Author: iandick

Yearnote, 2025

Another year done and I can’t quite believe thats a quarter of this century gone already. Doesn’t feel 25 years since Y2K.

Life

Let’s start with a quick work update. There’s much I’d love to say in public but due to the type of firm it becomes difficult quickly but safe to say it’s been a challenging and stressful year with many successes but also a few dings that I could certainly have helped steer in a different direction. Over two years now in director role and still learning but comfortable with many aspects of it that I wasn’t at the start. Looking back it was good to get uncomfortable and it’s something we all need from time to time.

What I do need to manage better is the work/life balance which hasn’t been good – and let’s be honest here, it’s never been good and got a lot worse recently. I must remember what one of my seniors has made clear more than once – we work to live and not live to work. I’ve seen too much time focussed on work, too many hobbies and things I want to do put on hold.

One indulgence this year was replacing the Synology NAS with…my own custom one powered by Unraid. It’s went well as an upgrade, it wasn’t cheap, but I’ve got something thats scalable and less reliant on Synology switching on and off features on a whim.

I also replaced the drone with a new Mavic 4 Pro. OTT for what I need and how often I use it but when has that logic got in the way?

Glasgow tower fog bound
Glasgow shrouded in fog with only the Glasgow Tower (and the Uni tower) visible

One of my recent images is the one above from mid December when Glasgow was covered in fog but the drone (only just) showed what was visible above the gloom. I still love the different perspectives a drone can provide.

Health

A mixed year to be frank. Weight looks stable comparing year to year but I’d nicely dropped some kg’s at the start of 2025 only for it to come back on. Mostly related to bad diet and poor sleep – averaging just under 5 hours since around June.

My weight through 2025
Weight through 2025

A positive though is I’ve kept my daily walks going. I’ve set a target since 2020 of 2000km and this hit 3k for the first time. I find it. A great way to step away from technology, work and clear my mind. I’m also on day 3214 of my move streak – yes its become a thing.

Walking total 2025
Walking total 2025

Looking forward the main aim is to keep the walks going, improve the diet and more focus on improving the sleep which will in turn help the diet.

Media

Thanks to streamers, each year has felt like peak TV…and 2025 was no exception. Shows that you really should find time to watch in no particular order are:

  • Andor – the best Star Wars since Empire
  • Blue Lights – Season 3 was so good and that was after a bang average episode 1
  • Celebrity Traitors – who didn’t watch this? And we’ve got S4 of the normal edition starting tomorrow!
  • Adolescence – hard hitting, surprising and it deserves all the awards
  • Task
  • Ludwig
  • The Pitt – this and Andor are at the top of my list for the year. A modern day ER.
  • Severance – stuck the landing
  • Race Across The World – both the normal and celeb versions are a great watch

Alien:Earth, The Diplomat, Dept Q, Slow Horses were also a good watch. The Studio on Apple TV was good but it never clicked as much for me – same with Plur1ous. Good concepts, enjoyable but something didn’t grab me.

As for movies I didn’t watch a many this year but still enjoyed Sinners, One Battle After Another, I Swear, Superman, Hard Truths, F1, Wake Up Dead Man and A Real Pain.

Finally on the gaming front two stand outs. Battlefield 6 was a great return to form of a franchise I’ve always loved and in the last couple of weeks Sektori which is a modern day love letter follow up to Geometry Wars. If you love twin-stick shooters and vivid bullet hell top down graphics then this is for you. The Switch 2 I’ve found to be a disappointing update. Non OLED screen and launch games that didn’t hold interest – Mario Kart World in particular – has left it largely untouched compared to the Steamdeck.

Whats Next

No resolutions but plenty to work on in the new year. This site also needs a spruce up and a bit of focus but I did say that at the start of 2024 and have left it pretty much untouched so we’ll see what 2026 brings. The year ahead feels in many ways less certain than what’s been before but I’m grateful for where I am right now and looking forward to what comes next.

