James Aylett

@james.tartarus.org

724 Followers 492 Following

He/him. Thinking about books & art & narrative & drama ... and the future. Previously professionally worried about privacy and AI (now only in a personal capacity). If I don't follow you it doesn't mean I don't like you. https://tartarus.org/james/

Uncle Axel shook his head disapprovingly again. 'Women like to think they're in love when they want to marry; they feel it's a justification which helps their self-respect,' [he ...]
A screenshot from an email client of a subject line that is intended to be read as "Reminder: You have a new message!" but has spaces in places you don't expect, leaving it as "Y o u h a v e a n e w m e s sa ge !"
A screenshot of a webpage section with the heading "Stage Times", containing two times: doors at 7pm, curfew at 11pm, and a note that "stage times are subject to change and published where available". It is unclear whether door and curfew times are subject to change (in theory door times can change) or whether they might be unavailable in some circumstances, such as close to a scheduled Apocalypse.
An ad with a headline "£20.50 cash back!", but if you read the fine print it turns out you have to pay £18 per month to join some undescribed "third party partner programme" called Complete Savings that could be raising funds to burn down forests, or kidnap cute dogs, or just scam you out of your savings. And then you get the cashback *next* time you order from Deliveroo. It's marked bottom right as "sponsored", with a disclaimer that the £20.50 value is nothing to do with how much I spent with Deliveroo, and presumably someone at Deliveroo hopes that this is enough to avoid any blowback if the entire "partner programme" turns out to be illegal.
A screen from a webpage where images haven't loaded but the alt text is much longer than the image boxes. In blue text on white, down the side of the image reads "An image of" five times, giving an impression of infinite regress or some kind of philosophical statement.
A very rough sketch by fountain pen of a slightly built person from shoulders up. They have a strong jawline and long hair and are looking at you with slightly unfocussed eyes although that may be because the ink lines are too thick for the size of sketch.
A screenshot from an email where images haven't loaded (because who loads images in emails?). Text in black on white at the top says "rate your experience" followed by four square boxes with a broken image indicator and no way to differentiate them. Tag yourself. I'm the broken image that's just left of centre.
A graph with a time axis, showing approximately the last six months. Until some point after the "January 2026" label, there are little spikes. After, it's more like a craggy cliff face ascending into the clouds, several times higher than the earlier little spikes.
A drawn / shadow cast scene of a man prostrate in front of his queen. He is on the left, kneeling with his face pressed to the floor, his arms pointing straight up with palms towards his queen. She sits on a solid chair, pointing beyond him (as if banishing him) with a skinny arm. What appears to be hair flows back from her head as if blown by wind. Her face could be aristocratic, slightly aliens, or possibly the faceplate of a helmet. She's wearing pointy boots that probably hurt her feet, unless her feet are as skinny as her arm in which case she's fine. The figures and chair are silhouettes and appear as translucent browns, her lighter and more translucent and him darker and more solid. Beneath them is a scrubby brown floor, on either side are red curtains, and at the top of the image is a blue drape making the framing feel a little like a proscenium. There is a lot of light coming in from the top right, washing out the drapes and curtains, and causing the different colours and translucency of the figures.
A hardback copy of Puppets and Puppet Theatre by David Currell lies on a light wooden table. The book cover depicts several puppets (I believe they are all marionettes) made by John Wright for Little Angel Theatre, photographed by John Roberts.
A 1980s Head branded sports bag, looking somewhat the worse for wear. The bag looks like a squishy long cuboid (rather than the cylinder of the referenced red and black bag in the QP) with double zips on the top, a long shoulder strap plus carrying straps on each side which are attached using metal loops that match the zip pulls and the loops and adjustment buckle on the shoulder strap. There is a zipped end pocket on the left. The bag is grey as are the zippers, the carrying and support straps and piping are in turquoise with turquoise stitching, and the metal hardware is gold coloured. The Head logo is in a triangular patch which looks like meta but might be fabric, set on a slightly larger triangular fabric patch in turquoise in the centre of one side of the bag.
