A website.
New music discovery has come up as a topic of discussion a few times with different friends. I try to listen to lots of new music, so here’s what’s worked for me: Friends I take recommendations from friends seriously, and try to be intentional with what music I recommend to which friends. Following music writers/blogs Chicago’s Josh Terry and his newsletter, No Expectations is a great example. I…
Favourite Supporting Actor Benicio del Toro , One Battle After Another Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, It Was Just an Accident Stellan Skarsgard, Sentimental Value (he really should be in Leading though) William H. Macy, Train Dreams Michael Cera, The Phoenician Scheme (My 2024 winner: Adam Pearson, A Different Man ) Favourite Original Screenplay Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt It Was Just…
Every year, I like to put out my lists of favourites. I always enjoy reading others’ end-of-year posts ( 1 , 2 , for example) and hope to add a few of my favourites to the conversation. Shortcuts: Music , Movies , Podcasts , Books , Requests Music Albums of the Year I listened to 108 albums from 2025. Thanks to Mattias at Record Club , you can see the full list here . Getting Killed by Geese…
I listened to approximately 984 unique artists , and 5232 unique songs for a total of 9,929 plays , down about 9% from last year. That’s about 608 hours of listening. Thanks again to Josiah for building this Last.fm stats tool that I’ve used for all playtime stats listed here. Top Artists by Playtime Getting Killed by Geese Geese – 20:44, 308 plays Scott McMicken and THE EVER-EXPANDING – 9:16, 125…
This April 14 th , here are five covers of Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th : A pedalsteel cover by Will Van Horn A eurorack cover by Deadmidi A vibraphone cover by Robby Bowen and Adam Holmes A cover on a GameBoy by @MonkeyTrumpet A banjo cover by Max Allard
Ahead of this year’s Oscars, I want to revist my favourite films of the year from my Favourites of the Year post now that I’ve had the opportunity to see a few more 2024 movies. Initially, this was supposed to go up before the Oscars, but I had to hold on until I could see Nickel Boys . I’m glad I did. I still missed a lot movies, due to release schedules, or my own lack of time. Sorry to No Other…
Skip to: Music , Movies , Books Music of the Year I listened to 209 albums from this year . For more detailed listening statistics from this year, see my 2024 Listening Stats post . Here’s my shortlist of favourite albums. All Hell by Los Campesinos! Portraits by Bada-Bada Bright Future by Adrianne Lenker The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain by Tapir! Only God Was Above Us…
I listened to approximately 1010 different artists , 1490 different albums , and 6357 different songs for a total of 10,938 plays , up about 85% from last year . That’s about 689 hours of listening. I track my listening through Last.fm . This year’s lists were calculated using a custom fork of @undefinist’s Last Time web app, passing my Last.fm listening data through MusicBrainz for track…
Visit A handful of former Pitchfork writers started a new, independent music publication: Hearing Things . Their profile of a “Spotify vandal” feels more like Reply All than Pitchfork. A tool to find users with similar Letterboxd Top 4 movies A collection of early computer video art from recently-decease artist Lillian F Schwartz Sun Letters : a website only readable between sunrise and sunset in…
Jay Hoffman of The History of the Web traces the the cycles of hype and shamelessness through to today in Beware the Cloud of Hype A Website is a Room – “We ought to carefully examine the qualities of the living environment that each web space provides for us.” Slash Pages – A collection of common pages for personal sites. Looks like I have some more pages to add to my site. Emblems of Space by…
I’m a bit unusual in how attentively I track the music that I listen to. I’ve been using LastFM for over a decade, I keep a shared Google Sheet with a few friends tracking the albums we listen to each year, and I enjoy contributing to Musicbrainz . I also publicly track the books I read , and the movies that I watch . It‘s how my brain is wired. Mattias Hinderson ’s new website, Record Club is…
Read We Can Have a Different Web says Molly White Celine Nguyen writes about Research as a Leisure Activity An interesting at experiment writing musical notation with CSS Grid Leo Kim writes about “the emergent aesthetics of artificial intelligence” for The Baffler – “the emergent aesthetic of AI appeals to a belief, however tenuous, in big data’s ability to deliver an accurate representation of…
