Things That Caught My Attention is a newsletter about the internet and life that I’ve been writing since January 2014. I’ve been writing online since 1998. I write about a lot: artificial intelligence, internet of things, the ethics of technology and software, government technology, design, videogames, community management, content moderation, social networks, platforms and a very, very long-running chapter by chapter critical breakdown of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. In other words, I wrote…
0.0 Context Setting Friday, 14 August 2026 in Portland, Oregon, pretty much straight after finishing a live show. I’ve got a full day and this is an attempt at getting a newsletter out in a respectable amount of time without overloading people with words. Short is definitely better sometimes. 0.1 Events The next How People Work, Live! ... with Marcin Wichary is on Friday 21 August at 9am Pacific.…
0.0 Context Setting Tuesday August 11, 2026 in Portland Oregon. The freezer isn’t working. It’s super irritating. We’ve tried a whole bunch of stuff (I got the multimeter out!) and we’re getting to the point where it’s time to call someone out to take a look at it. I’m not ready to do the switchover quite yet, but a much better archive and home for this newsletter (still powered by Buttondown !)…
0.0 Context Setting Thursday, 6 August 2026 in Portland, Oregon. It’s been 2 days and 29 years since Skynet was turned on, and we only have about three weeks or so until it gains sentience and all goes kaplooey. 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! I’m afraid I’ve had to postpone How People Work, Live! ... with Dylan Wilbanks this week. We’ll schedule it for another time. That means the next ones…
0.0 Context Setting Wednesday, August 5, 2026 in Portland, Oregon. Today, the city briefly had the worst polluted air out of all the cities in the world! This jackpot is going great. 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! ... with Dylan Wilbanks This Friday 7 August it’s episode 5 of How People Work, Live! ... with Dylan Wilbanks! Who’s Dylan? Well! Dylan Wilbanks is a longtime product design leader…
0.0 Context Setting Friday, 31 July 2026 in Portland Oregon, after I just finished today’s show with Russell. Of which, well, that’s the thing that caught my attention. 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! All show all the time, I guess? Next one’s with Dylan Wilbanks -- register, check out the schedule, and watch previous shows on the show page . That’s a lot of the word show all at once. 1.0 Some…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Thursday, 30 July, 2026 in Portland, Oregon and a dog just came to sit down next to me. 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! ... with Russell Davies This is the last call to register for this week’s How People Work, Live! ... with Russell Davies , this Friday 31 July 2026, at 9am PT. You want more? Find out about and register for upcoming shows , plus watch previous shows on…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Tuesday, 28 July, 2026 in Portland, Oregon. My brain is mush. 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! How People Work, Live! is the live show about how to people. It’s based on my How People Work , my workshop that helps teams deliver better, faster, which itself is built on my last 20 years of working in tech. Each show I’m joined by a very special guest and any number of…
0.0 Context Setting Monday, July 27 in Portland, Oregon. That’s it. That’s all the context I have for you. Oh, I guess it’s 4:50pm and I started writing this on something like Wednesday last week. 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! How People Work, Live! is the live show about how to people. It’s based on my How People Work , my workshop that helps teams deliver better, faster, which itself is…
0.0 Context Setting Tuesday, 21 July 2026 in Portland, Oregon where it’s been hot. There’s been a Fifa Men’s World Cup Football Final which in my humble opinion went to the right team. 0.1 How People Work, Live! ... with Pavel Samsonov How People Work, Live! is a live version of my workshop, How People Work. I get to invite an interesting guest on and we talk about the hard things to do with the…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Wednesday, July 15th 2026 in Portland, Oregon, and the England football team have just finished being the archetypal England football team. (Only it’s not. Now it’s Thursday.) 0.1 Events: How People Work, Live! ... with Erika Hall Short version: it’s your last call to register to attend How People Work, Live! ... with Erika Hall for Friday, 17 July, at 11am Pacific.…
0.0 Context Setting It is Tuesday 7 July in Portland, Oregon, where we are totally not living through what could be described as William Gibson’s Jackpot. I mean, the minority senate leader might be in a persistent vegetative state and there’s like a non-zero chance there’s a bunch of techbros going around lobbying for him to become a McConneLLM and thus be uploaded for all eternity, and they’re…
0.0 Context Setting Thursday, 3 July in Portland, Oregon, which is the day before the day that the main events of Independence Day (1996) occur. 0.1 Events How People Work, Live! Friday 10 July 2026 Join myself and Matt Jukes for my inaugural How People Work, Live! on Friday 10 July at 9am PT. How People Work Live 1 is based on my How People Work workshop, where I get together with interesting…
0.0 Context Setting Monday, 29 June 2026 in Portland, Oregon, where the U.S. Supreme Court is definitely asserting its supremacy and I have belatedly realized that the Not A War On Iran is perhaps the first war that has business hours, i.e. it only runs when the stock markets are closed? One thing that caught my attention this time. Hey, did you know I do consulting ? I totally do consulting and I…