The Anakin and Padme 4 panel meme. They are sitting in a field of tall grass and are both dressed like space hippies as imagined by George Lucas. 1. Anakin, looking smug like he's just invented pizzas: "We're going to organise the world's information" 2. Padme, happy that the love of her life not only has a goal in life but is comfortable sharing it with him: "to help people use it, right?" 3. Anakin looks serious, like he's remembered that the perfect pizza involves sacrificing your morals and everyone you have ever held dear to you, but that he has long ago decided that pizza is more important. He says nothing. 4. Padme, who is now not smiling - as if a cold wind has blown across her soul: "to help people use it, right?"
An attention-getting UI element for a Google chat widget. To the right is the chat launcher, a "conversation" icon in white on a blue circular background. To its left is a white rounded rectangle with a grey border and black text on white acting as a speech bubble: "Hi there 👋 What brings you to Google Workspace today?" There is a white-on-grey 'x' button to the top left of the speech bubble, presumably to close the speech bubble but not remove the chat launcher.
A place sitting, photographed from above. A napkin folded and placed with the long end horizontal in the photo sits at the bottom, a stone cup containing water top left, and a pair of chopsticks on a stone rest is in the center with the rest to the left, the chopsticks again horizontal in the photo. They are laid out simply but pleasingly. Everything is white except the chopsticks which are brown. They all sit on a lighter brown wood table, with a visible grain running top to bottom of the image. There are shadows below and to the right of each object, most evident for the water cup.
"Gender" selector on a website with options "Male", "Female", "Intersex", "Prefer Not To Say".
A set of email preferences for wob.com, with the following options: * Wob.com Emails * Wob Research * No Surveys Please * Wob.com Double Opt In The first two are described after the labelled checkbox. The third has the description "Tick this to opt out of any Market Research in the Future", so it's an opt out rather than an opt in. The last has no further description. The first checkbox (emails) is checked, the others are unchecked.
A Window in Windows that contains a Window. This is a screenshot of the top right "control" portion of a Windows 11 window, with minimise, maximise and close buttons in pale grey on dark grey. Immediately below it is another set of window controls, in the earlier colour sccheme of white with dark grey borders on the icons, with the buttons being very pale blue with a slightly less dark grey border. This is Windows inception: a Windows 10/11 window containing a window emulating an earlier version of Windows.
The poster for the movie Clockwise, written by Michael Frayn and starring John Cleese. The title is in pink near the bottom, with "Monty Python's John Cleese In" above and usual movie credits text beneath it, all over a blue-and-white fluffy clouds kind of a background which is pale at the bottom (where the title and credits are dark text over it) fading to dark at the top, where the strapline is in white: "Mr Stimpson ran his life and everyone else's by the clock. Then one day at 2:09 and 43 seconds... The clock decided to strike back." The centre of the image is John Cleese, dishevelled in a torn suit with his trousers rucked exposing his bare ankles and lower calves. He is wedged between two giant clockfaces: a fairly classical "school clock" kind of a style with black text and hands on white faces with fat rims that look brass but are probably painted plastic. The one on the left is at around 1.24; the one on the right at 9.43.
Photo of a bookstore window, taken on an angle like I'm pretending to be cool or something. The store name is in blue, yellow and pink neon style lights: theBestBookstore. Beneath it are display shelves of books, hard to make out because of the reflection in the window of the shops opposite.
It's a lot of bones. On the right are three skulls, sans jawbone, on a pale background. The ground gets slightly darker to the left where there's just a big pile of bones. Skulls and thigh bones, piled on each other. Someone made this their place. Someone had fun.
A photo of a suit of armour, captioned "A suit of armour, not allowed in Parliament". The armour is silver coloured, I'm not an armour specialist but it looks like solid chunks of metal so I'm guessing that's plate armour? It's full body, everything covered in metal. It stands jauntily on a short square black plinth against a white background. Something about the photo makes it look like a tiny model, but Wikipedia says this is 169cm tall (possibly including the plinth) and was made in Milan so less likely to have been worn in the UK much anyway.
A digital screen showing the message 'support.google.com is blocked' with a note that "your organisation doesn't allow you to view this site". The text is black on white, with an information icon (the letter 'i' in a circle) above. Reflected in the screen are some ceiling lights in white and yellow, making it clear this is in at least a communal if not a public space.
