Today’s New Yorker cartoon is great.

My reading list for 2024.

Over on the big blog — the 52 weird and wonderful things I learned in 2024.

From our Solstice walk on Saturday. Before the sandstorm!

First jigsaw puzzle of the 12 jigsaws of Christmas I bought my wife this year.

Out for dinner with family tonight. But not here.

Solstice walk today

The potter who made it called it a Fluted Whisky Cup so I thought I should use it got that purpose tonight as I start my Christmas holiday.

Over on the big blog, a quick review of Naomi Klein’s book Doppelgänger. Can I ask for feedback?

What did I miss from giving-up on this book?

Over on the big blog, some small things that bring me joy.

Yesterday’s top sticker seen around town.

My experiments at migrating Pinboard to Reader are not going well. Pinboard has been in my workflow so long I think I’m loathe to move away too.

It’s very simple compared to the everything-in-one-place approach of Reader and it appears the code base is getting a refresh too.

My wife and I already have our Hogmanay tickets!

This is on the whiteboard at the gym. It annoys me more than I care to admit.

I stepped away from my Economist subscription this week but I miss it. Along with the FT, it has great in-depth world news analysis rather than just reporting.

The Master Animator was home briefly.

To celebrate my daughter’s birthday this weekend, we ate at Yamato in Edinburgh. There wasn’t a single bum note in the whole evening from the delicate cocktail, half-dozen oysters and lovely sushi and sashimi.

It was a great bonus the waiting staff thanked us for being so friendly.

Each year I make a batch of Christmas puddings as gifts and I name each ‘edition’ to reflect the Zeitgeist, state of the world or my own state of mind. Looking back over the previous years, I decided to brighten-up 2024. But only by about one milli-Lumen!

We were talking about old tech tonight and I dug this out. I could do everything on this. Mark-up docs, browsing, email, creating pdfs. All via a dial-up modem.

Delighted that my 2025 planners from MARK + FOLD have finally arrived. The linen limited edition is lovely and also a challenge putting aside my usual leather cover for a year.

A micro-review of my new headphones:

the good

Great sound and comfort. Good noise cancelling Great industrial design and premium materials. Designed for supportability and repair. Five-year warranty

the bad

I miss the Apple-only integrations of my AirPods Max but not their weight or broken mesh!

1. Walking barefoot
2. Hearing the earnest way small children talk or the silly things that amuse them.
3. The sound of a good fast pot at snooker. Y

Lately I’ve been finding that Bartender (as part of SetApp) was not working well. I know there were some shenanigans over the transfer of App owners too, and Mac users I respect moving away from Bartender.

I’ve switched to Vanilla Pro and am very impressed with its simplicity.