- Lily Allen on being stalked: ‘I was asleep. He steamed into the bedroom and started screaming’
- The women abandoned to their online abusers
- The dark side of Guardian comments – amazing stats from the Guardian
- The Secret Rules Of The Internet
- Exactly how male gamers react when they are forced to play female characters
- I’m on the Kill List. This is what it feels like to be hunted by drones
- Four Years A Student-Athlete: The Racial Injustice Of Big-Time College Sports
- Tiger Woods 40th Birthday Interview – Hard to think of Tiger as a 40 year old
- Craig Joubert: Why I ran off the pitch at Rugby World Cup – Six months on and I’m still angry at what he did. Seems a nice chap though.
- Velocipede – stunning
- Ed Miliband: Panama Papers show that wealth doesn’t trickle down. It gets stashed
- A New Map for America
- Facebook Chatbots Are Frustrating and Useless – Agreed
- We don’t know how to build conversational software yet
- In the Future, We Will Photograph Everything and Look at Nothing
- Instagram Is Ruining Vacation
- The HTC Vive Could Be our Generation’s Commodore 64
- Game of Thrones Opening Credits 360 Video – Fire this up on Chrome or on a mobile device. Just over week to go until season 6 – can’t wait!
Author: iandick
Backpocket
A taxing week for everyone.
- We are now witnessing Elon Musk’s slow-motion disruption of the global auto industry
- SpaceX successfully lands its rocket on a floating drone ship for the first time – This was amazing to watch live. What a week for Elon Musk.
- See Maps Showing Where FBI Planes Are Watching From Above
- In depth: the nuclear submarine that can remain underwater for 25 years – Remarkable machines
- The sugar conspiracy
- Willie Rennie with the best video of the Scottish elections so far
- The trouble with 3D Touch – I’ve got 3D Touch on my work phone and it still feels like a gimmick rather than an essential part of the iOS experience.
- TextExpander 6 and TextExpander.com – Great summation of the Apple community feeling on the sharp increase in price of TextExpander. I’m all for paying for software put the price increase is sharp.
- RUN and RUN / lyrical school – Watch on an iPhone – this is great.
- ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Official Teaser Trailer
- Sphero’s BB-8 Can Now Watch and React to The Force Awakens Along With You – Can’t wait to try this in a few days time
- HTC VIVE REVIEW – Some of the best ideas in VR, but not the best execution
Backpocket
A bit late this week but it’s worth the wait. Some goodies below – enjoy.
- Blind Microsoft engineer unveils AI-powered project that helps him ‘see’ the world – Inspiring project from an amazing Microsoft Engineer.
- Dillan’s Voice – April is Autism Acceptance Month and this film from Apple will give you all the feels and make you feel pretty lucky. Dillon’s Path is also a must watch.
- 40 years of Apple history with Walt Mossberg – Love this
- We Should All Have Our Own Bot – The future is bots?
- Chat bots, conversation and AI as an interface
- This Is What It Feels Like When A Robot Takes Your Job
- Why Do So Many Digital Assistants Have Feminine Names?
- The inside story of how Amazon created Echo, the next billion-dollar business no one saw coming – Amazon have a real hit with the echo.
- How to Hack an Election
- David Cameron’s cans: when mockers become the mocked
- This genius UKIP trolling is further evidence that Scotland is the p*sstake capital of the world – I can’t hear you
- Techies: A Study of Silicon Valley
- A day in the life of a young black male engineering “coding” student.
- Like – Thought provoking video on whats important in the online world.
- The Inside Story of How Oculus Cracked the Impossible Design of VR
- Virtual Reality Is Always Almost Here – Verge review the Oculus
- SNES Code Injection — Flappy Bird in SMW – This is bizarre and impressive.
- Rey is a Palpatine – Spoilers if you haven’t seen Force Awakens. Thanks to Gordon for this one.
- 100 Greatest One-Liners: Before The Kill
Backpocket
Happy Easter! Been doing these backpocket posts for a year now…time flies.
- No, Adam Johnson, child abuse is not a grey area – Great article from Victoria Coren Mitchell
- The Future of Twitter: Q&A with Jack Dorsey
- Apple’s ’40 Years In 40 Seconds’ Video Annotated
- Inside Liam, Apple’s super-secret, 29-armed robot that tears down your iPhone
- How the iPad Pro Changed My Illustrating Career
- Why I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS
- What It’s Actually Like To Visit Factories In China As An Entrepreneur</li>
- Glasgow: A city divided along learning lines – Heartbreaking that so many don’t get opportunities and it’s down to money, not talent.
- These unlucky people have names that break computers
- Make your own Amazon Echo – Thanks Amazon!
- As We Become Cameras – there is still such a fuss around surveillance and being constantly watched…will we end up stumbling into a world where nothing is recorded?
- The Winners of the Smithsonian Magazine’s 2015 Photo Contest
The West Wing Weekly
The West Wing is one of my favourite TV series. First broadcast in 1999 it was smart, funny, heart warming, fast, deep and different to everything else around at the time. It appealed to the politics geek in me and showed a US president that was totally different to Bush who was in power during much of the programs run.
Despite my love I’ve never watched the whole run again…until now.
