Shopping with smart glasses

In 2023, we would go shopping with smart glasses because they often told us things we didn’t know just by reading the labels.

Getting meaningful live updates from Scheduled Tasks with Claude

I am building an EducatorOS this summer, hoping to run into others doing the same. One of my core processes involves using Claude to update short courses that I run. During the summer of 2026 one of my focal points is “AI for Managers“ because that course’s framework will support EducatorOS.

AI is a moving substrate

The phenomenal growth in the capability of AI is not linear. If I charted the speed and sophistication of the AI services on the Y-axis of a graph and time to execute a result on the X-axis, my graph would approach the vertical. Independent research from the UK’s official governmental AISI, …

Parents managing addictive scrolling

In today’s Sunday Times, Charlotte Ivers laments “GenZ is paying for our dire social experiment.” Her concern has resonated through the conference halls of major edtech events I have attended since 2024.

My four Playbooks

I have four analogue notebooks that I have mapped to online playbooks. My first playbook represents a place where I take notes, doodle, and set up checklists. When I have a pen in hand with this brown leather Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter playbook, I’m thinking with my hand. Occasionally, some …

Thinking about OEB26 Workshop with @rogeroverall

Roger Overall and I are thinking about conducting a hands-on workshop during OEB26 in Berlin. It would be called “AI just with your phone”.

Getting ahead with smart connections

After 20 years with a public profile on LinkedIn, I believe I have figured out a way to minimise noise here. In my case, it means figuring out how to make meaningful connections

Long Tail from 2006

Twenty years ago, I spent several days every summer recording what creative media students thought about books that were in Amazon’s best seller lists.

Carefully using Fable 5 for the week

Anthropic is teasing me with Fable 5 but I’m only slow dancing with it. That’s because of its Burn Rate. Fable 5 relies on Adaptive Thinking and that feature is permanently turned on.

Making videos programmatically

I’m reviewing AI course notes and including two ways of making videos programmatically. My favourite method uses an open-source pipeline called claude-shorts. It utilizes Claude Code to completely automate the longform-to-shortform translation without relying on an external SaaS subscription.

First thoughts about AI Winter

I use my lens of “AI Winter” when reading vendor reports concerning the reach and capabilities of artificial intelligence. An abrupt “AI Winter” will occur by 2029, with reduced access to AI that will be driven by economic downturn and vendor failures.

Surely I could use Claude as a gardener.

It’s the Independence Day in America and I used part of the morning to cut loose years of unread emails in my Yahoo! I asked Claude to handle the job in a quick and dirty way while I did some yard work.

Finding a typewritten letter from 1976

While cleaning out my Yahoo! email account, I discovered a letter written to me in 1976 by my grandmother. I filed the entire letter as a long JPG in my Fffound album on Flickr.

806400000000000

That sequence number represents a K-loader transit number of coal destined for West Berlin from OPLAN 4307 that I used during a four-year period as a strategic airlift planner.

Being kinder to my blood pressure

Forty years after my last intercontinental flight, I’m trying to see if I can do a minimum crew rest turn-around. I am failing.

The orange wrapper from home

When I want a little taste of home, I occassionally grab an orange wrapper containing Reese’s peanut butter inside a typical American chocolate coating. My European taste buds prefer Rittersport (especially Pfefferminz) or Bourneville Dark. But once a month, to satisfy my craving for …

One of the most useful routines I do is asking AIs to ask questions Steve Jobs would ask.

One of the most common errors in my domestic life is accidentally activating child locks–and then forgetting how to disable them.

“Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President. But I don’t even talk about that.” – Donald Trump

AI writing many eBooks

Half of e-books released on Amazon now are written by AI, 18% of lawsuits filed this year are AI-generated.

Optimising my innovative self

Three years ago, with my new friend ChatGPT, I was trying to figure out how to think in parallel with a new kind of intelligence that I could reach by text. Now the challenge is more dramatic: When should I refuse AI’s help, even when it is completing logical routines I have encoded? When should I …

Amplifying my thoughts before the big event

I wish I could have joined the BBQ crew in the Lyrath Estate tonight but I’m juggling a few things at home that take priority. One of those things involves following up on a few tasks Obsidian tells me to do

Developing age-friendly data literacy programmes with SOLAS

I’m at an education showcase with SOLAS, sharing how we train elderly people how to use AI on their phones. I’m running the free programme in community libraries throughout County Tipperary, Ireland. This AI just with your phone training programme leverages instructional material …

Let the orals return

I don’t understand why university professors seem reluctant to implement oral exams during which students must explain concepts face-to-face. In mid-2025, I saw first-hand that the social contract underpinning unsupervised assessment had collapsed. I set aside marks for oral interviews and for …

My blog could leak secrets

As I read the Sunday Times in my sun-split garden yesterday, the sound of a helicopter overhead took me back to room 1D377 in the Pentagon. I rode there several times by an Army helicopter.