Category: Weekly digest

Scotland just lost in the RWN quarter final to Australia. Bastards. Anyway, on with this weeks reads.

• On Apple’s Insurmountable Platform Advantage
• The Inside Story of Apple’s New iMacs – some nice updates but I think it will be this time next year before I upgrade to a retina iMac.
• So here’s the thing – As much as the last article praises Apple for sweating the details, they just can’t get the mouse right. I’m not a fan of the mighty ,ouse but to have the lightning port underneath the mouse, meaning it’s unusable even if it is just for minute is just wrong. Thank goodness for Logitech.
• IBM cuts down IT support staff w/ Mac deployment, says 5% of Mac users call help desk vs 40% for PCs
• Rethinking iTunes – Some nice idea’s for how to rebuild iTunes.
• The Elephant in the Room – Macdrama! This was a pretty ugly week for the Mac community. Samantha Bielefeld has been a recent addition within the Mac blogging community and has written some great posts over the last few weeks. This post was in response to Overcast 2 from Marco Arment and was pointing out the unique position that Arment has built for himself. However the post went to far trying to calculate his income. Cue a vicious response from Marco supporters including hate mail, rape and death threats and general abuse towards Bielefeld. Horrible sexist abuse which unfortunately Arment did little to defuse. For more follow up read Samantha and The Great Big Lie and Big Money is Coming which is a follow up from Bielefeld herself. So sad.
• Europe’s love affair with diesel cars has been a disaster
• How Tesla is ushering in the age of the learning car
• Getting Over Taxis – Uber launched in Glasgow this weekend. Haven’t made my mind up about them yet. A necessary disrupter or evil. Both?
• The Drone Papers – A whistleblower reveals the truth behind America’s drone success. Great read.
• “Arabian Street Artists” Bomb Homeland: Why We Hacked An Award-Winning Series</li>
• Nudes Are Old News at Playboy
• Ronda Rousey’s Next Fight: Body Image in Hollywood – “I swear to God,” she said, shaking her head, “if anyone calls me fat one more time in my life, I’m going to kill them.”
• 55 Internet Things for Back to the Future Day
• Force Awakens Official Poster
• 50 Weird & Unknown STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE Facts
• Computer Show – Glorious!
• How to Get Some Rest When Stress Is Keeping You Up at Night
• Break – Great writing from Matt Gemmell. If you only read one thing this week, make it this.
• What’s Lost When Most People Work From Home
• Five Years of Building Instagram
• Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn From It)
• Why I Unfollowed You on Instagram – I’d love an Activity app that first thing in the morning and mid-evening I could open and it would give me the best from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram plus e-mails, videos, reads all in one place without the duplication and noise that each separate network delivers now. Surely it’s coming?
• Here’s What “M,” Facebook Messenger’s Virtual Assistant, Looks Like – Also coming soon, the virtual assistant.
• The prime minister is pig headed – Well done Nicola Sturgeon

Bumper listing this week to make up for last week miss. Some great reads here so hope you enjoy it.

• There is a property boom, especially for the SNP
• What it means to be great – It’s not just the product.
• What’s worse than paid app updates? – The unwillingness of people to pay pennies for app’s still shocks me.
• How Steve Jobs Fleeced Carly Fiorina
• Google’s Cute Cars And The Ugly End Of Driving
• Elon Musk’s sleight of hand
• Urban mobility at a tipping point
• Historic swimming pools of Britain: Preserving our bathing heritage, in pictures
• Last of the Govan Cranes
• British steel industry buckles under the weight of cheap Chinese product – This feels close not home as I work in shipbuilding and I have friends working at Scunthorpe. The government can’t let this strategically important industry die on their watch…or can they?
• British Airways – Building the 787-9 Dreamliner
• Blank Space: What Kind of Genius Is Max Martin?
• The Network Man
• Project Apollo Archive – If you love space travel then you must look at this – 8000 images from the Apollo program. Love it.
• The inside story of how $1 billion Evernote went from Silicon Valley darling to deep trouble – Evernote has certainly stagnated for me…so much so I’ll be looking seriously at Notes from Apple as it’s had quite the upgrade.
• It’s all about people: DVLA delivers real transformation
• By 2050, human-on-robot sex will be more common than human-on-human sex, says report
• Let The Robots And Iphones Tend The Crops
• Twitter’s Moment</li>
• Inside the creation of the Microsoft Surface Book
• The power of privacy – 5 part video series from Aleks Krotoski on privacy – the first one was quite revealing.
• A Brief History of the End of the Comments
• Jonathan Glazer Directs Wild And Wonderful Rebrand For Channel 4
• Sneaker Wars: Inside the Battle Between Nike and Adidas
• The white man in that photo – The amazing story of Peter Norman.
• How common is your birthday? Find out exactly with an interactive heat map.
• How To Beat Loneliness
• Jony Ive, J.J. Abrams, and Brian Grazer on Inventing Worlds in a Changing One
• Happy 20th Anniversary Wipeout – 2o years since the original Wipeout, one of the developers releases the original design document. Great read.

