Dead behind the eyeglasses
This post is sort of about augmented reality (AR). But the bigger point it’s grappling with is about who to trust when it comes to the development of...
A year of writing frivolously
Some thoughts and insights on my newsletter 'journey' to date.
The lost art of discovery
Navigating the disarray of online content and trying to rekindle a positive relationship with digital discovery.
Minor acts of AI resistance
A year on from first writing about AI, some thoughts – and quite a lot of feelings – on the evolving discourse around inflated AI expectations.
History repeating
A look back at the ground-breaking work of Oxfam's Oxjam Music Festival, with lessons aplenty about harnessing social media.
Old ghosts, irregular posts
Thoughts on writer's block, media homogeneity, and knee-jerk reporting in the age of AI.
Better than sliced bread (#1)
My recent post on scepticism proved quite popular, and I got some nice feedback (thank you). At risk of labouring the point, I thought I might continue in...
West End Girls, 40 years on
Pet Shop Boys live in Cork, Ireland, 22 June 2022. Photograph by Ceoil, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license....
From whence did your scepticism come?
Hello 👋 Before I launch in, I briefly wanted to say 'greetings!' to my new subscribers, as there have been a fair few of you in the last couple of weeks....
How an artist tackles AI
Something a bit different this week. I’ve been writing this newsletter-or-is-it-a-blog for just over six months and I’ve frequently ended up spouting about...
Big is the enemy of good (part two)
In my last post I wrote about how applying for a job can be a complicated process. I picked an example from a public sector website and highlighted the...
Big is the enemy of good (part one)
In this post – the first in a two-parter! – I'm expanding on observations I made previously when I wrote about AI sucking the air out of the room, often to...
Where did the web go?
This post is about the preservation of digital things. I wonder if you'll still be able to read it in 25 years? Hacking my way around town There was a time...
My own private Central Perk
Am I a regular? I'm pretty convinced I do my best work in coffee shops. This statement may well be a poorly-concealed excuse for my wayward espresso habit,...
The upsidedown bucket
Yesterday I moved the upsidedown bucket. This isn't some pithy metaphor, it was an actual bucket. The bucket was covering a small pile of baking soda. The...
Not so big, hairy or audacious
Like practically everyone I know, I spent December enthusiastically putting things into a seemingly infinite 'pick up in January' pile, forgetting that my...
Time to shake up your social media?
Preamble I ended up writing quite a lot about the impact of AI last year, more through necessity rather than by design. In one post I came up with the pithy-...
2023 in a mixtape
TL;DR Here's a selection of new music I've enjoyed over the course of 2023, plus a couple of notable re-releases: Apple MusicSpotify Long Player Mixtapes,...
The AI Christmas Quiz – bonus festive newsletter
If you read my previous grouchy message, you'll know that this spectacular Christmas Quiz edition was on its way. I realise that every single one of you will...
Past, Present, and Future: A Christmas AI Story 🎄
A festive robot carefully typing out this newsletter, generated and manipulated using Picsart The creative inspiration for this post came to me around 10am...
Big, clumsy, hairless cats
After my last Grinch-who-stole-Substack post, I thought I would lighten the mood a little and take it down a notch or two. It all got a bit serious, didn’t...
So long, and thanks for all the bile
This was my last post on the Substack platform (it was originally published here). If you received this in your email inbox, nothing will change other than...
Fix your broken UI before you build your shiny AI
I attended a couple of conferences over the last week-and-a-bit. They were good. Good content, good speakers, good side conversations, good food. I even...
The culture that changes the culture
I’m writing on a different topic from the one I originally had planned this week. My thoughtfully curated content plan (aka scribbled bullet list in my...
Circling back, doubling down
Hello dear reader, I hope all is well. This week’s dispatch is a tiny bit more opinionated than previous posts and I’d be interested to know what you think....
My musical immersion (Taylor’s Version)
So this is a bit of a deviation from the norm for me (can you even have a norm after five newsletters?). For the observant, it states on my hurriedly-written...
Finding the joy in enforced delay
In my less successful moments as a parent, I’m prone to stumbling into the it-wasn’t-like-this-when-I-was-your-age trap. I say trap, because as a strategy it...
The last, greatest, totally harmless social network?
One of my favourite chapters in Ben Smith’s Traffic, crucial reading if you’re interested in how the web as we know it came to be, is on what he calls “the...
This newsletter will, literally, change very little
‘Automation’ is one of those words that sets me on edge. Maybe it’s because my brain immediately associates it with a high-speed production line: whirring...
Overlong, overwrought intro
It’s an undeniable fact that there are already too many words on the Internet. In an age of a trillion distractions, no-one has the time or mental capacity...