Three Wishes, Donald

Lulworth Cove at night

Doing a talk for WIAD Cairo on Saturday morning - I’ll talk about information architecture, content design and the emptiness of #AI. Come along luma.com/udrnq2ax

Sauna/swim in Lulworth Cove then unplanned long walk as village had power cut (now restored)

Charge everyone or charge no one. Otherwise it’s a bureaucratic nightmare of othering and racism.

Aimi Hamraie's "Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability" is probably one of the most important books I've ever read. I highly, highly recommend it. www.upress.umn.edu/978151790164...

Radio Times page image popped up on FB. The 1974 Sci Fi Season sticks in my memory. Invisible Shrinking Man that evening. I remember Silent Running too.

Read article on hats which had this timeline: 1) Cars become more prevalent, people need hats less to protect head from weather 2) Hat wearing declines but... 3) Shampoo and hair products become more necessary and market increases I don't think it's true tho

Sounds like the US bombers are leaving from or arriving back at Fairford now. Quiet, they ain’t.

Dystopian food-adjacent nourishment paste Hurl (sick)* being bought by Danone is quite on-theme for our current times. *sic

Former Justice Minister

Bad news for that creepy Argentinian company cloning Polo ponies

Just showing this to our cats and saying this is the kind of boost you get from going to Oxford University

As noted in Rutger Bregman’s book HumanKind, there is a slightly systemic bias in institutions (media, colleges, churches, governments) to the idea that humans are broken, incapable and unkind. That bad is inevitable, powerful and natural.

All if this in a global infrastructure where Trump destroyed USAID and the possibility of mitigating the disasters

I was thinking “someone needs to set up an alternative to the Guides”, and then I remembered that the Woodcraft Folk exist. If there isn’t a group near you, you can set one up. woodcraft.org.uk/about-woodcr...

Iran in the Vietnam situation of knowing it has power over USA as it is the Americans who are desperate to stop the war

Biofluorescence last night also picked up a lot of scattered pollution. Blues and pinks were mostly fragments of microplastics and artificial materials

Guardian on unrelenting ‘Iran’s relentless bombardment of the Gulf states showed no sign of relenting.’

Design for safer spaces for women www.theguardian.com/politics/202...?

Biofluorescence walk tonight - glowing lichen and snails

Bioluminescence walk tonight in woods near Cheltenham. No idea if photography will work well.

Reminded of scifi book Voyage (about 70’s/80’s Mars mission) and author noting that abandoning Mars led to more probes and extraordinary discoveries about the outer planets and deep space. Losing Mars but gaining the universe.

"A new study out of Cornell Universit found workers most excited and impressed by corporate speak may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions, and it can leave companies with dysfunctional leaders."

Nearly did a cake-based workshop for London conference but realised I didn't have time to get that much cake. Used to use Victoria selection boxes of chocolate biscuits in workshops as artefacts to build prototypes from. I wanted people to talk of metaphors and needs rather than make models.

Finally watched SNL UK and it does replicate the original show’s ability to be almost but not quite funny.

Columbo episode plot www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... The creative abuse of a new role or technology to create alibi for murder

Family emergency means no time to make StopGo Animation Muppet movie on information architecture for humans and AI this week. So PowerPoint diagrams it is.

Just been reminded of Responsive Design #UCD

As with having choice of hospital for treatment, some of this vet reform www.theguardian.com/business/202... just places complexity onto individuals when they are under stress & not capable of parsing time/cost/quality decisions.

On Contextual Stacks, AI and Information Architecture - from first draft of new talk

Stephen Miller about to get “Wicker Man”’ed as he takes all the blame while thinking he’s doing a great job

Next generation of F35 fighters are being sent out with concrete ballast in the nose cones as improved radar system is not working yet.

Critique of Goodwin’s book simply accepts that Great Replacement conspiracy theory is true. That the 80% plus majority is now a minority or will be soon.

If an AI can do it, is it worth doing? The Occam’s Razor of BS Jobs

Local news in Stroud

Good to know that ground squirrels and hamsters can get along well enough to run a joint conference. Cant help thinking there won't be many of them reading this cfp though...

Using mum’s GP online triage system and failing to communicate the ‘it’s fucking worrying’-ness of issue. The form system creates a space for polite professional language. There is no emotional space.

Calling all #accessibility and #inclusiveDesign folks... Have a great idea for a talk? Our call for presentations is now open! (closes 31 May 2026) #id24 inclusivedesign24.org/2026/ Note: as we're a global event, we're happy to accept submissions for talks in languages other than English.

Wiki on Millenium Challenge en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenn... Yikes

Discovered my toothbrush is aware of Time. Orange flashing light for changing of brush head after 3 months.

Reading that Iran has turned the ancient Qanat system of covered canals into a version of the old MX missile rail system idea* - ballistic missiles moving around so as to confuse any attacker. * idea also pops up in first Culture novel Consider Phlebas

This is a natural extension of my interest in WEIRD biases in the psychology literature. I now like to think about WEIRD+ biases. The + helps us to remember that other biases (like imagery bias) can also be packaged into our literature as well

Muntjac Deer running in front of car near Stroud town centre. Mostly unnerving as I couldn’t tell what it was - slinking long and low like a cat but then too big, like a fox.

Lego Architecture in use to build model for new information architecture talk There will be cognitive stacks too. This model is going multi-layered

Anti #AI campaign in daughter’s art college update (from chat yesterday). One college art teacher presented their zine to another class and claimed it was written by AI. Obviously that’s not true but people will use authority to lie.

As part of National Conversations I am coming down to London to talk at NewSpeak House on Institutionalising the Digital State on Monday 20th April. nationalconversations.org/events/4/

70’s oil crisis but with an escape hatch - too high a price and renewables become too obvious a solution

Project Hail Mary was fun sci-fi with no canon to worry about