!"
More MacBook battery woes – this time it’s serious. The title is a quote from arguably the greatest of Hollywood Musicals, Paint Your Wagon. The words are uttered by Mad Jack Duncan, a gold miner engaged in digging a shallow … Continue reading
No Middle Way
A study in UX atrocity – the Mercedes Benz COMAND SatNav I drive a 2011 Mercedes. Like many of its brethren, most of the vehicle is a demonstration of engineering excellence: smooth, efficient, safe and smart (in both senses of … Continue reading
Disasters and Dystopias: Where Are We Now?
There’s a darkly humorous meme doing the rounds: It makes you chuckle, but it’s wrong. Firstly, I’m not sure even the most disheartened would actually claim to be living the events of The Matrix. Of course, there’s always the possibility … Continue reading
Multi-shot Photography: Alive and Clicking
When I first made the transition to digital photography, I got into several forms of multi-shot photography, techniques where you take two or more independent exposures and combine them to get a result not possible with a single frame. As … Continue reading
Last Light: A New Dawn?
We awoke on day 2 of the Dartmoor trip to a changed world at multiple levels: news from the US election of Trump’s likely demise, and much crisper, drier weather over Dartmoor. Lee decided to return to Combestone Tor for … Continue reading
Last Light Before Lockdown
After the cancellation of my Patagonia trip in March at a few days notice, and our short trip to France at 12 hours notice in July I was really hoping I could make my final attempt of the year work. … Continue reading
Design Lessons: Hotel Rooms
A humble (or not so humble) hotel room may succeed in delivering a satisfactory service to the user, but it may also fail dramatically to do so. These failures suggest that the “designer” either hasn’t thought about the user at … Continue reading
That’s an Understatement!
We thought there "might be a bit of a wasps’ nest" in the loft. At first glance, I thought it might be behind a bundle of insulation, but no, it is the "bundle of insulation". For scale, the electric valve … Continue reading
From the Ministry of Strange Coincidences…
We’ve been getting through lockdown at least in part by working through Richard Coyle’s back catalogue. As well as things we hadn’t seen before, like the excellent Five Days of War, I tracked down a copy of The Whistleblowers from … Continue reading
Demolition Man
A great piece of futurology, remarkably prescient for this year The other night we re-watched the highly entertaining Demolition Man, starring Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock and Wesley Snipes (and let’s not forget Sir Nigel Hawthorne, who famously did it mainly … Continue reading
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