Recently updated blogs

I’m Design Director in a digital transformation consultancy after having worked as a consultant for 10+ years and in-house since 2018. Being a designer in a consulting environment is pretty unique so I thought I’d try to describe it for others who are interested in moving into that industry. Sometimes, the user is your client. The main difference between working as a designer in-house and giving your opinion in a …

Should we tip machines for the work they do for us? Does that question even make sense? What follows is a reflection on metaphors, technology, deceptive design, AI and more… Read on. Metaphors and more In her book God, Human, Animal, Machine, Meghan O’Gieblyn discusses how we use metaphors when talking about technology. She argues […]

Jekyll is a static site generator built in Ruby. It’s been powering this site since 2012 but I’m worried that might not be true for much longer. I’m a bit torn on how to feel about this. First, a bit on static site generators (SSGs). Serving only static content is fast. With an SSG, you’re effectively “pre-compiling” all server-side elements of a site at build time. Once you send the …

We built Rowan’s bed last Sunday night, expecting her to try it for a nap on Monday. She did, and loved it, and got so excited about the prospect of having her own bed that she’s rushed to get into it every night this week. She doesn’t last the night in there, but she’s done a heck of a lot better than we expected her to. Starting to look at …

My wife wanted some picture frame shelves for the hallway and staircase to break up the large wall surfaces. I was not hard to ask, and decided to do different styles to mix things up a little. Both Astrid and I are fans of Lisa Aisato‘s artwork. I bought the 2023 calendar for her as a present, and we want to display some of the artworks in the calendar. In …

Overlay Deployments for SaltStack or building exception systems with Ansible · February 18th, 2024 Let's take a look at a real world problem and build a simple solution for it. We have a complex configuration management system that has been built up over several years. The repository that is hosting it was devised around a monolithic one set of rules fits all. This didactic view of the world worked, initially, …

David Hoang, Should managers be technical?: Career development looks more like unlocking attributes for a different subclass in a role-playing game, than picking a distinct class that can never change. It’s not a path. It’s a collection of skills and attributes focused on certain outcomes. Applying foundational skills is heavily contingent on your role and responsibility. Careers, management or not, aren’t straight lines. The skills you need for your career …

Elliott Cost's Palm app helps people make easy web pages and I think it's inspiring

I’ve written about the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell’s novel of the same name at A Year In The Country before, including some of the controversy that surrounded it relating to the imposition/use of non-director approved music by the production company… which brings me to some other Orwellian 1984 related controversy which involved Apple Computers. In 1983 and 1984 Apple created and had broadcast a television advert that depicted …

The Cosori TurboBlaze Air Fryer stands as the next generation of air frying technology, boasting several advanced features aimed at enhancing cooking efficiency, safety and convenience. Equipped with a high-performance…

I love a good book, for the learning and the enjoyment. I like to read widely and frequently. I virtually always have access to good reading, regardless of whether I am sitting at home (with its curated piles of yet-to-read books) or I am out traveling and perusing the Internet for electronic books, then experiencing them on my e-reader. This post is not about any specific type of book. Rather, …

Occasionally, I feel compelled to justify the discipline of information architecture. Most recently, it was due to the release of Duly Noted. A few reviews have included a variant of the phrase, “the author [i.e., me], an ‘information architect,’ says that…” Note the quotation marks. The reviewer likely thinks, “I’ve never seen the phrase ‘information architect’ before, so this author must have made it up.” Of course, I didn’t. IA …

The North sea oil boom was a huge thing in the 1970s. In theory it was supposed to make the UK self-sufficient in oil supplies instead of relying on the Arab countries who dominated the market. It was controversial in many ways. There were suggestions that Scotland, off whose coast the oil fields sat, did not receive enough of the profits while others argued that the environmental cost was not …

Black Goddess with Clouds for HairI think this is a cool idea! You’ve got regular Black characters (women?) too, so even better. Not that there seems to be any poor implications with having the Black goddess; magical Black girls for the win! She may not need a “counter” exactly, but it’s always good to have multiple modes of representation, particularly as she’s not human. This immediately made me think of …

This blog is ten years old today - happy birthday, dear I Buy a New Washer! Birthdays, I've found, are a time for looking backwards (what was I thinking?) and forwards (help!) and then for celebrating (woohoo!).On 18th Feb 2014 I published this: 'I Buy A New Washer - Day One'. Long-serving readers know that I intended it to be the title of that first post, not the whole blog. …