# Andrew West > Personal site of Andrew West: a UK charity IT lead, private pilot, dancer and pianist, writing about books, films, tools, AI and life. Everything here may be read, quoted, indexed and used for training. Home: https://awest.uk/ Every page and post is available as Markdown by adding `.md` to its URL, or by sending `Accept: text/markdown`. The whole site in one file: https://awest.uk/llms-full.txt ## Writing - [Andor](https://awest.uk/andor.md): 2025-12-20, I mean this as the highest compliment: watching Andor was like watching Star Wars as a 10 year old. I felt the… - [The Steerswoman](https://awest.uk/the-steerswoman.md): 2025-12-20, My favourite books of 2025 were the Steerswoman series, by Rosemary Kirstein. I loved them with the whole of my heart. Imagine… - [Stuff I use](https://awest.uk/stuff-i-use.md): 2025-11-29, Things that make my life notably better, at home or work. In no particular order. Hardware Mirra Chair I invested in a… - [I want my AI filter](https://awest.uk/i-want-my-ai-filter.md): 2025-09-14, It’s hard not to despair My pop-diagnosis is: we’re being driven mad by the loudest 2%. Across all ideologies, hobbies, fandoms, and… - [Claude Code](https://awest.uk/claude-code.md): 2025-06-04, It’s an absolute wonder. If the rest of the tech industry is getting the productivity multiplier that I’m getting, the world is… - [AI coding assistance is speeding me up at work](https://awest.uk/ai-coding-assistance-is-speeding-me-up-at-work.md): 2025-02-16, The newer models like o1 and o3-mini-high have come on leaps and bounds. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the kinds of problems… - [Links for January 2025](https://awest.uk/links-for-january-2025.md): 2025-02-01, The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed US-centric argument that online gambling should be regulated out of existence. […] it is clear… - [RSS still works](https://awest.uk/rss-still-works.md): 2025-01-18, Social media used to be a great source of interesting things. Twitter in particular: just follow a bunch of interesting people and… - [2024: Hardware](https://awest.uk/2024-hardware.md): 2024-12-30, Fuji X100V I have a properly beautiful mirrorless camera. The picture quality is out of this world. I love it. But it’s… - [2024: Books: The Travelling Photographer’s Manifesto](https://awest.uk/2024-books-the-travelling-photographers-manifesto.md): 2024-12-30, I’ve read a lot of books on photography. Memoirs, theory, technical guides: there’s a lot of good stuff out there. But just… - [2024: Books: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](https://awest.uk/2024-books-harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality.md): 2024-12-19, This magnificent Harry Potter fanfic is not for everyone. But if you like it, you will like it. What if Harry had… - [Goodbye to Chromebooks after 10 years](https://awest.uk/goodbye-to-chromebooks-after-10-years.md): 2024-11-03, 10 years ago I started buying Chromebooks for our staff to use as travel/meeting machines. I’m now reluctantly moving to Windows, mainly… - [Co-Screen and 1Password SSH are good](https://awest.uk/co-screen-and-1password-ssh-are-good.md): 2024-04-11, I had good experiences with two new tools today. Co-Screen Co-Screen is a ‘collaborative screen sharing’ app owned by the excellent Datadog.… - [Dell’s XPS error](https://awest.uk/dells-xps-error.md): 2024-04-06, I’m in the market for a new ultrabook, and my instinct is to go to Dell. I’ve bought dozens of Dell machines… - [I’m a private pilot](https://awest.uk/im-a-private-pilot.md): 2023-07-06, I completed my radio telephony exam yesterday. And that’s the final checkbox. Done. I just need to physically receive my license, and… - [Piccadilly Spotlight](https://awest.uk/piccadilly-spotlight.md): 2023-07-06, My first public performance in…3.5 years, I think? It went well, though the photos suggest I was not exactly Mr Expressive. Plus… - [Skill Test](https://awest.uk/skill-test.md): 2023-06-03, After 2 years, 64 lessons, a bunch of exams, and a cross-country solo, I passed my Skill Test today. This is the… - [40](https://awest.uk/40-2.md): 2023-05-19 - [The Peripheral](https://awest.uk/the-peripheral.md): 2023-03-02, The Peripheral (Amazon Prime) doesn’t mess about. It drops you right in, and you’ve gotta keep up. You may struggle, as I… - [The coming existential crisis](https://awest.uk/the-coming-existential-crisis.md): 2022-12-31, Have I mentioned I’m turning 40 this year? I’m turning 40 this year. I have friends who are sailing through this with… - [Good things