Stuff I made, stuff I think, stuff and nonsense
The current discourse around AI and whether it s cogitating or just a sophisticated Markov chain that s killing the planet strongly reminds me of the debate about what separates humans from animals. Specifically, Frans de Waal s excellent book on the subject, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? . In it, he laid out [ ]
New friends obscure sights the group divides clear and present danger an accident of geography interest in bridges 2026 has not been an easy one so far. Work challenges, family challenges and my frickin house flooding have combined to make everything a bit overwhelming and hard to cope with. So [ ]
The replacement pastries for all a crowded river presence of benches absence of conduits a picnic After 18 months, I finally took the hint that my walking partner has moved on (I m not bitter) and replaced him. With somebody reliable, who will walk with me whenever I want and enjoy [ ]
There are, famously, no silver bullets in software engineering. Computer programming is hard and although some people are really brilliant at it, there are also a lot of people out there making their career in this field who are not. This is one reason why a lot of software sucks. Another reason is the inescapable [ ]
This is a post about multiple wordles and the point at which they hit diminishing returnles. If you don t know what Wordle is, this post is not for you and also, how is life back in 2019? Just so you know things are about to be terrible, maybe forever. Ever since we all collectively lost [ ]
Something which has become something of an established practice across the tech industry is the cultural fit interview. Typically the last stage of a recruitment process, in this interview the candidate meets some people from the business (either their own team or people they will need to collaborate closely with), who will ask them a [ ]
I first got interested in training as a discipline and unusual ways of getting people to engage with potentially difficult material as a student volunteer with Nightline. Training sessions there were over two intense weekends, and by design we broke up sessions on bereavement, abuse and other heavy topics with stupid games which were less [ ]
I couldn t find the answer online so I measured it myself. I m not a food blogger so I m allowed to provide the information without a rambling story about my childhood. Imperial sizes are in brackets I m aware a lot of people still measure cakes in inches. 114g boxes of Cadbury Fingers contain 22 fingers [ ]
The home stretch powerful water folly hazards Isis Iffley royal welcome Well, it s been a while. In the 19 months since I last did a stretch of my off-again, still off-again project to walk the entire Thames Path national trail, Robin moved to Cumbria which made it much harder [ ]
My biggest flaw is how much I hate interviewers who ask the question what is your biggest flaw? . It makes for some really awkward interviews. Not really. But ever since I was first asked it in a training interview during industrial placement prep at Gregynog during my degree, this question has always put me on [ ]