Weeknote 05/2026

You can choose to sleepwalk through life and accept the path that's been laid out for you. You can choose to accept the world as it is. But you don't have to. If there's something in the world you feel is wrong, and you have a vision for what a better world could be, you can find your guiding principle, and fight for a cause.

(Bret Victor)

I've had a great week. But guess what? Like last week I was up at 04:15 on Saturday morning. Why? I don't understand. At least I got some boring stuff done, namely calendar and contacts migration.

I was up in Glasgow with Aaron for a Julia Slay strategy facilitation workshop on Wednesday, and then on Friday I met up with Tom for some planning / conspiring. Post-it notes and sharpies were deployed.

Writing

As promised last time, I started this week by writing about accessibility:

The purpose of your website is what it does

Once you test, the gaps become obvious. And once they’re obvious, fixing them matters. Stafford Beer’s principle applies: the purpose of the platform is what it actually does – gaps included.

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

Then I talked about the browser extension I've built (and started to use) for Proton Calendar:

Extending Proton Calendar beyond its limits

I’ve created a browser extension that lets you add video conferencing links from multiple services directly into Proton Calendar events.

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

I can imagine myself referring regularly to this post I wrote about AI governance:

Claude’s Constitution and the trap of corporate AI ethics

We need better institutions, providing guidance than any company, no matter how thoughtful, can build alone.

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

And then, in a “Brucie Bonus” post, I reflected on everything I published in here in January:

January 2026: systems, software, and self

I began by trying to post every day, then settled into a rhythm of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday posts, plus a Sunday weeknote. This Saturday post is a Brucie Bonus: an extra, unplanned reflection on the month.

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

Over on Thought Shrapnel I didn't publish as much as usual:

I’m so glad I can still talk to my AI chatbot friends

Source: Reddit

Thought Shrapnel

Makes you think

Source: Information is Beautiful

Thought Shrapnel

Words/phrases used more in AI-generated text

Whether or not you use LLMs as part of your workflow, you don’t want to be accused of “sounding like AI”. This guide gives a list of words and phrases that are (much) more commonly used in the output from LLMs. I’ve added it my document of AI words/phases to avoid. You’re welcome. These words and phrases are ranked based on the frequency they appear in AI documents, compared to human documents in our research of 3.

Thought Shrapnel

Because I learned a second thing at the end of my two days of vertigo: That my idea was terrible.

One of our recurring biases is assuming that our last experience of something, or somewhere, still reflects how it is today. For example, places I haven’t visited in over a decade, since before the pandemic, are almost certainly quite different now. The same applies to software and digital tools, which tend to evolve far faster than we expect. The same is true of software and digital tools, which often evolve much faster than we think.

Thought Shrapnel

A bit more than a to-do list

I’m pretty sure I’ve come across anytype before, but I was reminded of it after asking for suggestions in the Freelancers Get Sh*t Done Slack. I’ve been using Google Tasks, which are nicely integrated with Google Calendar, for the last few years. While I can still do that for my co-op to-do’s, I need a different solution for my consultancy business, which I’ve switched to Proton. Lots of people use pen and paper, but I need the ability to includes clickable links, etc.

Thought Shrapnel

Sometimes the work is rest

My one week of rest to give my autonomic system a break turned into two as, predictably, I caught whatever lurgy my daughter brought home from school. Two weeks away from exercise provided a bit of a reset, and I felt much better. It reminds me of this excellent podcast episode. Source: Tumblr

Thought Shrapnel

We are, effectively, being fracked to death.

I like experimenting with AI tools, but as I mentioned in a recent post about the Claude Constitution, I’m not a huge fan of the governance behind them. I also get for those in the creative arts, and especially for those for whom AI has arrived midway through their career, the whole “innovation” feels like armageddon. This post from Andrew Sempere “artist, designer, developer and internet old” starts off with a heartfelt note about how he is desperately looking for work, which lends a appropriately melancholy vibe to what follows.

Thought Shrapnel

Reading

I'm reading Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados at the moment, which is not a novel I would usually pick up. I'm a member of the Verso Book Club, so I get a digital edition of everything they publish. It's kind of like reading someone's diary and is unexpectedly fascinating.

This post by Matt Webb which mentions “collective efficacy” – about which I want to write at some point – reminded of this post from just over five years ago by Milan Cvitkovic. Not only is the latter post great in its own right, but it also links out to some fantastic recommendation-style posts.

Other than that, Although I excerpted it over on Thought Shrapnel (it's the last link the previous section) I want to draw your attention to this post by Andrew Sempere. It took me down a bit of a rabbithole, and I ended up listening to a mixtape he put together to accompany his posts, watching part of a presentation he did (in VR!) with Cade Diehm of New Design Congress fame.

Working

This week was the start of the pilot with Amnesty International UK (AIUK) for their new community platform. They're undergoing a digital transformation (their new website is scheduled to launch tomorrow) and we've been helping them design something for their activists and staff to be less siloed.

I saw that Laura shared a screenshot of what it currently looks like, so I feel like I can do the same. Here you go:

INASP have been in touch asking for help with their Rising Scholars site, after we ran a successful discovery workshop with them before Christmas. The AIUK and INASP stuff, along with submitting a response to a Skills Development Scotland ITQ on digital badges with Nate Otto.

As I mentioned earlier, I was in Glasgow with Aaron on Wednesday, and hanging out with Tom on Friday, which I followed with invoicing. So, essentially, it was a three-day week in terms of client work.

Personal

I suffered three migraines this week – all within 36 hours. I'm not sure why that is, especially as I don't remember having one for months. After a couple of weeks of no exercise (so hard!) I was extremely well-rested, so it was ready to try something and see how it went.

For years, I've avoided allowing my heart rate to go too high, as it usually leads to a migraine. Given I'd already had three, I decided to go for a run and not look at my heart rate while doing so. I ran 4km, which included some hills, and afterwards saw that I maintained an average HR of 151bpm with a high of 170bpm.

Next week, I've got a GP appointment and then a treadmill test for which I have to temporarily come off the calcium channel blocker which lowers my heart rate. When I ran out of this medication during the Christmas holidays, I missed 24 hours of tablets and was quite affected. So it will be interesting what happens when I have to stop taking them for 48 hours before the treadmill test.

Other than that, my daughter, Grace, won Player of the Match despite her team losing to the bottom-of-the-league side unexpectedly yesterday. My wife, Hannah, and I went for a walk earlier today which led to me taking the photo at the top of this post.

My Pixel Fold came back from a warranty repair so I reinstalled GrapheneOS on Thursday. I'm seeing how long I can do without Google Play Services, so I'm using a combination of Accrescent, Aurora Store (in anonymous mode), Droid-ify, and Obtainium. It's working pretty well so far, although it means I can't cast to any Google Home devices Chez Belshaw.

Next week

Next week I'll be working on AIUK and INASP projects, and thinking about some of the stuff that Tom and I discussed on Friday.

I need to be a lot more intentional about my work over the next few months and decide what I actually want to going forward. Let me know if there's something I can help you with.