Category: Weeknotes

A hot week which ended with manflu for me. Nothing worse than a summer cold. Domestic football season is over but all attention now on the World Cup. Sad news that Billy Gilmour won’t be there after picking up an injury in yesterdays warm up game and its pretty remarkable that Tyler Fletcher is his replacement. In Steve Clarke we trust, but that’s some call.

📺 Media

Race Across the World came to an end and what a glorious series it was. Spoilers ahead….but I was so pleased that Jo and Kush won not only the game but also were the team that really grew on me through the programme. Felt the most real of all the teams though none were in any way bad. Producers of that show really know how to select the right pairings and also produce an amazing series to watch.

The Boys came to an end and it was all a bit of a damp squib. The first two series stand out as by far the best and the last episode was a bit of an anti climax. For All Mankind also finished this week and I found season 5 to be the weakest so far, especially the last episode with some all to convenient loose ends tied up.

Loved Project Hail Mary and 28 Days Later: The Bone Temple and good to hear they’ve green-lit another 28 Days film to wrap everything up.

🔗 Links

• Disney erased FiveThirtyEight – An act of internet vandalism. While the original author look to bring the content back, there’s good work being done to establish a full index here.
• Celebrating Doodles – Google Doodles are an art form and this is an amazing searchable collection of every doodle.
• Google Changes Its Search Box for the First Time in 25 Years – Quite the change and given the hit an miss nature of its AI summaries, I sure hope they know what they are doing.
• Project Glasswing: An initial update – Looks like the Mythos update isn’t all hype.
• ‘Men and boys need to see this’: Jo and Kush and the joy of Race Across the World – 2 young men being kind to each other and to people they met on their journey – a great antithesis to the typical male stereotypes we see on social media today.
• Plex is tripling the price of a lifetime pass to $750 after doubling it last year – I love Plex but this is a sign of things to come. They are moving in a direction opposite to it’s origins IMHO, so time to look at alternatives like Jellyfin.
• The Face of WipEout: Building Feisar in Lego – This is stunning…I may have to buy this.
• Valve raises Steam Deck prices by more than $200 – Ramageddon claims another victim. Such a high price for a four year old console.
• Wired pulls plug on UK print edition as it focuses on global subscriber growth – End of an era. I fear for Edge Magazine in the face of higher prices.
• What Is a Dickover? – Gruber nails it yet again. Modern web can be so tiring.
• The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech – and here’s a list of more dickover type problems that blight tech.
• Broadband and mobile bills are soaring in the UK – depending on who you talk to – surprise surprise, the UK looks very different to the European market.
• 28 Summers | A Scottish FA Film | Presented by EE – It’s just over 80 minutes long but I loved this documentary released by the SFA that covers the road to the World Cup.

A packed week at work, always struggle the week after a holiday – no time to catch up on the mails from the previous week and a back to back diary. Can’t quite believe Starmer has held on – a caretaker PM now. What I really enjoyed this week was the morning walks – glorious. Not so glorious – some micro power outages at home. Had a handful over two days, not unique to me but happening to others in the area too. Glad I picked up a UPS for the NAS.

Also enjoyed a cracking brunch at Sunny Acre, the southside of Glasgow has some great places to eat.

Finished watching Season 2 of Daredevil which was pretty good, and The Cage on BBC was excellent. All caught up on The Assembly which is such a special programme – Nicola Sturgeons episode was funny, emotional and ended with a great version of Dignity.

🔗 Links

• Rain, Pubs, A Home Away From Home: Inside the ‘People Make Glasgow’ Editorial – The Star Bar looking better than ever
• Why Everyone’s Picking Up a PSP Again in 2026 – still an amazing looking handheld thats 22 years old!
• I Bought a “Junk” PSP From Japan: Here’s How It Went – another PSP post that didn’t lead me to eBay. Honest.
• How I Moved My Digital Stack to Europe – some great alternatives to the usual US based tech firms.
• Yellowkey – some of the cyber vulnerabilities being disclosed right now are amazing. This one could lead to real breaches of personal and corporate data.
• Muslim socialist destroys New York by taxing the rich, eliminating the deficit and improving public services – I’ve seen a couple of posts saying Burnham won’t make a difference, UK is toast, economy is bust. There’s always a different way as Zohran Mamdani is demonstrating.
• You can make an app for that – Claude and Codex really do make app building pretty straightforward. How much waste is there though from people running almost identical apps but built and deployed independantly.
• AI psychosis – this is a thing.
• Halt and Catch Fire – a wonderful TV drama (if you haven’t watched it then find and watch it immediately) but I never thought much about the title – this post explains it all.
• The Mandalorian N-1 Starfighter : Cross Section Artwork Process – seeing early reactions, this might be my favourite outcome of the Mandalorian movie

A week off work – much needed. Lots of tinkering, house chores and downtime. Also stumbled on two cracking Post Box toppers, one celebrating Star Wars day!