A little bit of everything this week – science, technology and drones with a bit of politics thrown in for free.

• What the British are really laughing about – David Cameron really put his penis into a pig’s mouth?
• I was part of the Cereal Killer cafe protest – here’s why – Farcical.
• How much of your audience is fake?
• Ad Blocking and the Future of the Web
• A New Caption That Works for Every New Yorker Cartoon
• How A Little Lab In West Virginia Caught Volkswagen’s Big Cheat – Whole car industry or just VW?
• Honda “Paper” by PES – However, car industry still makes great adverts.
• Google’s 17th Birthday – 17!
• The iPhones 6S – Universally great reviews, but I’ll give it a miss this year.
• Zane Lowe: ‘Beats 1 is the common room for the future pop rebels’
• Netflix knows the exact episode of a TV show that gets you hooked
• The Avenger – Great read…the fight for Lockerbie truth goes on.
• What Happens Next Will Amaze You
• NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars – Water on Mars! Go watch The Martian!
• No DJoke
• Building a rope bridge with flying machines
• Tens: Chasing Scottish Summer – Drones video’s aren’t enough. 360° Interactive Drone videos are the future. View on mobile or use Chrome on desktop and W,S,A,D to move around. Imagine this viewed through an Oculus!

What a week. Corbyn, Refugee Crisis and Ad Blockers topped by a weekend of quality sport. Oof.

• Corbyn’s Cabinet Chaos: The Inside Story
• James O’Brien stuns caller angry at Corbyn for not singing the national anthem – Owned
• Cameron won’t take refugees who have reached Europe – like there’s a humanitarian offside rule
• This extremely cynical, sweary woman questions why refugees really want to come to britain anyway
• The Story Of Scotland’s Referendum Told By The People Who Led It
• Mhairi Black on Scottish independence and Jeremy Corbyn
• Why the pro-independence Sunday Herald was turned away from the pro-independence Hope Over Fear rally – I still chuckle at the ‘Hope over Fear’ name. Bullshit of the highest order.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook On The iPhone 6s, Siri And Selfies
• Tim Cook Interview Apple – Late Show with Stephen Colbert – 9/15/2015
• iOS 9: The MacStories Review, Created on iPad – Great detailed review of iOS 9 by Federico Viticci.
• iOS 9 review – If Federico’s review isn’t enough give Rene Ritchie’s a try. Exhaustive.
• Firework DISASTER Caught on 360 Cam in 4k – Fantastic 360 video, so inventive.
• Welcome to hell: Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook and the slow death of the web
• Dear Apple: I may rob your store
• Is using ad blocking software morally wrong? – It’s not the ad’s as such…it’s the slow web pages, the analytics, the invasive experience that people don’t like. Still, with smaller independents relying more on Patreon and other methods this argument will run and run.
• To Scale: The Solar System – It’s big!
• Muslim ninth grader arrested for bringing an electronics project to school
• Interesting take on the whole clock/bomb thing in the USA
• The WWII-Era Plane Giving the F-35 a Run for Its Money
• Google Is 2 Billion Lines of Code—And It’s All in One Place
• Masters of the Small Canvas
• Richie McCaw in The Game Starts Here – Great advert but not as great as Japan’s victory over South Africa.

A pretty busy week in tech and politics. The Labour leadership result is just the start of an interesting time for the party – get your popcorn ready. Meanwhile the Apple keynote has launched a slew of new products to chew over the coming months. Good times.

