Everything
A look back at six months of AI-assisted design, a newsletter that didn't stick, and why I'm moving my writing away from AI and back towards maths, data and code.
This blog is my life's work. Perhaps not yet, but eventually.
My site has just turned two years old, but it has worn many different faces over that time. I've constantly been tweaking and changing it, never quite happy with how it looked, but recently, I've taken a slightly different approach to designing it.
A few weeks ago, I went down a UI/UX design rabbit hole, listening to people talking, among other things, about using generative AI for web design. It turns out, much like how AI-generated text has a signature style that becomes easier to spot the more you look for it, AI-generated design also portrays a set of identifiable characteristics. Additionally, much like with AI-generated writing, AI designs are often perfectly passable and inoffensive.
They're... fine.
Back in June, I migrated my site over to Ghost. Ghost was the first publishing platform I've used that allowed me to code and upload my own custom theme to control the look of the site.
I added some custom code to the home page, created different types of posts that would render differently in the feed, and overall just had much more control over the design and layout than you can get with a drag-and-drop builder. I wrote more about the design process here.
While I chose the colour palette and fonts myself, and did weigh in quite a lot to tweak some elements on the page, the design was not mine. I relied quite heavily on AI to do it for me, and the result was quite generic and lacking in personality. It looked like any number of AI-generated portfolio/blog template sites out there.
So a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to try out something different. Still using AI to write the code, but personally asserting much more creative control over the design.
This site uses a Thematic Era approach to design.
I want my site to tell a story—to say something about me. The days of generic template sites and AI designs are no more.
Here's how it works:
In retiring this theme, I've decided to name it the "Show home"; perfectly neat and tidy but clearly not lived in and perhaps a little inauthentic.
The design used before I migrated to Ghost looked very similar to this one. In fact, I've been using this colour palette and layout broadly since around January of this year.
It was around that time that I decided to focus my writing more on generative AI, researching and producing guides, explainers, and tutorials on all things LLM. I also started a weekly newsletter that ran for 4 months.
Over time, I found that neither of these was what I wanted to do. I struggled with the tight turnaround of the newsletter, and the more informational-style content of simply reporting information without much depth of analysis or understanding just isn't the type of content I enjoyed working on.
I'll admit that I used AI a lot to help produce some of this content, both the newsletter and some of my older blog posts. Ultimately, it just made it unfulfilling and feel less like work I could be proud of. Since then, I've completely cut out using AI to help with my writing.
I write because I like making things, not because I like having things made.
Having taken a bit of a break from writing for a couple of months, I've had some time to reflect on what it is that I actually want to write.
Looking back at my archive, the posts that have been the most rewarding and the ones I'm most proud of are those where I've worked on a project or experiment and turned it into an educational topic exploration afterwards. This gives me the freedom to explore and understand without the self-inflicted pressure to turn the result into a post straight away. I also want to move away from writing about AI and instead focus more on data, machine learning, math, and classical computer science algorithms.
I owe a lot to this era. It's helped me to establish a personal brand, develop a really nice website (or at least I think so), and figure out what it is that I want to work on.
So with this in mind, let me leave you with the Show Home theme.
I created an animated logo and text for this site.
Updated 30 May 2026
Like it or not, it's here to stay. I figured we may as well try to figure out how to get the most out of it. With a recent change of direction, I'm not really writing the same technical, AI-literacy content anymore. But I'm still learning as much as I can behind the scenes. When I come across something interesting or impactful, I'll still share it. It just won't be the same tutorial-style guides that you'll see in my archives.
I really enjoyed my studies but I'm not sure I'd go back to academia again. Especially in a world with AI. I've carried on studying, learning and practising the ideas from the intersection of these fields. This is the focus of some of my oldest posts, and something I hope to focus on more in the not-so-distant future.
I used to be waist-deep in productivity and self-help YouTube, wading through the helpful and not-so-helpful advice from people on the internet. I do a lot of experiments with my health and fitness (not as dangerous as it sounds) and find putting systems in place the most effective way to start seeing meaningful change. It's not something I've written about much in the past, but something you might see going forward.
My site used to live on WordPress, then Wix, now I'm with Ghost. I first launched it in August 2024, and my content has changed direction many times in the 18 months since. I expect it will continue to do so going forward.
A lovely hike, great company, and incredible views over Crummock Water and Mellbreak Peak.
Who needs GPS when you can navigate with a piece of paper as long as you are tall.
A massive thanks to the guys who stopped to help with the car after parts started falling off. Absolute lifesavers!
June 27th 2026
Absolutely, it is. And what better way to begin than with a coffee?
This is one of my new post content types. I can share media, add captions, and have it presented in a more natural format in the feed.
Here's my current Obsidian vault graph. I posted about this setup recently, which you can read more about here. I'm really pushing the limits here, huh.
