Hi, I’m Ed.

Decided to refresh this website a little over the weekend. The heading artwork is based on a photograph I took on our honeymoon to New Zealand. We both have incredible memories from that trip, which all get that much stronger when the clocks go back as they did on Sunday, and the evenings are dark at 4pm again.

The site itself, I've tried to split the two key elements. The first is longer form essays. Things that I've thought a lot about and spent time organising my thoughts into something I'm proud to publish. The other part are shorter notes, such as this one. These are more throwaway, ideas, thoughts, or commentary on things around me.

No doubt there'll be a bit of tweaking over the next few weeks but it feels a little more refined already, and I'm enjoying it.

I came across this lovely concept today (in the always excellent Dense Discovery newsletter), the idea being that we can give ourselves a version number.

Today I'm 3.4.95. Tomorrow, the patch number increases by one. Hopefully each day there's a little improvement, something I didn't previously know that I now do. A mistake that I've since learned from. An idea that I can now pursue.

It's a gentle reminder of continuous improvement, that we're always still growing and learning. The day-to-day change is likely small, but imagine what will have changed between today and version 5.7.13, to pick an example. 

More and more I'm appreciating just how important communication is in all aspects of life, and how incredibly difficult it is to be genuinely good at it. Professionally speaking, I now see my ability to communicate as the most important aspect holding back career growth. The ability to execute, have good ideas and deliver improvement are all worth so much less if they're not effectively and intelligently communicated to the right people. 

I know I need to write more. To think more deeply. But it feels like everything around me works to break my focus, and recovering that is something I struggle with.

When reading Bill Gates' autobiography I learned about his think weeks. A week alone, offline, with little more than a stack of books, paper and a pen. At the time I felt that was unnecessary. Now I think that would be the ultimate luxury. 

I was tempted when it was first announced, but the first version seemed to miss the mark and was widely considered almost useless. But the team behind it kept going. They’ve refined it, improved it, and the new version of the OS looks much more capable.

I’ve also had a craving to play with hardware for a while now. The Playdate is on the wish list, as is basically everything designed by Teenage Engineering.

The R1 still has a compelling promise: a simple, dedicated device for asking questions, checking a status, capturing a thought or task. Maybe having a specific device for that means I pick up my phone less often, and avoid getting dragged into the usual time-draining habits.

Maybe it still isn’t quite there and ends up unused in a drawer within a couple of weeks.

Only one way to find out.

After twelve months away from it I'm returned to Whoop. I got a lot of value out of it when I first used it, but when my son was born I knew training would have to take a back seat for a little while. We're now in more of a position where regular training is happening, goals are being reset and my craving for more data is increasing. 

Of course 24 hours after re-subscribing, Google announced the Fitbit Air. It looks great but perhaps a little basic in terms of sensors and datapoints. I'm looking forward to seeing what the early reviews make of it because the price point is otherwise excellent. A screen-free, cheap, data capture device that I can then apply my own analysis to is exactly what I'd opt for.

I've used Google Workspace for about 15 years now, and it's been great. The Google ecosystem is comfortable and works well. But more recently — and AI may well be the trigger here — I've wanted to have more ownership of my own data. To know where it is and what it is being used for.

To this end, I've started to build a personal database. I'll share more on that another time, but I'm opting to capture books, films, wines and coffee beans in there rather than use and maintain four different social services that are all essentially just advertising platforms. AI can now provide answers to the "based on my profile, what would I next enjoy" question, so I can trim away the rest.

It's a common saying that if you're not paying for the service, then you and your data are the service. So much of the Google ecosystem is shared, analysed, surfaced and optimised around keeping you inside it, rather than simply providing a requested service.

Email felt like the obvious place to start. Not because I think it's the most at risk, but because it sits underneath so much else. It’s a 15-year archive of messages, receipts, logins, family admin, travel plans, account recovery. A boring utility, until you stop and realise how much of your life passes through it.

I’ve had my own domain for years, so my email address itself isn’t changing. That makes this a much lower-risk move than it would otherwise be. I don't need to ask anyone to update contact details (my parents still try and email my university address!) and I’m not breaking old accounts. I’m just moving the plumbing from Google Workspace to Fastmail.

In theory, this is exactly the kind of internet I prefer. Open standards. A paid service with a clear business model. IMAP, SMTP, custom domains, boring reliability. Less “ecosystem”, more utility.

There’s something quite appealing about that. So let’s see how long this phase lasts.

And while having kids may be warping my present judgement, it hasn't overwritten my memory. I remember perfectly well what life was like before. Well enough to miss some things a lot, like the ability to take off for some other country at a moment's notice. That was so great. Why did I never do that?

See what I did there? The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.

With my son now approaching his first birthday I can relate a lot to this piece from Paul Graham. Raising a child has been considerably harder than I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, it's equally the most incredible and fulfilling experience too, but it is relentless, and in the tougher moments it's easy to look back and think about the freedom you've since lost. 

Except I never used it.

