On the plane to the Algarve last week, three passengers sat in the same row — and in three different decades. I am not talked about our ages, which were about the same.

The woman by the window had a physical guidebook open on her lap. The woman in the middle was scrolling Tripadvisor reviews. And I had a .md file on my phone — a schedule, routes, and restaurant recommendations generated by Claude Cowork.

Same destination. Same moment. Three completely different relationships with knowledge.

We talk about technological change as if it sweeps everyone forward together — like a tide that raises all boats simultaneously. But it doesn't work that way. Change is a layering. New tools arrive and sit on top of older ones, and people move between those layers based on habit, preference, age, trust, circumstance — or simply because one approach works well enough that there's no reason to abandon it.

The guidebook woman wasn't behind. She had something I didn't: the distilled judgment of a single expert, curated and edited, free from algorithmic noise. The Tripadvisor woman had recency and scale — thousands of real opinions, updated last week. I had speed and personalisation, provided by an AI.

There's a philosophical question buried in all of this that I find genuinely interesting: when does a tool shape the person using it, rather than the other way around? The guidebook reader navigates with a different quality of attention than the person scanning a feed. The AI-assisted traveller may arrive knowing more facts and fewer stories.

I don't think any of us was wrong. But I do think the choice deserves to be a choice — conscious and deliberate — rather than something that simply happens to you as defaults accumulate.

In a world with this many layers, the most useful skill may not be knowing which tool is best. It may be knowing yourself well enough to choose.

What tool do you reach for first, and do you remember deciding to?

the image is generated with AI for privacy reasons, but closely resembling the actual scene.

When the Remington Portable came out in the 1920s, it was the top of the line and a marvel of engineering. If you were a journalist who was often on the road, or a writer planning to spend some time in Paris, you'd take a Remington Portable with you.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Agatha Christie have used one to write some of their most famous works. Margaret Mitchell typed Gone with the Wind on a Remington Portable. Bill Heinz, a sports writer and World War II correspondent, carried a Remington Portable No. 3 in the field. Hemingway is also often mentioned in connection with it, but I have found no evidence that he used one.

My own Remington Portable no. 2 has serial number NX26311, which was produced in March 1926, so it is celebrating its 100th birthday this month!

The Remington engineers solved a hard problem: how to fit a full-sized keyboard and standard-width carriage into a case small enough to carry. Some sophisticated innovations in engineering made it work:

1. A carriage that folds down flat against the keyboard when not in use. The carriage rail sits on a hinged mechanism that allowed it to tilt forward and lock into a lowered position, dramatically reducing the machine's profile for transport (and possibly protecting the bars from getting bent in transport too). A lever on the right switches the carriage from its upright position to it locked "down" position.
2. The type-bar mechanism was re-engineered with shorter lever arms and a tighter type-bar "basket" (the semicircular arrangement of bars that swing up to strike the ribbon). By reducing the arc radius and tightening tolerances, Remington's engineers fit the full mechanism into a smaller footprint without losing print quality or creating excessive jamming.
3. An integrated carrying case. The machine was designed so the case functioned as the base. The typewriter nested into it precisely, and the folded carriage meant the whole package was roughly the size of a large book — about four inches tall when closed and weighing around seven pounds.

Even today it feels compact and light compared to much later typewriters from the '50s and '60s.
Of course, today's smartphones or laptops are even smaller and have storage and spell checkers. But they miss the satisfying feeling of hitting the paper with each letter, And the physical output - producing even a short poem typed on a small piece of paper is so delightful. Knowing that every mistake is permanent and may force you to start all over, makes you more mindful, more deliberate as you create.

I say get one! Whether an engineering marvel like the Remington Portable, an elegant machine like an Olivetti Lettera or a classic Corona. Or, if you are not ready to commit to having a typewriter standing on your desk and still want some of the experience, download the Vintage Notes app from the appstore (Android coming soon).

PS: some people ask why are some of the keys are discolored - where they replaced? No, all keys are the original ones from the 1920s. They are made of celluloid - the same material used for films (traditional films, not digital ones). Celluloid was popular because it could be made to look like ivory or mother-of-pearl,. But unlike later plastics, celluloid is chemically unstable and discolors, which, I think, adds to the charm.