Month: June 2017

Life
New boiler fitted and went better than expected…now onto kitchen shopping. Also got the new iMac this week. What a beast but it’s taken a back seat to other issues. Also had a week off work which was busy but a welcome break.

Media
Finished Ready Player One and really enjoyed it. So many geek wins and despite inital negative thoughts Wil Weaton was a great narrator. Looking forward to the film verison next year.

Links

• Michael Rosen: A firefighter who attended Grenfell tower has written this:
  Raw emotion. Can’t read this and not be affected by it.
• Nutella ‘Hired’ an Algorithm to Design New Jars. And It Was a Sell-Out Success. | Inc.com
  Expect more crazy, I mean algorithmic designs to hit a supermarket near you.
• Leaked recording: Inside Apple’s global war on leakers | The Outline
  Thats an awful lot of effort to keep a lid on things.
• After Finsbury Park, Britain must tackle its preachers of anti-Muslim hate | Nesrine Malik | Opinion | The Guardian
  Been going on for far too long
• Radiohead – Man Of War – YouTube
  ‘Man Of War’, taken from the forthcoming album OK NOT OK 1997-2017, out June 23rd on XL Recordings. http://oknotok.co.uk/ http://ift.tt/ztFZEq DIRECTO…
  Great video
• Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’: An Oral History – Rolling Stone
  Read an in-depth oral history of Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer,’ drawn from new interviews with all the band members and their collaborators.
  20 years since OK Computer. Time flies. OK NOT OK came out on Friday and this is a nice interview to go along with it.
• Videos – Radiohead – Glastonbury 2017 – BBC
  Headlined Friday and I thought it was stunning. If you’ve got a couple of hours to spare it’s well worth a watch.
• Stormchaser films a new cloud type during spectacular sunset / Boing Boing
  Lovely video.
• The secret lives of IS fighters – BBC News
  Sobering piece from the BBC.
• The Crystal Maze 2017: the long journey to bringing it back | Den of Geek
  Who didn’t love the Crystal Maze? So glad it’s back and it looks superb.
• Brexit: Tory MP Leadsom says broadcasters should be patriotic
  This is scary. Don’t question us, get behind us, be patriotic. Disgraceful.
• IoT goes nuclear: creating a ZigBee chain reaction | the morning paper
  My Hue bulbs don’t feel so secure now.
• How we make a game called Hidden Folks – Imgur
  Nice background to how Hidden Folks was made.
• Interview: Scott Forstall and Original iPhone Innovators @ Computer History Museum – YouTube
  It’s long but there’s some gems in here from how the iPhone came to be…and some of the changes since.
• Reviewing the First iPhone in a Hype Typhoon | WIRED
  The original iPhone from a reviewers persepctive.

Life
The Grenfell Tower fire puts everything into perspective. People lost families, friends, possessions and it’s hard to see who is helping them apart form themselves. Heartbreaking.

As for me, last week wears really busy but I’ve now got a week off work. However it didn’t get off to the best of starts with our boiler being condemned on Friday. New one being fitted this week which will cause quite a bit of upheaval…and probably a new kitchen will be required. Sigh.
Media
More WipEout, more Ready Player One. Half way through and it’s so good.
Links

• Inside Walt Mossberg’s gadget museum – The Verge
  Mossberg looks at the cirtical tech releases from his long career.
• The 10.5” iPad Pro: Future-Proof – MacStories
  I picked up the 10.5 this week alongside a pencil and keyboard. What an awesome device…more from me on this soon.
• WordPress parent Automattic is closing its San Francisco office because its remote workers never show up — Quartz
  Automattic, the technology company that owns WordPress.com, has a beautiful office in a converted San Francisco warehouse, with soaring ceilings, a library, and a custom-made barn door. If you like the space, you’re free to move in. The office at 140 Hawthorne went on the market after CEO Matt Mullenweg came to the realization not…
  Flxible and mobile working is the future.
• WWDC 2017 — Some Thoughts – Learning By Shipping
  Putting some of the major announcements of new platform technologies in context. What are the implications for ARKit, Core ML, SiriKit. Also ow does iOS 11 and the iPad Pro 10″ improve “productivity’.
  More thoughts on WWDC.
• The secret origin story of the iPhone – The Verge
  Great read…although it’s kicked up a bit of controversy.
• Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city – the guardian
  Another extract from the same book, the ugly side of the devices we all love so much.
• Apple’s Tim Cook on Donald Trump, the HomePod, and the Legacy of Steve Jobs – Bloomberg
  The head of the most valuable company in the world talks to Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Megan Murphy.
  Cook opens up a little more…and loves AR.
• London tower block fire: What went wrong at Grenfell Tower? – YouTube
  Investigators are trying to establish how a fire in a London tower block was able to spread so aggressively and so fast. A renovation of the building was com…
  Background to the Grenfell fire.
• 5 Fires That Shaped Modern London – NYTimes.com
  Why do we need a disaster to shape rules and regulations?
• Grenfell Tower cladding: Claims fire-resistance would have cost just £5,000 | London Evening Standard
  Anger is growing over claims a series of safety failings led to the Grenfell Tower disaster after it emerged contractors could have spent just £5,000 more on fire-resistant cladding. A “Justice for Grenfell” rally is set to take place in Westminster on Friday evening, while numerous distraught residents have demanded answers from politicians over the blaze that killed at least 17 people on Wednesday.
  If this is true then words fail me.
• London fire brigade boss: ‘It was a massive risk, but it’s our job to go in’ | UK news | The Guardian
  Inspiring
• This exciting Brexit future feels like all the rubbish bits from the past | Marina Hyde | Opinion | The Guardian
  By default I link to one Marina Hyde post every week, but she’s that good.
• How Newspapers Lost Their Monopoly On Influencing Voters In The 2017 General Election
  The Sun and the Daily Mail sell 3 million copies a day between them. But their decades-long claim to dominating public opinion may have finally come to an end.
  A good thing.
• Winners of the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest 2016 – The Atlantic
  Amazing photo’s to lift the spirits
• Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Those Who Use Tabs – Stack Overflow Blog
  Bonkers. And you should use tabs, not spaces.
• Different languages: How cultures around the world draw shapes differently — Quartz
  Who knew?

