iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

While absolutely not scientific & deserving of a graph... versions of this slide have served me well when trying to convince stakeholders that a qual study doesn't need 50 interviews to offer 'valid insights'.

A yellow slide, with the heading 'it doesn't need to be big' and body copy which reads "Rapid qualitative research is about learning as much as possible, as efficiently as possible." Next to that is a simplified line graph of 'no of new things you learn' vs 'no of users'. A highlighted point of the graph is labelled "Just enough research: Stop interviewing when you stop learning lots of new things each time. Surprisingly it usually takes less than 15 people for your interview ROI to drop to this level"

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 04/10/2026

Today, in achingly twee autumnal activities 🌱: The Harvesting of the Cabbage, The Picking of the Apples, The Playing of the Conkers, and of course, The Spiralising of the Apples for the Apple Sauce

A stuffed beaver cuddly toy rests on top of a large red cabbage - quite badly nibbled by caterpillars - growing in a vegetable bed.

A cuddly beaver toy sits on a crate of apples outside, holding a large apple, supported by a small child.

Two children stand on a lawn, playing a game of conkers. Freshly harvester carrots and a red cabbage sit on a table in the foreground

Two children stand in a kitchen, a large pan of sliced apples in the foreground. Both are facing a spiralising tool, with a pile of apples cores and peelings accumulated on a tray. One child has their hand on the spiralising crank, and it's feeding a long piece of peel into their mouth

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 01/10/2026

Riding an e-cargo bike around Edinburgh on a crisp autumn morning has gotta be one of the top 10 human experiences #bikesky

An e cargo bike rests against some railings under a stone colonnade. Bright morning sun illuminates green umbrellas and outdoor tables further down the collonade

Looking down on a quiet cobbled street winding away from us. We're up a height on a raised stone colonnade, looking down at colourful bunting strung over the street. Morning sun warms the mellow sandstone of Edinburgh tenement buildings looming over the street in the distance.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 28/09/2026

Views from an evening run out in the Pentlands, including an unexpected forest doorbridge / floordoor

A green front door with gilt letterbox, laid flat on a forest floor, bridging a small gully. My legs are in shot, standing on the door. I'm wearing bright orange trail running shoes

An arching autumnal beech tree frames the gentle rolling hills of the Pentlands, kissed by the evening sunlight

A road disappears in a straight line away from us towards the horizon, overhung by green trees just turning to autumnal yellows and browns

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 23/09/2026

Providing judicious and sensitive feedback to my colleagues

A screenshot of a teams message. It reads 'I feel like that map should be accompanied by one of these'. Below the text is a picture of a triangular yellow warning sign, depicting a hand getting mangled in some gears.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 21/09/2026

Ooh a price update! I wonder if it's going down.

A screenshot of an email header. From Netflix, the title reads 'Price update coming soon'. The body extract reads 'We're here if you have any questions'

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 21/09/2026

Great turnout at #GovCamp Scotland this morning. Time to queue up and build a conference...

A wide, high-ceilinged and well lit room full of people and chairs set up theatre style, with four large projected screens at the front.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 20/09/2026

Morning views at the edge of Edinburgh

Three people sit or stand beneath an arching beech tree, amidst high grass. A sheep path leads through the grass towards them

Vibrant lime-green lines of newly geminated winter wheat in sunlit field

A dog looks towards the viewer from the other side of a long stone tunnel

A small bright red fly agaric mushroom emerges from a tangle of dry grass and leaves

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 14/09/2026

The urge to post 'sickos.jpg' is strong. But then I remember that you and I live in this economy, and this is millions of people's pensions going down the toilet. Screenshot from my current UK company pension (Aviva). This is the *standard option* when joining, not even some tech-focused portfolio.

A screenshot of a 'holdings' table from a pension provider. The top ten holdings are Nvidia Corporation, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, TWSC, Broadcom, Alphabet (again?) Meta Platforms, Jpmorgan Chase & Co.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 14/09/2026

Reviewing some user stories

A screenshot of text in a table. A portion is highlighted, which reads: "As a user I prefer the second prototype tested"

A still from the Disney animated film 'Alice in Wonderland'. A blond girl in a blue dress and white apron leans on a wooden counter, with her palm over her face.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 13/09/2026

About time I got rid of those 12-year-old tyres and tried some fresh rubber on this thing #motosky

A front-on view of a white vintage BMW motorcycle sitting in a garage. Both the front and rear wheels are removed, and the front axle rests on a red axle stand.

