Open source got quietly captured by the companies it was supposed to be an escape from. Most of the big projects are staffed by people on three payrolls now, and the licence is the only part that still looks independent.

The replication crisis never really ended, we just stopped finding it interesting.

Football has too much football now.

Being late is a decision that your time is worth more than mine. There is no version of it that isn't that, however pleasantly it gets phrased.

Museums should explain less. I have started reading the wall text before looking at the thing, which means I am now being told what to see before I have seen it.

Every restaurant is too loud now and I refuse to accept it is just me getting old.

We built an entire economy on the idea that people will keep buying things they already have, and then act surprised when the things are designed to stop working.

We have lost the ability to be mildly interested in something. It is either your whole personality or you have not heard of it.

The algorithm has quietly killed the thing where you find something you were not looking for. Every recommendation is a slightly worse version of what I already like.

The best thing about a newspaper was that it ended. You got to the back page and you were done and nobody suggested anything else.

Cash is going and I notice I spend more without it, which is embarrassing but seems to be true of nearly everybody I ask.

Walking is free, works for nearly everybody, and has no equipment attached, which is exactly why you never hear about it.

We should be spending vastly more on stopping the next pandemic, and we will not, because prevention has no photograph attached to it.

If you could only fix one, fix your sleep, not your exercise. Nobody wants to hear it because you cannot post about sleeping.

Sat down and added up the subscriptions. Seventy one pounds a month, and I could name four of them.

Nobody knows what to do with an afternoon any more. Give most people four unplanned hours and they will tidy something.

Science journalism is mostly press releases with the caveats removed, and the caveats were the science.

Honestly think the four-day week debate is mostly people who already have autonomy arguing about the calendar, while everyone in a warehouse gets nothing out of either version.

Health advice aimed at women is still mostly either about being thinner or about having children, and it is genuinely strange how little else there is.

A cricket match that ends in a draw is a better result than most wins and this is the single hardest thing to explain to anyone who did not grow up with it.

AI is going to destroy more jobs than it makes. Every previous wave moved people up a ladder; this one is coming for the rungs.

Sequels have not got worse. We got older, and no film is ever going to land on you the way one did when you were fourteen.

Can we talk about the specific misery of a group chat trying to decide where to eat? Six people, all of whom have a preference, none of whom will state it first. Somebody offers a place. Two react with a thumbs up, which means nothing. One says "I'm easy!" which is a lie. The person who actually wanted Thai says nothing, because saying it now would look like overruling. Ninety minutes pass. You end up at the place nobody chose, which everyone privately rates about a six. The thing is that this is not a coordination problem, it is a status problem. Everyone knows the fastest solution is one person deciding. What nobody wants is to be the person who decided, because then the evening is theirs, and if the food is mediocre it is their fault. The only fix I have found is somebody booking it before the chat starts. Not suggesting — booking. Nobody has ever objected, which rather gives the game away: it was never that people disagreed, it was that nobody wanted to own it.

Most "we need better communication" is really "somebody needs to make a decision and nobody wants to be the one who did".

The most useful thing I was ever taught about science is that a result with no error bars is a story.