In case you didn’t know people can read your chats and chat history when you use AI, Gemini offers its PSA.

“The Zapier connection dropped mid-send” makes planning my day less effective. Filing under “Claude Crits”

Respect for braided cables

I have new-found respect for braided USB-C cables. Mainly because they are the only device that can keep all my equipment running.

Intellectual Property Implications

Last month, I attended three workshops in Kilkenny during the Amplify 2026 conference. Today, a follow-up message appeared inside my Obsidian Vault as a reminder that one of my handwritten notes involves action related to intellectual property. I’m asking my virtual assistant for more details …

I’m microblogging because it feels authentic to make small observations about things I see. It’s reaffirming 90s UserLand. www.manton.org/2026/07/1…

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.