Journal

In the latest issue of Matthias’s excellent Own Your Web series, he describes the recent betrayal by Google:

The search engine no longer says “here, go read what this person wrote.” It now says “here, I’ve already read it for you.” The contract is broken.

He’s absolutely right.

But…

Have you ever clicked on a result from a search engine? Unless you’re lucky enough to land on a nice personal website, you’re more than likely to be confronted with pop-ups to allow tracking, or a desparate plea to subscribe to a newsletter, or just rubbish ads all accompanied by a slow page loading somewhere in the mix.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that what Google is doing is okay. But let’s not pretend that everything indexed by Google is just fine and dandy for people to visit.

And of course the main reason why websites are so terrible is because they’ve tied their business model to heaps of behavioral advertising driven by invasive tracking courtesy of …Google.

This reminds me of AMP. Remember Google AMP? It was a terrible solution to a real problem. Web pages were (and still are) bloated and slow. The correct solution would be to encourage people to fix that, but instead Google mandated a proprietary format for your content that had to be hosted on their servers.

AMP was a disaster, both in practical terms and in the reputational damage it did to Google’s developer relations.

Now they’re doing it again, powerwashing away any goodwill they ever had with site owners. Now Google doesn’t even send search engine traffic to the websites that host the ads that Google encouraged people to put on every page.

It’s almost as if Google is a company so large and with so many competing interests that it now suffers from an incurable split personality disorder.

Personally I think they’re missing a trick. They should be using “AI” summaries as a stick.

If your site is slow, or filled with user-hostile annoyances then it should be cockblocked by a hallucinated summary. But a nice fast respectful website? Send the traffic their way! Everyone wins—users, site owners, Google, the World Wide Web.

Could you imagine how quickly this would revolutionise the world of search engine optimisation? They’ve always told us that we should make websites for humans in order to get good Google juice. This would be a way of making it come true, without any of the over-engineered woefulness of AMP.

It’ll never happen of course. But I can dream.

Nothing can travel faster than light. And if you manage to travel close to the speed of light, things get weird.

Technically, we all experience time differently depending on how fast or slow we’re moving. But the differences are so imperceptible as to be non-existent. That’s how we can describe events as being “simultaneous”, even though according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, there’s no such thing.

It’s thanks to these small relativistic effects that GPS works. But when you approach the speed of light—or get close to something very massive—then the large-scale relativistic effects kick in.

If you travel close to the speed of light for a short time, it will seem like a much longer time to everyone you left behind. This is the twin paradox, which isn’t really a parodox at all, just time dilation in action.

There are some coincidental parallels to this kind of time dilation in old folk tales.

The Japanese tale of Urashima Tarō tells of a fisherman who rescues a sea turtle and is rewarded with a relaxing few days in an underwater kingdom, only to find that when he returns home to his village, 300 years have passed.

The Irish tale of Oisín describes the warrior’s journey to Tir na nÓg, the land of youth. He spends three years there but when he returns to Éire to see his old fighting comrades from the Fianna, 300 years have passed.

This story gives us a wonderfully poetic turn of phrase that’s still used today. The closest English equivalent is “Billy no mates”, a rather cruel term to describe someone with no friends. In Irish, we say:

Mar Oisín i ndiadh na Fianna

Like Oisín after the Fianna.

After reading The Morrigan I was hungry for more retellings of Irish myths and legends. I tracked down the 1994 novel Finn Mac Cool by Morgan Llywelyn.

When I was devouring modern retellings of Greek myths, I commented on an interesting difference in the tellings:

The biggest difference I’ve noticed is the presence or absence of supernatural intervention. Some of these writers tell their stories with gods and goddesses front and centre. Others tell the very same stories as realistic accounts without any magic.

The Morrigan was dripping in magic. Finn Mac Cool is a more down-to-earth affair.

That’s not to say that magic doesn’t matter. For the characters in this book, their belief in magic is as real as their belief in the weather. But there are no supernatural powers here. If anything, Finn’s superpower is his ability to tell—and believe—tall tales involving supernatural intervention.

All the usual accounts of Finn Mac Cool’s prowess are retold as deeds that may have a basis in reality but then get exaggerated almost immediately.

It’s a framing device that works well. It’s all too easy to believe in the rise to power of a charismatic man skilled in controlling the narrative.

There’s plenty of Machievellian politics at play. There are no outright villains, or even heroes. There’s a pleasing messiness to the forces at work.

