Tim Dobson

Notes on a book: Remote: Office Not Required by 37signals

24 April 2014

I first heard about Remote: Office Not Required when my friend, John Leach, mentioned on social media he'd been interviewed for it. Interested enough to see what it was he was interviewed about, I ordered a copy, and finally finished reading it yesterday. In short, the book is a persuasive set of mini-essays about why […]

Looking back at our trip to the Cuillins in Skye.

18 April 2014

On Saturday, after a blistering 12 hour minibus journey, I arrived back  in Manchester from a week in the Black Cuillins of Skye. It was a memorable trip, and by the second evening I thought it was all over – I was in great pain and could barely walk. In my socks, I'd excitedly tried to […]

Notes on a book: Founders at Work

14 April 2014

Yesterday, I finally completed Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days. The book is a collection of interviews conducted by Jessica Livingston of YCombinator with cofounders and key people of a great deal of well known (and in some cases, less well known, but notable) companies. Because each chapter is a different interview with a different person, […]

Notes on a book: Pitch Anything

5 April 2014

I've recently read Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. It's an interesting book, on the back someone's written "move over Neil Strauss – Pitch Anything is the new the Game". I think I can see why – they both inhabit an area of applied game theory or applied NLP, which when put into words, is likely […]

Destination: The Black Cuillins of Skye

3 April 2014

The Black Cuillins are probably the longest sustained alpine-style ridge in the UK, found in Skye, Scotland, they're very spiky and dramatic. In 2012, in March, our trip to Skye was beautifully sunny and hot. So much so that we went swimming in the rivers and sea. Last time round, I still thought of myself […]

I don't think you know what that word means…

2 April 2014

Spotted in Buxton: I don't think they know what "geek" means.

The problem with April Fools day…

1 April 2014

The problem with April Fools day is a problem also associated with Christmas, and other days. I love a good joke, but lots of corporate April fools jokes miss the point. In the same way that Christmas shouldn't be the only time you're generous to your family, April 1st shouldn't be the only day of […]

How to discuss concerns with your MP

30 March 2014

Avid followers of my blog, will know that I've written to my MP a number of times in recent months. This isn't because I love writing letters, but because I feel this probably is the most effective way of making a direct difference to policy makers. Watch this – it's very short and to the […]

I grew up in the 90s and 00s without a TV: instead I built stuff

26 March 2014

Throughout my childhood, my family never had a TV. From the day I was born, until I moved out when I was 19, I had relatively little exposure to TVs or their content. At primary school, all my classmates talked about Cartoon Network and 'play-stations' and I had no idea what it was all about. […]

Think: blinklight

17 March 2014

Sometimes it's hard not be impressed by small hacks that seem so obvious, yet you'd have never thought of til you saw it. Lenovo/IBM's line of Thinkpad laptops have traditionally have a "ThinkLight", an LED, located on the top edge of the display, illuminating the keyboard to allow typing in poor lighting conditions. I blissfully used […]

Why Twitter's #Music spinoff project should die

16 March 2014

Twitter has a music service. I do remember hearing it being announced some time ago, but I had completely forgotten about it. I decided to check it out. It's interesting. The premise of the service is that the top 5 tracks for popular artists will be displayed, and you can listen to them. Technically, that […]

Things you shouldn't repeat for fun: When I nearly got hypothermia

10 March 2014

I recently read about a group from MMU hiking club having to call out Mountain Rescue, (disclosure: I've hiked with MMU Hiking club once in the past), and I don't want to dwell on what happened to them, but rather what's important – they're all alive, well, uninjured (perhaps except in pride!) and will live […]