• Packed In A Dinghy With Syria’s Refugees – A must watch from Alex Crawford
• Sky News reporter tweets worst responses to her refugee film – Crawford then retweets the worst of the Twitter responses to her film.
• Jeremy Corbyn: is he really unelectable as prime minister?
• People are sharing these images of what Corbyn and Cameron were up to in the 1980s
• The Star Wars™ Stamp Collection
• Star Wars Poetry
• BB-8 Releases the Child Within – I didn’t react quite like this but BB-8 is quite the lovely thing.
• Brief Thoughts and Observations Regarding Today’s ‘Hey Siri’ Apple Event
• From Products To Platforms
• How Apple Built 3D Touch
• Spotify is getting unbelievably good at picking music — here’s an inside look at how
• The making of an All Black: how New Zealand sustains its rugby dynasty – Less than a week to go until the Rugby World Cup….can’t wait for that.
• Advertising Doesn’t Have to Irritate, Intrude, Lie, Cheat and Generally Suck
• This is a brilliant, and devious, way to hide a negative review – Of course, some adverts just cheat.
• Fixing Twitter – Easy!
• Why your bathroom scales are lying to you and how to find your true weight – As someone who weighs himself daily I found this pretty interesting.
• Miyamoto on World 1-1: How Nintendo made Mario’s most iconic level

Bumper edition due to last weeks miss.

• These photos will change how the world sees the Syrian refugee crisis – One photo that will live long in the memory for the wrong reasons and a right wing press that forgot the last few years of pressing for increased border controls. Shamed us all.
• Jeremy Corbyn’s politics are fantasy – just like Alice in Wonderland – The warmonger just can’t shut his mouth
• 3 Miles To Hope
• What’s In My Bag? – What refugees bring when they run for their lives
• Driven to Kill – Horrific story of why drivers in China make sure they kill pedestrians they’ve hit rather than injure them.
• Fluid Coupling – The sad state of enterprise information technology
• In 1975, this Kodak employee invented the digital camera. His bosses made him hide it. – Own goal.
• How to cash in on the cult of Apple – Buy Shares!
• Apple Beats 1 DJ Julie Adenuga: ‘I used to work at the Apple Store’
• Justin Bieber, Diplo and Skrillex Make a Hit – Not only a great song but a great video from the New York Times.
• Go, and Be – Stunning video of the Scottish Highlands. I’ve yet to visit so much of what I call home.
• Xerox scanners/photocopiers randomly alter numbers in scanned documents
• ‘Gadget allergy’ disability recognised in French court
• James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture: Armando Iannucci – Some great thoughts on the future of the BBC
• Podcasting embraces a new era of cool (thanks, Serial)
• Droid Dreams: How Neal Scanlan And The Star Wars: The Force Awakens Team Brought Bb-8 To Life
• Star Wars BB 8 from Sphero – Yours (and mine!!!) for £130.
• One of the World’s Only Globe-Making Studios Celebrates the Ancient Art of Handcrafted Globes – These are gorgeous but the prices are eye-watering.
• Inside Banksy’s Dismaland, for Those of You Who Can’t Make It
• What Are the Worst Airports in the World? – No surprise to see Bristol in a couple of the worst of lists.
• Philips AmbiLux TV – I had one of the original Ambilight TV and I got caught up in the hype. It didn’t add to the experience but this new version looks very promising. I’d love to play a game through it – wonder if it would lag behind the action?
• Forza Motorsport 6 – TV Commercial – A fantastic advert for Forza 6 charting the progression of motorsport video games through the ages. Up there as one of the best video game adverts. The Forza 6 demo though is underwhelming. Graphically it can’t be faulted (still prefer the year old Driveclub) but it felt tired with so many forced menu’s, voiceovers, cut scenes but worse was the hard sell. Buy me options littered throughout the demo but worse was the ultimate edition – pay more money and get the game early. Mod’s also look to be another step down the line of offering micro transactions on an already full price game. Think I’ll be giving Forza a miss this year.

Some good reads this week. Hope you enjoy.

• Do Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall look like leaders? – Click bait or just massively out of touch?
• Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party: one of them must go
• Louise Mensch blames her own offensive Twitter searches on Jeremy Corbyn supporters – Ha Ha
• #LabourPurge: Long-time supporters of party claim they have been barred from voting – Labour really has lost it’s way. Stifles debate, scared of change and seemingly split in two.
• The Colors Of An App Icon
• Flying Robots Replace Oil Roughnecks
• Flying High Photographer Captures Bird’s-eye Beach Views by Hanging From Helicopter
• NO DICKHEADS! A Guide To Building Happy, Healthy, and Creative Teams. – Some great points here.
• A Manager’s Manifesto
• Software Estimation Is A Crock
• How Relay FM Proves That Podcasts Aren’t An Overnight Success – 1 year old and Relay FM consistently produce some of the best podcasts available today.
• The Top 50 Albums for the Past 50 Years According to /r/music
• Star Wars – All Lightsaber Duels – So good.
• Real Life First Person Shooter (Chatroulette version) – this is awesome

A really busy week off so a slightly later than normal post. Some good stuff this week too!

