I've decided to keep doing the annual end of the year reflections, iterating further on the structure I used in 2021 and 2020. What follows is a mix of personal reflections on the year, as well as a brief lists of the things I've enjoyed watching, reading and playing. Working This year I've split my … Continue reading Reflecting on 2022
Category: Personal
Gardening Retro 2022
I've written a reflection point about growing vegetables for the last two years (2020, 2021) so I'm going to keep going. It's useful to plan ahead. And it's nice to think about the spring and summer when it's so cold and dark outside! What did I set out to do this year? My goals for … Continue reading Gardening Retro 2022
Freelancing 2021-2022
Currently I'm working four days a week as CTO at Energy Sparks and then using my remaining time to do some freelance work. While I'm really enjoying my work at Energy Sparks and now have a small technical team, I also thrive on having a mixture of other work and responsibilities, so have been keeping … Continue reading Freelancing 2021-2022
Reflecting on “How to Do Nothing”
I recently finished reading "How to Do Nothing" by Jenny Odell. It's a great, thought-provoking read. Despite the title the book isn't a treatise on disconnecting or a guide to mindfulness. It's an exploration of attention: what is it? how do we direct it? can it be trained? And how is it hijacked by social … Continue reading Reflecting on “How to Do Nothing”
Remembering INPUT magazine
In 1984 a new magazine hit the racks in W. H Smiths: INPUT. It offered to help you to "Learn programming for fun and the future" via a weekly course in programming and computing. It ran for a total of 52 issues. I was 12 when it came out. And I collected every issue. INPUT … Continue reading Remembering INPUT magazine
The Doom Pyramid
There's a lot going at the minute. Both in general and personally. I've been trying to think through the way I feel about it all. To reflect on what helps me deal with the anxiety of These Times. As well as what doesn't. Today it clicked and I tweeted it. This is post just expands … Continue reading The Doom Pyramid
Obsessed by bees
I've become a bit obsessed by bees. In a good way. Earlier in the year whilst I was quietly reading a very large, very black bee fell out of chimney. We were both stunned. After a moment to see if I was about to be engulfed in a swarm of bees (BEES!!!) I escorted the … Continue reading Obsessed by bees
TTRPGs and Me
In January I tweeted this: https://twitter.com/ldodds/status/1351293034093285382 Six months later and I'm now in two weekly TTRPG sessions. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it. For a long period TTRPGs were a big part of my life. Like many people of my age, my introduction to TTRPGs was through the D&D "red box" set. When I got my … Continue reading TTRPGs and Me
Garden Retro 2020
I've been growing vegetables in our garden for years now. I usually end up putting the garden "to bed" for the winter towards the end of September. Harvesting the last bits of produce, weeding out the vegetable patches and covering up the earth until the Spring. I thought I'd also do a bit of a … Continue reading Garden Retro 2020
I miss being able to look people in the eye
"What even is time, anymore?" I've seen and made many variations of this joke across Slack, twitter and meetings this week. Remote working and social isolation has disrupted all of our routines and left us feeling adrift. But, for those of us lucky enough to have good connectivity, we're certainly not talking or seeing each … Continue reading I miss being able to look people in the eye