Edible Foods

Here's a full list of everything I eat because I'm fussy.

British/ American:

Salmon: fillets, smoked slices, parcels, sushi (sashimi, nigiri, hosomaki)

Mackerel

Prawns with cocktail sauce

Sausages (including vegan), frankfurters, saveloy, pigs in blankets

Sausage rolls

Beef or cheese burgers or sliders (prefer single patty) especially with cheese and caramelised onion

Impossible burger

Chicken burgers with mayo

Chicken nuggets, turkey dinosaurs

Quorn nuggets

Chicken wings like southern fried

Cereal

Tuna fish and mayo sandwich, tuna melt

Cheese and crackers with pickle

Cheese on toast with worstershire sauce

Ham and cheese toastie, Croque monsieur

Chicken Caesar salad

Sunday roast (not potatoes unless hot and crispy)

Breakfast: Sausage, Eggs, Bacon, Toast

Fries

Muller yogurts

Hot dogs

Pork pies

Dairylea lunchables, dunkers, mozzarella sticks

Steak with peppercorn sauce

BBQ ribs

Mac and cheese (though I've had many disappointing mediocre ones, M&S do the best with bcaon bits)

Italian:

Spaghetti bolognese

Spaghetti meatballs

Beef lasagne

Chicken arrabbiata

Chicken carbonara

Pizza: Hawaiian, pepperoni, ranch bbq, mini pizzas

Pasta: penne, tortellini, baked, rigatoni

Garlic bread

Mexican:

Chicken or pork tacos

Chicken fajitas (no pepper, onion)

Nachos (minus beans)

Churros

Quesadilla 

Indian:

Chicken korma

Pilau rice, or plain rice

Chicken tikka masala

Paneer tikka masala

Poppadoms

Garlic naan or peshwari naan

Shakarpara

Chinese/Thai

Sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong style (without veg)

Sweet and sour ribs, honey ribs

Crispy Wonton

Satay chicken

Egg fried rice, plain rice, jasmine rice

Roast puff pork pastry

Char Siu Bao

Japanese:

Sashimi: salmon

Hosomaki: salmon, tuna

Nigiri: salmon, prawn, tuna

Chicken katsu curry

Mochi

Doriyaki

prawn crackers

Chicken bao buns but without coleslaw

Misc:

Korean chili crispy chicken

Huel ready to drink (Berry, Strawberries & Cream) / hot and savoury

Calamari

Halloumi, including as fries

Crisps including prawn crackers

Sweet popcorn

Pot noodles

Graze flapjacks

Bratwurst

Veg:

Carrots

Sweetcorn including corn on the cob - but not in or combined with any other food

Lettuce

Tomato

Red onion (especially raw)

Beetroot (pickled)

Broccoli (not the stems)

Fruit:

Strawberry

Orange

Lychee

Guava

Pineapple

Grapes

Blackberry

Raspberry

Dragonfruit

Partial like of fruits, just not always the texture:

Apple

Banana

Mango, including mango lassi

Cherries

Coconut

Peach

Things I do not eat, don't recommend anything with these or any variation of them:

Aubergine

Avocado

Beans

Brussel sprouts

Burritos (because of the meat and veg mixed together)

Cabbage

Cauliflower (unless deep fried to be like wings)

Casserole (mix of meat and veg)

Chicken Goujons (often weird gooey texture inside)

Chicken Kiev (creamy inside is a horrible texture)

Chickpeas Coffee (anything flavored like coffee)

Dark chocolate

Eel

English muffins

Fish and Chips, as breaded fish like cod or haddock or batter is usually soggy, so this also excludes fish fingers

Focaccia bread - honestly the worst bread. Tiger bread is great.

French toast

Fried onions (all other forms of onion I like)

Fusili, Farfalle, Conchiglie, Rotini, Orzo, Linguine, Orecchiette, Fettuccine

Hot pot

Japanese fried chicken, Chicken Karaage 

Kale

Kimchi

Loaded fries - any type

Melon, watermelon (soapy taste)

Mushrooms

Olives

Omelette or scrambled egg

Onion rings, again it's like tempura batter

Peas Peppers

Potato including mash or potato skins, or sweet potato fries

Prawn toast (it's nothing to do with the oil)

Prawns in any other form except for cocktail sauce or nigiri

Pulled pork burgers, though in tacos they're fine

Pumpkin

Rocket

Salt and pepper chicken, because often soggy

Salty popcorn

Sea urchin

Shepherd's Pie / Cottage Pie, because of the mixed meat and veg and potato

Soy

Spinach

Temaki

Tempura

Teriyaki

Turnip

Unagi

Capybara

I think top-down, in that I consider myself to be quite chill, on the fence a lot, and in the middle. Spirit animal might be a capybara.