Default Apps 2025

For the third time (an annual tradition?) an update on my default app’s. Not too much has changed from 2023 and 2024 but as before, updates are tagged with a ⭐️

As predicted, I moved from Apple Mail to Spark mostly due to Mail not searching reliably. So many mails missed from simple searches that Spark or Gmail in the browser found 100%.

Browsers also saw a bit of trial and error thanks to Safari instability and Firefox going down an AI path I didn’t like. Tried both Chrome and Vivaldi and while they were OK on the Mac, on iOS/iPadOS they are pretty poor in comparison to Safari so stuck with what I know. And Safari instability was on the Mac – Tahoe was such a buggy upgrade and impacted on usability. One of the tentpole features, Spotlight, was such a resounding success that after 5 weeks of giving it a go I reinstalled Raycast and got back capabilities that I missed but also some basic features that again were broken in Spotlight…and also speed. Raycast is just better.

A couple of interesting changes – dropped Ivory and moved to using Tapestry for browsing Mastodon and Bluesky and its worked really well especially since the Mac client came out. Highly recommended. And on the iPhone, partly prompted by upgrading to the 17 Pro in September, I’ve been trying and loving Project Indigo from Adobe. Some of the images it captures are much superior to the default camera app – extra detail and more accurate (to my eye) captures thanks to different trade off’s as it does it’s computational photography – especially in night mode.

iOS camera app on the left, Adobe's Project Indigo on the right which shows much more detail of Òran Mór building in Glasgow

A brief comparison above using the wonderful Òran Mór. iOS Camera app on the left – over compensating the sky as it was dark and losing detail. On the right, Project Indigo with much better detail in the tower brickwork and the weather vane isn’t just a smudge as it is on the left. The halo is also captured better via Indigo.

Added AI as a category and I’ve stuck with ChatGPT as most used service although can see benefits with both Gemini and Claude – will be watching with interest through Q1 26 and Apple’s revised Siri. AI on Apple platforms only works thanks to third parties.

I’ll close on one potential change and thats Todoist. They’ve announced an increase in pricing from $29 to $60 a year and while I’ve been grandfathered in to a legacy pro price of $29 I don’t get any new features going forward so I’ll be looking at the default Reminders app and also TickTick as options alongside sticking with what I know.

Weeknote, Sunday 26th October

A much needed lazy weekend after a packed week. Clocks have moved back so darkness for the next few months in mornings and late afternoons. Did enjoy a fantastic meal at Ka Pao in Glasgow. Sharing menu is always a favourite…which 3 of us shared instead of 4. Oops.

Apple Upgrades

Upgraded to the iPhone 17 Pro and AirPods Pro 3 in September and that feels enough time to scribble some thoughts down. The iPhone’s move back to aluminium has meant a pop of colour finally in the Pro phones. I love the orange but it will scratch up more…but I always use a case so not a biggie. I don’t mind the camera plateau stretching across the whole phone, but looks more and more like a Pixel. The camera’s upgrades are actually noticeable especially the move from 12 to 48MP for the zoom lens. The x4 instead of x5 delivers a much better photo than the 16 Pro. I’ve compared a few taken from similar spots year and year and it’s a pretty big step. The other noticeable change is the lack of heat – the 16 Pro would feel hot from time to time and I’ve not noticed it once with the 17 Pro. Overall a positive upgrade but lets be honest, its all become pretty incremental.

Not so positive – eSIM’s. The transfer did not go well, ended up with no cellular data/phone/texts for three days as the transfer needed unpicked by EE. Even a visit to the shop didn’t resolve it…but I now have a working old fashioned SIM instead.

The Airpods Pro 3 were an insta purchase when Apple said the noise cancellation was improved. Actual results have been more mixed. The new Pro’s sound better but they fit in the ear differently and I still can’t settle on a proper fit. I either get slightly more outside noise or the tighter fit means they click with every step. The case is also slightly lighter, slightly bigger, feels cheaper and as the battery is less needs to be charged more.

