Writing on Tobias Lidman-Strauss

Picture This, kid

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Remember 24th of February 2013?

Because the Internet certainly does, even though I just pulled the date out of a hat.

On This Day tells us it's not a date without controversy. Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for her role in Silver Linings Playbook (Let's put a pin in the concept of a silver lining, and see if we can circle back to it later). Soldiers were killed in a skirmish in Mali. Danica Patrick became the first woman to ever start from pole position at Daytona.

Our damned wandering eyes

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It's not that boring is good

As we all know, there is at least one self-help book out there extolling the virtues of performing repetitious tasks to enhance creativity. Right. But I'm about as big a believer in creativity (as a buzzword) as I am in productivity. So I won't write that essay (It would probably also qualify as a repetitious task because it's already been written so many times!). I won't go on about how nice it is to do the dishes.

Timely news

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Before we go any further, I need you to know I will mention Napoleon Bonaparte in this text. So if I were you, I'd stop reading right now. Because listening to the advice of random men online who refer to Napoleon is pretty much never a good idea. But if you are up for it, here goes:

I think we should stop reading the news.

Napoleon time

He directed Bourrienne to leave all letters unopened for three weeks, and then observed with satisfaction how large a part of the correspondence had thus disposed of itself and no longer required an answer.

Plainly plain

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you are reading this you can probably write.

And since you are reading this on a website, you probably own a digital device. If so, I'll put two and two together and wager that you are in the category of people "who write things down digitally at times." If you are in that, admittedly broad, category - I promise this text is for you.

Writing is pretty much one of the most basic things we do on a computer. I mean, look, your keyboard even has dedicated keys for all the characters of the (Latin) alphabet ready for you to press! Still, as is our wont, we find ways to make things hard for ourselves. We reinvent the wheel, we buy expensive software and use a tenth of the expensive features. Worse still, we get a subscription for a word processor because, well, we are used to exactly that one from work.

Manuals - A dirty love letter

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Life takes an Immelmann turn

Nine-year-old Tobias, in the local ice hall. It's summer and the rink is boarded over, no ice in sight. Just as good since the kid isn't that great on a pair of skates. A flea-market is in full swing in the huge hall. Cutlery, kids clothing, old pots, lampshades, kids clothing, kids clothing. Kids clothing. At a table in the middle of the hall an item radiates a huge gravitational pull. A black cardboard box. On the front is a painted picture with a red triplane against a cloudy sky. A couple of green planes in the background, one of them on fire. Red Baron it says in a blackletter font. Because he is very fascinated by aircraft, and is collecting Biggles books (yes, he has a list of all of W.E Johns about the books he has bought, and which he has yet to get) he instantly knows that this is about Manfred von Richthofen, the German World War I ace. The size and proportions of the cardboard box is a dead give-away. It's a PC game.

Saying "thank you"

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I get an almost perverse level of satisfaction in saying thank you.

I'm one of those people who say "thank you" when I've helped someone. I feel very smug every single time a colleague leaves my desk after coming to me needing help, and I'm quicker to the "thanks" that common courtesy would have them utter. Ha! It makes me feel gracious. Also like I just won something. I do understand that the winning part does not sound so gracious, but hey, that's the feeling.