@edent 
Computers would be so much better if they never had to deal with users, amirite?!!? I remember, years ago, working on a mobile web service which had a URl bar – so users could tap in bbc.co.uk on their T9 … Read more
This morning, my wife noticed that Alexa was insistently flashing its little blue lights. “Alexa… Notifications?” “You have one notification. An item on your wishlist has dropped in price. The … is now only £…“ And that’s how my wife … Read more
Inspired by John Hoare at the Dirty Feed blog – I’ve asked the British Library to assign my blog an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). An ISSN is an 8-digit code used to identify newspapers, journals, magazines and periodicals of … Read more
The UK faces an epidemic of telephone scams. Fraudsters are constantly calling people up pretending to be their bank. But how can you be sure the number displayed on your screen in genuine? You can’t. The telecom system is hopelessly … Read more
User Generated Content is great, innit? As a company, I want users to submit photos, so I don’t have to do any content curation. Moderation? Nah mate, stick some AI on there to filter out anything offensive and we’re golden. … Read more
I recently had cause to take a beginners course in R – a language I’m fairly familiar with. One of the other students had never used it before, so we were buddied up in order for me to show them … Read more
Many moons ago, when I was very young and you were even younger… London was in full bloom of tech-startups. I was running my own consultancy. Dashing from business to business, trying to pick up work as an expert in … Read more
I am grumpy. As my very clever wife summarised, I hate when designers prioritise their æsthetic preferences over my usability needs. I tried sharing a website using Google Chrome for Android. I hit the share button, and a panel popped-up … Read more
M’colleague Charles has introduced me to the most spectacular phrase – “Time To 200”. That’s a measurement of the length of time it takes a new user to go from signing up to your API to getting their first HTTP … Read more
Welcome to Yak Shaving School! As part of my MSc I’m reading a book about Data Analytics. So I’ve been chasing down quotes to find their origin. One paper had this popular quote in it (emphasis added): As with many … Read more