Found these on my daily walks, now on day 3344 of consecutive walks of at least 30 mins…but the weight is still growing!

Politics unavoidable this week and Labour, particularly Keir Starmer, are in a right mess.

Some thoughts on the past week:

• We need an update of the voting system to better reflect vote share. Regional list votes help, but you can still see issues when you look at overall votes cast. From 2021, Ballot Box Scotland had a good analysis on options. Sir John Curtice also had a good analysis on how FPTP has now turned against Labout and Tories.
• Winners – Greens, Lib Dems and Reform. Also SNP but on a reduced vote share and number of seats. Losers – Tory’s and especially Labour given just two years ago they were probably favourites in Scotland.
• Seeing narrative that Scotland has moved more right wing – certainly more obvious due to Reform but 31 Tory seats in 2021 now read as 29 right wing seats.
• More nationalist supporting MSP’s than union supporting for the first time in a while. SNP said if they got a majority they’d move to have a referendum. That’s quickly pivoted to saying it was a manifesto commitment despite not having a majority hence they will move to have one.
• Also seen a few comments that until independence is settled SNP will always be largest party. What does settled actually mean – Scotland is independent? It’s probably more likely given Wales and Northern Ireland are all now being run by nationalist supporting parties. But settled assumes a split in the union, and although number of MSP’s tells one story, opinion polls still suggest 50/50 split and a quick tot up of number of votes from Thursday shows independence supporting parties got around 1.87M votes vs 2.57M for union supporting parties.
• Given rise of Reform and the number of MSP’s that were standing down there’s going to be a fresh look in the Scottish Parliament. Not convinced there’s any increase in talent.
• Will we see Labour use their majority in the UK Parliament to actually do something? I expected a more radical government but they’ve been shackled by committing to Tory spending plans despite the world being on fire and events causing massive impact. Unless Starmer pivots quickly, which is unlikely, then he and Labour are toast.
• Sticking to a manifesto is noble but futile…especially the left is called out when they want to deviate from a commitment but nobody actually holds parties to account on failed manifesto pledges. SNP pledges from 2021 are part fiction as an example, but was hardly a topic in the latest election.
• And speaking of holding to account, given the rise of Reform, will journalists actually do their job now and hold them to account? If they don’t like the questions and threaten to walk away…let them.

🔗 Links

• Why You Take Notes But Never Get Smarter – I felt seen reading this. Lots of notes, tons of bookmarks, when do I think and learn? So doing a lot of cleansing as I moved to Obsidian and rethinking working week to bake in more thought time.
• The era of AI malaise – For all the benefits of AI I can’t be alone in finding it tiring. Breathless release after release, constant threat of upending jobs. And how can I forget – the constant slop on social media.
• Behind the Scenes Hardening Firefox with Claude Mythos Preview – Anthropic made a splash announcing and at the same time limiting access to Mythos but results published here are impressive. This is an arms race.
• How Britain ate, flirted and scored each other – nice use of AI and data to mine almost 20 years of Guardian Blind Dates
• Taken – god, this is eye opening. What a website knows when you visit…and stores. Nothing is for free especially on the internet.
• Dusk – It’s 20 years since the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the GameCube…and you can now play a much enhanced version on PC and Mac plus iOS and Android. Love it.

A busy fortnight, lots on in and out of work. Looking forward to the coming week – my first holidays of the year and a much needed break.

Good catchup with colleagues midweek at Ardnamurchan Restaurant in Glasgow although food was just ok, and not helped by one of the staff dropping leftovers down my back. At least the company was good.

