Year: 2017

Weekly Digest

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

Lego Love

I love Lego. When I was a kid it was my way to escape. I had loads of sets but I loved to make my own builds and stories. One recurring theme was space, building moon bases and fantastic rockets to take me there. Oh to go back to those times.

Another love was space, especially the Apollo missions, so when Lego announced a set would be launched to commemorate the moon landings I had to buy it. The Lego Apollo Saturn V is expensive at £110 but is a metre tall and contains 1969 parts. This would take a fair bit of time to build.

So I set aside a weekend and got to work. Of course, I did a time-lapse that didn’t quite come out as hoped but that was a side project to the main event.

Some of the build was intricate but overall it was fantastic to put together. The instructions were clear and the parts came in 12 bags so was fairly easy to sort and work through. Overall it’s a superb kit and the final rocket looks great. It was also nice to get a small stand for the rocket to give you a choice of how you want to display it. If you are into Lego or space in any way treat yourself to this set, I loved it.

Weekly Digest

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

Weekly Digest

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

Weekly Digest

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

WWDC

Two days from now and we’ll have just sat through the WWDC 2017 keynote. WWDC is predominantly a software event with focus on new iOS and macOS releases but Apple’s hardware has been stagnating so expectations for Monday are high. What do I hope/expect?

  • iOS improvements especially for iPad. My iPad is 3 1/2 years old and I want to see a jump in functionality for iPad users.
  • A new iPad! I’d like to pick up one along with a keyboard and pen. I’m not sure what to expect from new hardware although the rumours of an in-between size of the two current pro’s and more glass/less bezel sounds pretty compelling.
  • macOS – hope Apple can show the Mac a little love. I like the idea of going to macOS 11 and linking numbering to iOS but doubt it will happen. Hopefully there’s something on the software front as I expect any Mac hardware updates will be CPU only. How about killing iTunes which has been on many people’s wish list for years? Fingers crossed.
  • Photo’s. Really needs some love after a promising start especially when compared to Google Photos.
  • One more thing…Siri speaker? I’d prefer a 4k Apple TV at a reasonable price to be honest.

A fairly modest list of wants really. It will be interesting to see what’s shown that hasn’t been predicted or talked about, and also how they stack up against Google and Facebook and the industry in general which is focussing on AI and AR. Changing of the guard, my tastes changing or the appeal of something new? All I know is Apple isn’t delivering for me like they used to. Roll on Monday.

Weekly Digest

Life
More crazy hours at work meant for another tiring week but hopefully thats all done for a while. Thanks to a quirk at our place and despite tomorrow being a UK holiday…we don’t get it so no rest for the wicked. Booking a week off in June though to top up the batteries.

Media
Caught up with Logan. Loved it even though the ending was telegraphed through the film. Finally a good Wolverine movie, and my favourite X-Men film.

Also got into Ready Player One, via Audible as I find long reading quite dull. Hour and a half in and I’m hooked. What can I say – #dannywasright

Links

Who goes first?

A few weeks ago the New York Times asked the question Which Tech Giant Would You Drop? Did you take the test? If you haven’t then give it a go, it only takes a minute. For me it was pretty straightforward. I would drop in the following order:

Facebook
Microsoft
Alphabet
Amazon
Apple

Since then both Microsoft and Google have had major events, Amazon have released new Echo devices and WWDC is only around the corner. I’ve also been thinking more about what I’d lose if each service was shutdown. These tech giants own so many products. Take a look at what would go if each one shutdown.

Facebook
Microsoft
Amazon
Alphabet
Apple

Instead of choosing between five companies you are choosing between dozens of products. Does it change your drop order? For me it does.

Facebook would still go first. I’ve been a bit harsh and missed out a couple of important products like Facebook Messenger, but Facebook would go despite my love of Instagram. Either people would flock to Flickr (ok, that won’t happen) or Google Photo’s would evolve to take Instagram’s place. Oculus isn’t doing anything that HTC’s Vive couldn’t and you’ve got Signal to take over from WhatsApp.

Originally I had Microsoft in fourth and Alphabet in third but it’s now a choice between Microsoft and Amazon. When putting the graphics together I was going to swap Amazon into fourth but one thing stopped me – AWS. How many app’s and services would disappear because AWS is no longer around? Azure competes really well but when I look at the Microsoft services I can swap them out for alternatives. PSN for Xbox, AWS for Azure, macOS for Windows and who needs LinkedIn or Bing? So Microsoft stays in fourth and Amazon moves to third despite the lure of Prime.

That leaves Alphabet and Apple. For me it breaks down to Apple for the hardware and O/S I use all the time, and Alphabet for the services I use all the time. For years I’ve preferred Apple’s hardware for it’s design and reliability but there’s no doubt that the shine has lessened in recent years.

I use Google services every day. Google Search is still my goto, Google Doc’s drive’s the podcast and has never let us down in six years of usage and YouTube really has no equivalent. However services are only as good as the hardware they run from and for me Apple still wins out in that front. Just. The speed of the iPhone is hard to beat and while the rest of my hardware is getting long in the tooth it’s reliable and I trust when I upgrade devices over the next couple of years I’ll get a great hardware boost.

Whats also helped has been Google (and others) making sure that they are available on all platforms, not just their own, so that all users can benefit and also so they can get access to as many eyes as they can. Compared to a few years ago it’s really a great time for users with the best choice of hardware and services.

So, who would you drop first? More importantly who would you keep until last?

Weekly Digest

Life
As expected the last week was busy and tiring but ultimately interesting and enjoyable. Hopefully more of the same next week with a few original twists to keep me on my toes.

Media
American Gods is well worth a watch, apart from that it’s been a week of catching up on podcasts.

Links

Weekly Digest

Life
House fixing progressing….could be an expensive year. Apart from that work is pretty busy and the next couple of weeks will see some very early starts. Joy.

Media
Mario Kart is incredibly good. Finished off Billions this week as well which is well worth a watch.

Links