A configuration setting in Apple Podcast Connect, for a feature called "Timed Links" which is in beta. It doesn't matter what timed links are, which is described in the screenshot (but cut off because that's not the bit that's annoying); what matters is that the checkbox which controls this feature isn't labelled something useful like "Enable Timed Links for this podcast", but "PCC.Show.Availability.MediaLinks.CheckboxMessage".
An email confirmation box asking if I meant the same email but at hotmail.com, a domain I haven't thought of in more than a decade. It has a cherry yellow theme visible as a stripe down the left edge and in the colour of the 'yes' button while 'no' and the rest of the text is black on white
specifically promoting hateful content or being disruptive to other users. We take these guidelines seriously to ensure a safe and respectulf environment for all our users.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with three Dinos in the sand. The angle is low so we can't see the mouths of the front two, a Stegosaurus looking Dino and a Triceratops like one (we don't like to pry). Behind them is a brachiosaur of some description, whose elevated head we can see over the stegosaur but not its mouth which is obscured. Behind all of them, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos who seem to be fighting, their heads butted up against each other. The one on the right is smaller and is being pushed from underneath by the larger one who either did rugby or wrestling as a Dinolette. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies.
A screenshot from a WashPo promotional email, in black text on a white background, for their automated lying machine. The headline is "Built on facts. Powered by conversation." Then there's a single paragraph: Ask The Post AI is fueled by trusted reporting and your curiosity. Where will your next question take you? And finally the call to action button, which is white on blue: "Start your conversation"
A concertina interface for FAQs showing just the top question: "How will the two days works?"
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with a single Dino in the sand. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dino is coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on its belly. Its head is slightly drooping, not looking at the camera, as if it's sad.
Two pigs seen through the dark bars of the wire fencing surrounding their paddock. The one close to the camera basks in the sun, it's brown skin glowing. The other is farther away, dark in the shade of trees and is snuffling around for things on the ground.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with a red and mauve segmented creature in the sandpit, kind of like a small spiny sandworm. It is partly beneath the sand, and has left strange meandering tracks in the sand behind it. Behind it, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. Off to the left, peeking over the edge of the desk toy, a single Dino stands pondering the creature and its sand tracks. It is coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on its belly.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with three Dinos approaching on the desk. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools and a flying Dino. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. In front is an octopus, mauve on its top fading to cyan on the tips of its tentacles. It is looking at you.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with a Dino approaching on the desk. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dino is coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on its belly.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with three Dinos climbing out of the sand towards you. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. One is rearing like a horse.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos. The flying one is walking in the sand. The walking one is trying to climb the mountain which forms the back of the desk toy, and which contains sand tools. Behind that are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos either side of a furrough raked in the sand. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. Both Dinos look towards you, inquisitive and playful.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with a Dino lying on the sand which has been spread around by it wriggling back and forth, like a sand angel but it's a dinosaur. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dino is coloured yellow at the top through orange and then green on their belly.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with four Dinos, three standing on the sand and one flying Dino dangling off a mountain which is at the back of the desk toy behind the sand. Behind that are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. There isn't much room.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos and some Dino tracks in the sand. The Dino on the right is tall and looks like it made the tracks, facing right and away from the camera. The Dino on the left is a flying type, currently crouched on the sand and looking more towards the camera. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and cables. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies.
A desk toy sand garden with a mountain that contains sand tools, sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos walking towards it from the left. Behind the Dinos and the desk toy are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with ripples in the sand but absolutely no Dinos. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and some cables, the edge of a monitor stand at the back on the right.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos, one either side of wavey pines raised in the sand suggesting a stream. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. That's it, that's the photo.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with a Dino meeting a small wriggly dragon like creature. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dino is coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. The dragon is red and pink and seems to be burrowing into the sand, or out of the sand, or just through the sand. Definite burrowing action.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with one Dino looking at a question mark dragged out in the sand. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that is a laptop. The Dino is coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on its belly.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos linked on sand with faint furroughs across it. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. One of them looks at you cheekily, the other is too busy snouting around in the sand.
