The biggest thing for me was probably reading. But that deserved it's own post which you can read here.

Physical Items

Nitize mini locking carbiners. These are great. I use a tiny one as a quick release on my house and car key - if I'm leaving the house and not driving I don't want to take my car key with me and this stops me having to risk my fingernails at the mercy of a split ring. I also have some bigger ones that give me an easy way to attach stuff, like a hat, to a bag that I might be carrying. The price to quality of life improvement ratio for these is off the charts.

Tech

Kindle I can't stress how much my Kindle has been the best purchase I've made this year. I am now someone who reads every day and without an e-reader I'm not sure that would be the case. It didn't need to specifically be a Kindle, there are plenty of options out there. My annoyance is that I didn't buy one sooner.

UniFi Express 7 Up there with the nerdiest things I've purchased this year. If you're the kind of person that would spend money on replacing the router that your ISP provides, you probably already know about UniFi. It's super easy to set up and now if I want to add any extra APs it's really easy. There's a reason UniFi gets called "the Apple of Networking"

DJI Neo 2 Drones are fun and the Neo is the easiest to carry around. You don't even need a controller. The Neo 2 is an improvement on the first gen Neo, which I really liked as well.

Media

Books

I wrote about how my reading habits changed this year here, but tl;dr, my top 5 of the year were:

  1. Apple In China by Patrick McGee - a must for any Apple nerd, and an interesting insight into manufacturing.
  2. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - a mind-bending wonderfully weird short story
  3. The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson - an interesting insider story of the world of banking
  4. Light Bringer by Pierce Brown - The Red Rising books get better as they go and Light Bringer is the best of them.
  5. Project Hail Mary - There's a reason that everyone raves about this one. Read it before the movie comes out!

Music

Kneecap Before this year I had heard a few Kneecap songs, but not really dived in. After going to Belfast at the start of the year and hearing more I listened to their Fine Art album a ton. It's a banger. CMAT I saw CMAT live last year before I'd really listened to any of her music. It was one of those shows where I immediately regretted not listening to her before. The music is so fun, and she's absolutely incredible live. Puts on a hell of a show, and never misses a note. She has a seriously amazing voice. I got to see her again this year at All Points East and she had the whole crowd dancing along. Jazz in Osaka This is an EP by HoKø and Damien Fleau that was an Apple Music recommendation and it's been one of my go tos this year when I want something chill.

TV shows

Slow Horses Season 5 of Slow Horses was another banger. All 5 seasons have been must watch TV and something that I’m constantly recommending to people.

The Chair Company Tim Robinson is weird but hilarious. The Chair Company is a story of a man that goes down the rabbit hole looking for answers when his chair breaks.

Podcast

The Rest Is Classified Loads of the goalhanger podcasts are worth a listen if they’re covering what you’re into. The episodes on the story of Yevgeni Pregosin were the ones that sucked me in.