The day after I had counted down all of your breaths Down until there were none, were none, were none, were none A hummingbird crashed right in front of me and I understood all you did for us You gave, and gave, and gave, and gave Colombia by Local Natives . At the end of 2023, my Mom passed away after her second bout with cancer. I haven’t mentioned it online because I can’t seem to quite put the…
Read AI Isn’t Useless. But Is It Worth It? asks Molly White Watch Super Eyepatch Wolf looks at fake videogames and why people create them in The Bizarre World of Fake Video Games The Middle 8 looks at the history and resurgance of dance-punk “What it take for a machine to jam?“ Adam Neely revisits the question for the modern age in Why AI is Doomed to Fail the Musical Turing Test Why The Zone of…
Read Reading the Rocks by Jenny O’Dell What The World Needs by Jeremy Keith One of my favourite film critics, Alissa Wilkinson, did an AMA on Reddit Visit “Explore RSS feeds in your neighbourhood with rss-is-dead.lol” URL Anatomy Record.club , a new music social network that’s more like Letterboxd than LastFM. I’m trying it out Dead Simple Sites , a collection of minimalist websites. Listen Bright…
No cheating – your Quietus style Baker’s Dozen. 13 albums (off the top of your head) to know you by. Not looking for a perfect list, looking for a list that you instantly regret posting because you then remember something else. James McKenzi (@jamesmckz) Does it mean the best way to a timeline of my history ? Where I’m at right now ? In the spirit of James’ request, “off the top of your head” ,…
Read Bryan Manio wrote about How to quickly add RSS links with Raycast and Feedly. I use Reeder, which has an extension for grabbing feeds, but this looks useful if you use those tools. And there’s a screenshot of this very website in the post‽ I’m charmed by the way these connections happen through blogging. An anoymyous blogger from Antarctica with the delightful URL brr.fyi XKCD forecasts the…
A new year, already a month old. I’m going to try to bring by my short-lived Hyperlinks series that I started last year. At the end of the month I’ll try to put together a digestible amount of links to cool things from the past month.At least that’s what I’ll try to do. Happy clicking. Posts My friend Tim started a blog to write his journey learning video game development. Here’s his post on Why…
Last year, Noah Jacobus wrote about his drafts to share what he was thinking about while starting his blog. I borrowed that idea for my own post about unfinished drafts. Unfortunately, I went 0/8 on publishing them – some lost their timeliness, others I forgot about. Here are five unfinished drafts from the past year. If I can publish one of these it will be an improvement over last year. “Reasons…
2023 was a year of celebration and sorrow. Yet, here are my favourite pieces of art and media from the year. This year I’ve added a few new categories, with the help of friends. Skip to: Music , Movies , Podcasts , TV , Videos , Books , Miscellanea Albums of the Year I listened to 79 albums from this year . This collection of top ten albums may be my least settled that I’ve ever published. For…
Once again, this year’s listening was a mix of Apple Music (the app), Apple Music (the service), and Spotify. As my own alternative to Spotify Wrapped/Apple Music Replay, here’s my listening data from all services, via Last.fm . I listened to approximately 612 different artists , 902 different albums , and 3032 different songs for a total of 5921 plays , up 32% from last year . That’s about 15…
Decided to set an automation to turn my phone to grayscale later in the evening and I can’t describe the relief it gave my brain @thetimmywall on Threads My friend Tim taught me a neat iOS 17 trick. I’ve been interested in using iOS’ colour filters to set my iPhone to greyscale, but I didn’t want to do it permanently. Tim’s Threads post taught me that it could be automated with iOS Shortcuts. I…
On the twenty-ninth, I made some pizzas and celebrated a birthday with some friends. One of those friends recently started bringing a game to birthday get-togethers. They call “Birthday Hotseat”. It’s a set of questions, hand-selected for the person celebrating their birthday. They have to answer the question, and then can pose the same question to anyone else in attendance. There were nine…
I was at my local library just over a week ago to return my copy of Ducks by Kate Beaton and I’ll be back as soon as my hold on Jenny Odell’s Saving Time is ready to pick up. In the mean time, I listened to the audiobook, All Quiet on the Western Front . Six of the eight books that I’ve read this year came from the library. It was 14 out of 22 last year. As a child I read a lot, and so visiting…
