notes

First of all let me make it clear that I am not being paid to write this (though if anyone does want to reward me please reach out). No, this is an completely free advertisement for the brilliantly-named Nothing brand's budget stuff, the less-brilliantly-named CMF range. I had a Mobvoi smartwatch for some years. It ran Google's WearOS, cost about £150 and looked nice, but it needed charging every couple of days, was difficult to read in sunlight, and a bit disappointing. I usually wore my old wind-up Omega. I looked at other smartwatches but they seemed a bit pricey (I should explain: I was born in Yorkshire) had lots of features I would never use and still needed charging every couple of days. Then I came across Nothing's CMF watch. I did my research - read a review, checked out the price - and splashed out £55. And this time I was very much not disappointed. It doesn't run a swanky Apple or Google operating system or have hundreds of apps and features, but it does hav...

<=> is of course mathematical nonsense. But it can be true: less than half a population can vote for someone (a president for example) while that someone gets more votes than anyone else; I might have less wealth than most of my friends and neighbours but more than enough for a comfortable life, and more than vast numbers of people who struggle to get by. I am an architect, though retired now, and have known the phrase 'less is more', coined by German modernist architect Mies van der Rohe since my school days. It is the catch phrase of minimalists everywhere and always resonated with me though probably in a broader sense than Mies intended.  <=> (less is more) is the name of my new Flipboard magazine where I will occasionally add items from the news, from elsewhere on Flipboard, from mastodon and from out of my head. Eating less out-of-season food and buying local produce means less greenhouse heating and fewer food miles but more flavour and more income for small g...