However many people I meet seem to be bottom-up thinkers, with a series of deep knowledge, rules and systems of their own that are complex, and take them all very seriously. Whereas there are little things I take seriously. I don't have any tattoos, or piercings (Existential Flexibility), I don't think I'm committed enough to anything like that, the most I commit is having graphic tees, plushies, and setting my background.

I think my key philosophies/tenets are:

• YOLO so nothing matters (Optimistic Nihilism)
• pacifism over violence
• respect regardless of your background
• most problems are caused by systems not individuals (Sociological Empathy)
• it's okay to not be okay
• ideas are essential to survival, so creativity and play are more important than exams (Constructivism, Visionary Individualism)
• we aren't perfect organisms, we make mistakes, and the brain tricks you, so we shouldn't hold each other to such high standards (Cognitive Humility)

What does insecurity look like?

Insecurity forces people to behave with heat over heart.

Attack or defend prematurely

Misinterpret neutral situations as threats

Instead: Accept humility, it's okay to be vulnerable 

Loudly assert dominance or correctness

Covers up a fear of being inadequate

Instead: Remain calm

Build walls instead of bridges

Prioritizing self-preservation over actual relationship-building

Instead:  Use empathy and open communication

Why do people support Reform?

People are rightly angry at things they can't control (like the cost of living crisis), and so they listen to the person (Farage) who can easily point blame at the problem (immigration) and markets themselves as an underdog rather than part of the establishment (has lots of photos taken having a beer at a pub).

People like Farage are the real problem: trillionaires, billionaires and multi-millionaires hoarding wealth, like Farage.

"AI is bad"

Writing a letter to your letting agency to terminate your contract isn't being creative. Asking AI to do it for you makes sense. But you're also wrongly treating AI as a monolith. AI has already been in your spam filters. Detecting cancer cells in an x-ray. Handling your cruise control. Flying your plane. The only difference now is LLMs are more easily accessible. So you can't say AI overall is bad.  

Counter-argument to finding films pointless because of the Seven Basic Plots

The problem with the Seven Basic Plots defining all films is there's several popular and successful films that don't fit in those categories: Psycho, Pulp Fiction, Boyhood, Memento, Parasite, Eraserhead, Swiss Army Man, Clockwork Orange, Sorry to Bother You, Being John Malkovich, The Lobster, Her... And a lot of horror movies don't fit in any category or actually disguise their actual genre. I've also seen some art-style films that ignore it too. But regardless, even if someone made a complete list, the descriptions of these categories are so generic that I'm not sure it means you can't enjoy films. It's what is unique about films that I enjoy them the most - what makes them stand out apart from anything else. And even then, when you look at many films, they end up being multiple genres rather than strictly one overarching plot. I watch films because they are fun or interesting, not because I know what's going to happen. Same reason that I go on living despite knowing that free will doesn't exist, or that the sun will eventually boil and consume the Earth. Paraphrasing Vision in Age of Ultron, and the entire plot of Arrival: just because something isn't made to last doesn't mean it's not beautiful or not worth the time.

Versioning Revisited

 The best versioning system is one that works seamlessly:

• File History in Windows
• Google Drive's auto-saving in browser/app, and Manage versions for non-Cloud files
• Version history in OneDrive

Systems like Git and Subversion are a massive overhead. They distract from real work.

So much time is spent on and put into resolving conflicts when it comes to collaborative coding.

But what if systems like Git and SVN could also be seamless? No need to save. Conflicts automatically resolved in most cases, or at least made so much easier to resolve. Goodbye fast forward.

Seamless versioning systems make themselves available to control only when you need them. When you want to go back, you'll look at a list of older versions and start comparing them, often manually, often side-by-side. So there's improvements to make there too.

But Git? It's a massive overhead.

1. I have to save.
2. Commit. Sign.
3. Push.
4. Fast forward. Pull. Fetch.
5. Resolve conflicts.

It's honestly a complete barrier and nightmare. Developers should be worrying about the best ways to code, not the intricacies of a frankly obtuse and batty feature-mad glorified diff.

Imagine if every time you wanted to start your car, you had to manually plug in every wire. And if you want to indicate you're going left, you have to also plug in the indicator to the stalk, on top of actually checking if it's safe to turn left or not.

