Tag Archives: writing

De-ICE Disco at the Googleplex

January 31, 2026 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

When Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered, and I saw the incredible courage of people in Minneapolis in the face of state brutality, I had to find some way to show that tech workers stand with Minnesota, even if our leaders don’t. I signed the ICEout petition, and I’d encourage you to do the same. I’ve also been talking to the press about why I signed it, and on the Wired Uncanny Valley podcast Kate Drummond asked what the next steps were for me. Off the cuff I said I wanted an in-person event, but at that point I had no idea what that might be.

As some of you know, I’ve been going to protests at the SF Tesla dealership since March 2025. The energy and solidarity I’ve experienced there has been a big part of what’s kept me going during all the dark times. Once I saw the incredible footage of Seth Todd facing off against federal agents in an inflatable frog costume in October I knew that was a way I could use my natural goofiness to fight what’s happening. I immediately bought the same costume (yes, I know, Amazon) and started attending the Tesla Takedowns in it. It seems to have had an impact, I encourage cars to honk in return for more dancing, and I often have other protestors, kids, and even passing tourists take selfies with me. For me personally, I enjoy finally getting to cosplay as someone 6′ 6”, and as an introvert who enjoys performing, being hidden inside a suit while drawing attention to the cause is perfect.

After the podcast, I realized I wanted to bring some of the energy from the Tesla protests to a tech event. I thought about setting up a meetup, but that felt too boring. Then I remembered how many of my former colleagues at Google have talked to me about wanting to show their support, but are struggling to find ways to have their voice heard without being targeted. Instead of a traditional protest with speeches, slogans, and signups, maybe we could find another way to be visible. I decided to get a few friends together in Charleston Park, a public park next to the Googleplex in Mountain View, and hold a popup dance party. De-ICE Disco sounded good to me, and so after TGIF, between 5pm and 5:30pm on Thursday (February 5th) we’ll be bopping around in inflatable costumes to disco classics. Join us, costume or not, to show ICE we won’t be intimidated, that we’ll protect our neighbors and colleagues when they come, and that we stand with Minneapolis.

I’ve never done anything like this before, but it’s the best way I can think of to show the world that there are Googlers and Xooglers who care, and to recognize the courage of those in Minnesota who are standing up to ICE at great personal risk. De-ICE Disco isn’t an organization, just an idea, and it’s not affiliated with ICEout.tech, but I’m hoping it will be another way to push back against what’s happening to our country. I’d love to see any of you who can make it on Thursday, and please do share with anyone else who might be interested. Let’s fight facism and have fun!

TV Shows I Love That Nobody’s Ever Heard Of

December 15, 2025 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

A big reason I started this blog (almost twenty years ago!) was to have a safe space to rant about things I’m obsessed with. One of those obsessions is TV, but growing up in the UK and living in the US most of my adult life has left me with tastes that don’t seem to match up with anyone’s demographic. That means I spend a lot of time trying to find shows that I enjoy, and while I hope I’m not a snob (I watched almost every 9-1-1 show, love Rob Lowe and Angela Bassett) I do sometimes discover obscure programs that I can’t believe aren’t better known. Here’s my brain dump of recent TV shows I’ve loved that I don’t feel like got the audiences they deserved.

Harlots

Despite the risque title and setting, this period drama is a razor-sharp examination of power, class, and gender politics. Based very loosely on a historical guide to the prostitutes of Covent Garden, the three seasons follow the fight of a group of women to find their own space and safety in 1760s London. It features some top-tier performances from actors like Lesley Manville, Kate Fleetwood (whose stunning cheekbones you may know from Wheel of Time), Holli Dempsey, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Liv Tyler. The story moves fast, it’s often a pitch-black comedy, and the stakes always feel high. In the US you can find its three seasons on Hulu.

Killjoys

This was a show that I thought I’d hate based on first impressions, but two seasons in I’m hooked. It’s a throwback to a time before scifi shows had to be prestige TV, a space western with a non-existent budget but strong writing that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It jumps right into archetypes we’ve seen before, but manages to breathe a lot of life into some stale cliches. It has hints of other Canadian productions like BSG and Orphan Black in its best moments, playing with a lot of the themes of identity, and always entertains. I’ve been watching it on Apple TV.

The Equalizer

I have to admit this one is a guilty pleasure. Did you know that Queen Latifah starred in an updated version of the old Edward Woodward show for five seasons? I love her, which helped me get through the crazily ridiculous plots of most episodes. She wears sweaters that only she could pull off, is a badass assassin, and generally has an incredible amount of fun onscreen. Sometimes I just need a show where I can turn off my brain and be swept along, and this definitely scratches that itch. I watch it on Amazon Prime.

