What I like for someone else doesn't have to be the same as what I like for me!
Worth remembering. We're all different shapes, colours, and sizes on the outside, and also have different wiring on the inside.
Source: Are.na
Substrate
A living collection of notes, ideas, and reflections from Doug Belshaw.
Small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos
When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.
– Ilya Prigogine
Actually, I think it's a great time to be alive
Sometimes, it's easy to forget that despite the world's problems, the chances are we would all much rather be alive now than in times past.
Why? Here's 5 reasons:
- Global life expectancy is approximately 73.66 years, compared to medieval England (c.30–35 years), or even the year 1900 (c.31 years globally). Even since the year 2000 there have been huge gains, with maternal deaths dropping over 40% between 2000 and 2023, and child deaths under the age of 5 more than halving. And that's despite COVID-19 and cuts to aid budgets. So a child born today has much better odds of reaching adulthood than at any prior point in history. We forget this in WEIRD societies sometimes. …
News Canary: 5 July 2026
Every Sunday, my Little Robot Friend sends me a report which I call 'News Canary'. It assembles a weekly set of roughly ten "global change signal" stories from the last seven days, with at least one item from each continent It mixes hard developments (laws, policies, conflicts, technical releases) with soft signals (cultural shifts, viral posts) that may influence how systems evolve.
…Subscribe by email
Just a quick note to say that, in addition to RSS, you can now receive an email digest of notes from this site on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Literary Clock using an old Kindle
The great thing about LLMs is that I can point them at blog posts like this one explaining how to jailbreak an old Kindle and turn it into a 'literary clock', then tell them to crack on. With a bit of guidance and troubleshooting they can do stuff that either I would never get round to, or I'd get frustrated by.
…TaskDial upgrade: energy curve and weather
I realised that there were a couple of things missing in TaskDial that affect my productivity:
- Energy curve
- Weather
So I've added them! So in addition to being able to see your tasks and calendar on one clock face, you can also get some help in planning those tasks by being more aware of your energy levels and the weather at your location.
…Using AI to predict the outcome of World Cup games
First of all, as a man of a certain age, can I just say how much I love the Teletext vibe of this site? It's comparing different AI models versus straight FIFA rankings, versus the perspective of a single human, in terms of predicting the outcome of World Cup 2026 football matches.
…Mosquitoes in the room
"We all know the elephant in the room' — the topic that everyone knows is there, but no one talks about. But what about the mosquitoes in the room, the tiny things we sense but ignore?"
— Mariana Alessandri, 'The fourth wall' (New Philosopher, #49)
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