Alongside the new hardware Apple launched iOS, macOS, iPadOS 26. For me this has been one of the worst of the yearly upgrades. Liquid Glass feels unfinished. So many readability issues, so many animation bugs and I hope that the .1’s when the come out address a lot of the problems. Worse is macOS. Liquid Glass is pretty ugly in a number of places but I’ve had so many software problems since upgrading. Safari – redraw issues, every page complaining about memory issues, needing frequent restarts. Spotlight – app searching fine, everything else broken. Can’t find a file, no clipboard history and I’ve tried many of the fixes but for whatever reason it’s broke. Finder – craps out from time to time connecting to a network share. Every thirds or fourth wake from sleep there’s no menu bars, no system menu’s. Need to sleep again or reboot. Couple all that with many graphical glitches, two hard crashes and once when the keyboard just wouldn’t work until a reboot…can’t wait for the first proper update to hopefully address these issues.

A positive is iPadOS. Proper windowing and quite a number of improvements finally mean the software is stepping up to the hardware. Swap out Files for Finder and it would be fantastic.

Always look to chuckle at Windows and BSOD’s and the ugly bugs they’d have throughout their operating systems. Not anymore, the quality of Apple software feels at an all time low especially when you throw in Apple Intelligence and Siri. A real shame as the hardware is streets ahead.

What I Read

Fortnightnote, Sunday 19th October

  • Feeling a bit beat up after the last two weeks. Work busy and a little bit of ill health coupled with a lack of sleep has left me feeling bust. Also entering that time of year when I start and finish work in the dark so important to get out for some fresh air when I can. Also getting increasingly frustrated with the bugs on macOS Tahoe. I do hope 26.1 focusses on bugs only as this release feels more like an early beta.
  • Indefinite Backpack Travel – I always struggle to travel light so it amazes me how much and yet so little is packed into this one bag.
  • A cartoonist’s review of AI art – thought provoking post from cartoonist Matthew Inman on the threat and also disappointment of the growing use of AI for sketches/comics/graphics. Some is great, vast majority is slop.
  • Agile is Out, Architecture is Back – AI has a lot to answer for but there is an over reliance on agile.
  • The 20 bytes of code that fixed Antennagate – you’re holding it wrong! Love that 15 years on we’re still finding out new things about the iPhone 4.
  • Synology Reverses Policy Banning Third-Party HDDs After NAS sales plummet – the right decision but too little too late for me at least. My custom NAS is doing well and I’ve no regrets on ditching Synology.
  • How I Reversed Amazon’s Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked – when you buy a book, it’s yours. It will age, get damaged, you can share easily and sell it on again and pass on to charity shops. Why should you buy a book from Amazon that ties you to them forever. Ugly.
  • A deep dive into the rss feed reader landscape – comes from Lighthouse which is a paid for cloud hosted feed reader but it’s an accurate summation of where the market is right now. Still view RSS as better way of keeping on top of things vs social media.
  • Album Cards: Rebuilding the Joy of Music Discovery for My 10-Year-Old – ❤️ – this is so good. Want to do something similar over the winter months as a small project.
  • The World Trade Center Under Construction Through Fascinating Photos, 1966-1979 – remarkable images of an iconic structure
  • Space Harrier at 40 – scary that games I loved are now this old. I’ve played this in a normal static arcade cabinet and also a couple of times in a motion one – it felt like the future. So good.
  • Blue Lights has been one of the best police dramas in years but episode 1 of season 3 felt a bit flat. How foolish was I – devoured the other 5 over a weekend on iPlayer and it was tremendous. Highly recommended.
  • Peacemaker season 2 kept up standard from the first season. Loved it…and it might be the last?
  • Celebrity Traitors has been an autumn gift. Only 4 episodes in but probably the best series so far. Alan Carr – who knew!

