Essays on slow software and the tools that outlast us.https://gloss.ondelva.com/enhttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-same-walk-for-a-year/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-same-walk-for-a-year/I walked one 2.4 km route every morning for a year. The route stayed put, and what I noticed on it did not.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTwalkingattentionhttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-card-catalogue-in-my-head/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-card-catalogue-in-my-head/One fact per card, a fixed size and cross references written by hand: the old card catalogue is still the best model I know for filing notes.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTtoolssoftwarehttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/a-commonplace-book-from-1620/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/a-commonplace-book-from-1620/A small, mostly empty book kept by Francis Grosvenor around 1620 shows what a notebook looks like before anyone is watching.Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTnotebooksreadinghttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-notification-diet/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-notification-diet/I turned off almost every notification on my phone for a year and wrote down what happened, including the parts that did not go well.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTattentionsoftwarehttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-bad-first-page/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-bad-first-page/I have a rule that the first page of anything I write is allowed to be terrible, and a record of what happens to it afterwards.Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTwritinghttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-pencil-ledger/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-pencil-ledger/I tracked every pencil I used up in 2025. The results are small, specific and a little embarrassing.Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTtoolsnotebookshttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/tools-that-outlast-their-makers/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/tools-that-outlast-their-makers/A short field guide to the objects and programs in my house that are older than my career, and what they have in common.Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTtoolssoftwarehttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/reading-slowly-on-purpose/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/reading-slowly-on-purpose/I read about 22 books a year now, down from 60, and I remember more of them. Here is the method, such as it is.Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTreadingattentionhttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/a-note-on-margins/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/a-note-on-margins/A very short note on why I leave a wide margin on every page and what I eventually put in it.Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTnotebookswritinghttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/plain-text-is-a-promise/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/plain-text-is-a-promise/Why I keep twenty years of writing in files any machine can open, and what I gave up to do it.Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTwritingtoolssoftwarehttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-eleven-second-save/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/the-eleven-second-save/A writing app took eleven seconds to open a file, so I timed the alternative and ended up with a shell one-liner and a quieter afternoon.Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTsoftwaretoolshttps://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/why-i-still-carry-a-paper-notebook/https://gloss.ondelva.com/posts/why-i-still-carry-a-paper-notebook/Fourteen notebooks in, here is what paper does that my phone has never managed, and what it costs me to keep doing it.Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTnotebooksattention