Axel Valdez Design Engineer

Hello,
I'm Axel.

I'm a Design Engineer living in Hermosillo, Mexico. I've been working in the software development industry for pretty much my entire adult life, in roles related to both front-end development and design. I lived through the browser wars, the web standards movement, social media becoming mainstream, and the decay of privacy online. Today I'm very much into the indie web and the small web movements. This website is my hub on the web, from work to hobbies and everything in-between.
Hello, I'm Axel

Content Timeline

This timeline shows the 20 most recent posts across the blog, the stream of consciousness, memories, and links sections.

Jul 02, 2026

E L P i S

A full-fledged monthly magazine about web 1.0, small web, and indie web.

Jul 01, 2026

Yet

It was ten, maybe eleven years ago. I was picking my oldest kid from school, he was 4 or 5. When he came out, I gave him a hug. We walked to the car, I buckled him into his car seat, and hugged him again.

Continue reading →

The old man

The old man

Having a coffee with my dad

The Last Quiet Thing

An absolutely great essay about the attention our devices demand. Eye-opening.

Jun 23, 2026

Amor Fati

In the last week I've found myself in two situations where I had to explain that despite all the crap I've been through, I wouldn't change a thing. That I love who I am, and I'm the product of everything I've lived, hence, I shall love all that past shit as much as I love past sunshine and rainbows.

Continue reading →

Jun 20, 2026

The current state of spam calls and messages is ridiculous. But before, or in addition to legislation, because that’s slow, complicated and scammers just don’t care, we need immediate tools on our end. What about a way to effectively ignore any non-contact call or text on my phone? No “silence” or a special list. Just make it not exist. I don’t want them to even reach me.

Thought #42

Jun 17, 2026

Meta update: I just added memories to the homepage list of content and to the everything page. It feels more complete.

Thought #41
The most random pic of Alan

The most random pic of Alan

Makes me laugh every time

Jun 15, 2026

Deleting Things

I've always been a hoarder. I refuse to get rid of things, and that goes both for the box of cables and old electronics down in that cabinet in my office and for the files in my Google Drive, external hard drives, on my computers and phone.

Continue reading →

Jun 14, 2026

I feel my brain dry. I call it "feeling gray". In days like this it's like I can't get any joy, and no pill is able to get me out of it.

Thought #40

Jun 12, 2026

Memories, Again

We'll, I've been thinking a lot about photos, as you might have noticed. A few months ago I published Memories, my photo-blog-kinda-thing, and I loved it, but as it was a separate project from this website, I ignored it most of the time.

Continue reading →

Jun 11, 2026

I updated the tags in all the blog posts. They were all over the place, and there were almost more tags than posts. They should make more sense now.

Thought #39

Jun 09, 2026

Unlearning Social Media

When I came back to blogging after years of being in and out of it, I did so mostly because I wanted to leave social media behind.

Sure, some people never stopped. There are people who have been blogging for twenty-plus years while the rest of us were tweeting away. I admire, envy, and wish I were one of them.

Because I wasn't, I ended up carrying a lot of social media assumptions into blogging, and they're starting to surface.

Continue reading →

Somebody keyed my car really bad, and my stoicism is being tested right now.

Thought #38

Jun 08, 2026

I was trying to fine-tune cross-posting for this blog when a thought hit me in the face: why the fuck do I need to automate all this shit? What for? Do I care that much about Bluesky and Mastodon to make sure I dial everything to perfection?

No I don't. And in the cases when I do, I can perfectly go and type the thing and hit send like a fucking human being and not a robot.

Thought #37

Jun 06, 2026

We saw Carlos Ballarta's new hour last night. Definitely, easily, the best stand-up comedian we have in latin america.

The whole show is him talking as if he's gossiping, with seamless transitions between subjects and covering a range of subjects from toxic nostalgia for old media to Israel and Palestina, racism, quiting smoking and alcohol, among others.

To reach a level where it seems that you're just talking from the top of your mind must be really difficult, but the guy does it masterfully.

👏👏👏

Thought #36

Jun 04, 2026

The Comfort of Constraints

Something that has proven beneficial for me, as an adult with ADHD, is to isolate activities. My brain works better in single-task mode, and I stay calm and more focused. I'm also more productive when I do these things, but that's not really the point. The point is that they make me calmer. I'm relaxed when I get shit done.

Continue reading →

Jun 03, 2026

Just as a quick meta note: I added a new setting: switch to a simple (single-column) layout, for those of you who prefer to go straight down with not too many distractions. Can't do much about the distractions, but with the straight down I (now) got you, boo.

Screenshot of the settings options on this site

Those are the settings, in case you haven't noticed them before. They're right up in the header :)

Thought #35

Jun 01, 2026

The Comments Rabbit Hole

This past Saturday I was fighting the comments embed on this site, trying to adjust it for some changes and make it look like it belonged with the rest of what I have going on here. At some point I looked at the giant list of overrides I was maintaining just to make it feel somewhat integrated and realized it didn't make much sense.

Continue reading →

EmDash

A WordPress for the modern era. I tested it, and it's blazing fast. I want my 10 years managing WordPress back.

Web Rings

I participate in several IndieWeb and SmallWeb webrings.

If you don't know what a webring is, you're probably too young and/or too cool. Here's an explanation.