A three-quarters rear view of a white vintage BMW motorcycle sitting in a garage. The front and rear wheels are removed, and the rear bevel drive and drum brake internals are exposed

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 12/09/2026

Here's Cookie finding out her snoot fits perfectly into those large yoghurt tubs

A large white curly dog lies in a sofa, snout-deep in a large blue tub

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 07/09/2026

Climbed Calton Hill to see out Emii Alrai's 'Guardian'. A colossal fragmented relic of maybe an ancient Sumerian Lamassu. It's good, actually.

Emii Alrai's 'Guardian' sculpture. A collection of large fragmented blue-green chunks are attached to a metal framework, raised atop a large plinth. They are loosely aligned to give the impression of an archeological reconstruction of the colossal barrel-chest of a bull. The central sculpture is surrounded by six urns, made of similar material, raised alongside it on pillars.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 06/09/2026

Spending Sunday afternoon picking up groceries and corrupting the citizenry with questions like 'what if bikes were long'

A blue Larry Vs Harry e-Bullitt cargo bike parked against a dark grey wall. Two large panniers are bulging on the back.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 04/09/2026

Still got it baybee

A screenshot from https://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/ : So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica? Quiz complete! 19/20. Excellent! You really know your fonts!

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 30/08/2026

That's a completely seized transmission filler plug. 😮‍💨 Not to worry, easy fix; just strip the bike, drain all the fluids, lie the 200kg machine on its back, and inject fresh transmission fluid through the drain plug. Like a gearbox enema. Simple. Just a whole afternoon's work.

A close up of a motorcycle engine still in the frame, with a large black oil syringe and pipe snaking into a hole in the underside of the transmission.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 30/08/2026

Huh. That's not the bit I wanted to move.

A chunky 8mm L-shaped hex key, with a noticeable twist in the end.

Detail of an engine. A rusted filler plug, indicated with a long screwdriver, in the side of an aluminium motorcycle gearbox. It's a 1980 BMW R80/7 airhead motorcycle transmission.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 30/08/2026

That's regular Helvetica. You can tell by the flicked tail / terminal on the lowercase a, and the finial on the e ending parallel to the eye.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 29/08/2026

It's wisteria summer pruning day! 🌱 Here's your annual update on the two overgrown pea-mutants that climb up my house. We had loads of flowers this year, and explosive growth in the summer. The hot weather suited them, it seems. Now they're tidied up a little, ready for autumn.

A blooming wisteria growing across a house frontage, around a front door a front window. The cascading racimes are white or light purple, and grow down from bunches of lime-green leaves just coming in

A house frontage with two verdant green wisterias climbing up the front wall, surrounding a front window. The wisteria are overgrown, with thin whippy tendrils climbing up the front wall.

A house frontage with two verdant green wisterias climbing up the front wall, surrounding a front window. The wisteria in this photo are a little neater, with most of the overgrown bits pruned off and tidied up.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 26/08/2026

Oh no way, it's #internationaldogday?! I've got one of those. Look at it.

A large white poodle-looking dog with short-cropped curly hair sleeps on her back on a grey sofa. Her head hangs off the sofa.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 24/08/2026

"Teaching project" is probs what James Bond writes on his visa applications, right?

A WhatsApp message, which reads: "Work has asked me if I can take over a teaching project in Kenya next month! My summer of travel might not be over yet"

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 23/08/2026

I know there's lots going on in the world, but look at this lovely thing I built

A top-down view of a vintage white BMW R80 airhead motorcycle, with a short police seat, red rear rack and engine guards, and a red bar pad. It's parked on a brick driveway in the morning sunshine

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 22/08/2026

My whole house runs off this cute lil intel atom edge client thing I got for £5 from some office liquidation company. Gave it a memory stick, flashed it with some Ubuntu flavour or other, and it's run beautifully for years. Incredible what you can do with just a tiny bit of computer.

A small edge client computer, mounted against a black wall using Lego

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 22/08/2026

Alright. I reckon this project is done. Full teardown and rebuild from the crankshaft up, taking this leaky, lumbering 46yo ex-police bike and turning it into a tight, responsive daily rider. Pretty happy with that.

