Something Decent

With numerous AI providers 'sounding the alarm' for humanity's existential threat it seems like someone should remind us all of how computers work

My attempt to get help from GoPro's AI-powered support, and what it says about companies replacing humans with AI slop.

A reflection on how the everyday order of modern life sits on top of chaos, and why that should bring comfort rather than dread.

A brain dump on the AI gold rush: why shoehorning AI into everything leaves me both impressed and deeply uneasy.

A late-night thought experiment about infinity: if one thing in the universe is truly infinite, everything else must be too.

A conversation in India about feeling weird turns into a reflection on why every one of us is strange, and why that's fine.

An acknowledgement that the world is a mess, and an argument for why accepting the mess is the first step to being at peace with it.

How to pass dynamic HTML data attributes to React components with a reusable, type-safe pattern.

Why most A/B testing isn't really conversion rate optimisation, from an engineer who has spent years building the tests.

A proposal for how the crypto industry could recover trust after the latest crash, beyond waiting for the next bull run.

I can distinctly remember my introduction to the concept of race.

As part of my new year's cleanup I have decided to attempt to tidy up Something Decent and take the site in a new direction.

An ELI5 explanation of the JavaScript Proxy class, written by ChatGPT as another experiment in AI-generated content.

An ELI5 introduction to JavaScript event listeners, written by ChatGPT as an experiment in AI-generated content.

A frontend developer's introduction to conversion rate optimisation: what CRO is, how test builds work and what the job actually involves.

A practical guide to setting up a modern WordPress development stack with the Roots ecosystem: Trellis, Bedrock and Sage.

Part one of the CSS basics: what stylesheets are, how selectors work and how to start styling your first web page.

How my attempt to walk from London to Glasgow ended in St.

The plan: walk from London to Glasgow.

How to animate an element on click without JavaScript, using pure CSS in place of the usual event listener.

The basics of how HTML, CSS and JavaScript fit together, explained in plain English for absolute beginners.

The introduction to Learn With a Layman, a beginner-friendly series for taking your first steps toward learning JavaScript.

Do we really have democracy?

On July the 6th 2019 the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Pride gay rights movement.

The recent anti abortion ruling by the Alabama State Senate represents a huge step back for the progression of society.

Practical travel tips for backpacking in India: staying healthy, staying safe and making the most of the sub-continent.

The Extinction Rebellion protests are gaining worldwide publicity but when will the world's elite listen to the masses about climate change?

An opinion piece which questions the binary thinking pattern which is used by many people with polar ideologies.

Animal Aid Unlimited is a non profit organisation based in Udaipur, India.

London's proposed ULEZ charges will affect the city's financially unstable by hitting them with extortionate charges for going to work.

Elon Musk took a couple tokes on Joe Rogan's weed joint and the world lost their mind while forgetting his real message.

On travelling without social media: what a month away from the feeds taught me about happiness and being present.

A London cyclist asks whether cyclists really deserve their bad reputation, and what cycle-shaming says about how we share the road.

A nostalgic look back at knocking for your mates: life as a youth before the internet and mobile phones took over.

A pointless-but-important rant about burgers: why don't burger joints put the chips inside the burger by default?

Part two of my disastrous Norway adventure: driving through the mountains as the mishaps continue to stack up.

Part one of my disastrous Norway adventure: a road trip of camping mishaps, wrong turns and lessons learnt the hard way.

A short list of YouTube channels serving up great summer playlists full of remixes, chillout mixes and deep house tunes.