🔗 Links

• Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down – Bye bye Tim, hello John Ternus. Not a surprise as widely tipped for over a year but the timing feels right. Apple are making more money than ever and seem to have a slate of product launches ahead so it makes sense that Ternus, a product guy, is now running the company. I’d hope it leads to a more open and less litigious Apple but unlikely.
• Another Day Has Come – Gruber nails the stepping down of Cook and links back to the death of Steve Jobs.
• Japan’s Cherry Blossom Database, 1,200 Years Old, Has a New Keeper – fascinating article and who knew the data kept was so old and intricate.
• The Beauty of Bonsai Styles – love a good Bonsai
• The loveless election: Why a win for the SNP is not a vote of confidence in the status quo – next week Holyrood election fills me with dread. SNP coasting despite their performance and Reform might even come second. Awful.
• How the Tech World Turned Evil – Greed, right wing politics and control are blighting tech leaders. Seeing more and more posts on moving away from big tech and to non American solutions…even self hosting of basics like mail, calendar etc.
• Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform – amen – still love Flickr.
• Artemis II Photo Timeline – Hank Green vibe coded a great site for viewing Artemis II photo’s…pulled from Flickr of course.
• When your Digital Life Vanishes – Backups!!!
• I’m done renting my digital life – Another trend is a move back to physical – blu-ray’s, cd’s, vinyl or doing it yourself via a NAS. I really need to write up my NAS build from last year.
• The one change that worked: I swapped doomscrolling for reading comic books – I’ve been doing similar. Less late night scrolling, more reading.
• BEWARE SOFTWARE BRAIN – The rise of AI has a downside
• The West Forgot How to Build. Now It’s Forgetting Code – Tales from the defence industry but related to AI – you still need knowledge
• Do I belong in Tech anymore? – And this cautionary tale shows how AI can impact on a persons mindset and career
• Why does it take so long to release black fan versions? – Noctua make great PC fans and I used a lot of them in my NAS build – nice they answered a question I had last year – why are black fans always later than their default colours?
• XOXO – Always looked at this internet/tech/media festival with a bit of envy. The topics were always interesting and the speakers varied. This site pulls all the XOXO content into one place. Easy to lose hours.

Out for a walk down the canal today and this magnificent creature was protecting its nest as the rest of the walkers/runners/cyclists passed within feet. Hopefully in the weeks to come there will be a few cygnets.

Rest of the week has been a bit meh. Lots on but a feeling of little progress at both work and home. I have cast my postal vote in the Scottish Elections. So many parties I’ve never heard of, so many people likely voting for Reform. It’s a shite state of affairs.

Finished of season 2 of The Pitt – glorious. If you haven’t given it a try already then seek it out pronto. The Capture finished well on the BBC and if that’s the end after series 3 it was pretty well done although there are some jumping off points if they want to do more. The last season of The Boys has leant in heavily to right wing culture and government and its playing almost as a satire to the current US government. Satisfying.

🔗 Links

• Backblaze has quietly stopped backing up your data – This is not great behaviour from Backblaze – time for me to look at alternatives.
• Codex for (almost) everything – Anthropic and OpenAI are releasing new features it feels like almost daily. Codex updates in the last week brought features previewed in Sky and it’s pretty powerful to see Codex background controlling many of the apps on your Mac. AI + agents makes for a pretty exciting future.
• Introducing Claude design – Web based but another interesting AI tool from Anthropic. Definitely given me some good/better design options for my website.
• Why Japan has such good railways – In depth review of the rail system in Japan. Hadn’t realised how much was privatised.
• Video Game Devs Explain How Pausing Works And Sometimes It Gets Weird – Who knew how much goes into pausing a game.
• Amiga Graphics Archive – always loved the look of Amiga games even though I couldn’t afford one. This is a great trip down memory lane.
• WipEout Anti-Gravity Racing Series: Desktop Wallpapers – these look great – Lego builds of the ships from WipEout. I’m going to have to build one at some point but the desktop wallpaper will do in the meantime.

A four day work week – need more of those. As ever there’s lots on at work and already looking ahead to 2027. Also using Claude and agents more and it’s delivering promising results. Also promising, no snow this week at least in Glasgow.

Also a week where I focussed on finances and got a pile of small but building tasks out the way. After a chat with Shak on Friday also spun through my digital, entertainment and utility subscriptions across the year. Feck me. Quite the total and I still keep finding more I’ve forgotten. I need an intervention.