We need, and could do SO much better.

Code should be auto-saved, signed and pushed.

No commands at any time.

You're only prompted to resolve genuine non-trivial conflicts in a way that is extremely simple to compare, everything else is automatically handled.

Git/Subversion must and should be abstracted away.

AI could easily help with this too. Rather than reviewing lines of + and -, instead just "You refactored the database connection while Sarah optimized the payload parsing."

Coding should feel like solving a Rubik's cube and painting some art. Not like you need to run to the shops because you're out of red acrylic, and while you head out, there's a marathon in town today, you realise there's a hole in your shoe, and your peace lily is being a drama queen again.

Just like we don't write machine code anymore because we have compilers, developers shouldn't write Git commands, because the IDE should compile our actions into version history.

The best interface is no interface.

You should just code, and the history should just exist.

Resolving the Ship of Theseus

How I resolve the problem philosophically is how it's handled in the Frictional Games masterpiece SOMA, when Mark Sarang says: "How do we remain the same? A continuous flow of thought and perception keeps an unbroken chain of continuity that we know as our self. Our conscious mind is not the pattern of our brain, but a continuous emergent entity based on that pattern."

And if you take into the fact that our bodies are constantly replacing and renewing our cells, and consider that most of the matter in you is not human, it is mostly a mix of good bacteria.

And if you take in the morality from The Good Place: "What matters isn't if people are good or bad. What matters is if they're trying to be better today than they were yesterday", then in all senses, you are an emergent entity from moment to moment.

Every second your cells are dying and dividing. Every day you try to be a better person than you were yesterday. And over time you might have metal stuck in you holding you together, have a root canal with a crown, or have a pacemaker, and even that may be replaced again. You may change friends, move house, move countries, change partners, and every year get older and put more skills on your CV.

'You' is a constantly changing entity, stretched across time and space, starting from the explosions of a supernova millions of lightyears away and creating stardust that coalesced together in the Earth and eventually created you as you are now. You are stardust, holding itself together with memories, bacteria, titanium screws, and a desire to do a little better tomorrow. So worry less about what you're made of, and more about what you want to become.

Thames Water vs Channel 4's Dirty Business

 

Fact checking this leaflet from Thames Water received today:

"Improvements" -> EPA Rating is 1/4 stars

"£20b investment" -> £104m fine by Ofwat for underreported sewage spills

"No dividends since 2017" -> £88.4b siphoned by water companies paid to international investors like Macquarie and paying off court cases to avoid blame

"8p per £1 on financing" -> paying the £15b debt interest to corporate bonds and parent companies

"37p on service" -> paying the £104m fine and fixing leaks (600m litres leak per day)

"Tideway Tunnel progress" -> does nothing for the rest of Thames Water's massive 140,000km network

"Climate change and population growth are to blame" -> these have been predictable and heavily modelled for 30 years since privatisation.

No mention of the children killed by swimming in illegally spilled sewage in our waters.

Your bills are going up to fix 30 years of deliberate under-investment, which has left it more broken than ever. You're paying for Thames Water's negligence.

Pixel upgrade trade-in deals

 The trade-in deals on the Google Store usually make it worth upgrading.

Since they brought out the Pixel line, they've done the excellent trade in deals, with a gift of some kind worth at least £150. Last couple years the gift was the £250 extra on trade in, plus the subscription for Google One. In the past they gave away Bose wireless headphones, or their own in ear pods. I did skip upgrading a couple years cos either the gift wasn't as good or I didn't like the model. The below is from end of last year.

I've had the Pixel 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. Wasn't a fan of the 3, 4, or 7 so skipped those.

The trade in as well, it doesn't have to be a Google phone, they also take iPhones and Samsung and others, and they sometimes pay out more for those than Google's own phones

Having had buggy android phones before with HTC and LG I started with the Nexus 4 cos and just stuck ever since cos I know if there's a problem they'll sort it. And you can get support directly for the whole pixel range, I don't think I've ever had to wait to be talking to someone. They reply to people directly on Reddit and Twitter as well so they know their community.

Plus I'm on their Superfans discord group for meetups and competitions to win tickets and tech.

Rick & Morty S9E1

The compression algorithm that the Collective absorbed in Rick & Morty, I think is related to a real life type of malware called a logic bomb/zip bomb: a very small zip file that contains recursive, self-referential, or 99.9999% compressed dud files and directories.