Weeknote, Sunday 5th October

  • A week off work was much needed. Time to recharge although sleep was awful until Friday night – grrrr. Made terrific progress with the custom NAS – now got all the basic docker images installed, Plex humming along nicely and all the data from the Synology is migrated. Thats a blog post I need to write – what hardware, why Unraid, how I’ve found it a few weeks in compared to Synology.
  • Storm Amy felt was a rude awakening that we’re well into autumn. Got most of the garden winter ready…fingers crossed that I don’t need to cut the grass again but will really depend on a cooler October.
  • Why I gave the world wide web away for free – Tim Berners-Lee is made different to today’s tech leaders.
  • Sora 2 is here – some of the videos I’ve seen Sora 2 generate are amazing…but it’s more slop. I’ve not bothered downloading OpenAI’s social media app that’s full of the videos being generated but seeing them seep elsewhere.
  • Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? – Amazon really is stuffed full of shit sellers so you need to be more aware than ever when ordering…but they also have made it really easy to tower and return anything with problems. While not always the cheapest they were for 90% of the components needed for my NAS build.
  • DHH Is Way Worse Than I Thought – there’s been many tech leaders who’s actions have been suspicious over the years but have kept their real views hidden…except they aren’t hiding anymore. Grim.
  • Complying With ‘Demand’ From Trump Administration, Apple Removes ICEBlock From App Store – compare this to when Apple stood up to the FBI – we’re in a different world now.
  • In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information – another shout out for RSS from actual blogs rather than sifting through feeds of shit forced on you via X, Bluesky, LinkedIn or one of the Meta platforms. Mastodon while not perfect is so much better than any alternative right now.
  • Always invite Anna – this really hit home. I’m not the most sociable but also recognise how it feels not to be invited. Beautiful post.
  • Microsoft revamps Xbox Game Pass plans and hikes Ultimate to $29.99 a month – everyone expected price rises were coming but this is excessive. I guess the loss of COD money had to be made up somewhere. I’ve got another 9 months of Ultimate paid for, but will drop down after that and go back to buying the odd AAA game I want to play. Not sure what’s next for gaming at Microsoft – rumours they might not do any more hardware and it feels like they’ve set fire to Game Pass.
  • Jumped on to macOS Tahoe this week – should have left it until a .1 comes out. Buggy and crashy.
  • And one game I really am looking forward to that comes out this week is Battlefield. Loved the demo and the sneak peaks into what’s coming in multiplayer and some of the single player game looks really good. Are they back?

Thirty

October 2nd 1995 – my first day at Yarrow Shipbuilders, then owned by GEC Marconi. Little did I know then that thirty years later I’d still be at the same firm now owned by BAE Systems.

On my first day as a graduate (there were only two graduates that joined in 1995) we met the MD, Murray Easton, who assured us that the news of 125 job losses would be in the press but don’t worry as it won’t impact us. A few weeks later in my first placement I can remember clearly one of the guys setting to work a Malaysian frigate telling me I was an idiot to join as “this place will be shut soon. Shipbuilding is dying”.

Thirty years later and the order book has never been as healthy but the business is also going through some sizing challenges similar to when I first joined. There’s always been a cyclical boom and bust nature to shipbuilding in the UK but the current order book offers an alternative approach and a bright future.

Govan Shipyard with the newly completed Janet Harvey Hall
Govan Shipyard with the newly completed Janet Harvey Hall

As for what I do now, it’s very different to when I joined as a graduate Design Engineer. Despite enjoying the first six month placement in Machinery Controls and being very fortunate to work on three separate sea trials and see what our products can really do, engineering wasn’t for me and I moved into engineering systems and IT. Over the years I’ve had numerous roles and enjoyed the variety and challenges as the importance of Digital, Data and Cyber grew across the whole enterprise. I’ve also been blessed to have some great supporters who have helped my career particularly in the last 3-4 years.

