I’ve long struggled with how to start this blog, only to come to the realisation that it is nothing but a collection of thoughts for myself. As an artist, I feel deeply & words offer a precision that images cannot. Whether you find my thoughts worth your time or not, the fact that you are here means I appreciate you.
Saturday 23 May 2026
Video Games in 2026
This might be a cliche thing to say but I grew up through the golden era of gaming. My first console was a hand-me-down Sega Master System when The Sega MegaDrive (Genesis) was the latest and greatest. I played Alex the Kid which was built into the console and I had Sonic 2 which to this day is still my favourite game of the era, possibly of all time.
I witnessed Mario go from a few pixels to the world of 3D. I played Grand Theft Auto when it was just called Grand Theft Auto and lived through the evolution from Birds Eye view to the 3D era. GTA III to this day is my most played and favourite video game of all time.
I was addicted to Call of Duty at a point in my life - Black Ops 2 was the last one I played and having seen the jump from GoldenEye64 to the latest and greatest AAA+ Call of Duty, the future of gaming felt like it was in great hands. GTA IV on the PS3 was incredible and I bought a PS4 for the sole purpose of playing the GTA V story in 2012.
I haven't played many games since then. I've still been 'into' gaming but I don't have a current gen console nor did I have a PC powerful enough to play the latest and greatest - nor the time. I never played Skyrim but I played Oblivion. I never played fallout 4 but loved fallout 3 and New Vegas.
Looking at the current state of gaming I really feel like things haven't progressed much at all in the past 20 years - besides more pixels, micro transactions and RTX, what do we have now that we didn't have already? GTA 5 is still the best selling game of 2026? Something is terribly wrong with what once was the fastest moving industry our culture had to offer.
Find me a current game that's a better gaming experience than The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Half Life, Bioshock, Fallout New Vegas, Max Payne, THPS. Even the remasters and definitive editions of these games are a sub par experience to the originals in my opinion.
I see a lot of the younger generation being pushed toward older games and to those I recommend trying to get your hands on an original fat PS3 console (the one with the Spider-man font) because not only does it play PS3 games, BluRays & DVDs over HDMI & composite/component but is also backwards compatible with the PS2 & PS1 giving it the biggest native library of any console (11,000+ games) and if you are confident enough to mod your console that number jumps tenfold. If you can find one on the used market this is an incredible purchase, especially with the return of physical media in the era of 'Enshittification' (*read below)
Wednesday 29/04/2026
Enshittification: the gradual degradation of online platforms, where quality declines as profit-seeking behaviour overrides user experience. Coined by author Cory Doctorow, this three-stage process involves 1. platforms being good to users. 2. Abusing users to benefit advertisers/business customers, and 3. Abusing business customers to capture maximum value.
There was a time when capitalism fuelled innovation. Innovations of the past decade has been reduced to maximising profits by providing a worse service than already exists, A new business model where you own nothing, yet pay more than you ever did before.
We have always had music, movies, online services but ownership was replaced by convenience and slowly that convenience was stripped away from users and placed behind a paywall. Gone are the days of lending a CD, game, movie or book to a friend or family member.
All of my perpetual licences are for apps that are no longer 'supported.' The word perpetual loses any meaning when it will inevitably be replaced by a subscription.
I have slowly been moving from online services to self hosted solutions. I have replaced Netflix & Spotify with Plex and I'm currently in the process of moving all my images from iCloud / Dropbox / Google etc into Photoprism.
I have been downloading and running self hosted LLMs instead of using ChatGPT. If the oligarchs had it their way, we wouldn't even own computers and we would 'rent' processing power from the people who hoard it all just like they do with money.
Now is a better time than ever to look into Open Source. It is surprisingly easy to host all of the online services you use on a cheap computer at home and you'll find more functionality and control than you will through the paid solutions. Capitalism dropped the bag #FreeLuigi
Sunday 26th April 2026
In 2025 I partnered with Pip Kelly at Community Arts Network to deliver Strange Times at Swan City Youth Services in Midland, which gave young people the opportunity to share their experiences and perspectives in these strange times, by by creating music videos for their songs recorded with Rush Wepiha.
As well as learning the entire creative process from idea to finished product with myself and Sydney based filmmaker Johnny Yayo, students also learned the ins and outs of navigating the music industry from leading industry professionals and got to learn branding with local designer Adam Sugiarto owner of Sugiarto Studios.
Working with this talented group of young creatives was such an incredible experience that I am so thankful for. Having owned a few of the SCYS produced CDs of my own, I already had high expectations for this group but those almost impossible to meet expectations were blown away. The students put everything they had into their work and the results speak for themselves.
Photos & interviews by me and all the music video footage was planned, shot & edited by the students, enjoy below.
Friday 24th April 2026
Free zero loss and fully reversible jpg compression with Zero loss compress.