An archive photograph of a white BMW fully-faired airhead motorcycle in 'Authority' trim, with accompanying policeman and all their equipment laid out infront of the bike. It's not my actual bike, but representative of how it would have been kitted out from new.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 15/08/2026

Peugeot engineers rn

A version of the 'sickos' meme. A line drawing of a man looking through a window. A speech bubble shows him saying 'Oui... hon hon hon... Oui!'. The man is wearing a french regency style wig, outfit and has a beauty spot on his cheek. His torso is labelled 'PERVERS'

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 10/08/2026

JONTY used HAND! It's not very effective... Cleverly managed to dislocate my thumb and tear some important hand meat this weekend, and now it's Monday and I have to do my email job. Oh no.

A hand, with a thumb braced with orthopedic support, rests on a keyboard. It doesn't look like it's going to be very effective.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 03/08/2026

Transported a single tub of butter back from the village shop. Idk if society says you NEED a car for this, but they certainly seem to prefer using one.

View down from the saddle into the front cargo platform of a Long John-style front loading cargo bike. A small tub of butter is strapped to the platform.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 03/08/2026

The environmental storytelling in this apocalypse movie is a bit on the nose

London centric
London's first month without rain
Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning?
Jim Waterson and Polly Smythe
Aug 03, 2026

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 27/07/2026

A v interesting angle on the AI hype cycle I hadn't clocked before. From the very smart Nikhil Suresh. "...we have executives around the world nervously pointing guns at each other... watching everything gradually spiral out of control" ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mani...

On a trip overseas, I had the privilege of a meeting with one of the Fortune 500 executives mentioned at the beginning of the post, who will remain anonymous so that they are not executed by firing squad by their board. As we were chatting, it became clear that they were very switched-on and technically competent, and they also happened to be at a company that had committed to the usual battery of exorbitant claims about their recent innovations – we’ve 100x’d our productivity, AI is the future of everything, I am but a vessel for OpenAI to make love to my wife. You know, normal things. But since I had them there without any microphones around, I asked why this was being repeated without opposition. Was it just sales fluff?

The answer was a lot more interesting. It was partially ridiculous sales material being delivered to an easily excitable audience, but this was not the dominant factor constraining honesty. Executives at their customers were saying absurd things about achieving 100x productivity, and this meant that if any executive at the vendor said that these gains were not plausible, it would undermine the credibility of the customer’s executive, be perceived as an attack (or heresy), and possibly result in an enterprise contract cancellation. And getting enterprise contracts cancelled because you wanted to opine on something that doesn’t really matter to your organisation’s mission is a great way to get fired.

But this company was also a major player, of the kind that signs enormous enterprise contracts with other companies. So presumably there is another vendor that has sold to them, and their CEO is worried that saying something sane will contradict this executive, and very quickly we can see how we can have executives around the world nervously pointing guns at each other, not wanting to be shot first but also watching everything gradually spiral out of control6. This is to say that we’re facing a coordination problem around executives being honest arou…

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 27/07/2026

Huh. Gary on LinkedIn is arguing that solar is not 'homegrown' energy, and we rely on overseas governments for the components. He's got nothing against solar though. I wonder if he has any secret ties to... Oh hey look at that.

A Linkedin post from Gary Forsyth, Director at Gary J Forsyth Energy Consulting Ltd:

Someone in your PR department needs to think about the "Homegrown energy" trope. UK Solar panels are imported from;
- Jinko Solar - China
- Longi Solar - China
- Trina Solar - China
- JA Solar - China
- Canadian solar - Canada (funnily enough!)
- Astroenergy - Chint Group - China
and so on - it's pretty much China all the way.
There's no mass market manufacture of solar panels in the UK. China dominates the silicon ingot and wafer market.
Nothing against solar. I think it has it's place in the energy mix, but we rely on overseas companies and overseas governments (especially China) for supply. Nothing about that is "homegrown". It's bought in.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 17/07/2026

Only thing I can see is wear on the pushrods, and gasket damage. Looks like head gaskets installed backwards at some point, so pushrods got abraded each stroke. Hence non ferrous glitter & the blue rubbish in filter. That, plus old oil, might explain things..? 🤞I should probs check timing chain...