Meaning it would run forever and fill up all your resources very quickly. Which is why sandboxing and heuristic analysis are invaluable in virus detection, because it's so easy to obfuscate.

A similar idea is used by Superman in the third film, he takes a liquid that is inert when contained, but when exposed to oxygen, heat and iron, turns into violent acid, which probably isn't true to real life but not far off reality.

Reminder of steps for transferring/upgrading Android phones

1. Buy a clear case if not already
2. First boot - skip through all settings except connect to Wifi, to ensure latest OS updates installed, then reset (as may come with previous month's update)
3. Check data backed up and sync is complete
1. backup of phone in Google One
2. photos
3. browser data
4. now playing history
5. documents & downloads etc
6. Whatsapp
7. game progress (e.g. Swordigo no longer transfers)
8. projects like in Sketch
9. config for IoT devices like cameras, SSH and VPNs
10. Disable SIM protection in antivirus before transferring over
4. Swap SIM card over
5. Regular transfer with USB-C (much faster) when prompted. It is asking for the old phone's password, not the Google account.
6. Check all apps installed between the home screens
7. Check all data transferred that may have been missed:
1. hidden directories
2. Downloads (start FTP with Cx File Explorer)
3. SMS and MMS messages
8. Sign in to all apps and check they are up, and deactivated/deregistered on the old phone AFTER setting up the new phone:
1. find my device
2. authenticators and passwords
3. banking
4. antivirus including enabling SIM protection
5. Steam Guard
6. Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram
7. etc
9. Apply settings
1. gestures
2. remove animations
3. Bluetooth devices (only wifi networks get transferred)
4. random MAC disable
5. disable sync for unused accounts
6. home screen icon shortcuts to browser, e.g. BBC News or Duolingo as their apps are terrible
10. Reset + wipe old phone + Return in packaging, remember to use bubble wrap so it doesn't get damaged on delivery and then you aren't eligible for the full trade-in value.
11. Check Rewards Gateway/Topcashback has tracked the purchase

Original verison: https://x.com/rjc_uk/status/1834272448457445799

My most important, life-changing purchases of the last 10 years

1. portable air con. buy it now while it's out of season! no more sleepless nights because it's too hot

2. air purifier for the bedroom. I don't wake up with blocked sinuses every day anymore

3. ear wax microsuction removal. thought I was going deaf, eardrops stopped working, NHS refused to do anything.

4. 23andme DNA test with health analysis. I found out about things I need to be aware of if I have children, and what diseases I particularly need to look out for later in life so I can plan ahead.

5. a mini toolbox. the number of times I've needed a tiny or regular screwdriver, pliers, etc.

6. wireless headphones. perfect for helping me handle noisy environments

7. label printer for switches and plugs

8. 100W usb charger and 3m USB-C cable

9. Google Pixel series of phones, because they've come with preorder discounts, free subscriptions, decent trade-in special offers, and latest android features and monthly security patches

10. not a purchase, but has saved me ££££s: using Topcashback, Rewards Gateway and Quidco, using Money Saving Expert to earn the best savings, and Compare The Meerkat for the best energy and insurance deals, HotUKDeals for plenty of good deals and free stuff including cheap SIM card plans, and Mobiles.co.uk for super discounted Vodafone SIM

Not Reform

 Reform want to: 

- Replace the NHS with insurance-based healthcare model like the US

- Remove women's right to abortion, equal pay for women, sack women if they're pregnant, make it harder for women to get divorced, and tax women who don't or can't have children

- Cut taxes for wealthy multi millionaires and billionaires like Farage

- Lower minimum wage for younger people

- Allow sacking and rehiring people with a lower salary, and have more zero hour contracts

- Bomb primary schools in Iran

- Cut infrastructure spending by £150bn and use it to buy tanks

- Remove your right to protest and a fair trial

They've already lied to you:

- Raised council tax, said they would cut it 

- Immigration actually costs the taxpayer less than 1%, we actually get a net tax gain from migrants (cost £10bn/yr, raise £23/bn year). If we taxed the billionaires 2% more, that would fund migrants entirely

- Said they would cut waste, but spent £600k on a car park with 8 spaces for their senior employees and making council workers pay for their parking

- Promised to put up Christmas lights but didn't put up any because the union jack flags would be a fire hazard

The problem is the wealthy in their yachts, not asylum seekers desperately fleeing war. Class war not culture war. If you care about this, only Greens and Lib Dems want to introduce taxes on the top 1%.

