Weeknote 20/2026

I'm typing this on my laptop in the lounge. It's half-time during Everton vs Sunderland and, when I turn the sound off while the adverts are on, I can hear a singer mangling otherwise-recognisable hit songs. Our next door neighbour, who says hello to us and that's about it, is evidently having some kind of celebration.

After my Stage 3 Overtraining Syndrome diagnosis earlier this year, I'm taking things much easier. I'd like to be running more. I'd like to be in the gym more. But there we are.

Writing & Creating

Here, I published:

What comes after web literacy?

One way to think of digital literacies is not as a single competency or bundle of skills, but as a capacity to move between layers of abstraction. To be able to do this you require an awareness of the cost/benefit of each layer.

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

Cognitive Wallpaper #001: Field Notes on Productive Friction

An experimental physical zine that won’t be available for digital download.

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

A brief guide to self-hosting websites and apps using Cloudflare Tunnel

TechFreedom is about trade-offs. And there’s nothing quite like hosting things on something that lives on your desk…

Open ThinkeringDoug Belshaw

Over at Thought Shrapnel, I published:

The new world order is rearranging itself on the planet and settling in

I was sure I’d written about this article from 2020 with the evocative title “Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over”. Written during the early days of the pandemic, Sabrina Orah Mark weaves motherhood, professional identity, and fairy tales for a column entitled Happily (which ran until March 2021). The parts I’ve excerpted contain a lot of questions about a world that has changed, and is, changing rapidly. Mark contrasts the world of fairy tales, where each character is made entirely of their role, like a stick of Blackpool rock, with the lives knowledge workers now live, dragged slowly into the Precariat.

Thought Shrapnel

My kidnappers returning me back

I came across a different version of this meme and was compelled to create my own version 😂

Thought Shrapnel

There are always people who fall outside the bounds of what a service can handle

I’m grateful to Tom Watson for sending me this link to Richard Pope’s blog, author of the book Platformland. Pope talks about specific examples from UK public services to make the point that starting with very specific use cases is problematic. First, because expecting them to scale to other use cases is a form of magical thinking; second, because people change over time. The first problem with use-cases is that, because they limit the chaos, when you scale you often discover that you have scaled a service that only works for those use-cases.

Thought Shrapnel

Believe in your own excellence

Source: Are.na

Thought Shrapnel

Don’t write in the passive voice

When I was 14 years old, I was told by my English teacher that I shouldn’t write in the ‘passive voice’. That advice has stuck with me ever since, as once you’ve see it, you see it everywhere. So I found this, by Tom Gauld, both funny and useful in terms of showing other people (including my kids) what I mean about the ways in which things can be written.

Thought Shrapnel

The impact of volcanoes on the Black Death

Scratch the surface, and underneath I’m still an enthusiastic History teacher; I’ve just no students to teach. So I find things like this Open Culture article, which helps piece together how the Black Death came to wipe out ~50% of Europe’s population in the 14th century, fascinating. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent war in Iran, with associated global shocks, are legible to us as we live in a global society based on scientific understanding.

Thought Shrapnel

Digital legacy

I went to a MozAlums workshop run by Ian Forrester on Wednesday which discussed ‘digital legacy’. There was some really interesting discussion about how and when we delete our contacts, deal with digital artefacts after the passing of people we know, and automating some of the things that happen after we leave this mortal coil… Source: Are.na

Thought Shrapnel

Thought Shrapnel

I have led a toothless life, he thought. A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on—and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. – Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason

Thought Shrapnel

Arbitrary structures and accidental hierarchies

Source: Are.na

Thought Shrapnel

Field Notes on Productive Friction

I’m making my first zine, coming Q3 2026. There’s only going to be 50 physical copies, no digital version, and I’ve already sold ~25% of them. If you want one, please ensure you choose the correct postage option for your location. A pocket guide to noticing the frictionless tools that remove your agency, containing eight patterns of capture, plus one self-administered audit. Making the case for reflection over convenience in a world of doomscrolling.

Thought Shrapnel

Why do people procrastinate?

I am not, you will be unsurprised to hear, a procrastinator. But I do procrastinate, and used to do so much more when I was younger. This podcast episode from 2020, recommended to me this week so that I could better understand where someone was coming from, is absolutely fantastic. I learned so much, and the enthusiasm of both the host and interviewee is infectious. Source: Ologies with Alie Ward

Thought Shrapnel

Reading, Listening, and Watching

I finished No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy last night, which I think was a rare case of a book being improved by watching the film beforehand. Next, I'm going to read The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym Of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe.

[PODCASTS]

Working

It was a four-day week due to the Early May Bank Holiday. I'm now working on five projects:

• DCC – I had a chat with Kerri Lemoie on Tuesday about the work I'm doing for her on Wallet Attached Storage. I then starting using the design system I created using Claude Design and worked on the text-based elements of the project.
• INASP – I spent time working on drafting tender documents for their procurement process for their Rising Scholars and main website projects. The Dovetail how to guides were useful for this.
• SDS – An oversight on my part meant that participants in the Digital Badges Proof of Concept workshop a week last Friday weren't able to create badges Nate sorted that out for me this week, and then ensured that any created badges end up in the DCC sandbox registry, meaning they show up as 'verified'.
• TechFreedom – On Friday, Tom and I met up in person to finish planning the third workshop for members of the pilot cohort. We've also started to plan our session for TechNExt, had a chat about putting in a session for MozFest, and talked tentatively about setting up a lab/studio together.
• CW-PUB-001 – I'm creating my first zine, which will be a limited run of 50 physical copies, with no digital version released. Coming Q3 2026.

I contributed to a Responsible AI UK Education white paper workshop on Tuesday, a Mozilla Alumni digital legacy workshop with Ian Forrester on Wednesday, caught up with Angela Gunder and Annalise Lewis, had an introductory chat with Gavin van Lelyveld, and discussed a potential collaboration with Ariam Mogos from Stanford d.school.

Other than that, I've made a lot of progress on ProjectDial (the sister to TaskDial) which I'll share publicly soon. It wouldn't have existed without the insistence of Stephen Lockyer that it would be a good idea! I've even started using it myself, adding in a basic Toggl Track integration.

We did such a great job winding down WAO that we've already paid out the money that was left in the pot, and our accountant now just has to file the relevant paper to liquidate it. Onwards.

Personal

On Friday afternoon, after meeting with Tom, I went for a walk with my son, Ben. He's in the midst of his first year exams, but (a) they're multiple-choice as he's doing Sport, and (b) he's switching to Geography next year anyway.

We went on a lovely walk along Hadrian's Wall starting from The Sill. It was a lot more relaxing than my 2022 effort, and we had such a great chat that I forgot to take any photos!

My daughter, Grace, hasn't been playing much football – partly due to the time of the season, and partly due to recovering from injury. She should be OK for her County Cup Final on Wednesday night, though, which (helpfully for her) was rearranged from last weekend.

She's going with my wife, Hannah, to the Gothia Cup with Northumberland FA in July, so today I've booked for Ben and I to go to Lisbon for a few days during the same week. Last time I was in Lisbon, Laura suggested that I stay near LX Factory, which turned out to be fantastic advice. So I've booked an apartment for us near there again.

Next week

I'm starting the week with a two-hour 'Personal Mythologies' coaching session, before catching up with Bryan Mathers. I've got work to do on all of the projects mentioned earlier, which I'll fit around running the third TechFreedom workshop on Wednesday, and attending the Thinking Digital conference on Thursday.

I want to take a bit of time off the week after next as it's half-term for my daughter. So I'll be looking to get a couple of things wrapped up before then.