Been a really busy fortnight. Work full on and very little time to myself…thankfully got the next week off which will let me finish off setting up the new Unraid NAS and also finish off a post on iOS26 and the new hardware from Apple.
This years Ryder Cup has been epic. Europe smashed the first two days but fair play to the USA for responding to make the final day a total butt clencher.
AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity – timely read after speaking with some new graduates at work and we spent 15 minutes on AI and its pro’s and con’s. I still have a fear of sitting in workshops and having a AI chatbot battle with people as they generate questions and answers that aren’t their own.
A platform jumping prince – Jordan Mechner is the author of Prince of Persia so who better to write about how it jumped between platforms.
Messenger – a quite beautiful webgl game that runs so well in the browser.
Tree of the year – great to see that the Argyle Street Ash in Glasgow is the Woodlands Trust tree of the year. I grew up three closes down from that tree and for thirty years I’d see it almost every day. Was really nice to hear from a couple of people that remember that tree in Glasgow but are now many miles away but saw the picture in papers or websites through the week. Hope it stays for many a year to come.
Lingering manflu has hung around all week. Still convinced it was covid as I felt so lousy last weekend…similar to last years covid. The test was negative although maybe post a couple of confirmed covid bouts I’m handling infections differently now. I could well do with the irritating cough cough to piss off.
The death of Charlie Kirk was tragic. I’d seen the close up video on social media ahead of his death being confirmed, but it was pretty obvious from the video he wouldn’t survive. Kirk was someone who I knew little about, mostly because the little I did know was repulsive. His rhetoric was right wing, racist and anti feminist. I’m alarmed at the amount of people posting video’s after his death and saying things like “I didn’t agree with everything Charlie said”…swap Charlie for Adolf and would they be saying the same? Maybe they would given the rise of Reform and the flag shaggers in the UK. Kirk said in 2023 “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”. There were over 46000 gun deaths in 2023 in America. Life comes at you fast. Whats clear though is that there are parts of society that see political violence against the left as fair game but when it’s one of their own it’s a different matter. Difficult path ahead.
It was iPhone event week and once the dust had settled, I see that as one of the better year on year upgrade events for a long time. AirPods Pro 3 looks to be a meaningful upgrade on the current generation. The base iPhone 17 got a great set of updates that probably saw the biggest year on year change. The iPhone Air – a brand new phone (replaces the Plus) – looked so good but one camera and sticky battery life won’t tempt me off the Pro. This years Pro’s saw solid upgrades to the camera, improved cooling thanks to the shift back to a unibody aluminium and a vapour chamber and – finally – some actual colours probably thanks to aluminium again. So this coming Friday I should have a Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro and a new set of AirPods. The orange looks great although once lots of people have had it for a while will it look dated?
Finally got the custom NAS up and running and data transferring from the Synology. Lots of faffing about with motherboard patches and bios losing settings that held me back but looking forward to wrestling with Unraid and getting the services I want up and running.
Back in the 90’s there was a clear leader when it came to soundacrds – Creative. The Story of Creative Technology is a great trip down memory lane and was timely given my motherboard faffing this week.
Five for 50 – Some timely advice from Anil Dash who has had fingers in many internet pies over the years.
Techmeme is 20 – still one of my daily drivers, owner Gabe Rivera explains why this new aggregator is still thriving after all this time.
Feeling miserable thanks to a cough/cold/flu. Running since Wednesday I’ve suffered a snot explosion over the weekend with aches and pains all over. WFH for next couple of days I suspect to get through the worst.
Apple event next week. Most hardware seems leaked already unlike the Jobs era when there were always surprises. What I’d want more of from Apple is to make better use of the health data it captures. The vitals above show my last few days with some obvious outliers thanks to the bug I’ve picked up. Why isn’t there any action from that change – ask how I am, is there something wrong, then act on my responses with guidance. Feed in my health changes to ChatGPT and I get a ton of advice and links out to NHS. Apple need to pick up the pace and stop kissing Trumps backside.
