The first scent arrived by accident.
He was cleaning out a drawer in the basement when he found it: an old wool scarf wrapped around a broken cassette. The moment he lifted it, the smell hit him.
Built to Tilt: Innovation Without the Budget
I miss snowboarding.
There’s something about being on the mountain, hurtling down the slopes with the edges carving into the snow. It’s a feeling that sticks in your bones, even when the season’s long over. So when I found myself daydreaming about mountains on a hot July afternoon in London, I did what any rational adult would do:
I went looking for a snowboarding simulator.
Broken Glass
I want to give a real-world example of using AI to solve a problem. You can then try it yourself and perhaps you can translate it to a real-world business need. For this example, I’m going to focus on the power of Visual Analysis.
Analogue Sheep : Vol 6 : Mismemories
The house hadn’t changed. Not really. The white paint had flaked in places, the gate leaned, the mailbox hung open like a broken jaw—but it was still the same two-bedroom home perched at the end of the gravel lane. Still the wind-chime, dulled brass now, still the hedges grown wild around the porch. It was her. She was the one that had changed.
Off-the-Shelf Doesn’t Fit. This is Software Democracy.
Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before… It’s the next “app to end all apps”, the next finance system that will handle your project invoicing woes, the team sharing tool that will mean no-one misses those last-minute client requests, or the CRM giant that offers infinite customisations and integrations to cater for your every process. All for the very reasonable monthly fee of £ with an initial “mobilisation” phase of £££.
Let People Like Things. (Even AI)
I always remember being confused that when a particular band got popular, the kids who were into them before anyone else would completely lose interest - in the music that they had spent the best part of a last term hyping up to everyone else.
Red Pills
No, this isn’t some adolescence-related rant, I’m talking about choosing to learn things that you can’t un-learn about making a decision that you may come to regret but not knowing that until it’s too late.
Analogue Sheep : Vol 5 : Clark Kent's Day Off
He left the tie draped over the back of the chair. The glasses stayed on the sink. He didn’t bother locking the door to the apartment. Let the landlord knock. Let Lois call. Let Perry White chase his next overdue article. Today, he wasn’t Clark. Today, he got to breathe.
PatBot - How to Trust Your Local AI
So how do we start to feel comfortable? How do we start to “trust” AI and / or the AI systems that are out there? We have to try to understand how they work and how they can work for us, and ideally, we can do this in fairly short order and with a low budget.
Good Vibes Only - The tools are ready, are you?
Vibe coding is essentially asking an LLM to give you the code to build something by simply describing what it should do, rather than inputting any line of code. The ability to open up software development to literally anyone with an idea and the knowledge of how it might be built. Importantly, and as I mentioned before not all applications should be built, and not jut “anybody” should be building these things.
Tiny Tunes, Big Dreams : Helping Your Kid Drop Their First Single
Following on from my blog last year about collaboration with ai to create music I wanted to share an update and the steps involved with setting up these services, not just for those looking to become the next overnight sensation, but also as a fun, educational and engaging activity kids of almost any age can enjoy.
Agentic AI in 2006
I built my first “Agent” in 2006. of course, 19 years ago we weren’t calling them “Agents” and there wasn’t a sniff of “AI”, but there was one thing that remains universally valuable. The vision to automate a process and the tools with which to build something capable of automating that process.
Analogue Sheep : Vol 4 : Sacrifice
The storms came first.
At first, they were dismissed as anomalies. An unusually strong typhoon season. Flash flooding in deserts that hadn’t seen rain in decades. Sudden freezes in tropical climates.
Unprecedented, but not impossible.
Then came the things that were impossible.
The Smart AI Choice: Privacy, Security, and Control Over Your Data
AI is everywhere. It’s in your emails, your spreadsheets, your favourite apps - even the fridge in that fancy smart home advert. Every tech company wants to tell you they have AI now, but let’s be honest: is it actually solving a problem, or is it just another shiny feature designed to get you to buy in?
Resolve : Episode 8 : Awake
Paul stood outside Fresh & Save. The frost-lined pavement shimmered faintly under the flickering streetlights. His breath clouded in front of him as he studied the store’s automatic doors. They remained closed, unresponsive, as if waiting for something.
Analogue Sheep : Vol 3 : Pandora
The tundra stretched endlessly before them, a ghost of a world that had long been abandoned. The sky was slate-grey, the wind slicing through the skeletal remains of structures forgotten by time. A wasteland of the old world, buried beneath centuries of progress.
Resolve : Episode 7 : Leaps and bounds
The store’s atmosphere was suffocating when Paul arrived. The air felt thick, almost gelatinous, as if moving through it took more effort. The lights overhead were dimmer than usual, but the shadows they cast were sharper, stretching unnaturally along the aisles.
Resolve : Episode 6 : Crossroads
Paul arrived at Fresh & Save earlier than usual. The shop’s cold glow greeted him, but today the light seemed… fractured. The aisles shimmered faintly, as though viewed through warped glass.
Analogue Sheep : Vol 2 : The last companion
The technician slouched at their station, staring at the salvaged hard drive. It had come from a discontinued model of a companion bot—functional but far from cutting-edge. Most of the data was corrupted or irrelevant, but a file labeled Journal caught their attention.
Resolve : Episode 5 : A new perspective
The sharp chill of the morning air bit at Paul’s face as he stepped out of his flat. The street outside was as routine as always: the dog walker and his unnervingly obedient companion, the low hum of the streetlights, and the faint clatter of a newspaper being dropped onto a doorstep. Yet, today, it all felt distant, as though Paul were watching it happen through a pane of frosted glass.