London, UK -  I work in cyber security but write about the broader technology landscape, looking past the hype to discover what works, what doesn't, and whether any of it truly improves our lives.

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Agentic AI could be the catalyst for safer autonomy
 -  Granting artificial intelligence (AI) access to tools capable of taking real-world actions might fill you with a sense of dread - arguably it should. Given the number of inaccuracies most AI models confidently assert as truth, it feels prudent to ...
Quality products begin with detail-obsessed leaders
 -  It often feels like modern business is stuck in a loop. An idea is successful, there is a push to scale it as far and quickly as possible, and it’s optimised to within an inch of its life - but normally only in the name of profit. Usually this res...
Bluesky's nearly there, but it won't replace X just yet
 -  Bluesky was an indirect product of Elon Musk’s controversial 2022 Twitter takeover, pitched as a decentralised, user-first alternative to the site that became X. Originally a side project funded by Twitter itself, its new goal is to stand on its o...
When you travel, the real journey isn't photographed
 -  Last week, I played tour guide for some visitors from overseas - first in London, and then in my hometown. It was exhausting, but it came with an unexpected side effect: it made me see those places differently. It’s hard to take your city for gran...
Staying productive when everything feels urgent
 -  We’ve all been there. One day you’re in control, the next you’re racing from meeting to meeting, unable to focus long enough to move anything forward in any meaningful way - unless, that is, you start protecting your time. When everything feels ur...
Humanising AI encourages intellectual lethargy
 -  I recently stumbled upon a Hacker News thread around a series of X posts about ChatGPT’s o3 model. Researchers noted that it “frequently fabricates actions it never took, and then elaborately justifies those actions when confronted”, in one case c...
Finding comfort in the green hills outside my window
 -  As I mentioned in a recent post, I moved to a new home a few months ago. My new place sits atop a hill, and the window to the right of my desk happens to look away from the city, over the tops of the houses opposite and off into the green hills be...
Fixing weak WiFi and slow speeds on my home network
 -  I moved to a new home late last year, and immediately faced a whole range of connectivity issues. For a techie like myself, reliant on a functional network both for work and for fun, that was a big problem. So I implemented a few different solutio...
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) - setting the record straight
 -  When I went to bed on the evening of Friday 19th July, I couldn’t sleep. It was a stuffy summer’s night in London, and the adrenaline was still pumping through my veins after one of the more notable days in recent memory for cyber security. Still,...
Centralisation, repeatability, and automation in a modular SOC
 -  The dictionary definition of “modular” leaves a little to be desired: “Employing or involving a module or modules as the basis of design or construction.” What is implied, but that I would make explicit, is that parts of the whole can be swapped o...

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Digital journalism
Coincidentally, in the space of a week I encountered both Zach Seward's article about Quartz and Craig Mod's excellent podcasts with Tim Ferriss. Both evoked fond memories of my time in journalism and the buzz surrounding digital journalism and media in the 2010s

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