Privacy

 "I don't mind the government watching everything I'm doing, I have nothing to hide" 

You're confusing privacy with secrecy.

Your privacy is no one else's business, leaks can harm you.

Secrets and lies hide the truth, they can harm others.

What might be harmless today might be used against you in the future. If everyone knew you were the #1 person buying the most Coca Cola in your local store, when it turns out Coca Cola support Trump, people may come after you too.

If you knew the government were tracking your every moment, wouldn't you act differently?

If your data is sold off, a third party or an AI might misinterpret your innocent intentions.

Just because you think there's nothing to hide, doesn't mean you're immune to scrutiny.

Trees

How does a tree know to grow its leaves in spring, and shed them in autumn? Does it keep a calendar? How sunny and cloudy it is? Does it remember the previous seasons?

You imagine there might be one instruction that says "grow" and another that says "drop off". As if it were two separate discrete conditions.

But it's even simpler than that. It is actually one system with two ends. It is bimodal.

The tree is monitoring the temperature and sunlight. As it gets warmer and brighter, a chemical says grow. As the weather cools and gets darker, the chemical auxin stops saying grow. It is a temperature-dependent instruction. And other chemical comes in to cut off the leaves and seal it.

It is akin to a sympathetic and parasympathetic pathway in the human body.

UK Mobile Networks Explained 2026

There are only 3 networks now: Vodafone/Three (recently merged), O2, EE. 

Tesco Mobile and Giffgaff uses O2's network. So if you have bad signal with O2, you'll have bad signal with any other MVNO that uses O2. 

You should go on the Ofcom website because they have maps of what signal is like for each of them over the UK.

I've been with Tesco, Vodafone, Giffgaff, Three, Lebara, Anywhere SIM, and Sky.

I would recommend Vodafone purely because they have the best network. I've done tests carrying several phones around with me using free SIM cards and testing the signal between Reading and Leatherhead, and Vodafone was the best. Then it's O2, and finally EE. This lines up with the Ofcom maps as well.

If you care more about customer service specifically, Tesco has the best, followed by Giffgaff. Three has the worst customer service. Vodafone customer service is not the best, however, they also have the best deals if you get a SIM via mobiles.co.uk SIM only that gives you cashback. I'm currently on £7/mo after cashback for 200GB data, unlimited texts and minutes. And I have an e-SIM installed with Sky (O2) for £1/mo for 1GB data/mo, as a backup in case of bad signal.

Also check out topcashback.co.uk as there are often good deals on there for new contracts, and you can combine it with mobiles.co.uk cashback

And finally, also check for SIM deals on HotUKDeals.com as sometimes Lebara and similar have deals for £1/mo for 100GB for 6 months.

Sauron is a bad project manager

You know you're an adult when you realise:

Sauron in Lord of the Rings only lost because of bad team management practices.

• Orcs hate each other and are tortured = Toxic workplace culture
• All power depended on the One Ring = Single point of failure
• No defences at Mount Doom = Poor internal security protocols protecting key assets
• Saruman launching his own war and not sharing intelligence = Hiring rogue contractors
• Hobbits got through undetected = Arrogant blind spots in risk analysis
• Assumed someone wanted to fight to take the ring, not destroy it = Poor assumptions

Gluten Free + Vaccines

"They didn't have gluten free bread in the past so we don't need it now" 

They died. People with celiac disease just died. About 30% of all children died. Doctors were baffled for hundreds of years by malabsorption, until things like the banana diet ~1924.

"We never needed vaccines before" 

People just died. About half of the world population died from the plague. Vaccines save lives - just look at mortality graphs before and after vaccines were introduced.

---

This doesn't justify every superfood fad and health scam like lion's mane mushroom, detox or antioxidants. What separates pseudoscience from what to trust is meta analyses (study of studies).

Next time there's a new product promising a quick fix, do the research. 

