Darren Shaw

Snails and Ponds May 2026

AI

  1. I work at Autotrader, where we have a great delivery platform and a set of AI tools both driven by Karl. The team I work in is getting a lot from Copilot and ATAI, but we’ve been struggling to figure out how to help junior developers with them. Nobody has the answer, but Rethinking Growing Engineers in the Age of AI has some good advice.
  2. AI and Jobs was interesting, but I then read Benedict Evans. Nobody has the answer.
  3. Tech CEOs don’t seem to realise just how anti-human their AI fanaticism is from PC Gamer - again!
  4. What the computerisation of Wall Street can teach us about AI, from O’Reilly.

Other

  1. A Map of Us is the sort of thing I can get lost in. This is what the pre-algorithm Internet was like. It reminded me of (the now archived) Hey From The Future.
  2. Line scan photography is a future project I have ideas for.
  3. Talking about what makes a good development team at work, I referenced the Valve employee handbook as an example of actually doing things differently.
  4. I will always read articles about colour. The color of the Future maps out the different versions of blue and why we have them.
  5. Most are not, but UK service stations can be excellent (see Tebay and Gloucester). The Beauty of Transport wrote about 226 Garages and Service Stations by Philip Butler.

Reading

I read a lot this month, mainly because I listened to audiobooks while I was decorating.

  1. Replay is a more interesting Groundhog Day.
  2. I Who Have Never Known Men is a more compelling The Handmaid’s Tale.
  3. Careless People made me really appreciate how un-cool the super wealthy tech nerds are.
  4. Unnatural Causes is a glimpse into a world I know nothing about.
  5. The Governor was too.
  6. How to Build Impossible Things. A bit random, but an easy listen. Worth it for the rooftop pond and snail story.
  7. The Lives of Lee Miller. One person can do so much stuff.

Listening To

  1. Shakira. Saving the World Cup with Dai Dai. More appearances than Gerard Piqué. I’m also here for her 2010 Waka Waka at Glastonbury.
  2. Romy’s Mid Air is one of the few albums from the 2020s I’ll be listening to for the rest of my life. I love her own songs (the new one with Planningtorock is soaring), but also her taste in late 90s/early 2000s music. Her Boiler Room set is how the world should sound.
  3. The new Kacey Musgraves album is her best since Golden Hour. Upbeat tearjerkers.

Notes from 2026

Notes from 2025

Notes from 2019

Notes from 2018

Notes from 2017

Notes from 2016

Projects Photos

I Love Muted Tones

I've collected fashion and portrait pictures for years. I've got thousands. I have a good sense of what I like but what if I organise them by colour palette and model?

Algorithmic Twombly

My favourite things at the Louvre Abu Dhabi were Cy Twombly's Untitled I-IX paintings. They're structured but chaotic and beautifully imperfect.

Flow-vis for Net-A-Porter

What does a day's trading at Net-A-Porter look like? Taking inspiration from Formula 1's use of flow-vis paint, I came up with a visualisation for a YNAP hackday.

YNAP Hackday Poster

The most significant colours sampled from the product images of the top 1024 clothing products on Net-A-Porter, organised by hue.

Should Have Been Listening to Phoebe Bridgers

Spotify's Wrapped is very shareable but what if it took a longer term view? What if it considered the full thirteen years I've been with Spotify?

My Favourite Net-A-Porter Colour is Black

Net-A-Porter's Spring Summer 2022 marketing campaign, "Go for Bold", centred around a collection of colourful products. Marketing wanted to add a technology element and one idea was to use palettes as a route to finding products. Ultimately this was binned, but I built it anyway.

Has Roger Federer Perspired?

That Roger Federer does not sweat had become ingrained thinking, the sort of idea we were looking to challenge. Was it real or just a lazy cliche? We had IBM’s Wimbledon match data for all the top players and using Weather Underground we pulled in temperature data for those matches. This let us see the number of matches played by player and temperature.

Physical Web and Physical Meetings

As an experiment in using the Physical Web I wanted to create a voting system for physical meetings. A meeting would have a current question and attendees could vote with one click. There would be no entering URLs, downloading apps, or scanning QR codes.

Hello!

I'm Darren Shaw. I'm a software developer at Autotrader. Previously I worked at Zopa, Net-A-Porter and IBM. These are my side projects. Away from work I also play at being a portrait photographer.

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