The Union Street fire, started in an unregulated vape shop, devastated a much loved Glasgow victorian building, thankfully didn’t damage Central Station long term and turned every Glaswegian into a building expert. Got to love social media.
I took a walk into town yesterday and the burning smell was still noticeable. Demolition is underway and when you see the damage its understandable as the front of the building looks like it could be pushed over without much effort. Watching the disaster unfold last Sunday was numbing. There’s been many memorable and haunting images shared including some drone shots that really showed the challenge the Fire Service had in not only stopping the fire but protecting Central Station and Hotel. I thought this selection on Reddit were some of the better images from the incident.
The Glasgow Bell has also done some terrific reporting this week on the fire and its worth reading through their article from last year – Tinderbox – which catalogues the far too many, and suspicious, fires that blight Glasgow. If you are at all interested in whats going on in Glasgow and supporting local journalism then it’s well worth subscribing.
🔗 Links
- MICROSOFT BROKE THE ONLY THING THAT ACTUALLY MATTERED – I have a growing hatred of Windows 11 and this article captures my many annoyances. Such a regression.
- “This Is Not The Computer For You” – The best review of the new MacBook Neo. My first computer was an Amstrad CPC 464 with a green screen as thats all my parents could afford. I loved that thing. I gamed on it, wrote little scripts – well copied them from Amstrad Action. I’m chuckling now, I go to such lengths to not copy any text but back in the 80’s I’d sit for hours typing in code copied from a magazine. Also wrote my six year studies dissertation – Pessimism and Hope – The victim as protagonist in the novels To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and A Disaffection. I was a fun kid. Bought a dot matrix printer for it as well. That first computer lasted for 6 or 7 years until I bought my first PC. And I didn’t care about specs, green screen, tape drives – I just got on with it. The MacBook Neo will be a massive hit. I do wonder if iPad sales will take a hit as you can do so much more on a Neo vs an iPad.
- 239. Mac Neo and my afternoon of reflection and melancholy – Ex Microsofter Steven Sinofsky looks back on how Microsoft had all the parts that make the Neo such a hit with Surface and Windows 8 but never made a compelling device.
- Gone (Almost) Phishin’ – pretty scary breakdown on how the founder of WordPress, so not a dummy, was almost scammed.
- Lords a-leaving: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years – get out! Pretty annoying they’ve had to do a deal with the Tories to still keep some in, even temporarily. The Lords needs a reset and its annoying that Labour with their massive majority aren’t doing more.
- Wired headphone sales are exploding. What’s with the Bluetooth backlash? – exploding is a little strong, but wired headphones are fashionable.
📺 Media
Finished season 4 of Industry – quite the pivot from previous seasons but enjoyed it all the same. The Capture also started well – its been ahead of technology in previous series so we’ll see where this one takes us.
Loved Drive to Survive Season 8 although there were a couple of stories missing from the season recap, maybe due to them dropping down to 8 episodes. Today’s race from Shanghai didn’t disappoint either. Felt like there were battles up and down the standings and although there is something a little artificial around the overtaking the overall races have been enjoyable. The politics are coming to the surface more than ever though with some teams and drivers clearly not liking the changes.
Finally – The Pitt. Loved season 1, season 2 going strong and launches properly in the UK in a couple of weeks. The Guardian had a good behind the scenes this week.