Sometimes the author’s research shows a bit too much. There are digressions into explanations of Brehon law that threaten to derail the narrative.

Overall though, this is an engaging and vivid retelling that just makes me want to spend more time in this world.

People talk about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of large language models as though all tasks are comparable. But it strikes me that there are three broad categories of work that large language models are applied to:

1. Compression.
2. Transformation.
3. Expansion.

Compression is when you feed a large language model something big that you want to make small. Summarise this book. Give me the gist of this meeting. Large language models are generally pretty good at this, which makes sense given that they themselves are kind of like compressed artifacts.

Transformation is when large language models convert from one format into another. Turn this audio into text. Turn this jumble of data into structured JSON. A large language model can handle these tasks pretty well. There’ll probably be a few errors so make sure that’s not a deal-breaker.

Expansion is when you give a large language model a prompt to generate something from scratch. An image. A presentation. An email. A poem. This is where slop lives. The output inevitably betrays its origins, glistening with a sheen of mediocrity.

Laurie spotted this three-way split a while back:

Is what you’re doing taking a large amount of text and asking the LLM to convert it into a smaller amount of text? Then it’s probably going to be great at it. If you’re asking it to convert into a roughly equal amount of text it will be so-so. If you’re asking it to create more text than you gave it, forget about it.

I hope that when the bubble finally bursts, we’ll see the surviving large language models put to work on the first two categories. The boring stuff. The work that’s tedious for humans.

But tedious is as tedious does. Something I consider drudgery might be the very thing that gives you life. Like Giles says:

I have a feeling that everyone likes using AI tools to try doing someone else’s profession. They’re much less keen when someone else uses it for their profession.

The big exception seems to be programming. Apparently there are plenty of coders who never before expressed an interest in being managers who are now happily hanging up their coding spurs in favour being the overseer of non-human workers.

It’s a reasonable outlook. It could even be considered a user-centred approach. Users don’t care about the elegance of your code; they care about accomplishing their tasks.

Programming is something of an exception to the efficacy of large language models in general. Instead of relying on the subjectivity of painting, poetry, or prose, programming can be objectively tested. Throw enough money at the worst people in the world and they’ll give you tokens you can use to get the machines to test their own output. So you can get a large language model to create something reasonably good from scratch as long as that something is code.

If you had asked me about the threat model of large language models two years ago, I probably would’ve been worried for artists, writers, and musicians. I thought that software had enough inherent complexity to be relatively safe.

Now my opinion has completely reversed. Software is almost certainly the killer app for large language models.

I think the artists, writers, and musicians will be okay, or at least as okay as they ever were. It turns out that humans like things made by other humans.

And y’know what? If I had to choose which endeavour I’d rather see automated away—programming or art—it’s no competition.

Don’t get me wrong—it would be nice if everyone got paid for doing what they enjoy. It’s just that I’m okay with software engineers not being at the front of that line.

I remember when I first started getting paid money to make websites. “Really?” I thought, “Someone is willing to pay me to do something I’d do anyway?” I kept waiting for the jig to be up. Instead I saw my profession grow and expand.

Perhaps there’s a long-overdue compression happening.

Or maybe it’s more like a transformation.

Times are tough out there. I know that a lot of people are looking for work, which can be a very stressful experience.

One of the things that can make the job search stressful is uncertainty. There’s a real taboo around talking about salaries. This taboo ends up benefiting employers and punishing potential employees. There’s an information gap that can be exploited (see also: job postings that don’t list salary ranges).

That’s why I’m always pleased when people voluntarily share their income. Here are some of the people who have done this over the years:

• Dan Mall (US)
• Alistair Hey (UK)
• Jamie Tanna (UK)
• Tom Withers (UK)
• Matt Brunt (UK)
• Carolina Gilabert (UK)
• Xe Iaso (Canada)
• Kristófer Reykjalín (Canada/US/Iceland)

Because the jobs are generally in software or design, you can sort of make apples-to-apples comparisons. You can definitely get the general gist of what kind of salary to expect for certain roles.

