I recently spent 3 weeks in hospital recovering from a complication lung infection stemming from Pulmonary Emobolisms and Pneumonia, followed by another 3 weeks under their care from home. In that time I read and watched a bunch so I thought I would share it here. Books Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel.…
Author Archives: jordesign
Radiohead on Rage
Cast your mind back to the 90s (if you can). For those who aren’t old enough to remember, this was a time before reliably being able to watch music videos on the internet (YouTube wasn’t anywhere near close). The primary way you had to see the music videos of bands you liked was on television.…
Filming Locations and Architecture of Hanna
We recently finished binging all three seasons of Amazon Prime’s Hanna. It was a wonderfully moody, well paced and considered spy/action thriller. It was also beautifully shot – in locations throughout Europe. I kept finding myself by the interior and exterior shots – so I thought I would try and find some of them to…
Rosehaven makes me want to move to Tasmania
We’ve been rewatching Rosehaven recently. The entire show is set in the fictional Tasmanian rural town of Rosehaven and all of the establishing shots make we want to move there…
3 years at Automattic
On this day 3 years ago I hopped off a plane at Orlando International Airport to start my first day working for Automattic. I was going from 10 years of being self-employed, to being part of a globally distributed company – and about to meet ~1000 new colleagues. I’m excited to say that 3 years…
Focus on verbs over nouns
I’ve really enjoyed reading Jeff Tweedy’s book How to write one song – a pocket-sized edition focused on taking the first step of writing a song (as distinct from becoming a songwriter). In the first chapter he makes this statement: Maybe it’s a cliché, but you have to focus on verbs over nouns – what…