Open Thinkering

Weeknote 06/2025

• 5 min read • Weeknotes / weeknote / work

“Underneath all the thundering there’s magic
And if there’s a better way to live, I’ve gotta have it.”

(KNEECAP)
Slightly fuzzy photo of a butterly on a concrete floor

This is the first week of the year that I can say “it’s been a good week.” This is despite, or maybe even because of the, fact that I spent three hours in hospital on Wednesday. The short version of that is: I had chest pains, nobody else was in, and I didn’t want my family to come home to a corpse.

So I went to A&E, they ran a bunch of tests (ECG, blood test, chest x-ray) and ruled out a heart attack. I’ve got another test later this month, but the chances are I’ve got a touch of myocarditis, aka “inflammation of the heart muscle.” The treatment for this is basically painkillers and rest. I am spectacularly bad at the latter: as people who know me well will attest “just chill for a bit” does. not. compute. Still, at least I’m (probably) not dying — any more than all of us are, philosophically-speaking.

No need to worry that I’m in imminent peril, then, but I wanted to ensure I was OK before heading down to London on Friday for a Mozilla thing on Saturday. I stayed over with the generous Bryan Mathers and his family, going for a pint in one of the most diverse Wetherspoons pubs I’ve ever visited. It was great.

I left the Mozilla Foundation almost a decade ago now, and it remains one of the high points of my career. As with any role that so neatly fits your values and ideals, there were also some pretty low points, too. It was a rollercoaster, I guess, but one to which I was willing to return at the invitation of Dees. I’m not going to go too much into what we discussed, as he’s organising some more of these in other cities for fellow Mozilla alumni. Suffice to say, I came away energised and inspired.

Catching up with FuzzyFox (William Duyck) is always fun, it was lovely to reconnect with Christine Prefontaine, I got to hang out with colleague John Bevan, I fist-bumped Mark Surman (who was there for a bit), and met people who had worked for Mozilla before and after me. A joy.

This week, on a bit of a whim, I started a little February experimentation. I’m updating the post at that link with what I’m creating, but here’s what I’ve done so far:

The holographic stickers have arrived, and they look fantastic. After Experiment 3, I swapped out the Stripe link for supporters of Thought Shrapnel with Ko-fi, as I thought it was a better solution.

I’m not sure what experiments I’ll do next week, but the nice thing about doing something like this is that it forces me to be generative. It also means I can hold each idea lightly, which is important for creativity..

I caught up with Ian O’Byrne, Angela Gunder, and Tris Lumley about various projects and ideas this week. With Angela, we’re planning to collaborate on doing something for Open Education Week and AI Literacy Day, which are both next month. I realised that WAO hadn’t really properly announced ailiteracy.fyi, so I published a blog post about that.

We submitted a couple of proposals for new work to organisations with which we’d like to collaborate, and, after Aaron Hirtenstein convinced me, I’ve booked a ticket to return to London in a few weeks’ time for a CoTech gathering. I do need to get out and about more; there’s got to be a happy medium between the 50 events in 52 weeks I once attended when at Mozilla, and now where I spend most of my week in my (temporary) home office.

Speaking of which, our builders and a local building inspector were in our garage on Thursday, looking at the space in which we plan to convert into my more permanent home office. The concern was whether it counted as a ‘habitable space’ which means additional regulations around fire safety, etc. It seems that it does, and there are some adjustments to be made to the plan; I’m hoping that won’t mean the price goes up too much, and that the lead time isn’t too long.

There are no sporting fixtures for our two teenagers today, and I missed their games yesterday. It seems like I missed a couple of good games: my son’s basketball team won 32-24 and he scored six points, while my daughter’s team played a side in a lower league and smashed them 17-1, with the referee ending the match early and my daughter and two of her team-mates both grabbing hat-tricks.

Next week, I’ve got conversations with the BBC’s Responsible Innovation Centre, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation about two potential things. I’m also discussing facilitating an Awards Network event in Glasgow with Tila McDonald, and potentially lending AACRAO some curriculum help, courtesy of a connection made by Noah Geisel. I’m also looking forward to catching up with Ivan Minutillo about progress around Bonfire, and Eylan Ezekiel… because it’s been too long.

If you fancy a catch-up, or you read this blog and we’ve never had a chat, you’re very welcome to grab a slot for a virtual coffee. No agenda necessary! ☕

Image: (Not the sharpest photo of) a butterfly I discovered in our garage this week. When I removed a large sheet of plastic from in front of the window, something half-fell, half-fluttered down onto the window sill. It looked like a moth with its wings closed. I’m not sure if it was the right thing to do, but I left a small pool of honey next to it, and when I returned to the garage, it was on the floor, looking as majestic as it could muster with its wings open. Eventually, I moved it outside. It’s definitely not butterfly season, so all I can imagine is that when we moved in last April, I accidentally covered up a chrysalis — and the poor thing has been stuck there since last year. It’s wings are slightly damaged, but functional. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

Quotation: I watched the KNEECAP film in several parts on the train to and from London and, having admired their music since first hearing it on BBC 6 Music about 18 months ago, fully enjoyed it. Possibly not most appropriate film to watch in a semi-public space, but I made sure that no kids could see my screen 😵