Animated ways to explain technologies

• Kafka - Gently Down The Stream https://www.gentlydownthe.stream/
• Kubernetes - Phippy Goes To The Zoo https://www.cncf.io/phippy/
• HTTPS https://howhttps.works/
• DNS https://howdns.works/
• Wizard Zines https://wizardzines.com/
• Code Cartoons https://www.code-cartoons.com/
• Federated Learning https://federated.withgoogle.com/
• AlgoRhythmics https://www.youtube.com/user/AlgoRythmics
• Manga Guide Series https://nostarch.com/catalog/manga
• BaseCS https://medium.com/basecs
• Hello Ruby https://www.helloruby.com/
• Lauren Ipsum https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lauren-Ipsum-Computer-Science-Improbable/dp/1593275749
• Grokking Algorithms https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grokking-Algorithms-illustrated-programmers-curious/dp/1617292230
• Baby University books https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-University-Complete-Babies-Board/dp/1728232309/ref=sr_1_2

Dirty Business Channel 4 - Example Letter to MP

Wanted to express my disgust and anger at <your local water company> for dumping raw sewage into our rivers. The Channel 4 series Dirty Business was shocking how bad it is. I hope you get a chance to watch it. And looking at https://www.sewagemap.co.uk/ it's disgusting.

<add your personal experience with rivers and seas>

These companies need to be held to account and I support WASP (Windrush Against Sewage Pollution). https://www.windrushwasp.org/

The UK has the most privatised water anywhere in the world. It needs to be nationalised and put the £145 billions in profits back into fixing our treatment works.

It is incredibly relevant and important that <your local water company> is both made to pay for operating like a seriously organised crime unit committing thousands of offences in dumping untreated water - which is never legal despite heavy rain. And they must stop polluting our rivers as a priority. And we need to nationalise all the water companies. And ensure that the Environment Agency actually are funded correctly with powers and regulations that actually are actively used to fix things, not stand by and let these rich companies turn the UK into a cesspit.

People have died from E-coli and other infections caused by swimming in rivers and seas containing raw sewage. This is unacceptable and blood is on the hands of Thames Water, the Environment Agency, David Cameron and Liz Truss for cutting regulations.

Myths 1

 Need to dispel some myths:

Keeping a straight back doesn't prevent a hunchback. It's more likely to actually cause a spinal injury. Movement every 20-60 minutes is the best way to avoid it. So don't police slouching, instead, change your posture regularly.

No particular food or dish is healthy or unhealthy. It's how often you have it. That's what makes up a diet. Too much of anything isn't good for you. The most important thing in your diet is variety, to ensure getting the necessary nutrients. Having the same meal every day leads to missing micronutrients. That isn't a licence for only eating ultra processed foods (bread, cereal, instant noodles, crisps, bacon, etc).

Intelligence is not linear, it's actually like a radial graph. No one is skilled at everything, everyone has gaps. Emotional intelligence is overlooked, neglecting someone's emotional needs like safety, security and trust leads to trauma. Don't shout and get angry, use compassion.

Exams and homework don't make better grades. Giving kids more time to be creative makes better results because standardised testing creates a radical, extreme version of right and wrong, killing our imagination and joy in play.

Nobody is perfect. Ever since we left the sea, our vision has never been better. Everyone makes mistakes, we shouldn't hold each to such high standards. Nitpicking imperfections, most likely of which are likely to be outside of our control, is toxic. Errors are data points for learning, not moral failings.

Sex is not binary. It is bimodal, because the two hormones overlap. It is the same as the sympathetic and parasympathetic pathway (adrenaline vs acetylcholine) and the same reason trees grow and shed their leaves: it is not two systems, it is all part of one system with two poles. Some women produce more testosterone than some men, meaning trans people should be included wherever they like.

Discipline and willpower don't work. You don't need to push yourself harder, you need to change your environment, so it's easier for you to do the good thing (if you have weights by your bed, you can pick them when you wake up) and harder to do the bad thing (don't keep snacks in the cupboard).

You can teach a dog new tricks. Neuroplasticity means we are designed to learn and adapt. You can keep your neuroplasticity up by doing new things (reading a new book, travelling somewhere new, etc) and problem solving (puzzles and quizzes) - and it reduces your chances of Alzheimer's.

Grief isn't linear, and it doesn't go away. You rebuild your life around it. There is no closure, or getting over it, there is only the courage to keep moving forwards, and finding an outlet for the pain. Grief is love preserving with nowhere to go.

Hard work != success. Success is down to starting conditions (like money), timing, and luck. For every 1 successful person you read about, 1000 people were doing the same things and didn't succeed. Many scientific discoveries were pure accidents.

Sleep isn't a waste, you need it to clear neurotoxins and regulate committing to long term memory.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is wrong, because every infection leaves scars in your organs, meaning things don't work as well as they used to.

Stress isn't all bad. Stress when you're doing something you care about (eustress) causes you you grow, like a muscle has to be stressed to grow more. Distress (overwhelming strain, like pushing yourself too hard at the gym) only heals by having time to recover.