In the interest of full transparency, I figured I’d share my own income numbers, though as you’ll see, they’re not very representative of a normal career:

• 2003: £15,434 (freelance)
• 2004: £15,900 (freelance)
• 2005: £14,125 (freelance)
• 2006: £43,009 (freelance/Clearleft)
• 2007: £34,900 (Clearleft)
• 2008: £33,833 (Clearleft)
• 2009: £35,549 (Clearleft)
• 2010: £37,174 (Clearleft)
• 2011: £40,666 (Clearleft)
• 2012: £39,750 (Clearleft)
• 2013: £39,500 (Clearleft)
• 2014: £48,655 (Clearleft)
• 2015: £46,499 (Clearleft)
• 2016: £52,106 (Clearleft)
• 2017: £56,492 (Clearleft)
• 2018: £59,498 (Clearleft)
• 2019: £59,670 (Clearleft)
• 2020: £43,807 (Clearleft)
• 2021: £48,344 (Clearleft)
• 2022: £60,446 (Clearleft)
• 2023: £55,721 (Clearleft)
• 2024: £47,104 (Clearleft)
• 2025: £42,133 (Clearleft)

The first thing you’ll notice is that agency work isn’t nearly as well paid as in-house work at a technology company. So don’t embrace agency life for the money. Speaking personally, the benefits are in autonomy and variety. Those are things I value highly.

Also, I haven’t put any job titles or levels on there because they’ve never really been codified for me. I just made up my own job titles as I went along. Again, this is not very helpful to you if you’re looking for a job at a typical company.

You’ll see that things got weird in 2020, which is to be expected because things did get weird in 2020. I was furloughed, and I also took some more time off. I got a taste for it, which is why I went down to a four-day week and later a three-day week, which is what I’m doing now. So those last five years of numbers are loopy—I’m making less than before, but if you were to adjust it for a five-day week, I’m still getting paid more than before …if that makes sense.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about my career trajectory is that I’ve been at the same place for twenty years now. That’s pretty much unheard of in tech. It’s far more usual to see people switch companies—and get a salary bump—every couple of years.

So I’m not sure if there’s any value in me sharing my numbers like this. But like I said, I admire when other people do it so I figured I’d throw mine out there.

Perhaps you’d like to share your numbers too.

Sometimes I look back through my blogging archives and notice what’s changed over time.

For example, I used to write quite enthusiastically about the arrival of a new operating system from Apple. That is no longer the case, to put it mildly. I’m currently holed up on Sequioa, trying to resist all the nudgings to “upgrade” to the tacky design nightmare that is Tahoe. I feel like the protagonist of Pluribus.

I used to write about software I really liked. Sometimes it was software made by Apple. More often it was from some independent developer.

Like, I remember how much I loved a little application called Quicksilver. It just did one thing. You pressed control and space and then started typing the name of any programme installed on your computer. After a few characters Quicksilver would show you the match, you hit enter and the programme launched.

If that process sounds familiar, it’s because Apple ended up incorporating it into their own Spotlight feature. Quicksilver got sherlocked (ask your parents).

Recently though, Spotlight got worse and worse at doing its one job. It’s been laggy and inaccurate, even though I set my Spotlight indexing options to only index the Applications folder.

Then I found TinyStart. It’s like Quicksilver reborn!

A tiny launcher for macOS, fast and focused on the essentials.

Actually, it does double duty. As well as being an application launcher, it’s also an emoji picker. 👍

Best of all, not only is TinyStart a return to the focus and quality of software of yore, it’s also a return to the pricing model. You buy the software—for a measly €5—and that’s it. You own it now. There’s no subscription you have to pay every month.

I love everything about this.

Four years ago I wrote about something that has long puzzled me in the world of front-end development. Trust:

The mindset I’ve noticed is that many developers are suspicious of browser features but trusting of third-party libraries.

Developers are more likely to trust, say, Bootstrap than they are to trust CSS grid or custom properties. Developers are more likely to trust React than they are to trust web components.

That post got some thoughtful responses but I never really understood the imbalance of trust and suspicion:

I’m kind of confused by this prevalent mindset of trusting third-party code more than built-in browser features.

But something happened recently that helped me understand that mindset better.

I wrote a while back about how the datalist element on iOS has been completely fucked up. It’s worse than if Safari simply didn’t support it.

Breaking the web like that should be a five-alarm fire, but nobody is in any rush to fix it. I recall a similar lackadaisical attitude when Safari completely broke their implentation of IndexedDB.

I had it in my head that browser features followed a forward path generally. They’d be iterated on and improved on to iron out any glitches, but it was reasonable to expect things to get better with each new version of a browser.

Now I see that’s not necessarily the case.

Had I used an over-engineered JavaScript library instead of the datalist element, I wouldn’t be facing the current situation of having to use browser-sniffing to avoid sending a standard HTML element to any browser on iOS.

