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How to wear headphones and not get hit by a van

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

This one's for the Deliveroo riders. Not all heroes wear capes - but they should all be wearing these headphones.

Bone conduction headphones enable you to listen to audio privately without plugging your ears.

Headphones can sometimes be a little tedious or intrusive - but not these. They're wireless; connect via Bluetooth, wrap around the neck and secure over the top of the ear. The speaker rests on the tragus, rather than inside the ear canal. This means that you can wear them comfortably for extended periods of time.


The bones in the middle ear deteriorate as we age, causing gradual hearing loss. Bone conduction devices such as hearing aids transmit vibrations through bones in the skull to the inner ear. These devices decode sound waves and convert them to vibrations, bypassing the area in the ear that has degraded to deliver audio information directly to the inner ear, which connects to the auditory nerve, which attaches to the brain. These headphones work in a similar way.

Because the ear canal isn't obstructed, you can use these headphones without inhibiting sound from the outside world. This makes them an exceptionally practical option for runners and cyclists, who need to be aware of their surroundings. Wearing noise-cancelling headphones in a busy, loud area can be quite overwhelming and potentially unsafe. These allow you to navigate through a bustling city without disrupting your equilibrium.


This product is good for listening to music, but the clarity and range do not live up to a good set of in-ear or over-ear headphones. They are however excellent for podcasts and spoken content, where a slight compromise in audio quality isn't an issue.


You can become engrossed in an audiobook whilst walking around the city, and take calls without touching your phone. You don't have to worry about losing your AirPods underneath a stranger's seat on the bus, or getting crushed by a Transit van because you were distracted.


We think these can be a useful bit of tech for anyone, but particularly joggers, cyclists and elderly people. There are some water-resistant bone conduction headphones on the market, which are a great option for swimmers.

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Insane Siri Upgrade

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

S-GPT is a new feature for iOS devices which integrates ChatGPT into Siri. The result is Siri on Steroids.

Here's an excellent demonstration by Brandon Butch.

Why is this such a big deal?

The application can read, analyse and process huge amounts of raw data, then use it to provide extremely specific and precise solutions to the user.



Here are some examples of what you could ask it to do for you:

"I want to go on a trip to Paris this Summer. I'd like to go for about a week. Check my calendar to see what dates I can do and whether I can fly from Bristol airport. I'll be travelling on a budget so give me a few options on cheap hotels."

"Create me a playlist with classic rock songs from the 80's and sort them by release date so that I can listen to them whilst running."

"Summarise each of these three newspaper articles in 200 words or less - and make it really easy to understand"

This highlights two things:
> What an exciting era of tech we're entering into.
> The unlimited potential of AI.

We are close to each having a digital assistant that knows all your needs and preferences. It will be able to respond to all your emails, create and consistently update a personalised training and nutrition program, do all your shopping, create your budgets and pay your bills, and download all the movies, books and recipes that it knows you'll like - or maybe even create them itself!

Absolutely wild.

Credit to whatever genius created this 👏

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Tech wars in 2023

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

It'd be nice to see more discussion and banter amongst tech users on social media, and less hateful or sarcastic comments and ad hominem attacks.

This might not be as prevalent or toxic as political or faith-based conflict, but it's still an issue.

Because people that cannot conduct themselves properly on more trivial matters are more likely to act inappropriately in more serious situations.

Everyone wants to believe that they are right and that their team is the best. We've invested so much time and money into supporting our team that we become zealots, incapable of seeing the flaws and shortcomings in our own beliefs and teams, or the merit in opposing beliefs and teams.

People are prone to confirmation bias: they seek out information to confirm their pre-existing beliefs, whilst avoiding or ignoring information that challenges or conflicts with their beliefs. We do this because it's significantly easier and more rewarding to reinforce our current viewpoints than it is to challenge them, or to simply accept that we have incomplete information and that we just don't know everything.

You don't want to feel like you made the wrong choice or spent years believing something that wasn't true, because being wrong is painful. By mocking people that use or believe something else, we justify our choices and ensure ourselves that we are indeed part of the superior class.

The internet has made it easier to engage with like-minded individuals, to debate and discuss in order to seek truth; but also to indoctrinate, spread misinformation, and attack others.

We love to feel part of a community - it's an integral part of being a healthy, well-rounded human. But when people attach their identity to their team, it can result in unnecessary, toxic conflict.