Zero Loss Compress utilises JPEG XL, a modern image format designed for efficiency and flexibility.
JPEG XL offers up to 20% additional compression compared to standard JPEG while maintaining the ability to revert to the original format at any time. This makes it an ideal choice for long-term photo storage without compromising image quality or integrity.
I have been using this to compress my photo library while I move away from tech giant service solutions and it has been fast & effective. My hard drives are 20% happier
Wednesday 22nd April 2026.
Take your modern Mac back to a simpler time with NullPlayer for Mac.
NullPlayer is a free, open-source music player for macOS with deep Plex/Jellyfin/Emby/Navidrome integration, Sonos casting, and a custom skinning system.
Nullplayer was built from scratch in Swift as a love letter to the Winamp 2.x era - small, fast, skinnable & stays the way - a 100% clean-room project, not a fork or clone, and not affiliated with Winamp or Nullsoft.
The core of NullPlayer is that it supports every major self-hosted media server.
No more juggling different apps or dealing with half-baked integrations, you get a single player with a unified library browser that connects to all of them.
No more juggling different apps or dealing with half-baked integrations, you get a single player with a unified library browser that connects to all of them.
If you give it a go and enjoy, please take the time to give it a star on Github
Monday 20th April 2026
CURATION IS NOT DEAD!
My favourite radio show on planet earth. DEEP CUTZ with Dion just had its 50th show and I have loved every single one of them.
Rick Rubin once said in an interview that in the modern day of streaming & algae-rythms we lost the art of curation.
We have the entire history of music available at our fingertips while it is a blessing, 'choosing' what you listen to at every moment throughout your life can become a chore - and if you are apprehensive to hand that responsibility off to algorithms or data harvesting conglomerates one of the few platforms remaining to have music curated and served to you warm like a family meal, where flavours, like an eternal flame are passed thorough generations to be revered, is through the radio.
Whenever I travel, I love tuning into local stations. I find its a great way to find out what's happening in any community - from Vietnam to Singapore, New York through California and rural Utah and beyond. Many shows on many stations have been the soundtracks to my adventures but I still think the best show in the world, especially if you are into old school Boom Bap era Hip-Hop, is Deep Cutz with Dion from RMR Radio Margaret River.
Every show is not just an auditory journey through boroughs & eras but also a powerful lesson in the rich history of the culture.
Even the Hippest of Hop Heads will find a B side in every episode that they ain't heard before - and of course many that you have.
I'm a picky listener, but Dion is one of the few cats I'm happy to hand the aux because I know he's not only going to bless ears but souls as well. It’s a refined skill that comes as second nature to him.
He's played the soundtrack to many festivals, kick-ons & camping trips via Bluetooth and now he is right where he belongs behind the decks in the South West blessing our sea sprinkled FM airwaves.
Even if those easterly winds don’t ride the airwaves to your hood, it's streamed live online & via the community plus radio app and you can run back every episode on Mixcloud 🔁
I haven't been let down yet and 50 episodes in, I don't think it's possible at this point. Here's to many more. Direct link to 50th episode
My favourite radio show on planet earth. DEEP CUTZ with Dion just had its 50th show and I have loved every single one of them.
Rick Rubin once said in an interview that in the modern day of streaming & algae-rythms we lost the art of curation.
We have the entire history of music available at our fingertips while it is a blessing, 'choosing' what you listen to at every moment throughout your life can become a chore - and if you are apprehensive to hand that responsibility off to algorithms or data harvesting conglomerates one of the few platforms remaining to have music curated and served to you warm like a family meal, where flavours, like an eternal flame are passed thorough generations to be revered, is through the radio.
Whenever I travel, I love tuning into local stations. I find its a great way to find out what's happening in any community - from Vietnam to Singapore, New York through California and rural Utah and beyond. Many shows on many stations have been the soundtracks to my adventures but I still think the best show in the world, especially if you are into old school Boom Bap era Hip-Hop, is Deep Cutz with Dion from RMR Radio Margaret River.
Every show is not just an auditory journey through boroughs & eras but also a powerful lesson in the rich history of the culture.
Even the Hippest of Hop Heads will find a B side in every episode that they ain't heard before - and of course many that you have.
I'm a picky listener, but Dion is one of the few cats I'm happy to hand the aux because I know he's not only going to bless ears but souls as well. It’s a refined skill that comes as second nature to him.
He's played the soundtrack to many festivals, kick-ons & camping trips via Bluetooth and now he is right where he belongs behind the decks in the South West blessing our sea sprinkled FM airwaves.
Even if those easterly winds don’t ride the airwaves to your hood, it's streamed live online & via the community plus radio app and you can run back every episode on Mixcloud 🔁
I haven't been let down yet and 50 episodes in, I don't think it's possible at this point. Here's to many more. Direct link to 50th episode
