Monday, 5th January 2026
Oxide and Friends Predictions 2026, today at 4pm PT (via) I joined the Oxide and Friends podcast last year to predict the next 1, 3 and 6 years(!) of AI developments. With hindsight I did very badly, but they're inviting me back again anyway to have another go.
We will be recording live today at 4pm Pacific on their Discord - you can join that here, and the podcast version will go out shortly afterwards.
I'll be recording at their office in Emeryville and then heading to the Crucible to learn how to make neon signs.
It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons (via) Devastating critique of the new menu icons in macOS Tahoe by Nikita Prokopov, who starts by quoting the 1992 Apple HIG rule to not "overload the user with complex icons" and then provides comprehensive evidence of Tahoe doing exactly that.
In my opinion, Apple took on an impossible task: to add an icon to every menu item. There are just not enough good metaphors to do something like that.
But even if there were, the premise itself is questionable: if everything has an icon, it doesn’t mean users will find what they are looking for faster.
And even if the premise was solid, I still wish I could say: they did the best they could, given the goal. But that’s not true either: they did a poor job consistently applying the metaphors and designing the icons themselves.