The Bureau

A French spy thriller that focuses on the flow, denial, and corruption of intelligence in what feels like a very grounded and realistic way. Nobody here is 007, villains and heroes aren’t clearly separated, and everyone is working within larger systems that constrain their actions. A lot of the elements even felt familiar from my decades working in an office, going against the bureaucracy often leads to disaster, and unlike most US thrillers there’s a real price to pay for going rogue. The writing, world, and characters are fresh and absorbing, this show hooked me in a way few others have. I watched it on Amazon Prime.

This Fool

A Chris Estrada comedy set in LA, this show was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years. The whole cast is spot on, with Michael Imperioli giving a scene-stealing performance as the broken-down Unitarian minister running “Hugs not Thugs”, the non-profit that Chris’s uptight Julio is drawn into by his bad boy cousin, who’s trying to go straight. The comic chemistry between Julio and his cousin played by Frankie Quiñones is perfect, and Michelle Ortiz brings crazy-eyed energy as Julio’s sometime-girlfriend. Short and sweet, I watched this on Hulu.

Britannia

Game of Thrones’ deranged younger cousin, this show starts with Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man as the theme song, and gets weirder from there. Set during the Roman invasion of Britain, it manages to make the past seem truly alien in a way I’ve never seen before. It helps that David Morrissey, Zoe Wanamaker, McKenzie Crook, Kelly Reilly (you may know her from Yosemite) and Julian Rhind-Tutt (again) are absolutely committed to their roles. This is a world where everyone believes in spirits, gods, and demons to a terrifying extent, and the show does an excellent job leaving the viewer unsure of whether what they’re seeing is truly supernatural or just the consequences of fanatical belief. David Morrissey’s Roman general manages to be charming, even sympathetic, while behaving in monstrous ways, and Eleanor Worthington-Cox brings depth to a teenage role that could easily have been lightweight, even irritating if it wasn’t handled carefully. I watched it on Prime.

I’ve only made it partway down my mental list of shows I want to feature, but dinner calls, so I guess this post will be part of a series? Stay tuned for more, and let me know any shows that might fit my sensibilities in the comments!

Why does a Local AI Voice Agent Running on a Super-Cheap Soc Matter?

October 16, 2025 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 6 Comments

Most recent news about AI seems to involve staggering amounts of money. OpenAI and Nvidia sign a $100b data center contract. Meta offers researchers $100m salaries. VCs invested almost $200b in AI startups in the first half of 2025.

Frankly, I think we’re in a massive bubble that dwarfs the dot-com boom, and we’ll look back on these as crazy decisions. One of the reasons I believe this is because I’ve seen how much is possible running AI locally, with no internet connection, on low-cost hardware. The video above is one of my favourite recent examples. It comes from a commercial contract we received to help add a voice assistant to appliances. The idea is that when a consumer runs into a problem with their dishwasher, they can press a help button and talk to get answers to common questions.

What I’m most proud of here is that this is cutting-edge AI actually helping out with a common issue that many of us run into in our daily lives. This isn’t speculative, it’s real and running, and it doesn’t pose a lot of the ethical dilemmas other AI applications face. Here’s why I think this matters:

  • The consumer doesn’t have to do anything beyond pressing a button to use it. There’s no phone app to download, no new account to create, and no Wifi to set up. The solution works as soon as they plug the appliance in. This is important because less than half of all smart appliances ever get connected to the internet.
  • It’s using Moonshine and an LLM to do a much better job of understanding natural speech than traditional voice assistants. The questions I asked in the demo were off-the-cuff, I deliberately used vague and informal language, and it still understood me.
  • It addresses a genuine problem that manufacturers are already paying money to solve. They are currently spending a lot on call centers and truck rolls to help consumers. This solution has the potential to reduce those costs, and increase consumer satisfaction, by offering quick answers in an easy way.
  • Running locally means that audio recordings never have to go to the cloud, increasing privacy.
  • Local also means fast. The response times in the video are real, this is running on actual hardware.
  • This doesn’t require a GPU or expensive hardware. It runs on a Synaptics chip that has just launched, and will be available in bulk for low-single-digit dollars. This means it can be added to mass-market equipment like appliances, and even toys. Since it’s also able to run all the regular appliance control functions,  it can replace similarly-priced existing SoCs in those products without raising the price.
  • More functionality, like voice-driven controls, can easily be added incrementally through software changes. This can be a gateway to much richer voice interactions, all running locally and privately.

All these properties give local AI a much better chance to change our daily lives in the long term, compared to a chat bot that you access through a text box on a web page. AI belongs out in the world, not in a data center! If you agree, I’d love to hear from you.