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
The town of Kitzbühel, Austria, from high up in the mountains. A four-day working week with a long weekend away at the end. I needed it. At the start of the week I noted that I felt as though I was going through a tough period, but one...
Stopped to photograph this phone box on my walk to work, as the construction work means that you can’t open the door. Then I noticed that it’s due to be removed. Last week was tough for no reason. This week was hard, but in a different...
A big chunk of my final year at university, studying for my Computer Science degree, was spent working on a project. That last year counted for 60% of my overall grade, and the project contributed half of that. So the mark that I...
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 moment of spring amongst days of near-endless rain. A tough...
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.
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. It’s definitely worth reading: If you extend the trend (and...
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 updated the post so that anyone searching for the same issue can...
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 is always raining (and apparently, it is), with any glimpse...
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 intent of the USA’s Section 230 was to allow them to refuse...
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.
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 feeling run down, which I think was an after-effect of Saturday’s...
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 evening. Berg asked who remembered being around when Buckley...
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 well as broader IndieWeb thinking more generally. Reading...
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 two weeks of January were a honeymoon period after the...