Maslow, the psychologist with the pyramid of needs, is attributed the expression that goes something like this: If all you’ve got is a hammer, it’s tempting to treat everything you see as a nail. It’s a thought I carry with me, but I actually just googled to find it was Maslow, or maybe not only.

Good thing, because I just learnt that it’s called the Law of the instrument. A cognitive bias, that apparently limits our vision and creativity. We do things that are tried and true. We rely on what we know and fail to see possibilities and chances to innovate.

There’s not much to do about our cognitive bias it seems. But it helps being aware of them. Challenging yourself and your interpretation of the world around you and the problem before you.

There’s another twist of course. If all you’ve got is a hammer, you need to be creative to you use it in more and new ways than it was intended for. This I guess is my strategy for Microbrute Jamuary. I try to get around its limitations.

Eventually, I will have to take a step back and consider what does it excel at? What tasks should I keep it for? If I should. Or should I just go for a synth that loves me back?

Finally. I don’t make the classic dessert creme brulé very often. But I’ve got the tools for it. So, since it’s cold here I have problems with locks freezing. I just found the perfect use for my creme brulé blow torch.

Sometimes it’s pretty nice to have stuff around.