Sure, that third-party JavaScript would mean that users are downloading more code, and it probably wouldn’t work well with assistive technology, but as long as I didn’t touch it, it would continue to work. That should be true of web standards—I should be able to use them secure in the knowledge that they won’t suddenly shit the bed.

Perhaps I should be grateful to Apple for dispelling my naïveté. I now have much more empathy and understanding for web developers who are suspicious of web standards and prefer to use third-party libraries instead.

Good job, Apple. Happy anniversary.

People of Brighton, mark your calendars: Saturday, April 4th. That’s when Salter Cane will be playing in The Hope And Ruin.

It’s not just Salter Cane though. We’ll be joined by Skyscrapers from Lewes, and The Equatorial Group from Eastbourne. We’ve played with them before, and they’re superb!

Tickets are available now. They’re £8 in advance. It’ll be £10 on the door. So please get your ticket in advance!

Doors are at 7:30pm. Skyscrapers will be on stage at 8pm, The Equatorial group at 9pm, and Salter Cane at 10pm.

I’m really, really looking forward to rocking out playing songs from our newest album and I would love it if you could make it.

See you there!

I was in the library the weekend before last when I spotted something on the shelf of recently-returned books. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

I knew the film adaptation was coming out later that week. Ideally, I’d like to read the book before seeing the film. It would be a race against time! The film would be out in days, and the book is over 450 pages long. Could this nerdy white guy rise to challenge and overcome the odds?

As it turned out, it wasn’t all that arduous. Project Hail Mary is a real page-turner, just like Andy Weir’s previous book, The Martian.

But his books are worryingly regressive. The so-called golden age of science fiction featured plenty of plucky white science guys saving the day with their brainpower in books written by white science guys. Andy Weir’s books have a similar outlook.

On the other hand, they’re undeniably fun. And who knows? Maybe his next book will feature a protaganist that isn’t an aw-shucks white guy.

(Update: multiple people have pointed out that I completely missed that Andy Weir’s other book, Artemis, features a refreshingly different kind of protaganist—phew!)

Project Hail Mary is packed with plenty of plausible-sounding science. Perhaps too much. After a while it felt like elements were being added to the story to showcase the author’s smarts rather than to propel the plot.

Over all, the book is good entertaining fun but a bit baggy and could’ve been edited down somewhat.

I was interested to see how the film would translate the science from the written page to the screen. Very commendably, as it turns out.

The film does a great job of avoiding expositional blackboard sequences or explanatory dialogue. Wherever possible, it shows rather than tells. It helps that it doesn’t underestimate what the audience can handle.

Above all, it’s entertaining. Popcorn was invented for this kind of film. Ryan Gosling does his usual entertaining shtick, though I kept thinking that Sam Rockwell would’ve really delivered the goods.

The film trims the book down to its essentials. I didn’t miss any of the elements they chose to cut. I did spot one glaring mistake, but that was continuity error rather than anything to do with the science.

Project Hail Mary the film is better than Project Hail Mary the book. Go see it. And if it leaves you wishing for more, then you can always read the book.

You should come to UX London in the first week of June. Why? Because it’s going to be awesome, that’s why!

You probably knew that already. You probably already decided to get a ticket because you’re smart like that.

But don’t dilly-dally! Early-bird tickets are available now but in just over one week, they won’t be.

So get your ticket by Friday, March 27th. If you get your ticket now, it’s a win for everyone. You get a cheaper ticket. We know for sure that you’re coming.

Every time someone buys a conference ticket in plenty of time, the conference organiser sleeps a little better at night.

If you need to convince your boss, you can give them these reasons to attend. I even made an email template you can use a starting point for making the case.

You could come for all three days of UX London, or you can pick just one day.

Tuesday, June 2nd is discovery day with a focus on user research. You’ll hear from great speakers like Melin Edomwonyi and Maria Isachenko as well as getting workshops from Natasha den Dekker and Feyikemi Akinwolemiwa.

Wednesday, June 3rd is design day where it’s all about the nitty-gritty details. Not only will there be great talks from Andrea Grigsby, Julia Petretta, and Hidde de Vries, there’s going to be the best-named workshop ever from my colleague Chris How: Yippee IA!

Thursday, June 4th is delivery with a focus on design systems and collaboration. Alex Edwards, Lucy Blackwell, Rachel Ilan Simpson and Ben Callahan will all be giving talks (and Ben’s doing a workshop too).

That’s not even close to the final line-up. I’m confirming more speakers right now and getting very, very excited about how it’s all shaping up.

You know you don’t want to miss this one. So get your early-bird ticket now while you still can.