Find something better to do.
















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Big Brother is Watching You

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

The Superbowl is an American football game - the biggest event on the American sports calendar brings in over 100 million viewers every year.

The elite athleticism on the field is but a trivial subplot to the half-time entertainment, advertising, and celebrity-soaked PR that takes centre stage throughout the event.

Companies paid $7 million for a single 30-second video ad to air during the Superbowl this year.

The stakes are ludicrously high - on and off the field.

In 1984, Apple paid $1 million to show a 60-second commercial - which is still regarded as one of the most effective and iconic ads in history.

Watch Video


The commercial was a callback to George Orwell's infamous book, 1984 - a dystopian science fiction novel and cautionary tale, published in 1949.

Apple targeted a small but growing demographic of people that used computers in a creative, unconventional way. This, in contrast with the zombie conformists in the ad, who represented IBM - the market leader at the time. 

This idea of the one against the many is portrayed by the athlete, who launches a hammer at the big screen that thousands of people were mindlessly staring at. Her colourful clothing and evocative emotion stand out from the otherwise dark and despairing tone of the scene.

The strong and courageous female athlete escapes the guards and destroys the screen, shattering the totalitarian leader, and ultimately allowing his brainwashed followers to see the light.

Apple's slogan at the time: Think Different.

The commercial aired two days before the official launch of the Macintosh. The ad proved to be a tremendous success. Apple sold 72,000 computers in the first 100 days. This, at a time when most Americans didn't know what a personal computer was, let alone could afford one.

The launch of the Macintosh alongside this ad fired Apple on an unstoppable trajectory to the top of the computing industry, eventually leading them to become the world's most recognised brand and first trillion-dollar company.  

Some might say that the message behind the ad is ironic, given Apple's current standing as a commercialised surveilling tech giant. But at the time, it was an underdog starting a revolution to change the world for the better.

As Orwell wrote in 1984, “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”

Notice how you do not once see the product in the ad itself, nor does it really relate to computers in any way, which is a testament to what a genius piece of marketing this was.

This advert was directed by Ridley Scott.

If, like me, you grew up on 2000's cartoons, you'll now understand the Futurama reference.

Other Superbowl classics you might recognise include Budweiser's Whassup, Old Spice's the man you could smell like, and Snickers' you're not you when you're hungry. Check them out here.

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How you do anything is how you do everything

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

That's why I spellchecked this post, even though no one might read it. 



Look at this mess.



We are often left to clear up other technicians' messes. 

Why bother cleaning off the old adhesive and applying fresh battery adhesive if it's still sticky?

Why apply a new dust and liquid seal if the device has lost its water resistance?

Why waste time securing the cables with screws and brackets?

A glimpse inside of a device can tell you a lot about the last person that was inside it - not least that they're willing to cut corners for their own convenience when no one else is looking.

To be lazy, dishonest, and unprofessional in one aspect almost guarantees me that you are lazy, dishonest and unprofessional in everything else that you do.

Whether it’s repairing phones, sending an email, or cleaning your room.

Because how you do anything is how you do everything.


Steve Jobs had a unique philosophy around design. In his endless pursuit of perfection, Jobs insisted that every element of the product was not only functional; but beautiful. This philosophy extended far beyond what the end-user would see. Jobs scrutinized every minute detail, including the individual components inside the machines. If he felt that the arrangement of microchips on the circuit board looked distasteful, he would insist that the entire circuit board was redesigned to make it neat and aesthetic.

When the computer was finally perfected, Jobs had the engineers’ names engraved inside each one. “Real artists sign their work,” he told them. “No one would ever see them, but the members of the team knew that their signatures were inside, just as they knew that the circuit board was laid out as elegantly as possible.”

For Jobs, the philosophy was not centred around impressing other people. It was about holding yourself accountable for the quality of your work.

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it,” Jobs said in an interview with Playboy in 1985, “You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

Meticulous. Disciplined. Passionate.

Apple didn't become the first trillion-dollar company by accident.


We know that you'll never see the inside of your device. We choose to leave it in the best condition that we can, based on our capability and the tools at our disposal.

The screws, the glue, the joints - that's our signature.

We want it to look and function a certain way, just as the designer intended.

That transfers across everything we do in life.

How you do anything...

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