Labours in a bit of a mess. Should Raynor have gone? Yes, she can;t be housing minister and screw up on tax and Labour have set the bar higher now for ministers. It’s clear though she’s been hounded and targeted by opposition MP’s and the press – is it due to her combative nature? Her background? Either way when you compare Raynor to what Boris Johnson did – unlawfully prorogued parliament when in Government, prosecuted and fined for holding illegal parties in Downing Street, ignored bullying across government, backed friends ground guilty of breaches on paid lobbying, lied to the Queen, placed lovers into paid jobs…and lets not talk Covid. As for Reform – I hope they will come unstuck but the pools are worrying.
Reclaim our flag – seeing saltires flying around Glasgow recently it reminded me of 2014 and the Indy vote – but there’s a fight in Scotland at least to claim the saltire. As ever, shady right wing facists are at the heart of this.
How Apple AirPods Work – Great video on some amazing tech. If AirPods Pro 3 come out this week it will be an insta-purchase. Best Apple product in years.
M365 Copilot fails to up productivity – I’m not surprised by these findings. For the cost per user per month you need to be using Copliot often and worth good results to make it worthwhile.
Alien: Earth continues to impress. Episode 5 this week was up there with some of the best bits from the movies.
Back to work last week and as ever a holiday leads to a massive backlog of mails and tasks and one from which I never really catch back up on during the first week.
For the last few years I’ve set myself a yearly walking target of 2000km. Usually I hit that in late October/November so with time to spare. This year I passed 2000km on August 27th, so if I keep that rate up it will be 3000km. However weather and darker nights will trim the distances down but good to get it ticked of so early.
Tremendous news that Norway has down selected the T26 frigate and agreed that the UK will supply five frigates to Norway. Gives a massive secure pipeline for shipbuilding on the Clyde well into the 2030’s.
New iPhones are only a couple of weeks away – I really like the look of the new Google Pixels, not enough to leave the locked in world of Apple…but what I really hated was the Jimmy Fallon Made by Google event. Awkward.
iPhone event also means iOS26, macOS 26 etc being released in the next 2 weeks. I’ve stayed away from the beta’s but seeing some of the icons here I don’t much look forward to Tahoe.
They Used to Be Good, But Now They’ve Turned to Evil: The Synology End Game – it’s why I built my own NAS. Update on that – it’s alive, Unraid is nice, copying data is not. In Synology’s favour, the devices consume fairly low amounts of power and mine is 10 years old and still going strong. I doubt I will be able to say the same about my self built NAS.
The Last Tokens – brings back memories of The Big Apple in Sauchiehall Street in the late 80/early 90’s.
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is a disgrace on Switch 2 – is this due to the Switch 2 being underpowered, the lack of developers getting Seitch 2 dev kits or greedy dev’s? Whatever the reason, pick this up on Steam or another console.
Enjoyed F1 the movie probably more than I should have as there was a high amount of cringe. Mission Impossible Final Reckoning was underwhelming. Too long, too much angst. Alien Earth is mega and it’s great having Peacemaker back.
Thankfully got the upcoming week off…in fact this was day 1! Lots to do but it’s nice to focus elsewhere fora change. Today was all about the NAS build. Mostly there as all cabling done although it ain’t tidy…yet. Will finish tomorrow morning and hopefully it boots first time. Then it’s onto Unraid, config and the start of the migration from the Synology.
I’ve fell into a bad habit of capturing lots of tasks in Todoist…and then promptly ignoring the app every day and wondering why I’m missing actions. Partly overload of work, partly an increased amount of procrastination. This post on falling back to a simple text file for actions made me wonder if the app/tool was at fault and not me. So there I was, looking at a variety of new tools…but it’s just more procrastination. More excuses. What I need to do is get back to basics with Todoist and get on top of the simple day to day tasks. Maybe Reminders on iOS 26 is the answer…….STOPIT!
Alongside the NAS this week I hope to get a 3D printer setup that I was gifted – thanks Shak! So I now have a Bambu Lab A1 with lots of accessories. Got a few ideas of how I want to set it up and already have a small list of prints to experiment with.
National Drought Group meets to address “nationally significant” water shortfall – weather in the UK has been hot and dry this year and water shortages are a real thing. The article was full of the challenges facing the UK, steps that have been taken and finished with some good advice…until this last point “Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems“. Really? Maybe stop using so much bullshit AI would have been better advice UK Gov.
