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.