🔗 Links

• Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? – Long, detailed investigation with lots of input from around the tech world including Altman himself. The animation at the start of the article says it all.
• Sam Altman Blog – A few days after the article Altman’s house was attacked and he posted on the impact the article and fallout has had.
• Project Glasswing – This feels one of the more important AI press releases in the last 12 month but at the moment, thats all it is, a press release and PR from Anthropic. However the idea that they are finding bugs that nobody else has and also how AI is behaving is super interesting and pretty scary.
• Is Hormuz Open Yet? – Certainly vibe coded but a really useful site especially as it’s now America and not Iran that is going to block the Hormuz.
• Artemis II successfully completed its mission. Loved images from the Lunar Flyby and also these iPhone Wallpapers. Images look spectacular on OLED screens.
• A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Making This Astonishing Scale Model of Every Single Building in New York City – What an amazing thing to do for 20 years. Would love to see this in person.
• Thom Yorke | Live at Sydney Opera House – I love Radiohead and Thom Yorke and this is a great 90 minute video from a live event he did in November 2024. Someone has done the hard work and turned this into wav and mp3 files.
• Productive procrastination – this sang to me when I stumbled on it this week. Much to unpack.
• Train Jazz – what a clever and unique web app. Be great to see for other cities like London – Glasgow’s would be a bit quiet 🙂

A packed fortnight including a long planned and successfully executed application upgrade at work. Great to see the team work so well over a long weekend and despite some hiccups we got there.

Its also spring and if there was any doubt that Glasgow gets some crazy weather, here’s the start and end pictures from my walk yesterday.

This was in the space of 90 minutes – I was frozen and soaked through by the end of it. And we go from a feels like temp on Sunday of -5 to a feels like of 18 on Tuesday. Lovely!

Last week saw Artemis II launch on its fly-by mission to the moon. Nasa did a nice short recap of the launch but its the photo’s released so far that have impressed. Hello, World is an image not taken by a human in over 50 years. So much detail when you study it and taken on a Nikon D5 according to Flickr. I’m also loving they are using a Flickr Album to share hundreds of photo’s from the launch. I’m not as enthused at the tech they are using feels like an extension of the 70’s nor that the USA is currently bombing the hell out of Iran and threatening WW III – puts things in perspective.

Apple also turned 50 on April 1st. So many great articles and videos over the last week, some of my favourites below:

• Apple at 50: a visual history – Nice look back at some Apple milestones
• Apple Just Showed Us Rare Prototypes—Even Tim Cook Hasn’t Seen Them – WSJ getting some rare access at Apple
• Apples Best Product Ever – A rundown of the top 50 Apple products as voted for by Verge readers
• The Talk Show – Apple at 50 – The two johns, Gruber and Siracusa, discuss Apple’s milestone

🔗 Links

• A French Navy officer accidentally leaked the location of an aircraft carrier by logging his run on Strava – maybe think about the data you share online?
• ‘Her head was broken’: parents at Iranian school bombed by US describe their worst day – Its a war crime – and nobody will ever be prosecuted.
• My Astrophotography in the Movie Project Hail Mary – great story, amazing images
• Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green – Colour theory!
• Peak dedication – Over 30 years to make a map of Scotland – love it
• A Dot a Day Keeps the Clutter Away – a maybe too over the top way to organise?
• The Last Quiet Thing – I get it. I have so many notifications blocked on the Apple Watch and the Phone. Too distracting.
• Physical and digital Switch 2 games will have different prices, Nintendo says – digital games cheaper than physical…at release. Finally!

📺 Media

Speaking of finally, finished of Season 4 of The Boys ahead of its final run starting later this week. More than a bit squiffy in places but ended well and sets up the final run of episodes. The Pitt season 2 has again been superb – and it’s finally available to watch in the UK via HBO Max. Not so good – War Machine. Terrible film with dodgy plot and effects.

BBC also on a strong run. The Capture season 3 has been excellent with some good twists and it was great to welcome back Race Across the World. Still one of the best shows on the BBC and the team do so well at getting the right pairings for the race.

What a shit week. However we got some lovely spring weather and the Glasgow Botanics looked smashing on a quiet morning walk. Even saw a bunny.