It's just easier to essentially blame that fact on another part of your life than own up to it. There's also no reason why that freedom has to be lost, and this is something my wife and I are trying to fight. Sure, it's harder to travel with a one year old. Even more so with a dog. But it's far from impossible if that's what you really value. 

I agree with a lot of this. The iPad has for too long occupied this strange middle ground. The hardware has been extremely capable for years whilst the software has inexplicably lagged behind. This is now more noticeable with AI.

I've been tempted through the years to consider the iPad Pro as my primary machine. After all, a vast majority of my work only requires a browser; everything of note is a web app or would have an iOS app available. But now, a main device that cannot run Claude Code or Codex wouldn't really be an option. It would feel like having my hands tied behind my back.

The Neo looks to be a great machine. A desire for that kind of device is why I picked up a second-hand 12-inch MacBook last year. Small and capable, though without an M-series chip it was never going to be a long-term main machine.

I still wonder where the iPad fits into my routine. Not as capable for work as a MacBook. Not as good to read on as my Kindle. Not as immediately available as my iPhone.

As Craig finishes by saying, it'll be very interesting to see how John Ternus approaches this when he begins as Apple CEO in September. The iPad is clearly very successful and a popular device, but is an ever closer convergence between iOS and macOS the right approach?

It'll also be fascinating to see how rumoured devices like the OpenAI hardware Jony Ive is working on may disrupt this space. Does the future of computing look completely different in ten years' time?

Wales stands at a critical moment as our economy continues to degrade the natural resources that underpin our health, security, and prosperity. Wales is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, with almost 1 out of 5 species at risk of extinction.

Wales’ consumption levels far exceed sustainable limits. If replicated globally, our resource use would require more than two Earths, demonstrating the amount of natural resources we import, all accompanied by impacts on other countries

— State of Natural Resources Report 2025

The State of Natural Resource Report 2025 paints a very bleak picture. All too often we look elsewhere, at what other countries are doing or the United Kingdom as a whole. But here in Wales we’re at a critical point. Our history, particularly agriculture which accounts for 90% of Welsh land, isn’t easily compatible with achieving climate goals. Recent changes to legislation, including the Sustainable Farming Scheme has real potential, though it’s still not perfect and is still struggling to balance the agricultural industry and people with the broader needs of our country.

Reading this report is making me really think about my own impact. We’ve all got to do more to protect nature. I need to find out what that is, though. There’s a lot to think about here.

I haven’t read as many books as I was hoping to this year, but thanks to Matter I’ve read a lot more from across the web. Their support for sending articles to the Kindle makes for an excellent experience for long-form articles.

I’ll try to write about my favourite articles in the next few days, but here are my top three books I read this year.

Between Two Kingdoms, by Suleika Jaouad

An incredible storyteller with an incredible story to tell. This was very much un-putdownable and I really enjoyed it. The reader was invited into every conversation and passing thought that really built up the narrative throughout, and how Suleika tackled some incredibly tough topics was truly inspiring.

Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara

I first spotted this from The Bear and thought it looked interesting. It was a fantastic read, with so many brilliant stories and anecdotes to really drive home the points that Will was making. The power of incredible levels of service and attention to detail cannot be understated, and thinking about how the lessons here can be applied across other industries occupied my mind for a long time after finishing it.

A Different Kind of Power, by Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern becoming PM of New Zealand felt like a turning point in global politics. Sadly that influence has perhaps not had the full effect just yet, but her style of leadership is infectious and has certainly show that there is another way. She had to deal with some huge events during her time, and she took on each one with great humility.

The overwhelmingly cheap cost of storage has meant that we rarely delete things any more.

At work we come up with an idea, research it and present our findings as something that we could do. A few months pass, an evolution on that original idea comes along. We refresh our memory from the original idea, research what’s changed and then present it as a new idea, leaving the old one as it was.

Storage is cheap. The old idea is doing no harm. It’s just a harmless old document that no one would go and read.

Until we come to train LLMs on our company documents. All of a sudden, there’s important context missing. All those old (and good bad!) ideas and out of date reports all of a sudden are presented equally for an LLM to train against.

When we then come to interrogate this knowledge, how will we know what’s useful? How will we be able to trust it?

Today shows that you can still play this as a team sport, with honesty, fairness and transparency at the centre of every race and still come out on top as champions.

Papaya rules.

I realise I’m a couple of weeks late to the party with this, but the onboarding user experience with poke.com is brilliant.

It immediately feels familiar, being positioned as a contact through an existing chat interface, and it feels as though it “knows” you within a few minutes. Negotiating a monthly price is also novel, though I expect the vast majority of users end up paying the same amount.

However, I’ve played and enjoyed it for about a week and the novelty is starting to wear off. Sure, it’s immediately accessible and has helped draft a few emails, but in each case I’ve felt the need to adjust the draft before sending. Scheduled reminders and daily briefings are nice, but I’ve struggled to fit them into any sort of routine.

This is very much the state of AI more broadly today. Novel, intriguing, powerful. But we’re still figuring out how to integrate it properly. The real power is still to come. We’re still in the dial-up era.