Do I have regrets? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t but there’s not much I would change apart from having more belief in myself and having more ambition to move within and outwith the company. There were opportunities but I played safe. It’s certainly a message I’ve been passing on when I meet the latest graduates but introversion and imposter syndrome are part of my make up and hard to shift.

As I look back I’m filled with gratitude for the people I’ve had the privilege to work alongside, many who I now call friends, and the challenges that have stretched and ultimately kept me growing. However this isn’t an ending as there’s still much to be done and the future holds so much possibility and potential.

Here’s to the journey so far and everything still ahead.

Wipeout is 30

I missed it by a day but yesterday was 30 years since Wipeout, and the Sony PlayStation, launched in the UK. The PlayStation had launched late in 94 so many of the UK launch titles were well known, but Wipeout was new for the UK.

It was the first game I tried and its impact was immediate. The graphics a step up from the competition, the weight and feel of each vehicle was so good but the overwhelming memory is the graphic style and the soundtrack. It looked and felt like a next generation title.

Wipeout PAL cover art

The graphic style was thanks to The Designers Republic and was a breath of fresh air compared to almost everything else but the soundtrack…it was so good. It introduced me to Leftfield, Orbital and most importantly The Chemical Brothers. I’m still convinced I was faster when Chemical Beats was playing. Further versions got bigger and faster and I’m still amazed that there isn’t a new version on the PS5 or at least a remaster featuring the best tracks from each game. Money on the table Sony, at least from me.

I was lucky to pick up a book from Volume last year celebrating Wipeout but I’d much rather have a new game. If you are in the mood for a book celebrating the original PlayStation Read Only Memory have one coming out next year which you can order now.

And yes, I fired up an emulator today and played a few games of Wipeout. So good.

Fortnightnote, Sunday 28th September

  • Been a really busy fortnight. Work full on and very little time to myself…thankfully got the next week off which will let me finish off setting up the new Unraid NAS and also finish off a post on iOS26 and the new hardware from Apple.
  • This years Ryder Cup has been epic. Europe smashed the first two days but fair play to the USA for responding to make the final day a total butt clencher.
  • The Bermuda Triangle of Leading – another astute post from John Cutler and something I’m guilty of doing.
  • I regret to inform you Meta’s new smart glasses are the best I’ve ever tried – while the fails at the launch were pretty funny, the reviews point to a pretty amazing set of smart glasses. Meta making real strides in this market – where are you Apple?
  • AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity – timely read after speaking with some new graduates at work and we spent 15 minutes on AI and its pro’s and con’s. I still have a fear of sitting in workshops and having a AI chatbot battle with people as they generate questions and answers that aren’t their own.
  • Beyond the Front Page: A Personal Guide to Hacker News – nice write up on getting the best out of hacker news, like Techmeme, still a daily driver for me
  • A platform jumping prince – Jordan Mechner is the author of Prince of Persia so who better to write about how it jumped between platforms.
  • Messenger – a quite beautiful webgl game that runs so well in the browser.
  • Tree of the year – great to see that the Argyle Street Ash in Glasgow is the Woodlands Trust tree of the year. I grew up three closes down from that tree and for thirty years I’d see it almost every day. Was really nice to hear from a couple of people that remember that tree in Glasgow but are now many miles away but saw the picture in papers or websites through the week. Hope it stays for many a year to come.

