Working in and writing about tech
Joined November 2025
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Zuboff showed us how platforms made trillion dollar businesses selling our behavioural data- Surveillance Capitalism.
Those aware were uncomfortable, but it quickly and quietly became normalised.
I wondered if we might reassess when it came to AI tools (1/?)
We didn’t. In fact, we’ve gone further. Just look at the access we’re giving OpenClaw even with disastrous consequences for some AI safety researchers…
This isn’t that people trust AI companies more than platforms- something else has shifted (2/?)
I often worry that I’ve outsourced my memory to the internet and research skills to LLMs. In an effort to regain control, I tried to find a pub quiz answer entirely offline in a quest that sent me across 3,000 years and 3 continents.
medium.com/p/bb1300faef16?po…
Left a pub quiz last week when I hit a question that I absolutely didn’t know the answer to - “Which rulers originally sat on the Peacock Throne?”
Embarking on a quest to find out the answer without search engines or LLMs.
Looking back at some photos from yesterday - this image of Subrahmanya definitely shows him on a form of Peacock Throne. Does it make sense to describe him as a ruler?
Rifled through some books in the bookshop which led me to the India gallery. Definitely a lot of peacock iconography in the 16/17th century and keeps being connected to Shravana (monsoon month)
Started to hit the peacock jackpot in one of the Middle East galleries - think we’re either looking at Iran or India- dates of these range from 19th century to 1990s though and I’m not sure that’s even the right date range
Florence sighting proved weirdly useful- earliest peacocks I can find across the ancient galleries are mosaics from Utica (Tunisia) 2/3AD.
But parking Roman Empire/Phoenicians - Roman history is inescapable and I’ve been to Carthage - never heard of a Peacock Throne for either
At a complete loss so have come to @britishmuseum in search of peacocks. I have a lot of ground to cover
Got a bit of a head start when I saw this 5AD mosaic in Florence’s Santa Maria last week - attribution says it’s made by African craftsmen. Confirms my feeling that trying to locate native peacocks might not help when they’re a universal symbol
Here’s my thinking so far. We’re looking for a monarchy, but I’ve hit two roadblocks in narrowing down where to look next
1) Peacocks have been imported globally for thousands of years
2) ‘originally’ might mean I find an example, but not the first
While we’re debating, investing and regulating AI’s use as a productivity tool, it’s increasingly used and monetised for its entertainment value. Quick article here medium.com/@technogonzo/ai-b…
App icons are becoming increasingly conceptual - any chance we'd know that round disk was a turntable if we weren't expecting to find a music tool?
"I miss when the internet was fun!"
Gen-Z are nostalgic for MySpace, Frutiger Aero and flip phones, but products recreating them fall flat.
I wanted to find out why we miss an internet we never experienced and why nostalgia isn't enough: medium.com/@technogonzo/if-g…
