Weeknote, Sunday 10th May

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!

Post Box topper at Bearsden
Post Box topper in Glasgows West End 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.

Rethinking My Defaults

Maybe it’s AI and my constant tinkering via Claude and Codex, maybe it’s because I’ve had some time off from work and wanted to change some app’s. Maybe it’s because I’ve so fecking tired of Safari crapping out on the Mac in some form…but I’ve finally switched a few of the default app’s I’ve used for years.

First up, it’s bye bye Safari and hello Chrome. Well it was until I used Chrome for a day and realised Google has neutered ad-blocking. So after trialling Brave I’ve settled on Firefox as my default browser on the Mac. Fast, great extensions and so far no major issues after a few days of use. Safari was always complaining about high memory usage, had rendering issues and every so often some extensions just failed to work properly. I’ve got Firefox setup on iOS and iPadOS as well but will likely stick with Safari on those platforms as it’s faster.

Next up, Apple Notes. The app has improved greatly over the years and although I’ve not really had any sync issues, I wanted a bit more control over the note-taking experience and I also wanted something that could talk easily via Claude or Codex. Considered Notion but settled on Obsidian. I’ve sued Obsidian in the past and liked it, the challenge will be settling on a view that I like and with limited amount of plugins but its almost impossible not to keep tinkering in the first few days of use.

I’ve cleaned up the notes in Apple Notes and migrated over only what I needed – so much legacy cruft that I just wasn’t using. So far, all working well and syncing across platforms.

And the final change is to ditch Day One for journalling and move all 7000 odd entries into Obsidian. Not as slick an interface in Obsidian but one less app that I need is where my head’s at right now.

Will these changes stick? Hope so as I want to simplify my app’s down but not trade that for less functionality or a drop in stability but already seen an improvement in that front now that I’m no longer hitting daily Safari issues. Whats next?

Fortnightnote, Sunday 3rd May

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.

Empty underground station in Glasgow

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

Weeknote, Sunday 19th April

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

Weeknote, Sunday 12th April

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.

Sunrise over Kelvindale 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

Fortnightnote, Monday 6th April

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:

🔗 Links

📺 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.

Weeknote, Sunday 22nd March

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

9 Favourite Racing Games

So a recent post on BlueSky got me thinking – what are my 9 favourite racing games? Not easy and favourite does not equal best. After a bit of thinking and jogging of memories, here’s my list in no particular order. Or is it.

Sega Rally Championship – Saturn

Sega Rally Championship came to the Sega Saturn in 1995. At the time the graphics were state of the art but what shone was the gameplay especially two player split screen. Can remember one memorable 2 player session where you won by carving out a 2 or 3 second lead and it was around 60 or 70 minutes before one of us ebbed out in front enough. Glorious.

Gran Turismo 4

The fourth version of the series and probably the one I played the most despite there being no online multiplayer. Launching in 2004 the graphics on the Playstation 2 were superb as the dev’s knew how to make the most of the platform. The cars handled differently and there were over 700 of them and so much customisation was available – amazing depth for a mostly single player racing game.

While it wasn’t the first nor got the best reviews this was peak Gran Turismo. Future games may have had much better graphics but the online racing always suffered from cheating and the game grew with bloat. I’d hate to see the hours I spent on this.

Project Gotham Racing 3

PGR was a superb racing series on the Xbox with origins from Metropolis Street Racing on the Dreamcast. PGR 3 was peak for me. Released in 2005, racing around London, Tokyo, New York or Las Vegas was all the better for doing it with friends online. That what set this out from Gran Turismo – up to 8 player multiplayer and online scoreboards for various time trials.

PGR 3 also introduced me to Geometry Wars which was available to play in the arcade cabinets in your garage. Glorious – still play Geometry Wars to this day.

F-Zero

I loved this game. Super Nintendo, 1991, one of the best console pads coupled with a futuristic racing game taking advantage of the Mode 7 system on the SNES. Much simpler than today’s games but I was obsessed. Even sent some times into one of the magazines. Been playing quite a bit of F-Zero 99 on the Switch and this is my goto game for testing an emulator or new bit of retro hardware.

F355 Challenge

F355 Challenge on the Dreamcast was such a tough racing game. Small number of tracks, tough computer opponents but once you put the time in it was such a rewarding game. This came out in 2000 and it took a few years before it was bettered.

Forza Horizon 3

Offshoot of the main Forza racing series, Horizon 3 came out in 2016 and was so much fun. Online was rock solid, superb graphics and gameplay second to none. You really could race anywhere and there was so much depth. Tuning, liveries, unlocking more cars. Loved it and looking forward to Horizon 6 coming out later this year.

Driveclub

The best racing game on the PS4, Driveclub came out in 2014 and despite the mixed reviews I loved the physics, the weather and the online racing. Evolution were great at releasing updates and new modes and tracks were delivered for another two years. It’s a real shame that the original release had issues, didn’t have the weather feature and a bit like we saw in the last few years with No Man’s Sky, Driveclub was one of the first racing games to really evolve and get better with each content drop.

MotoGP

Mugello! 2002, I’ve just got broadband installed for the first time (hello green frog) and the Xbox live beta service has launched with three tracks from MotoGP. That first Friday afternoon with Xbox Live was memorable. The first race on MotoGP was with a few of the developers of MotoGP testing out the online performance – awesome – this is the future of gaming. The next race was with a wee ned from Glasgow calling everyone a fanny – oh no – this is the future of gaming. As it was the only decent beta game I put an ungodly amount of hours into this and the full release of MotoGP.

Many friends were made from that first year of Xbox Live and MotoGP itself was never really bettered as future releases changed the handling and made it maddening for me.

Wipeout

It was 1995 and Sony launched its first console, the PlayStation, in Europe with Wipeout. Like most launches you pick up a few games and Ridge Racer had got most of the press, but Wipeout was an instant win for me. Visuals such a step up compared to something like F-Zero from only 4 years prior but it was the handling of the ships, the variety of tracks, the soundtrack and the industrial visuals. What. A. Game.

Follows up’s were also very good but the first version will always be the best for me.

Contenders

I’ve played a ton of racing games over the years so getting down to a favourite 9 wasn’t easy. Some runners up – Burnout Paradise, Daytona, Forza Motorsport 4, Colin McRae Rally, Stunt Car Racer and Super Mario Kart. All cracking games and while some of them may be technically better than my top 9 they don’t have the same hold on my memory.

Lot’s of arcade racers in the list and very little sim – anything obvious missing?

Weeknote, Sunday 15th March

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.

Weeknote, Sunday 8th March

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.

Kelvingrove park with Glasgow University tower in the background
Street art off Byres road from https://www.instagram.com/lyndsey.arts/

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.