Insights & Perspectives

The Sugarolly Blog

Ideas, observations, and practical wisdom from the field, written to be useful, not just impressive.

A running AI cost meter routing tasks between a free local model and a metered frontier model
Personal · AI & Cost Governance

The Meter Is Always Running

Amazon, Meta and Uber all set fire to piles of cash chasing AI usage. The lesson isn't the technology, it's measuring the wrong thing.

July 2026 · 7 min read · By Kieran
An Active, Queued, Someday project board
Personal · AI & Neurodiversity

Too Much of a Good Thing

I built an AI OS, then turned its research tool on myself and learned how AI turns the urge to start new things into a trap.

June 2026 · 7 min read · By Kieran
It's Pink! game illustration
Personal · AI & Games

It's Pink

The first game I ever wrote, and the one I now use to test every new AI model. Then Claude built it from a single sentence.

June 2026 · 4 min read · By Kieran
The Claude Menu illustration
AI & Tools

The Claude Menu

What I wish someone had told me before I ordered the wrong thing, a guide to Claude's flavours and interfaces.

June 2026 · 6 min read
AI Slop illustration
Personal · AI & Society

AI Slop

"AI slop" has to be my new favourite superiority catchphrase. I'm hearing and seeing it everywhere.

May 2026 · 7 min read · By Kieran
Learn by doing illustration
AI Adoption

Learn by Doing: Your Personal AI Starter Guide

A practical, stage-by-stage guide to getting started with AI in your own life.

May 2026 · 7 min read
Neurodiversity illustration
Neurodiversity

Why Neurodiverse Teams Outperform

A practical, evidence-based case for why cognitive diversity produces better collective outcomes than homogeneity.

May 2026 · 8 min read
Personal · Career

Career Limiting Moves

Two stories from the career archives: a gold wedding ring that fried a mainframe in 1994, and an accidental company-wide email that reached all of Port and Rail.

May 2026 · 8 min read
Rebuilding with AI illustration
Personal Update

I rebuilt my website and AI did most of the heavy lifting

How an AI-powered development pipeline turned a long-overdue rebuild into a weekend project, and changed how I think about solo development.

May 2026 · 6 min read
AI in Agile illustration
Agile

AI in Agile: Cutting Through the Noise

Where AI is genuinely useful in agile delivery, where it is hype, and what Project and Product Managers should actually prioritise.

May 2026 · 10 min read
AI SDLC diagram
AI & Delivery

Making Sense of AI in the Enterprise SDLC: Where to Start

A practical, no-hype framework for getting AI into your software delivery pipeline in the right sequence.

May 2026 · 7 min read