I know you’re back … Yesterday, I went to my first concert in a few years. Alvvays, the band behind my 2022 Album of the Year , played at the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg. I’ve been following Alvvays since I first heard Archie, Marry Me on CBC Radio 3 . That song has turned into probably a top-5 song for me, and they’ve only grown since that record. They’ve been my most-played artist by a…
In case you missed February, here’s the second edition of my collection of links from the month. It’s a habit now. A few weeks ago, Yannick Schutz wrote the first blog post that mentions one of my blog posts . That was a special moment for me. Merci, Yannick . He also shared some thoughts with me about sharing links, and I hope to have more to say on that shortly. Here’s February 2023: Posts…
I’m still trying to figure the best way to share links with this blog. Josh Ginter’s The Newsprint has a separate “Fresh Links” section dedicated to this. kottke.org has links mixed in with other posts. Alissa Wilkinson posts a set of links every weekend. Noah Jacobus has his “Enjoyment Roundup” series , first started on Twitter, where he posts a regular format “whenever [he has] experienced…
After weeks of milder winter weather, we find ourselves back in the negative mid-twenties. They say the weather could be this way for a week or two. When we’re deep in the coldest days of winter, I like to remember sublimation. Sublimation is the transition of frozen water from solid to gas without passing through a liquid state. When air is extremely dry, snowpack can evaporate into vapour. This…
Post 3/3 as a part of Bring Back Blogging . 🎉 Yesterday in the office, we talked about the music that we listen to while working. If I’m writing code or thinking in language, I tend to favour instrumental or ambient music. If the work is a bit more external and visual, like layout and design, then I’m open to a variety. Here are a few albums that have been in my rotation at the office: Anyhow by…
Post 2/3 as a part of Bring Back Blogging . Yesterday, Noah Jacobus started his new blog . It’s called Small Yay , because he’s an icon sommelier . For his opening post, he revealed some “potential” posts he’s working on. I’m looking forward to reading these when they’re published, but I found it interesting just to see kinds of posts he’s thinking about. Borrowing that idea, here are the working…
Post 1/3 as a part of Bring Back Blogging . At the end of 2022, I had a few weeks of holidays and finally moved my personal website from Jekyll to Eleventy . The first incarnation of this site was built on Siteleaf which used Liquid templating . When Siteleaf v2 moved to pure Jekyll , I converted with it. Most recently, I was managing content right in Jekyll without relying on Siteleaf for content…
Albums of the Year I only listened to 52 albums this year . I’m not sure why my total was so low this year. This list is probably the least settled of any that I’ve ever published here. For more detailed listening statistics from this year, see my 2022 Listening Stats post . Blue Rev by Alvvays Blue Rev by Alvvays Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief 11:11 by Pinegrove Mr. Morale…
I primarily listen to music via Spotify (even when I own the music), but this year I trialled Apple Music for a bit as well. That meant that my Spotify Wrapped wasn’t quite right. Thanks to Last.fm (which just turned 20) , I’ve compiled my own version. I listened to 431 different artists , 672 different albums, and 2089 different songs for a total of 4471 plays , down 33% from last year . I’ve…
“What are five songs where it Just Isn’t Christmas if you haven’t heard them?” This was a question that Nathan asked me, and asked himself on his blog . He gave me a secondary challenge of limiting my list to only one Sufjan Stevens song, knowing that the list would only be one artist otherwise. “Christmas in the Room” or “Only At Christmas Time” by Sufjan Stevens Silver & Gold by Sufjan Stevens…
After seeing friends sharing their Spotify Wrappeds, and Apple Music Replays, I joked on Twitter: I’d like to see Paprika Wrapped. I want to know which recipes my friends have been cooking most this year. @jondueck on Twitter Paprika , here, is the recipe management app that I use on MacOS and iOS. I think it’s a little funny to imagine their take on Spotify Wrapped, but I also sincerely think…
In October, two friends and I took a short trip to Port Moody and Vancouver, British Columbia. It was my first trip out of the province since 2019, and my first time visiting BC since 2004. BC is far too nice of a place to stay away for that long. Here are a few photos from Lynn Canyon, Vancouver, and Stanley Park.
