Tenday Notes 1 August - 10 August 2023
Every ten days or so, I share a quick digest of what I've been working on and reading. Here's the latest. More in the series here.
Thanks to the many of you who sent me kind messages last week about (a) my new website, and (b) my climate anxiety. It sounds like a lot of you are sharing the latter, and while that's not a good thing it makes me feel a little less alone.
Specifically, I'd like to give a shout-out to Daianna at Today Do This, which is a newsletter that suggests positive actions you can take about crappy things in the news. Their issue two weeks ago was about the climate crisis, and Daianna spurred me to write a message to my UK political representative - the (Labour Party) MP Matt Rodda. I acknowledged the good work they've done so far, but pointed out that the pace of action is far from sufficient and that I want to see much more from their party before the next election to be able to vote for them. I've not yet had a reply - but I'll let you know if/when I do.
If you want to contact your own representative with a similar statement, Today Do This has a great tool that covers the US, Canada, UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand. If that doesn't cover you - try Googling "contact politicians in [your country]". It's worth the time.
The process of revamping my various websites is progressing, slowly. Latest to get a lick of code is the website for my information design work - which used to be at duncangeere.com, but has now been shunted to klimat.studio - which is also the name of my company.
Klimat Studio
In the process, I tweaked the typography, colour scheme, and a little bit of the language. I also totally reworked my PDF portfolio to match. Hopefully it's all a bit more coherent now, and more visually attractive to boot.
The last thing that needs reworking is my blog, which doesn't need a tonne of work - just a bit of tweaking when it comes to typography and colour. I've got a couple of long train journeys coming up this weekend, so I'll see if I can find some time to get that done then. [Last-minute edit: it's done!]
Also: a few of you sent my your own index pages after seeing mine last week! For example, here's Ben Dexter Cooley - a data visualizer, singer-songwriter, electronic musician, newsletter writer and Vermonter.
I love it. Let's make an index of indexes (indices?). Send me more!
I can't remember where I came across this lovely essay about the difference between time and energy (in a productivity context, not a physics one), but it's great. Here's a snippet:
There’s something else I want to suggest here, and it’s to stop thinking about time entirely. Or, at least, to stop thinking about time as something consistent. We all know that time can be stretchy or compressed—we’ve experienced hours that plodded along interminably and those that whisked by in a few breaths. We’ve had days in which we got so much done we surprised ourselves and days where we got into a staring contest with the to-do list and the to-do list didn’t blink. And we’ve also had days that left us puddled on the floor and days that left us pumped up, practically leaping out of our chairs. What differentiates these experiences isn’t the number of hours in the day but the energy we get from the work. Energy makes time.
Looking for an alternative to the venerable speedtest.net? Cloudflare has a very nice connection speed tester that gave me results that were a closer match to what I would expect from my connection.
Finally, I really loved this deconstruction of a map design by Daniel Huffman. So many chewy little details - not just the outer glow on the visual elements, but blurring that outer glow when it's below a text label! 🤯 If you're into nerdy design minutiae, you'll love it.
That's it for today. See you again in 10 days!
xox
Duncan