London, UK -  I work in cyber security but write about the broader technology landscape, looking past the hype to discover what works, what doesn't, and whether any of it truly improves our lives.

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Take note: How to waste less time on the internet
 -  We all waste far too much time online. There’s overt time wasting, like the mindless auto-queued videos on TikTok, and less obvious time wasting, like time spent browsing Hacker News and reading semi-technical blog posts. “But Matt,” you might say...
A reminder that you can just do things... kind of
 -  “You can just do things” has become common advice online. It’s a modern iteration on the ethos that fortune favours the brave - a proclamation that you’re only one bold move away from the life you’ve always dreamt of. Yeah right, was my initial re...
Death Stranding: The journeys lost to life on demand
 -  Just before the launch of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, the latest game from legendary director Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions, something unusual happened. Tickets started going on sale for small events in Los Angeles, Sydney, ...
Amazon Kindle review: I wish I'd bought one years ago
 -  An e-reader post in 2025? It feels like most readers who would be interested in devices like the Amazon Kindle were sold on the idea a long time ago. But some - like myself - held on to physical books, preferring the printed word and taking a defi...
AI chatbots are kicking journalism while it's down
 -  Where do you go when you need to find information online? For decades, my answer to that question would have been Google, but in the past few years I’ve increasingly turned to ChatGPT and other AI services, which - generally speaking - uncover nic...
Agentic AI could be the catalyst for safer autonomy
 -  Granting artificial intelligence (AI) access to tools capable of taking real-world actions might fill you with a sense of dread - arguably it should. Given the number of inaccuracies most AI models confidently assert as truth, it feels prudent to ...
Quality products begin with detail-obsessed leaders
 -  It often feels like modern business is stuck in a loop. An idea is successful, there is a push to scale it as far and quickly as possible, and it’s optimised to within an inch of its life - but normally only in the name of profit. Usually this res...
Bluesky's nearly there, but it won't replace X just yet
 -  Bluesky was an indirect product of Elon Musk’s controversial 2022 Twitter takeover, pitched as a decentralised, user-first alternative to the site that became X. Originally a side project funded by Twitter itself, its new goal is to stand on its o...
When you travel, the real journey isn't photographed
 -  Last week, I played tour guide for some visitors from overseas - first in London, and then in my hometown. It was exhausting, but it came with an unexpected side effect: it made me see those places differently. It’s hard to take your city for gran...
Staying productive when everything feels urgent
 -  We’ve all been there. One day you’re in control, the next you’re racing from meeting to meeting, unable to focus long enough to move anything forward in any meaningful way - unless, that is, you start protecting your time. When everything feels ur...

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Digital journalism
Coincidentally, in the space of a week I encountered both Zach Seward's article about Quartz and Craig Mod's excellent podcasts with Tim Ferriss. Both evoked fond memories of my time in journalism and the buzz surrounding digital journalism and media in the 2010s

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