Loved the latest episode of The Talk Show with Louie Mantia. It’s over three hours but it flew by. Lots of talk on Liquid Glass and Alan Dye but it was the history of Apple that Gruber and Mantia brought to the conversation that was the most enjoyable. I’m also in the minority that sticks to light mode, hate’s the icons changing when going to dark mode and find light text on dark backgrounds so hard to read…which is why RSS wins given both Mantia and Gruber’s state are hard on my aging eyeballs.
Liquid Glass. Why? – I kind of like it on iOS and iPadOS but it’s a mess everywhere else. Time will tell if it’s all been for a new bit of unreleased hardware.
Battlefield 6 beta has closed and…I loved it. Will be buying this when it comes out in October -a real return to form.
Superman was a joy. Straight in, no massive setup and it had heart. Looking forward to Season 2 of Peacemaker later in the week.
Alien: Earth – first two episodes were cracking. Felt like a mini Alien film but with more tech/business sci-fi
There’s a relentlessness to work at the moment. Every couple of days feels like. another management pack is required to update yet another group of people with vaguely similar information. Thankfully, a week off to recharge from this coming Friday. Will also be NAS build time – took delivery of fans, cables and a quite beautiful CPU cooler today. A 3d print is required and then I can get cabling.
I’ve always liked products that gain utility over time, especially something like the AirPod which Apple inclemently improve every year without the need to buy. anew version. Trmnl announced a great firmware update – more grays, less flicker and better battery life. I’ve loved my little Trmnl over the last few weeks – tempted to get the larger Trmnl X.
OpenAI released GPT-5 to everyone. In the land of bumpy launches, this didn’t go well. I don’t think I’ve seen a Reddit forum look more like a Black Mirror episode than I did the day after GPT-5 was released. There’s far more people co-dependant on ChatGPT than I dared think. Not good.
Gold, Frankincense, and Silicon – Tim Cooks performance at the Whitehouse was sad to see, but he probably had to do it for the good of Apple. The share price rose 13% this week alone, although I’d much rather that be due to a break through device or a Siri that actually worked.
Wplace – this is wild. A 4 million pixel art war based on the world. People are so creative with just simple pixels.
Battlefield 6 Open Beta was a blast. Felt a lot more solid than the last Battlefield and still has that mix of frantic action, large maps with quieter sections and buildings being destroyed around you just when you thought you’d found cover. Love it.
Watched 28 Years Later. Actually watched the first two films in the series as well. 28 Days Later was great, 28 Weeks not so much. 28 Years was a bit of a mess. Didn’t know what it wanted to be.
August already, darker nights starting to be noticed and we’ve a named storm coming tomorrow – it’s still summer FFS. Can’t wait for a week off starting Aug 15th. I’ve got most of the parts for my self built NAS – some fans, cables and CPU cooler to sort and then can get it going…and wrack up the electricity bill!
Great catchup with a friend at the Turban Tandoori. Been far too long and amazingly I didn’t overeat!
Can LLM’s Do Accounting? – not according to the research detailed here. Even if you aren’t interested in AI or accounting just open d1 minute visiting this – what an amazing website.
Personal Superintelligence – Meta is all in on AI. Zuck’s spending many many billions assembling the best people and the best hardware to build a competitive edge. This is the new mobile war that Meta missed, and Apple knows it, but rallying the troops now without investment is folly. Then again, Zucks investment in the Metaverse hasn’t delivered…yet.
What are the new UK online safety rules and how will age checks on adult content be enforced? – Were the online safety rules really necessary? They are easily bypassed via a VPN (who are the big winners so far). I still think a Digital ID system in the UK is needed that would have really helped with online safety – and it looks like Labour are finally moving in that direction. The worst bit about the new rules is how widely they are being enforced. Spotify and Xbox now require you to verify your age as does Reddit. Many bits of the web are being blocked and impacted by the law that I’m sure weren’t the original intent. Messy.
The Genius Device That Rocked F1 – Great in depth video if you like F1 or are just interested in some of the politics in the sport. Loved it.
Notes to myself – over 60 titbits of advice – earn trust through action. Amen.
How to Firefox – Great setup guide. Firefox is my second browser and considering how unstable Safari is right now I’m giving serious thought to switching.
iPhone Cameras are Actually Really Good – you can find holes in this article but I get the sentiment. Computational photography should be making pictures better and in many cases they do, but look at some of the detail missing in the comparison photo’s. Uggghhh.
