• 2026 predictions

    First, lets take a look at last years predictions: Decent win/loss record but I don’t think I pushed the envelope much. I said nothing about AI. 2026 Predictions Again, some wishful thinking here. I can’t be a “chicken little“. Just like 2025, this year feels super weird. Total civilization collapse…

  • Uncommon Present Ideas

    Buying gifts always seems difficult. I know I am not easy to get something for. I’ve been thinking about it and thought of some uncommon but good gift ideas. A cheap Ukulele You can get an acceptable one for under $50. It’s much easier to play than you might expect.…

  • Josh Johnson Comedy Show

    We recently went to see Josh Johnson, one of the hosts of The Daily Show, perform his standup act. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed with the experience. It was a perfect storm of problems, some of which were not his fault. The Environment The show was at the Fox Oakland…

  • An Unpleasant AI Thought

    I was thinking about the applications that companies put on your work laptop. Most serve a business function like Zoom for video conferencing or a VPN. However, I had an unpleasant thought about how AI could be used for employee surveillance. There have been services that monitor how your mouse…

  • Brevity

    To me this is obvious, but somehow everyone gets this wrong. Everyone is way too verbose. Slides presentation Use speaker notes. Don’t put every word on the slide. Don’t make long bullets. Don’t over explain. If you are worried about a leave behind, make a separate document for that. For…

  • UX Producers

    There is a job role I have been experimenting with for the last couple of years called UX Producer. In my humble opinion, it has been a terrific success and has helped in countless ways. I thought it would be helpful to share the concept and how it works. Mission…

  • Bad UX: Alexa+

    Warning: This is pretty much an old person rant. I recently upgraded my Alexa devices to Alexa+. I am considering throwing all of them away and replacing them with some equivalent. What’s the problem? There are many, but the one that makes me the most aggrieved is that I want…

  • Thankfulness

    It’s an American holiday, Thanksgiving, but I believe there is a tradition which would benefit everyone. Simply, you just say what you are thankful for. I feel in todays world, what we are upset about drowns out any positive thoughts. Here are a few things I am thankful for this…

  • Barcelona 2025

    I recently attended the Crowdstrike annual event in Europe. This year it was in Barcelona. I had never been to the city before (or any other part of Spain. I was truly impressed with the city and rank it in the top cities I could imagine living. Some of the…

  • Photos and Videos

    I started taking photos and videos of my life and family about 25 years ago. I have them as a screensaver on this computer. It brings me happiness to look back on those photos after many years. I have over 180gigs worth of media compiled. Timeline of storage Recently, Onedrive…

  • AI Interface Evolution

    Artificial intelligence is moving fast. The way people interact with it will evolve as the functionality improves. These are my predictions of where the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is going, Pre- ChatGPT It used to be called ML or machine learning. I worked at a startup a few years back that…

  • AI Product Idea – The Pin

    One of the biggest problems in AI is training. Where can you get source material for the AI to train that doesn’t break copyright laws? Google certainly has a ton of data, but I think there could a way to change the game. The hardware You need a pin that…

  • Arthritic Knees 2025

    Over the past few years my knees have been progressively getting worse. This has nothing to do with product design, but I use my blog sometimes to just journal what has been going on in my life. Symptoms Walking down stairs in the morning hurts. Playing tennis required progressively heavy…

  • Electric Car 2025

    Honestly, I have loved my 2020 Tesla Model 3. It has been a wonderful car and way ahead of its time. If not for the buffoonery, cruelty, greed, and stupidity of their CEO (Elon Musk), I would have purchased more Tesla cars. Additionally, I would not have been in a…