Life
A week is a long time in politics. Roll back six weeks and no one could have predicted what we’ve seen in the last few days. May is a busted flush. Indyref 2 looks dead…but I’m sure brexit or some other significant and material change will bring it back into the limelight. As for me, looking forward to a week off work from this Friday.

Media
WipEout Omega on the PS4 launched and is stunning. If you like anything about the original series you will love this.

Links

• The Second Coming Of iPad
  A great WWDC from Apple and this post covers my views on the iPad potential.
• The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2017 on Vimeo
  Recorded in front of a live audience at The California Theatre in San Jose, John Gruber is joined by Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi to discuss the news from WWDC:…
  Enjoyed The Talk Show live with Gruber. Always teases out some nice background to the new WWDC announcements and how Apple thinks.
• How to Make $80,000 Per Month on the Apple App Store
  At WWDC, Apple reported that they’ve paid out $70 billion to developers, with 30% of that ($21 billion!) in the last year. That’s a huge spike, and surprising to me because it didn’t seem like my…
  Scummy. Apple need to act to get rid of these type of apps.
• Urchins and alleyways: a rare glimpse of 19th-century Glasgow – in pictures | Cities | The Guardian
  Photographer Thomas Annan captured Glasgow between the 1860s and 70s, at a time when the city had transformed and rapidly grown
  Nice to spot some buildings that are still standing.
• A Photo of James Comey Takes the Internet by Storm – NYTimes.com
  What an image…how many more like this while Trump is in charge?
• How Britain Voted – The New York Times
  Results and analysis from the British general election.
  Great visualisations on what happened last week in the elections.
• The PM is like a deadbeat dad who’s gambled away the housekeeping | Marina Hyde | Opinion | The Guardian
  The PM is like a deadbeat dad who’s gambled away the housekeeping
  Marina Hyde on form.
• Insight: Wake-up call for Nicola Sturgeon’s indyref2 dreamers – The Scotsman
  In the end there was no real Portillo moment: the claiming of one high-profile scalp – such as Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster – that symbolised the much-touted blue surge.
  Shame to see Angus Robertson go from the House of Commons, but there’s no doubt that lasts weeks vote was a large drop for SNP…and nothing to do with Labour voters defecting to the tories despite what the Nat’s are spinning.
• Black Panther Teaser Trailer [HD] – YouTube
  HERO. LEGEND. KING. Watch Marvel Studio’s Black Panther teaser trailer now. ► Subscribe to Marvel: http://bit.ly/WeO3YJ Follow Marvel on Twitter: ‪https://tw…
  Looking good.

Life
What a fucked up week. Politics, terrorists and all the while the predominantly right wing media twist everything to suit their will. Hoping next Thursday will be a day of reckoning. Fearing it won’t be.

At least there’s WWDC to look forward to.

Media
Really enjoying Ready Player One. I can see me getting more into Audiobooks thanks to this.

Links

• 2017 Internet Trends — Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
  2017 Internet Trends
  Always interesting, although almost double the length of last years and harder to parse.
• Britain’s most average place – BBC News
  The views on the streets of Worcester – Britain’s most average constituency.
  Great article just one week before the election.
• StockStream – Twitch
  Mike Roberts is an Amazon engineer who is letting the crowd guide his $50,000 investments via Twitch. Bold…and it will be interesting to see if the wisdom of the crowd pays out.
• What Is ‘Covfefe’? The Internet Wonders
  Late Tuesday night, President Donald Trump tweeted the word “covfefe,” sending the internet into a frenzy.
  The Mango Mussolini strikes again…but what does it mean? I don’t think I’ve seen so many memes spread so quickly. Twitter at it’s best.
• 7 Ways to Maximize Misery 😞 – YouTube
  Love this from CGP Grey
• Inside Google’s Global Campaign to Shut Down Phishing | WIRED
  Google really are fighting a war on our behalf.
• What Really Happened with Vista
  A long read but really great. Vista was a mess and this story reveals some of the reasons why.
• Grilling Glasgow: a short documentary about Glasgow’s burger scene – YouTube
  Between 2012 and 2015, Glasgow experienced a foodie phenomenon – a burger boom. In this short documentary, we speak to the biggest and most influential playe…
  Good wee video into the burger scene in Glasgow and how it grew over the last few years.
• How Lego clicked: the brand that reinvented itself | Johnny Davis | Life and style | The Guardian
  Lego was part of my childhood and I love that they are still around and growing stronger. Picked up this last week and looking forward to building it soon.
• Channel 4 News on Twitter: “What brings politics into disrepute? @Krishgm spoke to Brexit Secretary David Davis. https://t.co/6QijvEtrLG”
  David Davis tries to be smart…Krishnan Guru-Murthy opens up and rips him a new one. Love it.