State of the Themes: June 2026

Updating Our Thematic Universe

Becoming unLLMable

slides + transcript of my presentation at the Sana AI Summit in Stockholm

2026-04-25

Thoughts about design, code, technology and everything in between.

Why we’re still obsessed with 90s aesthetics in 2026

Decoding the visual cycle: how tactile 90s aesthetics bridge the gap between sterile tech and human emotion in 2026.

We Build On Hope @ PublicSpaces Conference 2026

Keynote by Robin Berjon The current state of tech can feel disheartening. Years of critical analysis and reform efforts have left us with a digital sphere that seems worse than ever. In Europe, our...

Topics — Real Life

ABOUT TOPICS: Since we began Real Life in the summer of 2016, we’ve run many essays across a range of topics, with a particular focus on the personal and cultural implications of living with technology. Our aim is not to track the news cycle so much as the longstanding social issues that inform and transcend it. We wanted to make it easier to read and explore Real Life beyond our chronological archive, so we’ve created these Topics to gather in one place the work we’ve published on some key themes. More Topics will be added to this page over time.

Live blog: Code w/ Claude 2026

I’m at Anthropic’s Code w/ Claude event in 2026, and I’ll be live blogging the keynote and a few other notes throughout the day.

Imagination: a manifesto

One of The Millions's Most-Anticipated Books of Winter 2024 In this revelatory work, Ruha Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future

Mindmap June 6, 2026

Stuff I'm thinking about

Talk recordings and photos for 2026

This year’s Local-First Conf is a warp. Here are the talk recordings from day 1 and 2. Buzz 3rd year at @localfirstconf.com What keeps me coming back isn't...

Predicting the Present

To quote Stewart Brand: This present moment was once the unimaginable future.

Making Sense of Open-Source: Ideals, Reality, and What's on the Horizon - December, 3 2025 | Notion

🗓️ Luma event description