In software engineering, complexity often masquerades as sophistication. Nowhere is this clearer than in frontend code that relies on inferential logic: the practice of deducing user intent or state based on limited information, rather than explicitly guiding the user experience.

We seem to have stumbled into a strange contradiction: we demand perfection from our machines, while tolerating imperfection from ourselves. The same people who chuckle at human error in the workplace will denounce AI systems for the slightest misstep. "It hallucinated a fact!" Yes. And you never have?

A week ago I tried switching my web browser's default search engine from Google to Perplexity.

I've always had a strong association between numbers and colours. It's not like I immediately perceive numbers as specific colours, so synesthesia in the traditional sense, but the associations are so strong and consistent that they feel almost automatic.

I've deleted my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.

A round up of the year.

A useful way to understand the successes—and the stagnation—of big tech is through the lens of organisational advantage. Not just what a company did, but how it was set up to win.