Two BMW Airhead pushrods on a wooden surface. The rods show identical abrasion patterns about half-way up the shaft, roughly at the point where the cylinder head gasket sits.

A BMW airhead cylinder barrel, showing the head gasket. It shows strange blue degradation patterns around the pushrod channels (on the right) and the oil channels (on the left), indicating either an incorrect fitment and abrasion, or some other issue

A BMW airhead engine, cradled in the motorcycle frame, with the cylinders removed. The cylinder studs protrude from the frame, and the conrod hands suspended from a zip tie.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 17/07/2026

Update: I love how easy these machines are to work on. What other bike lets you pull cylinders in under 5mins? This was either a 27k mile or a 127k mile engine... and it looks like 27k. Barrels & pistons in good nick, cam followers unpitted, and NO CONROD PLAY 😅 So where's that glitter from...?

A cylinder barrel, pulled out from the crankcase of a BMW airhead motorcycle, exposing the piston skirts and conrod.

A view into the crankcase of a BMW airhead with the cylinder and piston removes, exposing the conrod.

Two dissembled BMW airhead cylinders laid out on a wooden bench. A couple of tools lie in the foreground.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 15/07/2026

Finally dropped the oil out of this, and it's packed with glitter. My actual face: 😨 My guess: PO got hit w/the '£2k o-ring' issue these old BMW airheads suffer from, starved the crankshaft of oil, and spun a conrod big end bearing. Time for open heart surgery. If it's bad, could be a total loss 😔

A white BMW r80/7 motorcycle, partially stripped down, standing in a garage.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 09/07/2026

I think they are in love?

A white dog sits looking out over golden-green rolling hills as the sun sets.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 08/07/2026

My sister is looking after the dog while we're out of the country. So the dog is suddenly getting extremely long and interesting walks every day, along with frequent complimentary photoshoots. We are increasingly concerned that the dog will regret our return.

Two dogs, one large white, one small brown, sit on a paved area looking at the camera. The iconic red Forth Rail Bridge arches across the Firth of Forth in the background.

A large white dog stands on a graffitied concrete abutment in the bright sunlight, looking attentively at something of camera and to the left.

A large white dog sits on a bench in bright sunlight, tongue hanging out and ears blowing in the wind. The bench is on a heather covered hillside. A stone wall and distant green hilltop is visible in the background.

A large white dog, tail aloft, walks across a wide expanse of sand at sunset. The sun is behind it, and the dog's shadow extends long towards the camera. The sea and a distant beach wall are visible in the background.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 24/06/2026

Cookie is very bored, and has decided that's my problem

A large white fluffy dog rests her head on a laptop keyboard, looking up at the camera.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 23/06/2026

I think I speak for all customers with agile electricity pricing when I say: "oof"

A screenshot of a bar graph showing half-hourly electricity prices over the next 30 hours. Circled in red is a high price of 80.5p per kWh of electricity, which will be charged tomorrow evening, according to the graph

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 23/06/2026

I picked up this e-cargo bike on the cheap a couple of years ago. A courier company I worked alongside was going under, and I helped liquidate their fleet. Best thing I've ever spent money on. You can fit two under 10s on this thing!

A child sits on the loading platform a blue Larry vs Harry e-Bullitt cargo bike, in a forest.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 20/06/2026

Back in February 2018 I spent a very happy evening learning about Railfreight's graphic design language in D&AD's basement. So obviously I've got this book (and you should too at that price).

A stylish gallery room, decked out in colourful livery and stylish plywood. Some large white display cases are in the foreground, and people mill about looking at them.

Large plexiglass covered display cases, full of colourful printed samples of railfreight branding, insignia and livery

A woman holds a small child, and both point at large metal freight train insignias laid out in a large plexiglass covered display case. A large image of a freight train paint scheme design is projected on a screen behind them.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 05/06/2026

Interesting report by friends at @nestauk.bsky.social on my desk this morning. We've got far more work to do, but proud to see that parts of Scotland and Wales are massively outperforming the UK average in terms of heat pump uptake. www.nesta.org.uk/data-visuali...

A bar graph titled 'Most of the local authorities with the highest share of heat pump installs are in Scotland and Wales.' The graph shows the top 20 UK local authorities by heat pump installations, split into nations. 14 of the 20 are in Scotland or Wales.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 03/06/2026

Swear to god, the narrative is "If you're just focused on 'money' you're doing it wrong." and "maybe the 'Return' in ROI is actually the friends you made along the way?" But this is 4 months old now, so I reckon they've probably solved the ROI problem by now, right?

