Alistair Power

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Last post: Nov 1, 2026
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My take on AI in November 2026
Nov 1, 2026 · original
As someone creative who is also a SaaS product designer, I have an interesting and conflicted relationship with AI. (Not least because my name is Al (AL), and surname Power, and I have had several customers ask me if I'm a robot in chats due to my name!) While I fundamentally dislike what it's done to creative disciplines (illustration/art/music and a few more), hoovering up the world's knowledge and artwork, and stealing artists' styles, it's gotten to the point where it's so good it's impossible to ignore in many areas. I respect those who have taken the strong ethical stance and are proudly hand-crafting what they make, but certainly the way my industry is going, I would be foolish if I didn't use its capabilities. I do think there are people who are obsessed with it in both positive and negative ways: “My take on AI is, essentially, everybody who’s against it is too against it and ev
Autumn wanderings
Oct 23, 2026 · original
Despite the hot summer we had it was nice to see some autumn colour in Winkworth Arboretum and Wakehurst Place 🍂 A lot of leaves had already fallen due to storms and a lot were still green, but there were a few good red and yellow trees. Red Leaf shadows Tulip tree Leaf snuffler Red Look up Yellow Yellow burst
London in 35mm
Sep 22, 2026 · original
I spent a very fun afternoon up in London walking around the South Bank shooting street portraits with the Viltrox 35mm EVO F1.8 lens. It was marketed as an apochromatic lens, and I indeed found it very sharp with very little traces of fringing. Way wider than I usually shoot, so it took some getting used to, and I found it very hard to not either make people's legs too long or too short. I think next time I'm going to shoot 4-3 instead of 3-2 ratio, to get rid of the wider edges of the lens for portraits. Thanks as always to the good people of London for posing for street portraits. 💗💗💗
In search of blue
Jul 23, 2026 · original
Framelines is great. Basically where I hang out and talk shop, now that social media has gone the way of the algorithm.
Wildwood from LAIKA looks stunning
May 15, 2026 · original
Wildwood from LAIKA studios looks great. Seen a few behind-the-scenes online but the Teaser trailer looks magical. 🔗 https://www.alpower.com/2026-05-15-wildwood-from-laika-looks-stunning
Build vs buy in the age of AI
Mar 17, 2026 · original
Whatever your thoughts on AI, it’s pretty clear using LLMs to generate code is here to stay in the workplace. AI models have got so good at writing code, that at first glance, it seems trivial to blast out features that would have taken weeks. This naturally has got people asking the question: “If an AI can make this for me, why should I bother paying for this as a service from another company?” and considering building something themselves that it would have been too expensive to make previously. I’ve been to some AI meet ups where I’ve seen people from all walks of life make tools that are genuinely enabling them to do things they couldn’t do before - really inspiring. I’ve also looked at products I use personally, and thought “I can make that!” and had a go, to mixed results. So when the speed and cost of writing code has essentially reduced hugely, how do we know when to build vs buy
Pebble's ecosystem is flourishing
Mar 9, 2026 · original
Pebble is great because its open, simple design has fostered a uniquely vibrant app and watch face ecosystem that still “just works” more than a decade later. Constraints work. Quite tempted to try it. 🔗 https://www.alpower.com/2026-03-09-pebble-s-ecosystem-is-flourishing
Lego printing presses
Mar 9, 2026 · original
Dang - as a linoprinting nerd this is a really fun lego project. Hope it gets fully supported. 🔗 https://www.alpower.com/2026-03-09-lego-printing-presses
Your moat is now a bridge
Mar 5, 2026 · original
Interesting ideas on product interoperability from David Hoang: The defensible position isn’t lock-in anymore—it’s being the thing everything else connects to. If your platform is where value gets exchanged between tools, removing you breaks the whole workflow. The moat becomes a bridge: you win by making it easy for people to come through, not by making it hard for them to leave. ... They need open protocols and shared standards to do their job—they don’t care about ecosystem boundaries, they need to cross them. Previously SaaS products were all about lock-in and building walls. Users now want to do things with their data, work with their own AI model. At the moment I'd wager that this mainly applies to tech savvy A.I. early adopters, but the writing is on the wall. As A.I. use trickles out to peoples phones and become more accessible and in general use, people will start to expect this
Shades of halftone
Mar 4, 2026 · original
Fascinating deep dive into halftones. 🔗 https://www.alpower.com/2026-03-04-shades-of-halftone
Harlequin SQL IDE for your terminal
Mar 4, 2026 · original
This looks very useful for anyone who a) likes the terminal and b) does database work. 🔗 https://www.alpower.com/2026-03-04-harlequin-sql-ide-for-your-terminal
Good vibes bad vendors
Mar 4, 2026 · original
Thoughtful post from Ben on the challenges of the A.I. coding landscape. Treating the technology as a tool and keeping humans in control is key. 🔗 https://www.alpower.com/2026-03-04-good-vibes-bad-vendors
Gent, Belgium
Jan 17, 2026 · original
While on the work trip, I had a lovely day trip exploring Gent.
London Night Photography
Nov 22, 2025 · original
Last November I had the joy of attending a night photography workshop with Michael Wilson , someone whose photography I had long admired. It was a fun evening of a series of creative exercises around various parts of London. A little bit of instruction, and then set off for fifteen-20 minutes to try and capture things on a theme before reconvening. We did this a few times and then ended up having a well deserved pint. It was a thoroughly fun evening and proof that constraints do indeed breed creativity.
From connection to consumption - the death of social media
Oct 19, 2025 · original
Remember when social media was actually social? We used to publish on our own blogs and share photos on Flickr. Then Twitter and Instagram arrived, promising easier ways to follow friends and see what they were up to. We flocked to them. For a while, it worked, but there was always an end goal to make money — the rot was inevitable. My chronological feed of friends became an algorithmic feed of ads and content I never asked for. Now it's endless reels, viral slop, and the occasional cat video when I slow down enough to need reeling back in. I rarely see posts from people I actually follow. The option often exists, but it's never the default. Yet I still find myself on Instagram like a dopamine addict, looking up 45 minutes later, wondering where the time went. If you don't pay for something, you are the product. We're eyeballs for advertisers. This is exactly what happened to social medi

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