Work: writing, research and design

Is the iPhone SE a worthy replacement for my Android Nokia?

Article
Monday, November 6th, 2023

My much-loved Nokia 7.2 finally died. It was time to get back on to iOS.

I live most of my life on my MacBook and iPad, so the latest-greatest iPhone wasn't a big draw. All I needed was a phone to carry around and act as a window into my Apple world. The [keep reading...]

Crumbling houses are a blight on Japan

Article
Monday, October 30th, 2023

At some point, Japan must deal with its crumbling housing problem.

You see them from time to time in the cities. Houses (mostly) where the owner has died and either hasn't passed it on or the heir doesn't claim it. Around where I live, they're not empty for long. They get snapped up, flattened [keep reading...]

Why “do nothing” sells your business case

Article
Thursday, October 12th, 2023

A business case tells a story. It starts with how your world isn't as great as it could be. The hero (you) goes on a quest to make changes to working practices, products, tools and people. Along the way are some challenges, but at the end everything is so much better than it was before.

The story we need to tell isn't a single plot. Not only do you need to show how much better things will be, you also need to show how [keep reading...]

Can Google protect against copyright theft by Generative AI?

Article
Thursday, October 5th, 2023

As someone who creates a lot of images (have you seen my Tumblr?) I'm obviously concerned about stuff getting nicked. Much of my work gets watermarked, but scraping it off is easy. Adobe Photoshop even ships with all you need to do it.

Google has come up with an idea: to embed a watermark deep into the image's code. Yes, images are also code. Each JPEG is a set of numbers that [keep reading...]

Creating the AI Meditation image

Article
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023

When I wrote my article on why we ask too much of AI, I wanted an image that reflected the thoughtful, if chaotic prose. I thought it appropriate to ask Bing Create to come up with the hero image that went with it.

What it offered wasn't particularly inspiring. Hands are a particular weakness of Generative AI, and something of an [keep reading...]

LinkedIn is making our “Zoom Dysphoria” worse

Article
Thursday, September 28th, 2023

Regular readers will know I have an almost pathological dislike of being photographed. I prefer not to look at myself every waking hour, soaking up the acne scars, receding hairline, bags under my eyes, wild eyebrow hair and whatever else catches my eye. It's why my avatar is odd here, and everywhere else you'll see [keep reading...]

Check your stock images before posting

Article
Friday, September 22nd, 2023

Before you upload a stock image to your latest masterpiece, give it the once over. Not a general glance, but a really deep, considered examination of what's going on.

More than a [keep reading...]

How do Japanese seniors use the mobile internet?

Article
Friday, September 15th, 2023

This is a PDF based deck created for LinkedIn. It covers research from the Mobile Society Research Institute, a part of telco NTT DoCoMo, looking at how those in their sixties and seventies access the Internet.

I wanted to present the research with my own conclusions on LinkedIn as part of my networking [keep reading...]

Is cash finally dying?

Article
Thursday, September 14th, 2023

It's a question that does the rounds every few months: is cash finally dying out? It usually comes on the back of an industry report that payments by cards and mobile devices have grown yet again. The proponents claim this is another sign cash is on its last legs.

And yet cash is still here. Moreover, it shouldn't go [keep reading...]

The UK’s offshore wind farm debacle and its consequences for Net-Zero

Article
Sunday, September 10th, 2023

The UK's latest offshore wind farm auction fell flat. No bids were received, which surprised no one. Warning signs that the auction would fail had been known for some weeks. For this year at least, no new offshore wind farm projects will be announced. With the planned Norfolk Boreas wind farm halted, the UK's offshore wind power has ground to a halt.

This isn't so much evidence that wind power is dead in the water, more that the UK Government failed to listen to industry. While construction costs are significantly lower than when the first offshore wind farms were auctioned a decade ago, the past two years has seen costs increase by 40%. A war in Ukraine, global pandemic disrupting supply chains, general inflation and rising debt costs contributed to this rise, [keep reading...]

How to find the financial cost of poor quality

Article
Thursday, September 7th, 2023

A challenge I sometimes face is justifying action when quality is falling. It's easy to say, "Our quality has fallen," and more difficult to add, "and it's costing us $X in lost revenue and $Y in lost profit." The latter is quite helpful if you're creating a business case to fix it.

Finding out what "X" and "Y" are can be hard work. I look for these headlines to get [keep reading...]