A living collection of notes, ideas, and reflections from Doug Belshaw.
I woke up early this morning and an idea for a second zine just popped fully-formed into my head. It's weird how the subconscious works.
After a little bit of back-and-forth with my Little Robot Friend, I'm thinking of framing it as a "field guide for designing around the mind we actually have". That's in contrast to the ultra-rational one that we'll never achieve, nor would we actually want anyway.
…Although I still have to be careful, I'm definitely coming out the other side of my Stage 3 ('parasympathetic') Overtraining Syndrome.
The photo at the top of this note shows my Garmin Venu 3 smartwatch with the built in recovery time feature, as well as one I added last week called Training Status showing overall training load.
…About a decade ago, I was flying back from LA and I realised I hadn't bought a gift for my wife. As I was into matcha before it was cool, I happened to be in Starbucks, where I saw they had a mug saying 'California' on it.
…There are many signs that middle age is creeping, or has crept, up on you. One is that you start putting your foot up on a chair or something else to put your socks on. Another is that you start showing an interest in birds.
…I've decided that I want to go to more in-person events, so I got my Little Robot Friend to come up with some options.
English-language, European (or noted otherwise), aligned with digital sovereignty, decentralised and federated systems, open education, digital credentials, systems thinking, co-ops and the commons. Wildcards and strong fits are labelled.
…You have to get everything correct before it goes off to get printed. My usual publishing flow involves an "oh shit" moment soon after hitting 'publish' but, because I usually publish on the web, I can fix it. Not so with printed matter.
…I received an email from Flickr this morning notifying me that someone had favourites one of my images. It was a photo of an adult member of my family, but I was still a bit shocked.
Which is weird, because had that happened 10, 15, or 20 years ago I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. It's been quite a while since I marked all of the photos of my kids as private on Flickr, but I spent time this morning ensuring that photos including other family members are now private.
…As you'd expect from Boards of Canada, their latest album, Inferno is not only a proper sonic experience but... a bit weird. There's a lot of religious influences, from a young person talking about "being able to do all things through the Lord" to Hari Krishna chanting.
…On Friday, I had the immense pleasure of reconnecting with a friend I haven't spoken to for over a decade. I'm not sure why, other than we used to live near each other, and then we didn't. Life gets in the way, sometimes.
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