Year: 2016

A taxing week for everyone.

• We are now witnessing Elon Musk’s slow-motion disruption of the global auto industry
• SpaceX successfully lands its rocket on a floating drone ship for the first time – This was amazing to watch live. What a week for Elon Musk.
• See Maps Showing Where FBI Planes Are Watching From Above
• In depth: the nuclear submarine that can remain underwater for 25 years – Remarkable machines
• The sugar conspiracy
• Willie Rennie with the best video of the Scottish elections so far
• The trouble with 3D Touch – I’ve got 3D Touch on my work phone and it still feels like a gimmick rather than an essential part of the iOS experience.
• TextExpander 6 and TextExpander.com – Great summation of the Apple community feeling on the sharp increase in price of TextExpander. I’m all for paying for software put the price increase is sharp.
• RUN and RUN / lyrical school – Watch on an iPhone – this is great.
• ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Official Teaser Trailer
• Sphero’s BB-8 Can Now Watch and React to The Force Awakens Along With You – Can’t wait to try this in a few days time
• HTC VIVE REVIEW – Some of the best ideas in VR, but not the best execution

A bit late this week but it’s worth the wait. Some goodies below – enjoy.

• Blind Microsoft engineer unveils AI-powered project that helps him ‘see’ the world – Inspiring project from an amazing Microsoft Engineer.
• Dillan’s Voice – April is Autism Acceptance Month and this film from Apple will give you all the feels and make you feel pretty lucky. Dillon’s Path is also a must watch.
• 40 years of Apple history with Walt Mossberg – Love this
• We Should All Have Our Own Bot – The future is bots?
• Chat bots, conversation and AI as an interface
• This Is What It Feels Like When A Robot Takes Your Job
• Why Do So Many Digital Assistants Have Feminine Names?
• The inside story of how Amazon created Echo, the next billion-dollar business no one saw coming – Amazon have a real hit with the echo.
• How to Hack an Election
• David Cameron’s cans: when mockers become the mocked
• This genius UKIP trolling is further evidence that Scotland is the p*sstake capital of the world – I can’t hear you
• Techies: A Study of Silicon Valley
• A day in the life of a young black male engineering “coding” student.
• Like – Thought provoking video on whats important in the online world.
• The Inside Story of How Oculus Cracked the Impossible Design of VR
• Virtual Reality Is Always Almost Here – Verge review the Oculus
• SNES Code Injection — Flappy Bird in SMW – This is bizarre and impressive.
• Rey is a Palpatine – Spoilers if you haven’t seen Force Awakens. Thanks to Gordon for this one.
• 100 Greatest One-Liners: Before The Kill

Happy Easter! Been doing these backpocket posts for a year now…time flies.

• No, Adam Johnson, child abuse is not a grey area – Great article from Victoria Coren Mitchell
• The Future of Twitter: Q&A with Jack Dorsey
• Apple’s ’40 Years In 40 Seconds’ Video Annotated
• Inside Liam, Apple’s super-secret, 29-armed robot that tears down your iPhone
• How the iPad Pro Changed My Illustrating Career
• Why I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS
• What It’s Actually Like To Visit Factories In China As An Entrepreneur</li>
• Glasgow: A city divided along learning lines – Heartbreaking that so many don’t get opportunities and it’s down to money, not talent.
• These unlucky people have names that break computers
• Make your own Amazon Echo – Thanks Amazon!
• As We Become Cameras – there is still such a fuss around surveillance and being constantly watched…will we end up stumbling into a world where nothing is recorded?
• The Winners of the Smithsonian Magazine’s 2015 Photo Contest

Busy busy at the moment. looking forward to some time off at Easter.

• The Journalist and the Troll: This Man Spent Two Years Trying to Destroy Me Online
• I’m 16. Five months ago, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer – Such a great article and puts so much into perspective when we moan about shitty little day to day things.
• Why Do We Work So Hard?
• What Have They Been Smoking at Apple Music? – Some of the playlists are really good. I still get Rolling Stones recommendations though…every fucking time I open the app.
• Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist – Big week ahead.
• Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2016 Results
• Satoru Iwata Game Developers Choice Awards Tribute
• Firewatch: One Month Later – Such a great game and good to see it sold so well too.
• Here’s why Google’s Tilt Brush may be virtual reality’s killer app
• Cuba On The Edge Of Change – Stunning photo article
• Glasgow – Raymond Depardon – Photo’s from 1980’s Glasgow that were never published. Feels like my childhood when I look at these.