🔗 Links

• The 49MB Web Page – Thanks to ubiquitous fast internet you don’t think too much about the size of web pages now…but this is horrendous. Not just the size but how unusable many sites now are thanks to adverts, auto playing pop up videos, adverts that are 80% of the screen. Here’s an analysis of a PC Gamer webpage thats a meagre 37MB but downloads around half a GB of data if you keep it open. Browsers need to stop this if website publishers are going to be so hostile.
• ‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ – alternatively, we all move to Norway
• Have a Fucking Website – just not one that takes up 49MB
• Sloponomics and the coming storm – this feels inevitable
• Stop Sloppypasta – this also feels inevitable as a friend suffers this daily at work with someone abusing copilot to spam their Teams chats. Please don’t.
• Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines – this is ugly. Google should not be doing this. The poor AI results at the top of Google search has lead to me using ChatGPT more for basic searches…and its much better.
• DLSS 5 looks like a real-time generative AI filter for video games – DLSS 3 and 4 was for me surprisingly good but this looks like shit. I do not want a developers characters to look different thanks to AI.
• Our commitment to Windows quality – Quite the admission from Microsoft – Windows 11 had got bloated, slow, full of Copilot everywhere you don’t need it. Everything an OS shouldn’t be. Hopefully the focus is real and we see a significant improvement in speed and reliability through 2026.
• Glasgow Subway Goes Contactless – Finally. It’s a small thing especially given how simple the Glasgow Subway is, but this takes some more friction out of travelling around Glasgow. Next – fix the buses.
• Scotstoun, Glasgow, named one of the best places to live in the UK 2026 – I don’t stay in Scotstoun but have worked there for over 30 years. If this is one of the best places to live in the UK then we really are in trouble.
• Outgoing MSPs leave Holyrood with relief, regret and unfinished business – with 42 MSP’s leaving of their own accord and given the likely rise of Green and Reform candidates we could find over half the chamber filled with new faces. Interesting times. A lot of experience leaving in May.
• Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story – this is wild. These betting/gambling sites need regulated.
• SUCKER – My year as a degenerate gambler – a great long read. Sobering just how addictive these prediction (not gambling or betting) sites really are.
• What Do You Do and What Do You Make? – Fascinating article on what 60 New Yorkers do and make. Apple News link.
• Apple is 50 on the 1st of April. A couple of great audio and visual treats. David Pogue is releasing a book, Apple: The First 50 Years. A 90 minute watch is Pogue moderating a panel of previous Apple’s exec’s at the Computer History Museum. John Gruber also published an episode of the Talk Show with David Pogue about the book he’s authored, the access he got and some great never before heard gossip on Apple. Both are highly recommend and I’ll post up some thoughts on the book once I’ve got it…and read it although that might take some time!

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.

Quick week, lots done and todo. Despite reservations and looking elsewhere I’m still using Todoist to keep me on track and I’m also still wedded to having only one action list for both work and personal todo’s. Next few weeks is a focus on roadmaps, investments and whats next. Lots to unpack.

Sport in the last few days has been tremendous. The Scotland v France rugby yesterday was one of the best games I’ve watched. Scotland were magnificent and disciplined as they ripped France apart. The 50-40 score flatters the French as Scotland tired in the last 15 minutes. To think many were calling for Gregor Townsend to step down…and if only Scotland had won their first game against Italy, they’d be champions now.

The new F1 season also delivered. New rules, a real shuffle of the order from a teams perspective and not a bad first race this morning. Some of the overtaking felt a bit artificial but willing to give it time before rushing into a judgement. Great to see 5 Uk drivers in the top 8 at Melbourne.

Spring felt it really arrived this weekend as well. A warmth in the sun on Saturday. Great to get some rays in whats been a drab start to the year.

Love this bit of street art from https://www.instagram.com/lyndsey.arts/

🔗 Links

• The stranger secret: how to talk to anyone – and why you should – loved this post and it’s something I wish I could do but I’m so introverted. Can’t break the habit even in work conferences.
• Thoughts and Observations on the MacBook Neo – great laptop, great price although I still feel 8GB of ram is on the tight side for the O/S plus apps. Still missing something really new and innovative from Apple.
• HazeOver – great but simple app that dims all other windows on the Mac apart from the one you are using. Improves usability especially on Tahoe.
• The fall and fall of Tony Blair – I still view Blair as one of the best prime ministers the UK has had in the last few decades despite the Iraq War mistake…but its hard not to agree with this article especially when you see him cuddle up to Trump on Gaza and criticise Starmer this weekend.
• The View From RSS – another pro RSS post. I’m really enjoying the renaissance of blogging, no mater how small it is in reality, and the setback from social media.