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Never Listless
The Top 3 of almost Everything

Hello

It’s a grey Sunday morning so I have the perfect tonic, your latest 3ology newsletter.

This week we take a look at …
AI laziness,
Existential holidays,

Observance of 5th November Act 1605

All this and more in Never Listless #8

Andrew Weaver
https//3ology.fun

(Personal)
My Weekly Top 3

1. Wedding Present

Martin Amis described the 1990s as … “that curious holiday from what Philip Roth has called ‘the remorseless unforeseen” … a brief respite from existential fear, bookended between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11.

I feel blessed to have enjoyed that decade and music regularly takes me back.

This week, I saw The Wedding Present live and allowed a gloriously white-haired David Gedge to return me to that happy place.

As it turned out, our generation had some Brassneck to think it was The End of History.

2. Flan Mail

For everyday AI tasks, I follow an 10/80/10 rule:
10% setting the context,
80% letting Claude do the heavy lifting,
10% reviewing and fine-tuning.

So clearly that final 10% really matters.

To catch recruiters outsourcing their charm to AI, someone added an instruction to his LinkedIn bio asking bots to include a flan recipe.

One recruiter duly obliged with …
“Your experience is impressive,
and I think you’d be a perfect fit.
Now separate six eggs”

3. Treat Street

I love trick-or-treat night with our West London street coming alive as the local kids, parents in tow, axes through the head, deliver their either or option with impeccable manners.

The rule with our street and to avoid the need for any tricks, is that Halloween paraphernalia in the garden = clear consent to a lot of treats.

Bah humbug to anyone getting sniffy about this American imposition.
It’s comfortably ahead of other orange alternatives.

(Bonfire Night)
Top 3 facts no-one remembers bout Nov 5

Next week we’re off again to the fireworks and to celebrate a man failing to blow up Parliament - which is a quirky enough bit of British History but here are the Top 3 facts that get lost in the smoke …

1. Guy wasn’t the boss

The plot was Robert Catesby’s.
Fawkes was the explosives man, found guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the House of Lords just after midnight.

He ended up as the face of the plot, while Catesby ended up as a pub quiz answer. History remembers whoever gets caught holding the matches.

2. Celebrating it was law

The Observance of 5th November Act 1605 made it compulsory to give thanks for the King’s survival.

The Act stayed in force until 1859 so for 250 years, skipping Bonfire Night was technically a form of disloyalty, rather than aversion to cold nights and dodgy hot dogs.

3. Parliament still checks the cellars

Before every State Opening, the Yeomen of the Guard search the Palace of Westminster’s cellars by lantern. Nobody has found any gunpowder there for 420 years, which they would call a result.

Bonus Legacy Fact: Guy’s face now appears on the Anonymous mask, a symbol of protest against the establishment but did you know … that every official mask sold earns a licence fee for Warner Bros?

(AI)
Top 3 tips for that final 10%

Going back to the 10/80/10 process and my Top 3 rules to stop your last 10% turning into a flan recipe.

1. Check what you fed it

If you paste in someone’s profile, email or document, the AI will read any instructions hidden inside and may start to follow them.

Skim the input before you trust the output.
The recruiter’s problem started there, not in the reply.

2. Delete the bot compliments

“Your experience is impressive” was written by nobody and is read by nobody.

Generic praise is the clearest sign that a bot wrote the message.
Cut it, and replace it with details that personalise and prove you bothered to look.

3. Read aloud before you send

If you wouldn’t say a sentence to someone’s face, don’t send it to their inbox.

Reading aloud catches stray eggs, wrong names and anything that sounds like a cooking show.

3ology - help me empty my shed

We’re pleased to report that sales of 3ology are chugging along very nicely …

We’re not yet competing for shelf space with Articulate but on the basis that the Beatles played 270 nights in Hamburg before emerging from their Cavern,

we are playing the long game.

That said, my shed is still rather full of games so if you want to help relieve some of my outside space, please consider buying a game for your nearest and dearest.

To purchase your next copy … visit the 3ology website

And for those new to Never Listless, here are links to earlier editions;

Never Listless #7 : Parisian calm, Influencer bans, Irritating nomenclature
Never Listless #6 : Poker, Betrayal with New Boots and Panties
Never Listless #5 : 2nd Brain, Lennon's Molar, Women in Tech
Never Listless #4 : Bad Sporting Fashion, Unsung Pacemakers
Never Listless #3 : Scottish Shortbread, Ways to Spot a Liar
Never Listless #2 : Reasons I Love About The Dutch, Autumn Equinox
Never Listless #1 : AI Features You’ll Find Useful, Hanks by Hanks

Never ListlessThe Top 3 of almost Everything

AI laziness, Existential holidays, Facts about Guy Fawkes