• Dunblane: Our Story – 20 years since the tragedy in Dunblane and this program is an emotional watch. Always sticks in my head that I was euphoric coming back from a sea trial at work on the day this happened. Sailed down a misty Clyde and went into the office at night and we were all so happy and then the wind was taken right out our sails when a colleague shared the news. No mobiles, no news, no idea…a bombshell.
• What Happens When the Surveillance State Becomes an Affordable Gadget?
• Surprise! NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism – Why resisting the UK snoopers charter is so important.
• The Obama Doctrine
• 1988: The Year Donald Lost His Mind
• Lack of sleep alters brain chemicals to bring on cannabis-style ‘munchies’ – Might explain the hunger I’ve been feeling the last couple of weeks as my mystery illness flares up again.
• Why Am I Right-Handed? – I’m left handed but write with my right hand thanks to my Gran tying my left hand behind my back when I was wee. Lefties were the work of the devil seemingly.
• An Apple Pencil-drawn review of the Apple Pencil – So good. Still want an iPad and Pencil.
• The Making Of Playstation VR – Not long now.
• videoGaiden Episode 1
• Television Has A Business Model Problem. And It’s Killing Good TV
• Coming Soon
• Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War – Trailer 2 – Looking good
• Game of Thrones Season 6: Trailer – Looking good too
• Orkestra Obsolete play Blue Monday using 1930s instruments – BBC Arts

A bumper update as I took a break last week.

• Exclusive Q&A : Apple CEO Tim Cook
• Naughty words – Fucking bollocks
• Tumblr Porn
• Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1
• Atlas, The Next Generation – Terminator one step closer
• The Elephant In The Room – Web design work drying up
• What’s Next in Computing? – great read
• Winners of the 2016 World Press Photo Contest – Some powerful images
• Photographer Greg Armfield on how he missed mating rhinos at Nairobi national park
• Do cool things that matter – stories from the software engineers at Google
• Meet the 63-Year-Old in Charge of Approving New Emojis
• Life and Death in the App Store
• The Writer Who Made Me Love Comics Taught Me To Hate Them
• Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it. – Microsoft is playing hardball with games developers and also in forcing the upgrade to Windows 10.
• Photos of the Glasgow High-Rises That Are About to Disappear
• The painful what-if that haunts ‘Ghostbuster’ Ernie Hudson
• GHOSTBUSTERS FanCUT Teaser Trailer HD (RECUT) – So much better then the official trailer.
• Doing a TED Talk: The Full Story
• The Lonely Launchpads and Rusted Rockets of America’s Abandoned Space Facilities
• The Complete Conceptual History of the Millennium Falcon – Long but rewarding read.
• How we made Angry Birds

• Why Michael Gove is wrong on Europe – He’s never been right on much to be honest
• A Message to Our Customers
• Apple, FBI, and the Burden of Forensic Methodology
• Apple Versus The Fbi, Understanding Iphone Encryption, The Risks For Apple And Encryption – Apple’s stand in an increasingly strange and important test case.
• Apple and Fashion: A Love Story for the Digital Ages
• The Most Important Apple Executive You’ve Never Heard Of – Core of much of Apple’s competitive advantage comes from this decision.
• The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens
• Too many people have peed in the pool – Twitter drama
• I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body
• Which Type of Exercise Is Best for the Brain?
• The NSA’s SKYNET program may be killing thousands of innocent people – Whoever named this program Skynet and didn’t think it could go south has a lot to answer for
• The superhero of artificial intelligence: can this genius keep it in check?
• Hard Drive Reliability Review for 2015 – Backblaze put this report out each year – fascinating read.
• The Daily Mail Stole My Visualization, Twice – Thief’s!!!
• How Renegade Filmmaker Casey Neistat Breaks Rules, Reinvents Himself, and Gets Thanked For It
• How One Mashup Artist Got Legal Permission to Pair Calvin & Hobbes with Dune
• 10 Adventure Trips Every Photographer Should Take
• If company slogans were honest
• Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself – Still looking forward to this game

I’ve been floored with manflu since Friday so i’m a bit behind with reads but there’s still enough good stuff this week. Onwards.

• Uber is no better than an old-fashioned gangmaster – so London’s cabbies are striking
• Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them
• Piled Higher and Deeper – Great explainer on Gravitational Waves and why their discovery is so important. So easy to read too!
• Farage’s vile views are dominating the Europhobe pitch
• Andrew Marr: the loss of the Independent means the loss of a community – There is an inevitability about this.
• An old-school reply to an advertiser’s retro threat – two fingers form a journalist – brilliant.
• Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge
• George Galloway: I Am The Spiritual Son Of Tony Benn And Jeremy Corbyn Is Making A Very Big Mistake On The EU – Twat
• Jeremy (H)unt Compilation – Jeremy Cunt
• Putting out the Twitter trashier – Hopefully Twitter implement some if not all the suggestions listed here.
• Visions of the Future – Beautiful posters from Nasa.
• The Trouble With Superman
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Official Final Trailer – Better trailer but we’ll find out next month how good the film actually is.