Weeknote, Sunday 14th September

  • Lingering manflu has hung around all week. Still convinced it was covid as I felt so lousy last weekend…similar to last years covid. The test was negative although maybe post a couple of confirmed covid bouts I’m handling infections differently now. I could well do with the irritating cough cough to piss off.
  • The death of Charlie Kirk was tragic. I’d seen the close up video on social media ahead of his death being confirmed, but it was pretty obvious from the video he wouldn’t survive. Kirk was someone who I knew little about, mostly because the little I did know was repulsive. His rhetoric was right wing, racist and anti feminist. I’m alarmed at the amount of people posting video’s after his death and saying things like “I didn’t agree with everything Charlie said”…swap Charlie for Adolf and would they be saying the same? Maybe they would given the rise of Reform and the flag shaggers in the UK. Kirk said in 2023 “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”. There were over 46000 gun deaths in 2023 in America. Life comes at you fast. Whats clear though is that there are parts of society that see political violence against the left as fair game but when it’s one of their own it’s a different matter. Difficult path ahead.
  • It was iPhone event week and once the dust had settled, I see that as one of the better year on year upgrade events for a long time. AirPods Pro 3 looks to be a meaningful upgrade on the current generation. The base iPhone 17 got a great set of updates that probably saw the biggest year on year change. The iPhone Air – a brand new phone (replaces the Plus) – looked so good but one camera and sticky battery life won’t tempt me off the Pro. This years Pro’s saw solid upgrades to the camera, improved cooling thanks to the shift back to a unibody aluminium and a vapour chamber and – finally – some actual colours probably thanks to aluminium again. So this coming Friday I should have a Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro and a new set of AirPods. The orange looks great although once lots of people have had it for a while will it look dated?
  • Finally got the custom NAS up and running and data transferring from the Synology. Lots of faffing about with motherboard patches and bios losing settings that held me back but looking forward to wrestling with Unraid and getting the services I want up and running.
  • Back in the 90’s there was a clear leader when it came to soundacrds – Creative. The Story of Creative Technology is a great trip down memory lane and was timely given my motherboard faffing this week.
  • Five for 50 – Some timely advice from Anil Dash who has had fingers in many internet pies over the years.
  • Techmeme is 20 – still one of my daily drivers, owner Gabe Rivera explains why this new aggregator is still thriving after all this time.
  • The story of how RSS beat Microsoft – of course RSS was going to win.
  • How Britain built some of the worlds safest roads – a lovely data rich post on why Britains road are so much safer than in many other countries.

Weeknote, Sunday 7th September

  • Feeling miserable thanks to a cough/cold/flu. Running since Wednesday I’ve suffered a snot explosion over the weekend with aches and pains all over. WFH for next couple of days I suspect to get through the worst.
  • Apple event next week. Most hardware seems leaked already unlike the Jobs era when there were always surprises. What I’d want more of from Apple is to make better use of the health data it captures. The vitals above show my last few days with some obvious outliers thanks to the bug I’ve picked up. Why isn’t there any action from that change – ask how I am, is there something wrong, then act on my responses with guidance. Feed in my health changes to ChatGPT and I get a ton of advice and links out to NHS. Apple need to pick up the pace and stop kissing Trumps backside.
  • Labours in a bit of a mess. Should Raynor have gone? Yes, she can;t be housing minister and screw up on tax and Labour have set the bar higher now for ministers. It’s clear though she’s been hounded and targeted by opposition MP’s and the press – is it due to her combative nature? Her background? Either way when you compare Raynor to what Boris Johnson did – unlawfully prorogued parliament when in Government, prosecuted and fined for holding illegal parties in Downing Street, ignored bullying across government, backed friends ground guilty of breaches on paid lobbying, lied to the Queen, placed lovers into paid jobs…and lets not talk Covid. As for Reform – I hope they will come unstuck but the pools are worrying.
  • Reclaim our flag – seeing saltires flying around Glasgow recently it reminded me of 2014 and the Indy vote – but there’s a fight in Scotland at least to claim the saltire. As ever, shady right wing facists are at the heart of this.
  • How Apple AirPods Work – Great video on some amazing tech. If AirPods Pro 3 come out this week it will be an insta-purchase. Best Apple product in years.
  • M365 Copilot fails to up productivity – I’m not surprised by these findings. For the cost per user per month you need to be using Copliot often and worth good results to make it worthwhile.
  • Alien: Earth continues to impress. Episode 5 this week was up there with some of the best bits from the movies.