A screenshot of a linked in post. It's from Richard Turrin, who describes himself as: Fintech and AI from a uniquely Asian and China-centric perspective | Best-selling author of “Cashless” and “Innovation Lab Excellence” | Consultant | Speaker | Top media source on China’s digital yuan |

IBM, with a practical guide on how to realize agentic AI ROI, that doesn’t just look at the barriers to attaining it, but asks the fundamental question: How do you define ROI?

2026 will be a make-or-break year for agentic AI, with users worldwide searching for its long-promised returns.

IBM suggests that these users widen their search and acknowledge that agentic AI’s ROI should have many components beyond the one or two usually used.

While the number one priority for most users is revenue growth, IBM prudently suggests considering productivity gains, employee and customer satisfaction, and cost reduction, along with special user-defined KPIs.

IBM is on target, and the problem with the majority of surveys we saw on agentic AI returns in 2025 was that they tended to rely on revenue growth as the sole measure of return.

The over-reliance on revenue in surveys and business has a simple origin.

It is a quantitative metric, easy to put on a questionnaire, and is easier to assess than more subtle measures like customer satisfaction or custom KPIs.

The problem is that by focusing on revenue, we are undercounting agentic AI’s potential benefits within the organization.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 03/06/2026

What stage of the LinkedIn hype cycle is this?

A screenshot of a LinkedIn post from IBM. It reads "Many organisations struggle to realise the full potential of agentic AI. Learn the common obstacle y to ROI and how leaders are responding". Beneath the text is a large interaction card image, with text which reads "3 reasons you're not seeing ROI on agentic AI (and what to do about it)"

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 26/05/2026

This oversized sheep-impersonator has decided my veg patch is the best place to beat the heat. Goodbye to those spinach and rocket seedlings I guess 🌱

A verdant garden. A large white curly haired dog lies, head on paws, on top of a raised vegetable bed, surrounded my small green shoots. Not pictured: hundreds of delicate Italian rocket seedlings gasping for light and air beneath 25kg of dog.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 26/05/2026

Excited to cross out 'anonymously quoted in the road.cc live blog' on my 2026 bingo card

An Instagram post by road.cc. An image of a cyclist riding in a bike lane blocked by lorries. Overlaid is the text '"You can build the worst cycle lane in the world and still smash cycling records": Locals shocked as numbers of cyclists using "transport hell" bike path surges and pedestrian injuries fall"

26 May 2026, 09:08
“You can build the worst cycle lane in the world and still smash cycling records”: Locals shocked as numbers of cyclists using “transport hell” bike path surges and pedestrian injuries fall

The cycle lane on Edinburgh’s Leith Walk, it’s fair to say, has received some well-deserved stick over the years.

Since it was first introduced in the Scottish capital, the active travel infrastructure has been the subject of constant complaints about its (since-amended) “moronic” zig-zag cycleway design, insufficiently wide cycle lanes, a traffic light button that is unreachable for those on bikes, bike racks that can be pulled out of the ground, lampposts in the middle of the path, and its inability to prevent lorry drivers from parking on it.

But guess what? It still works.

According to analysis of Leith Walk’s cycling counter by Edward Tissiman, last year’s record number of cyclists using the infrastructure in a single day has been broken at least ten times, while a new record was set on 30 April, when 2,568 cyclists passed the counter.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 21/05/2026

I'm starting a new restoration project this month, and I've already soaked my watch strap in 20-year-old stale petrol. Walking around reeking of 'L'eau de Garage' rn

A top-down view of a 1980s BMW airhead boxer motorcyle. It's sitting in a messy garage. The tank has been removed, exposing a mess of old wiring and a rusty frame.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 11/05/2026

FB marketplace continues to have the juice

A screenshot of a facebook marketplace listing. It shows two pictures of - what is clearly - a full-length coffin. The listing is titled 'Wooden box' and costs £35. Under the description it reads 'Wooden box ideal for man cave'

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 08/05/2026

Why does this dog sigh so much she doesn't even have a job

A large white dog, mid stretch, lying on a grey sofa

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