It’s hard to admit that it’s time to start on a fall playlist. We’ve had an unusually gentle transition to autumn here. New records from Alvvays ( Blue Rev ) and Alex G ( God Save The Animals ) seem perfectly timed for inclusion in this season. Earlier releases, like Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You from February and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Emile Mosseri’s I Could Be Your…
I’ve wanted to make a Twitter bot that tweets horse_ebooks-esque nonsense based on my personal tweets for a while. It took six years from the creation of the account until I had a working bot. @botdueck is finally live. Trying to find out what Design Twitter is upset about. @botdueck, 7 May 2022 The bot takes the content of my previous personal tweets and remixes them into new posts, via Markov…
Today, Chris Coyier announced that CSS-Tricks has been acquired by DigitalOcean. It’s hard to describe how valuable CSS-Tricks has been for me, and probably anyone else who has written any amount of front-end code. CSS-Tricks was a constant source of learning when I was starting with CSS, HTML, and Wordpress, but it has remained a constant resource to this very day. The writing was always clear…
It’s been a h*ck of another year. Albums of the Year I listened to 112 albums this year . These were my favourites. The top two are the top two, but the rest of the order is a little less clear. Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, London Symphony Orchestra Space 1.8 by Nala Sinephro A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine Sympathetic Magic by Typhoon New Music and Big…
It’s been a h*ck of a year, but there was some nice media to help me get through it. Albums of the Year While I had my most song plays since 2014, I only tracked 79 albums from 2020. In rough order: Shore by Fleet Foxes Marigold by Pinegrove Neon Skyline by Andy Shauf Women in Music Pt. III by Haim The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens Songs by Adrienne Lenker Everything Else Has Gone Wrong by Bombay…
This was a bit of an off year for me. I listened to 93 albums from this year. listenersclub.ca Bon Iver – i,i Meitei – Komachi Local Natives – Violet Street Said The Whale – Cascadia Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride Big Thief – Two Hands Pedro the Lion – Phoenix Emily A. Sprague, Lightbath – full/new Oso Oso – Basking in the Glow Wilco – Ode to Joy Honourable Mentions American Football –…
As originally posted on Listeners Club . I listened to 151 albums from this year. Nils Frahm – All Melody Forth Wanderers – Forth Wanderers Bahamas – Earthtones Snail Mail – Lush Pinegrove – Skylight Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs Leon Vynehall – Nothing Is Still We Are The City – At Night Jeremy Dutcher – Wolastoqiyik Lintuwankonawa Vacations – Changes
As originally posted on Listeners Club . I listened to 144 albums from this year. Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder Kendrick Lamar – DAMN. Nick Hakim – Green Twins The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding Gord Downie – Introduce Yerself Big Thief – Capacity Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins (Sandy) Alex G – Rocket Julie Byrne – Not Even Happiness Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up
As originally posted on Listeners Club . Chance the Rapper – Coloring Book Bon Iver – 22, A Milion Local Natives – Sunlit Youth Frank Ocean – Blonde Solange – A Seat at the Table Childish Gambino – "Awaken, My Love!" Whitney – Light Upon the Lake Florist – The Birds Outside Sang Noname – Telefone Pinegrove – Cardinal
A response to @dustin’s Five Design Questions . 1 – Tell us who you are in one sentence. I’m a graphic designer and front-end web developer working at Co-op@home during the day and building up my own design studio — Collectif — in my spare time with Josiah Wiebe . 2 – If you weren’t a designer, what would you do? I think I’ve pursued because it’s the thing that I feel like I can do. Of course, I’d…
I wrote an entry on Day One Publish outlining one of my favourite ways to journal. Read it here →