Month: January 2026

Words

I’ve spent the last three days trying to write a post (since Thursdays are my self-imposed deadline) only to find each of them ring hollow. The ridiculous or silly seems too silly and the sincere, but UX-oriented, drafts feel hollow.

And then I saw a headline that indicates the governor of Minnesota has deployed the National Guard to protect Americans from Americans.

So I’ll say this: it’s was a damn hard thing being an American this last week, and it’ll be a damn sight harder next week.

We are all surrounded by different levels of trauma. Personal tragedies. Political catastrophes. Existential trauma. Some of them we can step past, and some of them stop us in our tracks.  I don’t know which one tomorrow will be.

Anyone who tells you that you’re expected to put in your best work while your world is falling over has expectations that no human can reach. It is okay not to reach them.

On January 6, 2021, my manager Josh Smith called a meeting while we were all watching the attempted overthrow of the government in real time. In essence, he said “It’s okay if you call it a day”. None of us were going to get anything done. But the answer was neither to hide from it nor to wallow in it alone. The answer was to say “This is important, and it’s painful, and I’m traumatized. And that’s okay.”

If you have to lead this week, be that kind of leader.

It’s okay if you call it a day.

Ridiculous things: The AI is trying to identify my dog

Jessie is the Jack Russel Terrier that we had when we first got married. Admittedly, we picked her up at the SPCA, and this was before there were DNA tests that would tell you what kind of dog she was, so we can’t be sure that she’s a JRT [1]You might know the Jack Russel as the Parson Russel Terrier, the Russel Terrier, or “that ornery creature that won’t let go of the rabbit out in the yard”.

Jessie lived during a time when artificial intelligence was called “spellcheck”.

So now it’s 25 years since we got her and Apple Photos has decided that it’s going to use AI to label my dogs. Which is fine, but I’d really like it to make up its mind.

To that end, I put forward, the many flavors of Jessie.

A brown and white jack russel standing at the end of a sofa to look out the window, overlaid with a text box describing a smooth fox terrier, complete with picture of a tall dog that looks nothing like my very short dog.
Smooth fox terrier…
Same brown and white jack russel, from above. She's laying on a blue rug and chewing a large rope toy next to a table leg. A text box is overlaid on top of her describing a brown and white basset hound, which is pictured in the text box. Her ears aren't nearly that long.
Basset hound?
The same brown and white jack russel standing in front of the leg of a rocking chair, on a brown rug that almost matches her spots, with a text window and picture describing a basenji
Basenji?! Really?!?
A young woman in her 20s with short red hair and glasses watching the same brown and white jack russel chew on a canvas stuffed toy resembling a rolled up newspaper. A text box is overlaid over the dog describing a jack russel terrier that is still taller than my dog.
Finally, a Jack Russel! Thank goodness it didn’t try to guess what I was!

So yeah, apparently the folks making image identifiers are still working on the craft.

Notes

Notes
↑1 You might know the Jack Russel as the Parson Russel Terrier, the Russel Terrier, or “that ornery creature that won’t let go of the rabbit out in the yard”