Category: Opinion

  • AI and work

    Back in the 1990’s (I think), there was a TV series on the BBC in which a successful business man would be shipped into failing businesses. He would examine what was going wrong and make suggestions. In an episode I’ll never forget, a production line of people were making soft toys. It was work of […]

  • Working from a small bag

    Over the last few years, my set of requirements for work has become smaller and smaller. This is now what I need to function as a podcaster (which is what I do): That’s it. I can get it all in a tiny backpack. Who would have imagined just a few years ago that remote / […]

  • In relation to animals

    The subtle, yet profound, impact animals have on my life, and how they enrich my daily existence.

  • Being certain

    I’ve come to the conclusion that in almost every case, certainty is misplaced, unhelpful and sometimes downright harmful. I hate to break it to you, but almost every-single-thing that you hold as immutable truth is either wrong, subject to change or something that you’ve misunderstood.

  • Have your own presence on the web

    A couple of years ago a friend of mine had his Facebook account suspended. No warning or reason given. Repeated attempts to contact their support were ignored. In the end he gave up and just decided not to use that platform any more. A little while later, I had a similar experience. My account was […]

  • We are all addicted to our devices

    This is going to be nothing new to you, because you already know that it’s true. You know it’s true for you, and almost every person you know. I consider myself lucky to have been born into a world in which there was no mobile technology. No portable computing devices of any kind. Computers back […]

  • I love sound, not just music

    This might sound (!) strange, but I love music and sounds equally. My favourite sound is without a doubt that of flowing water. Not the heavy crash of a waterfall after rain, rather the sound of a slow moving river or stream moving over rocks. There is no way to explain this, it’s been with […]

  • AAAT – All the AI, All the Time

    Imagine being a carpenter in the age of plastic. A user of stone age tool when metal came about. Trying to advocate for the wider use of horses when the train was invented. During my lifetime, I don’t remember anything replacing anything else. I will use AI. I will worry about AI. I will watch it grow, embed, concern us and amaze us. But I will need help with it, to understand it, to figure out when I want it and when I’ll spurn it. AI is everywhere, it’s AAAT – All the AI, All the Time.

  • Christmas gets earlier each year

    When I was a child, back in the 1970s, Christmas was a thing that happened in December, and most frequently in late December. Fast forward to now, the year 2025, and we’ve allowed Christmas to slowly but surely push further back into the year.

  • We need more silliness on the web

    When the internet began, nobody had the faintest idea what it was going to become. Nobody knew that we were going to be deluged by images of cats, that all the music from across the globe would be available in a heartbeat. Nobody knew that it would change politics, cause connection and isolation. Nobody knew […]

  • Consider me ‘concerned about AI’

    So, it’s the year 2025, and we’re all falling headlong over ourselves to implement as much AI into our lives as we can. I’m not too sure that this is a good thing. Given that we really don’t know what’s going on with the processes AI uses to arrive at answers, I think we ought to let humans make the decisions.

  • Don’t just consume, create something too

    We’re so used to consuming the content that other people create online, that we’ve forgotten the importance of creating things ourselves. Get creating for yourself.