• Scotland will ban the cultivation of genetically modified crops – Surprised by this decision which seems pretty backward.
• There’s a lot to worry about in the SNP’s party conference agenda – here’s why
• It’s official: the House of Lords is completely bust – Some more shocking statistics with regards the House of Lords. Worse, we’ve got at least 5 years of this if not 7-9 or more. Disgraceful.
• Tony Blair: Even if you hate me, please don’t take Labour over the cliff edge – Fucking warmonger. Piss off.
• Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace – sounds grim
• 2 Months with an iPhone
• Zane Lowe Talks Beats 1’s First Weeks, Working With Trent Reznor and Dr. Dre, And ‘Gorging On Pearl Jam Radio’
• Can Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Save the Music Industry?
• My Apple Hardware Hierarchy of Need – Can’t disagree with much of this post especially the nice to haves.
• The ethics of modern web ad-blocking
• Please Don’t Buy a Digital SLR – Some good points and for me I don’t think my next camera will be a DSLR.
• Twitter Contest Winning as a Service
• Wore my Fitbit heart rate monitor during sex. Beautiful.
• Saying Hello to 100 People (GTA 5 Online)

Last week was really busy ahead of a week off work which is much needed as I’m a bit rundown at the moment. So just a few reads this week but still some crackers.

• Hiroshima – 70 years on and we still have these abhorrent weapons.
• How to Spend Time Alone
• My Favorite Mac: The New 12″ Retina MacBook – New iPads soon but I still reckon the MacBook (next years) will replace my Air and iPad.
• A Visual History of the iTunes Icon
• Inside the failure of Google+, a very expensive attempt to unseat Facebook
• Windows 10 doesn’t offer much privacy by default: Here’s how to fix it – The level of privacy invasion in Windows 10 is quite shameful.
• What Exactly Is Going On in True Detective Season 2? An Excruciatingly Clear Plot Breakdown. – True Detective – well made but a fucking mess of a show to follow.
• Homme de Plume: What I Learned Sending My Novel Out Under a Male Name
• Focus Backgrounds
• Stop it! – great summary of all that’s wrong with the web today.
• In a world without money and advertising, where do the artists go?
• The Guardian Cities: Skylines challenge – can I build a truly anti-capitalist city?

Busy week including a trip down to see some toys from Microsoft but I’ve got a week off soon and I’m planning some gadget buys. Huzzah. Lot’s to read as always.

• Leaked IAAF doping files: Wada ‘very alarmed’ by allegations – Cycling has struggled to get over it’s tainted past. If this is true so will Athletics.
• ‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen – Astounding work by the New York Times.
• The Story Behind New York Magazine’s Powerful Cosby Cover
• Cecil the lion: The killing that’s enraged the internet, explained – It should never have happened but there are more pressing issues to get outraged over than the death of a lion.
• When I’m Gone – Beautiful
• Police Scotland is a lamentable shambles – Kevin McKenna lets rip and there is a lot to be angry about.
• SNP Members Are Quitting The Party Because It Isn’t Pro-Independence Enough – 1 or 2 people or trouble at mill?
• Lunch with the FT: Mhairi Black – Jeremy Paxman lunches with the countries youngest MP. Great read.
• How A Simple Apple Feature Called Switch Control Is Changing Lives
• Apple Music Matches Files with Metadata Only, not Acoustic Fingerprinting – Apple Music is a bit of a shit show and as the weeks go by there is less chance of me subscribing.
• iTunes Is the Locus of Everything Apple Is Doing Wrong
• Goodbye Android – Well, I’m sick of it. And I’m ready to go to the dark side.
• Windows 10 review – Great update to Windows. I’ve got it running on a VM and it’s a massive step up from 8.1. Edge is also a very good browser – go figure.
• Using Windows 10? Microsoft Is Watching – You do need to tweak some settings though.
• Explore Hugh Macleod’s Illustrated Guide To Life Inside Microsoft – Nice.
• The Story Of Windows 10 From Inside Microsoft
• Create a Conversation, Not a Presentation
• Color in games: An in-depth look at one of game design’s most useful tools
• Learn to Fly – Foo Fighters Rockin1000 Official Video – So good!