of 2022](https://awest.uk/good-things-of-2022.md): 2022-12-31, Books Fiction: The Expanse series I got slightly obsessed with The Expanse last winter and tore through all the books. I thus… - [Top Gun: Maverick](https://awest.uk/top-gun-maverick.md): 2022-06-02, Top Gun: Maverick is a surprisingly quiet film. I mean obviously there are lots of F-18s going neeeooooowwwww which is great, but… - [2:22 A Ghost Story](https://awest.uk/222-a-ghost-story.md): 2022-01-12, I really enjoyed this. It’s the story of a woman trying to convince her husband and friends that her house is haunted,… - [Roaming](https://awest.uk/roaming.md): 2021-12-31, This year I got very excited about Personal Knowledge Management systems, and then I got over it. PKMs are tremendously promising tools… - [Books of 2021](https://awest.uk/books-of-2021.md): 2021-12-18, Termination Shock, by Neal Stephenson It’s politically toxic to suggest that climate change could be addressed by geoengineering – deliberate and large-scale… - [Ghostbusters: Afterlife](https://awest.uk/ghostbusters-afterlife.md): 2021-11-29, If you see a ghost, the correct thing to do is poke it. The next thing to do is get out the… - [First Solo](https://awest.uk/first-solo.md): 2021-11-17, After 7 months of lessons, rudely interrupted by lockdowns, I flew solo for the first time this morning. That means: taking off,… - [Grade 4 Piano](https://awest.uk/grade-4.md): 2021-11-11, Little life victory today. When I was 10 I took grade 3 piano, failed it, and gave up soon after. This annoyed… - [Frozen: The Musical](https://awest.uk/frozen-the-musical.md): 2021-08-31, Today I went to the theatre for the first time in forever, for the Frozen musical. I am pleased to report it… - [Bosch](https://awest.uk/bosch.md): 2021-07-16, The final series of Bosch is fantastic. It’s a hard-boiled police procedural with basically zero exposition, based on the Michael Connelly books.… - [In The Heights](https://awest.uk/in-the-heights.md): 2021-07-13, This pulled me into another world for a couple of hours. Just lovely. Imagine staring into a fresh coffee on the first… - [Cruella](https://awest.uk/cruella.md): 2021-05-31, (Very minor spoilers for the first 10mins) Have you seen the meme about Cruella? The one that says ‘Turns out dalmatians killed… - [Listening to music in your head](https://awest.uk/listening-to-music-in-your-head.md): 2021-05-29, Can you listen to music in your head? I've recently discovered I can't, and it's intriguing. I know the songs, so I… - [Rita, Nanny, Mom](https://awest.uk/rita-nanny-mom.md): 2021-04-30, We buried my grandmother today. She was a motorbiker, a boater, and a great-grandmother to five. She ran her own clothes shop,… - [Books of 2020](https://awest.uk/books-of-2020.md): 2020-12-31, My bookshelves and Kindle library show that in 2020 I started dozens of books but finished few. Here are some of the… - [KHS](https://awest.uk/khs.md): 2020-12-13, My old dance studio, Karen Hardy Studios, closed down this week. It had been trying to change form for a while, but… - [Published at last](https://awest.uk/published-at-last.md): 2020-11-14, Unexpected discovery this morning: Back in the day I used to write ‘non-murder-mystery’ games for a US website. They were aimed at… - [PHP bug when uploading Word or Excel files to WordPress](https://awest.uk/php-bug-when-uploading-word-or-excel-files-to-wordpress.md): 2020-10-12, If you’re unable to upload docx or xlsx files to WordPress due to “Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security… - [Meg](https://awest.uk/meg.md): 2020-10-01, 2005-2020. She was a very good girl. - [Laser surgery](https://awest.uk/laser-surgery.md): 2020-09-30, I had laser eye surgery this afternoon. It was a bit magical. Nothing was wrong: it was elective. I’ve been short-sighted since… - [A very small list of godless country songs](https://awest.uk/a-very-small-list-of-godless-country-songs.md): 2020-08-19, Jersey on the Wall – I’m Just Asking, by Tenille Townes Whatever You Do, by Brandi Carlile Loving her, by Katie Pruitt… - [Brandi Carlile](https://awest.uk/brandi-carlile.md): 2020-08-19, Me playing Spotify artist-radio during lockdown: Me: Who’s this?! It’s greatSpotify: It’s Brandi CarlileMe: What about this?Spotify: Another Brandi CarlileMe: Ok but… - [Back to blogging](https://awest.uk/back-to-blogging.md): 2020-08-15, Hey. It’s been a while. If you’ve come over from my old blog: this is a fresh start. All the old posts… ## Feeds - [RSS, full text](https://awest.uk/feed/) ## Elsewhere - [GitHub](https://github.com/awestuk)