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.