0.0 Context Setting Wednesday, June 24 2026 in Portland, Oregon where the high today is 86f/30c and the high in the U.K. was 97f/36.1c, and yesterday 40 drowning deaths were reported in France over the past week 1 . So it’s time to re-read Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, or rather the book’s first chapter. Which I intend to never read again anyway, for the right reasons. Events…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Thursday, 16 April, 2026 and unseasonably cold in Portland, Oregon. Before that, it was unseasonably warm. This jackpot sucks. Oh right, there’s also a podcast feed for, uh, some podcast episodes. Things That Caught My Attention (The Podcast) on LibSyn Things That Caught My Attention (The Podcast) on Apple Podcasts Let’s just get on with the thing that caught my attention.…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Thursday 5 February 2026 in Portland, Oregon. I started writing this on Monday. It’s not been great. I have a podcast now. Yeah, I know. Everyone has a podcast. Podcasts are over. If you know me well, you’ll also know that I’m incapable of listening to podcasts, my attention wanders and then it’s background noise and I realize I have no idea what anyone’s talking about.…
0.0 Context Setting Tuesday, 20 January 2026 in Portland, Oregon, where it is cold, but not as cold as other places in the country. Apparently there were visible aurora last night, but I was too busy being asleep. A long one, today. 1.0 Some Things That Caught My attention 1.1 The Collapse of Form I was reading Paul Musgrave’s newsletter of today 1 on amongst other things the Mark…
0.0 Context Setting I am sneakily writing this on Wednesday, January 14, 2026 in Portland Oregon, where I just finished writing the previous episode. It is taking a lot of energy to deal with my impulse control to post this straight away, and what I’m going to do instead is schedule it for Thursday, just to annoy Pavel and beat his issue of The Product Picnic 1 . 1.1 The Problem is Defining the…
0.0 Context Setting Wednesday, 14 January 2026 in Portland, Oregon where while the conditions in the U.S. may not be argued to be fascist as such (i.e. the government is losing in courts and appears to be following, to a certain degree injunctions), it’s not as if the government isn’t trending in a fascist direction. Sure the water’s not boiling, but it’s also not getting hotter, and just because…
0.0 Context Setting Wednesday, 7 January 2026 in Portland, Oregon where it is wet (but not too wet) and cold (but not too cold), merely a typical brisk dreary day that recalls the less tumultuous and blissfully ignorant late 2009s/early 2010s. I accidentally words this time -- started writing them yesterday as long-form versions of things that caught my attention and were shat out onto Bluesky.…
0.0 Context Setting It’s been a minute. This is probably the third draft of an episode that I’ve tried to finish so maybe this one will stick. It has been hard to write, lately! It’s December 29 in Portland, Oregon and it is getting cold. Also many things have happened in the world and it feels like things that suck have outweighed the things that don’t suck. 0.1 Some Personal News Hey, did you…
0.0 Context Setting Wednesday, 3 September 2025 in Portland Oregon and we’re back through a hot spell. Also it’s the first day back of school, and that’s an entire thing. 1.0 Some Things That Caught My Attention 1.1 Efficiency Gains It is a bit of a cheap shot to say that LLMs aren’t great. That’s like describing the electric motor as “not great” -- there are a lot of things you can use it for!…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Wednesday, 27 August 2025 in Portland, Oregon and my favorite tv show right now is Alien: Earth, and my favorite little guy in it is Eye Alien. So cute! 1.0 Some Things That Caught My Attention 1.1 Still Mad As Hell I am still mad about America By Design 1 and the National Design Studio 2 . But first I will point you at americabydesign.fail , which is very funny (and also…
0.0 Context Setting It’s Monday, 25 August 2025 and a hot, sunny day in Portland, Oregon. I got back late last night from a family camping trip (it was great, thanks!) which means I was away for the weekend. And away for Friday. Which will explain the thing that caught my attention. 1.0 Some Things That Caught My Attention 1.1 Now About How It Looks While I was out, Joe Gebbia, co-founder and…
0.0 Context Setting Tuesday, 19 August 2025 in Portland, Oregon, where it’s nice and sunny but not too hot, the dog and I had a pleasant morning walk that was early but not too early, and the covers I’m listening to are pleasing. This one got away with me a bit. Fifth in a row, I think? Got to be careful here and not set myself up for thinking missing a day or two is a horrific failure on my part.…
0.0 Context Setting I’m starting this on Sunday, 17 August, 2025 in a cafe with a very nice coffee with the full intent of not sending it today , which believe me is a massive step forward. 0.1 Hallway Track Ho Hallway Tracks are currently scheduled. 1.0 Some Things That Caught My Attention 1.1 A Software Strategy This one is about the cycle of starting by building something you need, and then…
0.0 Context Setting Tuesday, 13 August 2025 in Portland, Oregon where it’s still pretty hot but not too hot , you know? I have a half or maybe third-finished draft of the next episode sitting in iA Writer but not the brain space to finish it today. So I’m attempting to throw out my No, It Has To Be This Way rigid thinking in favour of “just do whatever”. Meanwhile, I mentioned a chat I had with…
Monday, 11 August 2025 in Portland, Oregon where I am sitting in my basement office. In here, it’s a comfortable 71f/21.7c. Outside, it’s apparently 96f/35.6c which is not comfortable. That is why I am inside. Me and the smaller kid went and saw &Juliet the Musical the other night as a father’s day present. Laughed all the way through. 0.1 Hallway Track While there are no Hallway Tracks coming up,…
0.0 Context Setting Friday, 8 August, 2025 on the cusp of a heat wave in Portland, Oregon. Well. It’s been a while, hasn’t it. I will just say that gestures events occurred, those events weren’t particularly fun for anyone involved, and with any luck they’ll abate. 0.1 Hallway Track While there are no Hallway Tracks coming up, I have three planned in my head that I’m super excited about. Hopefully…
0.0 Context Setting Friday, May 30, at the Code for America Summit in a hotel in Washington, D.C. I am in, fittingly, a hallway. I am also jetlagged. There is hotel carpet underneath me. 0.1 Events At the time of pressing send, Hallway Track 12 The Thing About COBOL is full. I think you can check back every so often if there happen to be cancellations. There isn’t a great way for me to let people…