Andrew Doran
Andrew Doran
Andrew Doran
I write here in order to work things out and understand myself better. I write here in order to put things down that I have been carrying around in my head, so I don’t need to carry them around anymore. I write here in order to capture a moment and have something that I can look back on, remembering what I thought and felt at the time.
Latest Posts
Weeknotes #364 — Big pile of umbrellas
Spotted a cheeky jackdaw sitting on the sign, looking at the passersby. It flew off as I pulled out my phone to take its picture. Note the blue sky in the background — a rare...
Having a proud dad moment. On Friday, our eldest son broke his college’s mile record, and later that day ran the 10th best time in school history in the 800m.
Something big is happening; but it doesn’t add up
This week, multiple people sent me a link to Matt Shumer’s post that Something Big Is Happening. In the post, he sounds the alarm that AI is coming for most white-collar jobs....
Adding email links to the bottom of each blog post is paying off. Someone emailed me with information about a problem with my indoor cycling trainer. With permission, I’ve...
February already. Can you believe it1? Although the month has changed, the weather has not, and it feels like an endurance test that is starting to get to me. It seems that it...
I love that The Guardian has this as their main story on their homepage. There are so many newsletters that I would pay to subscribe to, if they weren’t hosted on Substack. The...
Pocket Casts’ AI-generated transcript of the Quiet Riot podcast thinks that Ryan just needs to shush.
Mark Kermode’s review of Melania (2026) is so good, and everything I expected it to be.
Weeknotes #362 — Continental quilts
At a local car park. It’s good to differentiate your pricing. Someone printed this and thought “Yeah, that’s great.” This felt like another tough week. At the start, I was...
Just been to a preview of the new Jeff Buckley documentary, It’s Never Over (2025), followed by a Q&A with director Amy Berg. It’s a beautiful film and it was a wonderful...
I’ve just finished reading Indie Microblogging by Manton Reece. This book covers a lot of ground, including plenty of detail on the philosophy behind the Micro.blog platform, as...
Cyclists gathered in the early morning, getting ready to set off on the 209km Willy Warmer Audax ride. My group wouldn’t be back until well after dark. In retrospect, the first...
Earth-Moon Connexions by El Anatsui, on display at the Tate Modern in London. I really enjoyed this week. A couple of projects came to a conclusion, something that is usually...
Buying something from the Decathlon website and reached the checkout stage. My inside voice reads this as completely sarcastic.
Weeknotes #359 — New Year, same me
Early morning moon over Berkhamsted. After three weeks off, waking up just after 6am for five days in a row was a shock to the system. On Saturday I woke up when my wife brought...