Reviews

Reading Breakneck by Dan Wang

Few books capture our accelerating era like Dan Wang’s Breakneck: global, personal, and clear-eyed about what drives modern change.

ChatGPT

From Free to Paid: Choosing the Right AI Model (with a European Lens)

Building on Ethan Mollick’s excellent ‘Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now’, this article explores how to choose between the leading AI systems. And what a European perspective adds when moving from free to paid use.

Tools

Rediscovering Google Cloud Search

Google Cloud Search offers a quiet form of productivity: not by summarising, but by helping you find exactly what you’ve created across your own Google Workspace. A reminder that clarity comes before interpretation.

The Silent Upgrade: What Really Changed When Our Bank Replaced Our Cards

Our bank quietly replaced our cards. Everything worked, yet behind that smooth process lies a major shift in how payments and digital identity work.

ChatGPT

When Research Turns Into Action: Understanding Deep Research vs. Agent Mode in ChatGPT

Both modes inside ChatGPT seem to “think”, yet one begins to “do”. Exploring the quiet shift from analysis to operation in everyday AI tools.

Knowledge Engineering

When Bots Become Readers: Publishing in the Age of AI Crawlers

Listening to Matthew Prince on Azim Azhar’s podcast made me reflect on who actually reads my blog. People (like you), machines, or both.

AI

When AI Makes the Calendar Click

A hotel booking, a single prompt, and a small glimpse of how AI quietly starts to understand our everyday tools.

The Hidden History Behind an Email Signature in Apple Mail

After thirty years of wrangling with e-mail quirks, this is the simple method that finally made Apple Mail behave and it still makes me smile.

Tools

Tracing and Telling: From GPX Tracks to KML Stories

GPX shows where you went. KML explains what it means. With Komoot and AI, maps become not just navigation tools but narratives.

AI

From Hype to Workflows: Where AI’s Real Shift is Happening

We expected AI to change everything overnight. Instead, progress is hidden in pilots and processes. The sinkhole is forming beneath us.

Future of Work

AI’s Impact on Work, People, and Labour Law

AI drives growth and efficiency, but also reshapes rights, rules, and daily work. A look at the double effect of AI on organisations and labour law.

Identity

Decentralised Identity: Prove What You Must, Reveal No More Than You Need

To access content or services, we often give away more than we should. Decentralised identity lets us prove facts without exposing our digital selves.

AI

Oracle’s Surprise Role in the AI Economy

Oracle’s return to AI relevance shows how capital is flowing upstream. From apps to infrastructure. Training fits their strengths, inference remains a question.

Sovereignty

From Sand to Software: A Whistle-Stop Tour of the AI Value Chain

AI may look like pure software, but it rests on a fragile chain of quartz, optics, fabs, and GPUs. This post traces the journey, stop by stop.

AI

Why I Keep Mixing Up Hortensia, Hibiscus and Rhododendron

A mix-up of flower names becomes a window into how human memory works and how it contrasts with AI models.

Sovereignty

Investing in Atoms: Alain le Loux on Building the Deeptech Future

Deeptech demands patience, guts, and hands-on conviction. This article profiles Alain le Loux and the rare venture model behind Europe’s hardware hopes.

Identity

Streams and Archives: Two Ways of Living with Our Digital Data

Personal data lives in two worlds: flowing streams of fresh information and enduring archives of credentials. Both shape our digital future.

Knowledge Engineering

From Ideas to Precision: Why I Use Mermaid with LLMs

Image generation is messy for structure. With Mermaid + LLMs, diagrams become clear, tweakable, and practical. A real tool for strategy and logic.

Sovereignty Featured

An interview on the structural gaps holding Europe back in deeptech

Deeptech isn’t SaaS. It’s often slow, risky, physical and still underfunded in Europe. What’s behind the gap with the US? A rare cross-Atlantic perspective.

Google

Chrome, Gemini Nano, and the Browser as AI Platform

The AI race is moving into the browser. Experiments with local models helped me recognise Chrome’s Gemini Nano for what it is.

AI

AI Fine-Tuning for Non-Engineers

Compact AI models make fine-tuning possible for non-engineers. I tried it myself and learned how AI becomes portable, local and real.

Europe

Wero: Europe’s new payment brand

Wero is Europe’s bid for payment sovereignty: pay across borders with just an email or phone number, without relying on US networks.

Sovereignty

From Shopping Cart to Server Rack: How Lidl Builds a European Cloud

From groceries to gigabytes: how Lidl’s parent turned its retail IT backbone into STACKIT, a sovereign cloud based in Germany and Austria.

AI

Running GPT-OSS Locally: What OpenAI Just Made Possible (And What It Didn't)

OpenAI released GPT‑OSS under an open licence. Here's what that really means, how I ran it on a Mac mini, and where you might start experimenting too.

AI

Model Cards, System Cards and What They’re Quietly Becoming

What are AI model cards, and why are they becoming the documents regulators will turn to first? I read a few and it taught me more than I expected.