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This time of year, work becomes a tension between two opposing forces: the inevitable winding down of the year, as fewer projects appear and people begin to drift away, and the equally inevitable rush to get whatever remains to be done. It’s a tension that keeps me awake at night — literally, as I wake […]
8 months ago

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More from Ian Betteridge

Weeknote, Monday 23rd December

A week off work, yay! Obviously that has not stopped me checking and replying to a few emails. My team were also attempting to get me to help them cheat at the work Christmas quiz using WhatsApp. Shamefully, they didn’t even win. I had my first face to face physio session about my back. I […]

7 months ago 65 votes
When dealing with Musk, Labour needs to understand the world has changed

There are plenty of objections to preventing Elon Musk from donating to Reform. The first is it’s politically motivated. A party shouldn’t (the theory goes) use its power in government specifically to target another party. Of course, Labour could do this in a way which prevented all foreign donations to all parties, and thus side […]

7 months ago 72 votes
Ten Blue Links, “your time is up” edition

This week… But first, an announcement! TLDR: Over the holidays, I will be migrating this site from WordPress.com to Ghost. This may mean a little disruption, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Why am I doing this? I’ve been a paying customer of WordPress.com for my site hosting for several years. I […]

7 months ago 96 votes
Weeknote, Sunday 15th December
8 months ago 62 votes
Ten Blue Links, “I am your BFDL” edition

1. Tech benevolent dictators are still… dictators in the tech community there is a concept of the “benevolent dictator for life”. This is a leadership model where one person, usually the founder, has the final say on decisions. They guide the project’s direction, relying on their expertise and vision to keep things on track, while […]

8 months ago 56 votes

More in creative

Disenchanted

Where does hope come from? It’s probably hard-wired, the result of an evolutionary process. A creature with hope is less likely to give up and more likely to raise offspring, thus passing down an ability to find resilience in the face of change. Disenchanted has come to mean something different from its original usage. Today, […]

19 hours ago 3 votes
Watch Joan Baez Endearingly Imitate Bob Dylan (1972)

Joan Baez was already heralded as the “Queen of Folk” by the time Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan arrived in New York City. Many things brought him to the burgeoning folk scene there, but Baez was the siren who called to a young Dylan through his television set long before he met her. He was […]

2 days ago 3 votes
“A now, a word from our sponsor”

Not really. Just a post about sponsors. Even if you don’t run a media company, the way media companies run matters. That’s because media shapes our culture and how we spend our time. There are three kinds of ad models, and it’s easy to confuse them. The most common and historically powerful is the traditional […]

3 days ago 4 votes
2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized & Put Online, Thanks to the Ritman Library and Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown

In 2018 we brought you some exciting news. Thanks to a generous donation from Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, Amsterdam’s Ritman Library—a sizable collection of pre-1900 books on alchemy, astrology, magic, and other occult subjects—has been digitizing thousands of its rare texts under a digital education project cheekily called “Hermetically Open.” We are now […]

3 days ago 6 votes
Moving without traveling

Moving is physical, travel is an emotional journey. Moving takes us from one place to another, one job to another, one situation to another. But if we seek to insulate ourselves from the emotional labor of travel, we can build a cocoon around our experience and discover nothing. Once we choose to see what’s actually […]

4 days ago 6 votes