← 2026September 2026
Treat your body like a data centre. Consume as much water and literature as possible. Upset local city councils with your existence.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.
Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Logging on to a website in 2036:
Username. Password. Emails a magic link ... click link. Now your Passkey. Verify this is a photo of your child right now as captured by satellite. SMS code. Your child has been taken hostage by the authenticator app until you turn this graphic to the correct spot where it matches up with the other spot. Your password has expired, please enter a new password. Cut off a piece of your hair and insert it into your Mac's HairID port. Enter the number that answers this question: How many times has Trump been president? Please wait while we get confirmation from your mum that you can log on. Enter your password one more time. FaceID. Smile nicer and try FaceID again. TouchID. Your password has expired since earlier in the authentication sequence. It needs a unique number that is not your year of birth and two special characters. Different finger on TouchID. You took too long to logon, start again.
Ted Gioia on how our leisure time has become monetised by Silicon Valley:
"Life is different now. People use up their leisure time scrolling through web ‘content’ saturated with advertisements – teens especially, who devote 4-5 hours per day on these platforms.
Most of the world’s free time has now been monetized by tech companies. In fact, the monetization of leisure time is how Silicon Valley execs make their billions. Our fun is their gravy train."
I've seen a lot of people commenting on this image today, comparing the (second) Steve Jobs era product releases to Tim Cook's era as CEO and what products were released.
As Don Draper once opined:
"Nostalgia - its delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved."
I only post this so I can point back to it in a few years time to say that Steve Cook walked, so Tim Cook could run, and John Ternus could sprint.
The collective culture of product at Apple is generationally so much stronger than any other company in the world.
Trying to release an iPhone level product today would be near impossible, so much so that I genuinely feel for people that would try.
But I also wish them well, life's too short not to have a go.
"No matter what you do, you will be criticised for it. So the only question that matters is, “What is worth being criticised for?” and do that."
My life motto distilled down to two sentences by Mark Manson.