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A bunch of things I’ve found on my digital strolls (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer active on Twitter or on LinkedIn much).

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“It’s like watching someone who used to compose symphonies decide to only produce ringtones.”
The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

“This year my family moved. The kind of move that doesn’t feel dramatic until you notice how often your body reaches for things that aren’t there anymore. Different grocery stores. Different roads. The quiet disorientation of standing in a room that hasn’t learned your style yet. Moves do that, I guess. They show you how much of your life is habit pretending to be home.”
bye bye 2025 – by John Roedel – Around the Campfire

“In the decades to come, creativity will be key to doing most jobs well. In this article the authors offer a new typology that breaks creative thinking into four types:
– integration, or showing that two things that appear different are the same;
– splitting, or seeing how things that look the same are more usefully divided into parts;
– figure-ground reversal, or realizing that what is crucial is not in the foreground but in the background; and
– distal thinking, which involves imagining things that are very different from the here and now.
Most of us tend to think in just one of those four ways. But we can hone our ability to be creative in other dimensions. Managers need to understand both their own strengths and how to balance the types of thinking across their teams to successfully execute creative projects. And organizations can use this typology to optimize innovation across the workforce.”
Cultivating the Four Kinds of Creativity

“Men are not so much confused as they are conflicted. They know what is required of them, but are held back by unexamined beliefs—about responsibility, misplaced loyalties, masculinity, failure, and the cost of choosing themselves. Anger often masks sadness. Guilt disguises fear. Shame convinces them that movement itself is dangerous. And anything that even hints at shame is usually on their do-not-examine list. So they distract, minimize, work harder, drink more, stay busy, mislead themselves, or just go silent. What appears as endurance is often just disconnection over time.”
Why Men Know What to Do but Still Don’t Do It | Psychology Today

“He likens Solid “pods” to backpacks of data that are securely held by each individual, allowing them to choose what to share with certain people, businesses and organisations. Department of Education data could be shared with an AI tutor; medical data with a cousin, doctor and nutritionist. The Flanders government in Belgium treats data as a national utility and is already using Solid pods for its citizens. The Facebooks and Xs of the world need not join in – the new systems will be so empowering, collaborative and compassionate, he believes, that parts of today’s web will become obsolescent.”
‘It’s not too late to fix it’: internet inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a ‘battle for the soul of the web’ | Internet | The Guardian

“The same Google search can now yield a neatly packaged “AI Overview,” a synthesized recipe stripped of voice, memory and community, delivered without a single user visit to the creator’s website. Behind the scenes, their years of work, including their page’s text, photos and storytelling, may have already been used to help train or refine the AI model. You get your lasagna, Google gets monetizable web traffic and for the most part, the person who created the recipe gets nothing. The living web shrinks further into an interface of disembodied answers, convenient but ultimately sterile.”
The AI-Powered Web Is Eating Itself – NOEMA

“Relabeling the digital economy as the “metaverse” was a simple, elegant move—as well as a deeply cynical effort to rebrand already existing digital markets as the next internet—that allowed forecasts to assume an air of inevitability. Until it wasn’t. Perhaps more urgently now, the metaverse should also be understood as a dress rehearsal for today’s AI boom: The former was to succeed the mobile internet, while the latter now promises to be “more profound” than electricity or fire. Perpetually inflating definitions. A single-minded focus on profit that identifies but fails to address egregious harms. Manufactured narratives about inevitability and technological progress. Burning eyewatering sums on infrastructure for a product nobody wants. Any of this sound familiar?”
The rise and fall of the metaverse: What went wrong?

“I remember the night shoot when Hagrid’s hut was set on fire. It was about 4am and freezing cold. We stood together on a grassy bank, Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane battling behind us. Alan didn’t utter a word. I finally mustered the courage to ask him: “You all right, Alan? How you feeling?” About 10 seconds after I’d spoken he turned his head to me and replied slowly: “I’ve peaked.” He then turned his head back with the tiniest hint of a smile and a twinkle in his eye.”
‘I fell in love with him on the spot’: Alan Rickman remembered, 10 years after his death | Film | The Guardian

“Fortunately, there is plenty of scientific research that offers different ways to help you improve your mood. From making use of your anger to putting your phone to work for you, here are nine tips that we have discovered during our reporting:
1. Stop striving for perfection
2. Forge better friendships
3. Take up some social hobbies
4. Put your anger to good use
5. Count your blessings
6. Make your phone work for you
7. Embrace the dark days of winter
8. Sing to feel better
9. Find time for a nap.”
Nine science-backed ways to help you feel better in 2026

WATCH

EXPLORE

The entire year on a page, free to print / use.

If you’re missing it already check out MTV REWIND (no ads / algorithm / login – just all music videos like the channel used to be).

Public Sans is a strong, neutral, principles-driven, open source typeface for text or display (made by the US gov but available for all to use).

If you need some nature inspiration check out the Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library (BHL) on flickr with over 300,000 illustrations online for free use.

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.