Screenshot of a Google AI Overview for the search "paul eddington iain richardson mustard advert" although the last bit is truncated. The overview is: The Grey Poupon mustard commercials featuring Paul Eddington and lan Richardson are well-known for their sophisticated, comedic portrayal of class and luxury. In the commercial, the two actors are on the Orient Express, with Richardson asking Eddington if he has any Grey Poupon. Eddington replies "But of course," and gestures for his driver to speed away, implying they are playing the roles of British Prime Ministers Jim Hacker and Francis Urquhart from the TV series Yes, Prime Minister and House of Cards respectively, according to Wikiwand. The commercials were popular and helped solidify Grey Poupon's image as a high-end condiment.
A Deezer SERP showing like a million versions of last night's mascara by Griff before getting to Last Night's Mascara by Brynn Cartelli.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two Dinos at the edge of a sloping dune of sand. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. The Dinos look ready for adventure.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with one Dino standing between two furtoughs in the sand, and a flying Dino further back looking on. To the left and in front of the flying Dino, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies and the front edge of the flying Dino's wings.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with a dinosaur and an octopus on either side of a ridged furrow in the sand, as they are meeting across a valley or a stream. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos is coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. The octopus is mauve fading to cyan at the bottom. Both look nonplussed.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two dinosaurs at the edge of a ridged furrow in the sand, as if it is a river and they are drinking. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. One of them has its face totally in the sand stream.
A desk toy sand garden sitting on a white desk, with two dinosaurs gathered round a rather large footprint in the sand. Behind, part of the desk toy, is a mountain which contains sand tools. Behind that, out of focus, are normal desk things: a laptop and a headset. The Dinos are coloured yellow at the top through orange and the green on their bellies. One of them appears to be sniffing the footprint.
Former UK Chancellor Georger Osborne, doing the Conservative Party Conference Pose, which entails putting your feet just far too wide and slightly awkwardly pointed in, while standing like a Ken doll that no one wants to play with. He did not rupture anything, and apparently has made a full recovery. I mean he's still a Tory and generally wrong about the world, but other than that.
A desk toy. But what a toy! It's a circular sand garden with sand lapping up against a volcano. Perched on the volcano's peak is a flying dino or pterosaur of some sort. Two land dinos are in front of the sand container but from this high angle we can't tell if they're looking at the ground or something in front of them. Whatever it can't be that interesting because a third land dino behind them and off to the left is bored and trying to climb back into the sand garden. The dinos are brightly coloured and the container and volcano are brown. The sand is very light grey or stone coloured and has been raked into sloppy lines running left to right, curved slightly round the volcano.
A photo of a desk, with desk things in the background like a laptop and someone else's desk. In the foreground is a small colourful triceratops toy, and behind and to the right is a large container with more toy dinosaurs. Most of them are looking at you. Yes, at you. They are curious with maybe a touch of concern. Are you here to plunder their lands, or be friends? You should be friends. Behind the dinos there are some tiny toy tools - a rake is clearly visible - because the container is a sand garden, although you can't see that.
Name and logo of St John Ambulance. The text is on the left in black sans serif lettering. The logo is on the right and is the Maltese cross: a black circle containing a white star made up of four arrowheads painting inward, their tips meeting at the centre of the circle.
Exploded pie chart titled "committee political balance (seats)". The unexploded bit is about three quarters of a circle, and is red labelled 5. The exploded bit is equally split between a red and a blue segment each labelled 1. Beneath this is a legend. Blue is CON (Conservative), red is LAB and... another red is Lab (both Labour although presumably one is Labour and Cooperative).
The most recent pope was Francis, who died on 21 April 2025. The current pope is unknown since white smoke appeared after the papal conclave.
A scene from the Better off Ted episode "Jabberwocky". Four Japanese scientists, all wearing white lab coats with the Veridian Dynamics logo on, are standing in a lab - there are a few hints of high tech stuff but the focus is on the scientists so we can't see much. At least one of them, the only woman, looks like she really doesn't want to be there; two others are either resigned to whatever is going on or just avoiding showing an emotion in front of their boss, who is offscreen. The front scientist is looking at a folder with a single sheet of paper, and has just said "there must be a page missing".