The Brooks Review

Category: Member

Member only content.

  • Member Journal — 5/5/25

    Member Journal — 5/5/25

    This week: waking up early is *clearly* the only metric to being successful.

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  • Gear Report — 4/30/25

    Gear Report — 4/30/25

    This week: gear quality, costs, and tariffs; and new stuffs.

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  • Member Journal — 4/28/25

    Member Journal — 4/28/25

    This week: creating, tinkering, and fucking about with a digital dashboard.

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  • Member Journal — 4/21/25

    Member Journal — 4/21/25

    This week: Apple Passwords; ProtonDrive; and Mac versus Linux home servers.

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  • Member Journal — 4/14/25

    Member Journal — 4/14/25

    This week: thoughts on the risks of ‘buy it for life’.

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  • Member Journal — 4/7/2025

    Member Journal — 4/7/2025

    This week: how different OSes break your brain, and why the ’I tried it for a week’ storyline is weak narrative; and thoughts on Tapestry.

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  • Gear Report — 4/2/25

    Gear Report — 4/2/25

    This week: a rising brand favorite; leather care; and some (many) new gear I have in hand.

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  • Member Journal — 3/31/25

    Member Journal — 3/31/25

    This week: thoughts from the mountains; and evaluating some AI search tools.

    Do not do the math on how long it’s been since we’ve had a ‘new’ President, I just did and got a tad upset.

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  • The Gear (Jacket) Report – Winter ‘24-‘25

    The Gear (Jacket) Report – Winter ‘24-‘25

    One of the biggest pet peeves of mine is people proclaiming items as the best of at the start/middle of the year. You can’t know what the Best of 2025 is, when it’s *still* March of 2025. That’s why my Best Lists come out at the end of the year.

    Likewise, you can’t really know what a good winter jacket is, until you’ve spent a season with that jacket. I could tell you all day long what I think might be good based on specs in September, but that could leave you with a pretty shitty jacket for the winter if you buy based on my assumptions. And I suspect most people are not as crazy as I am, and thus don’t buy this many jackets, and so it matters a lot more to get it right on the first purchase.

    Technically winter is over, though my friends here in Boulder tell me we are not quite done with snow (I am pretty sure we are). But I do believe we are mostly done with the cold-cold of the winter as it’s forecasted to tickle 80°F this week.

    Today, I want to run through my thoughts on the jackets I wore this winter — which stretched from late October until about now.

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  • Member Journal — 3/24/25

    Member Journal — 3/24/25

    This week: my thoughts and strategies on staying organized, and not overloaded with gear.

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  • Member Journal — 3/17/25

    Member Journal — 3/17/25

    This week: random thoughts on the political responsibilities of corporate America; entrepreneurs and Corporate America; blue light Glasses; standing versus sitting; and Apple.

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  • Gear Report — 3/12/25

    Gear Report — 3/12/25

    This week: my near optimal office setup; and some new gear in for testing.

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  • Member Journal — 3/10/24

    Member Journal — 3/10/24

    This week: some home office traps to avoid.

    Hope you’re not too tired from that bullshit time change to settle in and talk about home office comforts.

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  • Member Journal — 3/3/25

    Member Journal — 3/3/25

    This week: final thoughts on Bluefin (Linux) OS on my Framework after two weeks full time use.

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  • Gear Report — 2/27/25

    Gear Report — 2/27/25

    A day late, but anyways: talking about how I pack in 2025; and recapping some new gear.

  • Member Journal — 2/24/25

    Member Journal — 2/24/25

    This week: a recap of my first full week of using Linux as my primary computing system; and some thoughts on cloud storage.

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  • Member Journal — 2/17/25

    Member Journal — 2/17/25

    This week: the failings of mobile app design.

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  • Gear Report — 2/12/25

    Gear Report — 2/12/25

    This week: talking about all kinds of new gear I have in for testing and review.

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  • Member Journal — 2/10/25

    Member Journal — 2/10/25

    This week: talking about my two distinct personal styles; and my basic outfits for different places/events.

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  • Member Journal — 2/3/25

    Member Journal — 2/3/25

    This week: self-hosted app gems, and syncing with my home server from a plane.

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