Best new music 2024
A brief personal reflection followed by the traditional list of the best music that caught my ear during 2024.
Category: Life
Musings and reflections about all kinds of things that don’t fit into any other category.
Best new music 2023
Better late than never, here is my annual blog post listing my favourite new releases from 2023. It’s been a rather trying festive season this year because the rich soup of respiratory viruses making the rounds have ensured that my various holiday writing projects, including this one, got pushed and pushed.
Anthropology!
Anthropology is, with music and mathematics, one of the few true vocations; and the anthropologist may become aware of it within himself before ever he has been taught it. (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, 1961) It is a notable curiosity that … [read more]
A home phone for $3/month
At first glance, a home phone seems like a somewhat quaint, old-fashioned thing to have these days. With mobile phones everywhere, it seems unnecessary and perhaps a little wasteful. Call me nostalgic, then, but I really like to have one. … [read more]
Marcus Aurelius on being present, in the present
I struggle to focus on my work, for the same reasons most people do: we are surrounded by seemingly never ending distractions (social media, email, phone calls) and it’s difficult to focus on a project without interruptions. I also find … [read more]
The case for building my own computer
Men’s hobbies tend to fall into one of two broad categories. There are extroverted leisure time pursuits, often related to sports, gaming, grilling meat or drinking; and more introverted activities, often related to material things, such as woodworking, model building, … [read more]
9/11 Memorial
First, we have to go through the security theatre. The long lineups are partially for crowd control (you don’t want the wait to seem too long, so it’s best to break up the line into a few smaller ones), partially … [read more]
Review: Jawbone UP
Three weeks ago, I bought a Jawbone UP. It’s a movement-tracking bracelet that can be plugged into your iPhone (or Android device) once or twice a day to transmit your activity to a mobile app. (You can also download your … [read more]