Alan Buxton

@[email protected]
86 Followers
232 Following
316 Posts
Chief Technology Officer. Working on scaling a tech company; particularly interested in natural language processing.
bloghttps://alanbuxton.wordpress.com
linkedinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/alanbuxton/
Alan BuxtonMar 30, 2025

#neo4j subquery might make it easier to get something working - but in this case it was dog slow compared to rewriting without subquery

https://alanbuxton.wordpress.com/2025/03/30/fun-with-neo4j-subqueries/

Fun with neo4j subqueries

Neo4j subqueries can make it easier to put a query together, but in this case I got it a lot faster by taking out the subquery

Be good, work hard, get lucky
Alan BuxtonJan 26, 2025

I build software products. I spend a lot of time in hotels.

Here are some learnings about UX that I've taken from hotel elevators.

They aren't about software UIs which makes them super helpful analogies when talking about general user experience.

https://alanbuxton.wordpress.com/2025/01/26/elevators-lifts-and-software-product-user-experience/

Elevators (Lifts) and Software Product User Experience

Here are two photographs of completely phyiscal products and something they can teach us about building software products. TL;DR It’s more important to build somethign that makes sense than s…

Be good, work hard, get lucky
Alan BuxtonDec 23, 2024
dB CooperDec 23, 2024

Interesting. Why men aren’t going to college

https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/why-boys-dont-go-to-college

Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?

We would rather talk about literally everything else.

Matriarchal Blessing
Alan BuxtonDec 22, 2024
Paul CantrellOct 13, 2024

“The thing about being wrong is that before you know you’re wrong, it feels •exactly• like being right.”

— Roman Mars

Show threadAlan BuxtonDec 19, 2024
In other words - if it's ambitious enough to sound good when you're drunk and if it's sensible enough to sounds good when you're sober - then probably it's a good idea after all.
Show threadAlan BuxtonDec 19, 2024

According to Herodotus (writing around 425 BC):

"it is their custom to deliberate about the gravest matters when they are drunk and what they approve in their deliberations is proposed to them the next day, when they are sober, by the master of the house where they deliberate; and if, being sober, they still approve it, they act on it, but if not, they drop it. And if they have deliberated about a matter when sober, they decide upon it when they are drunk."

(Book 1 chapter 133)

Alan BuxtonDec 19, 2024
To everyone out there who needs help figuring out their 2025 objectives I give you a tried a tested process: Ancient Persian Decision-Making.
Alan BuxtonDec 14, 2024
Esther SchindlerDec 14, 2024
(nodding)
Alan BuxtonDec 12, 2024
I had my first success with ChatGPT writing a good piece of code for me. In the past I've given it tricky problems which it struggled with, or relatively simple things but in a language I'm not so up to date on (e.g. Bash scripts). But today it did a neat python function for me. Very impressed.
Alan BuxtonDec 4, 2024

Yes, but is it REALLY AI?

One of my least favorite activities is answering RFP questions about what we're doing with AI. "AI" means something different to the people asking the question than it does to people working in the space. I struggle with terms as vague as "AI" is. Let me try to show why it's so hard to pin down if something really is AI or not, and why asking if something is AI or not the most useful question to be asking.

https://alanbuxton.wordpress.com/2024/12/04/yes-but-is-it-really-ai/

Yes, but is it REALLY AI?

One of my least favorite activities is answering RFP questions about what we’re doing with AI. “AI” means something different to the people asking the question than it does to peo…

Be good, work hard, get lucky