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I’ve been lax in posting my photos here. So here you have about two months’ worth of pictures from around Hveragerði. It’s a lot. I apologise in advance. Since I’m guessing many of you have had a somewhat stressful day like I did, here are a few photos of a redwing out and about doing its thing. I’m getting a little bit more comfortable with saturated colours in my photographs. This common…
I’ve been relatively silent over the past few months. This has mostly been for personal reasons, but the overall anxiety in both society and in the field of tech, specifically, has been a part of it. Despite people’s common superstitions about the creative process, the tortured artist isn’t very productive and even a mild anxiety or burnout can throw much of your process into a tailspin. But I…
When I was living in the UK, one of the more common responses people had to me being Icelandic – beyond the strangely common “I hate Björk” refrain – was some comment about Vikings or Norse mythology. I’m guessing my name helped prompt those. We all have very traditional Icelandic names in my family. If the comment caught me at the wrong time, I’d occasionally reply in my usual literal-minded way:…
A seagull on a streetlight A blackbird looking a bit scruffy. Oystercatcher! On a lawn! This male northern wheatear was hanging out at a construction site this week. A white wagtail doing its thing. Blackbird. The black-tailed godwit has arrived.
Easter 2026 Bundle And a preview of The Magic Toy Factory Why the software you make and use sucks. Get The Ebook bundle for €49 EUR , discounted from €134 (price includes VAT, where applicable) It doesn’t seem to matter what process or method you use, whatever benefit there is to your work seems to come out in the wash. Your job adopts a scrum or agile, buys a fancy SaaS that’s supposed to change…
“Why are you being so difficult? This could be a good thing for us? How can you be so sure?” This was in late 2000. We were having drinks in the Watershed in Bristol. For those of you not familiar with the Watershed, it’s an art house cinema, media production centre of excellence, conference venue, houses a diverse community of media practitioners, and a bar. It was the place in Bristol where…
This raven is picking the meat off a sheep’s jaw. I’m guessing somebody threw their “svið” leftovers out for the ravens to enjoy. Whoops dropped it. If you aren’t familiar with the horror that is the Icelandic cuisine known as “svið” . This time of year, when the ravens congregate in town before scattering into the countryside for the summer, I tend to stalk their regular hangout spots. This is…
Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. —Stewart Brand There is a tension inherent in the economic nature of data . Data can be endlessly copied. That’s its nature. This will drive down the value of data under pretty much every economic system that’s realistically available to us. That’s what the anthropomorphic “wants to be free” means. Data is now also our primary…
A couple of simple bird shots. Redcaps and a starling. The ravens are still in town.
The other day a reader of The Intelligence Illusion sent me a short email that outlined their takeaway from the book and ended it with a simple question. Slightly paraphrased: Would it be correct to say that your views on LLM’s/Transformers have hardened since you wrote your book? My answer is below. That’s a good question. My views on the technology itself are roughly the same as when I published…