I blame the weather for skipping last week. Far too hot, sore heads and a massive case of couldn’t be arsedness + a wee bit too busy at work meant I passed again. Need to not let that become a habit. I do have most of the NAS bits purchased. Some fans, cables and a heat sink and then I can start the build.
Making notes, taking actions – if my industry didn’t make this impossible to do without consequences I’d be all over this as a way of automating minutes, actions, decisions etc.
The retro computing/gaming market saw another two new entries. The Commode 64 Ultimate and the ZX Spectrum Next 3…which can also play Commodore games. Neither are for me but love the innovation.
Enjoyed lunch with Shak at Bramble. Food’s always fantastic but so difficult to get in…and so noisy once you’re there! Saturday’s pick was Savoury French Toast with some optional (is bacon ever optional) bacon. Followed up with some gelato from La Gelatessa that even the rain couldn’t ruin.
Binged Dept Q. Great cast and story – really enjoyed it even if it was a who’s who of Scottish actors. Well done Netflix for commissioning another season.
Thunderbolts* was pretty dam good too. Not your usual Marvel film – little bit deeper.
Ballerina – usual John Wick fair although they were pretty inventive with the weaponry in this one.
Time got away from me last week. So much going on at work and just didn’t have the time to do even a quick post. This bit of graffiti at the River Kelvin in Glasgow seemed pretty apt when I stumbled on it.
Denis Villeneuve Directing Next James Bond Film – might still be years away given the films he’s attached to, but this is a pretty exciting announcement. Villeneuve Is one of my favourite directors and I can’t wait to see what he does with the franchise.
I think Xbox hardware is dead – sobering and Microsoft also laid off so many teams and killed a lot of games this week. Not convinced Gamepass has been good for the industry.
The truth about Tesla’s – extract from an upcoming book but after reading this I still don’t understand why anyone would buy a Tesla based on its hardware and software…and even if you give that a pass, Musk’s behaviour and world views are the killer blow.
How to Network as an Introvert – I find networking so hard. Good tips in this article and as an introvert there’s a couple for me to try.
The British Grand Prix was fantastic over the weekend. Quali so competitive but the highlight was the race, not because Lando Norris won, but on his 239th Grand Prix Nico Hulkenberg finally got a podium. Amazing especially as he started at the back of the grid. Everyone was so happy for him – great to see. Pretty cool that the trophies were made out of Lego to celebrate F1 turning 75.
Watched season 4 of The Bear last weekend and loved it. A step up on Season 3 which is odd considering both 3 and 4 were shot back to back. I do wonder if it will come back…I’d be tempted just to leave it as is which is four wonderful seasons and a fantastic soundtrack.
Also missed posting about Race Across The World which finished a few weeks ago. Loved the contestants this year as always but it’s the editing/production team that need to take all the credit. They are experts and the way they reveal more about the teams each week and intertwine the race is top class. One of the best things on TV.
So hot this week but it broke today with some heavy rain. Dark nights are also on their way in – winter is coming.
Craig Federighi Opens Up About iPadOS, Its Multitasking Journey, and the iPad’s Essence – Great interview of Hair Force One from WWDC by Federico Viticci. Get’s into a lot of detail on the iPad and I loved this quote from Federighi – “I think we’ve been on a journey of finding the right interface for iPad, along with our users. And I think it actually has been important that it’s been a considered journey”. Great way of saying it took us a long time to realise the Mac was right all along.
Rolling the ladder up behind us – the more we use AI, the less we train people, we build a problem for those following in our footsteps. Lots to think through from this one.
Deacon Blue member James Prime dies aged 64 – sad news on the passing of James Prime. Deacon Blue are one of my favourite bands and their first 3 albums are still important to me. RIP.
XBOX + AMD: Powering the Next Generation of Xbox – with a 60 second video Microsoft confirm their next gen console will be a…PC. The XBox always was mostly a custom PC, but this along with the recent hand held feels like an admission that hardware will be more generic, the OS will be Windows, and we’ll have Steam/Epic stores on a future XBox plugged into your TV.
Binged The Studio on Apple TV+. It was fine but not quite the knockout hit I’d heard about. Great cameo’s and some good laughs but ran out of steam.
