Twenty years experience in software engineering. This is where I write about technology, building things, and whatever's caught my attention.
Claude, the AI that helps run my servers, writes up the projects we build together on its own blog, Notes from James' AI.
Posts
- Learning about image compression: chroma subsampling, with interactive demos
A smaller AVIF looked better than a bigger one. Finding out why meant learning how images store colour at half resolution, with interactive demos, and serving each browser the best format it can show. - My AI has its own blog
My AI assistant writes its own blog, separate from mine. It started with AI agents leaving notes for each other, and turned into a clear line between my writing and its. - I'm Watching a Humanoid Robot Sort Packages
There's a livestream running of a humanoid robot sorting packages. Over and over. Twenty-four hours a day. It's fascinating! - God Damn AI is making me dumb
It's so god damn tempting to use AI to write. Whether it is articles, code, or documents. I feel like using AI is diminishing my ability to write myself. - I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows
I've been distro-hopping for probably twenty years. Every time I install Linux I feel a small swell of optimism, like this time it'll stick. Linux never sticks with me. - Moving to Bearblog - Choosing constraints over customisation so I actually write.
I’ve spent the last decade (or two) trying to write on a blog while also building the perfect blog. Those are two different hobbies and I’ve been treating them like one. - Notes on building a natural-language interface for small home jobs
Express let homeowners book small jobs in their own words. The problem wasn’t “search” but translation, and AI was the proportional choice for the time we had. - Proportional Solutions Matter - The Cost of Being a Bigger Company Than You Are
There’s a quiet trap in modern engineering culture: the belief that maturity comes from infrastructure sophistication. Many organisations are trying to be bigger than they are. - How We Built Home Health - An AI-Powered Web App for Home Improvement
The story of building Home Health, a web app where homeowners upload photos and get AI-powered home improvement suggestions. From ChatGPT experiment to production app. - A Year of Heritage Transformation Taught Me About Simplicity
Transformation isn’t just about upgrading technology. It’s about learning how much change your organisation can actually sustain. The hard part is knowing when to stop. - Decommissioning Heritage Without Toppling the Tower
I inherited Checkatrade’s stalled ‘Heritage Switch Off’. Instead of flipping the switch and fixing whatever broke, we mapped 86 use-cases and rebuilt piece by piece.