The West Wing Weekly is a podcast from NPR that will break down each episode starting at episode one. The first episode of the podcast launched today and is hosted by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Airway. Malina played Will Bailey on the last four series of The West Wing so should be able to offer great insight into those episodes.
So each week I’m going to watch one episode of The West Wing and then catch up on the podcast. I can’t wait! The podcast can be easily found and subscribed too in Overcast by searching for West Wing Weekly or even in iTunes via this link. Anyone else jumping in?
Backpocket
Busy busy at the moment. looking forward to some time off at Easter.
- The Journalist and the Troll: This Man Spent Two Years Trying to Destroy Me Online
- I’m 16. Five months ago, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer – Such a great article and puts so much into perspective when we moan about shitty little day to day things.
- Why Do We Work So Hard?
- What Have They Been Smoking at Apple Music? – Some of the playlists are really good. I still get Rolling Stones recommendations though…every fucking time I open the app.
- Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist – Big week ahead.
- Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2016 Results
- Satoru Iwata Game Developers Choice Awards Tribute
- Firewatch: One Month Later – Such a great game and good to see it sold so well too.
- Here’s why Google’s Tilt Brush may be virtual reality’s killer app
- Cuba On The Edge Of Change – Stunning photo article
- Glasgow – Raymond Depardon – Photo’s from 1980’s Glasgow that were never published. Feels like my childhood when I look at these.
Backpocket
- Dunblane: Our Story – 20 years since the tragedy in Dunblane and this program is an emotional watch. Always sticks in my head that I was euphoric coming back from a sea trial at work on the day this happened. Sailed down a misty Clyde and went into the office at night and we were all so happy and then the wind was taken right out our sails when a colleague shared the news. No mobiles, no news, no idea…a bombshell.
- What Happens When the Surveillance State Becomes an Affordable Gadget?
- Surprise! NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism – Why resisting the UK snoopers charter is so important.
- The Obama Doctrine
- 1988: The Year Donald Lost His Mind
- Lack of sleep alters brain chemicals to bring on cannabis-style ‘munchies’ – Might explain the hunger I’ve been feeling the last couple of weeks as my mystery illness flares up again.
- Why Am I Right-Handed? – I’m left handed but write with my right hand thanks to my Gran tying my left hand behind my back when I was wee. Lefties were the work of the devil seemingly.
- An Apple Pencil-drawn review of the Apple Pencil – So good. Still want an iPad and Pencil.
- The Making Of Playstation VR – Not long now.
- videoGaiden Episode 1
- Television Has A Business Model Problem. And It’s Killing Good TV
- Coming Soon
- Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War – Trailer 2 – Looking good
- Game of Thrones Season 6: Trailer – Looking good too
- Orkestra Obsolete play Blue Monday using 1930s instruments – BBC Arts
Kilchurn Castle
A couple of weeks ago I set off early to visit Kilchurn Castle. The plan was to get some good photo’s as the sun rose and as it was a clear night it should be worth setting the alarm for.
The drive up was fine but due to the freezing temperatures and the quiet roads there was a few slippy moments on the way. By the time I parked up it was minus 7. Brrrrr. The scenery and location was amazing and I setup the camera waiting for the sun to rise properly. There were only a couple of others around on the other bank of the loch and it was eerily quiet.
Well it was eerily quiet until i fired up the drone. I’d read that the drone didn’t like the cold and that turned out to be true. Battery life took a bit of a hit and I also got warnings about the temperature and also one of the motors. I carried on though and it was fine and I got some not bad shots.
However my lack of touch friendly gloves meant I flew without wearing any and my hands were frozen. Even the next day my fingertips were still numb. Idiot. I also missed out on many shots that I had wanted to take, partly cause I rushed and partly due to the batteries dropping quicker than usual. Next time I head out I’ll do a bit more planning upfront. It wasn’t just the drone…I missed a few great images with my camera that when I looked back through the photo’s I’d taken were obvious. Experience I guess but I was ticked off at making the effort to get there and miss some pic’s.
If you are looking for a fantastic old castle to visit that was built in the 1400’s then give Kilchurn a go. I plan to visit again sometime in the future and maybe try and get those shots I missed a fortnight ago but I’ve a lot of other places to visit before I return to Kilchurn. Onwards.
Backpocket
A bumper update as I took a break last week.
- Exclusive Q&A : Apple CEO Tim Cook
- Naughty words – Fucking bollocks
- Tumblr Porn
- Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1
- Atlas, The Next Generation – Terminator one step closer
- The Elephant In The Room – Web design work drying up
- What’s Next in Computing? – great read
- Winners of the 2016 World Press Photo Contest – Some powerful images
- Photographer Greg Armfield on how he missed mating rhinos at Nairobi national park
- Do cool things that matter – stories from the software engineers at Google
- Meet the 63-Year-Old in Charge of Approving New Emojis
- Life and Death in the App Store
- The Writer Who Made Me Love Comics Taught Me To Hate Them
- Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it. – Microsoft is playing hardball with games developers and also in forcing the upgrade to Windows 10.
- Photos of the Glasgow High-Rises That Are About to Disappear
- The painful what-if that haunts ‘Ghostbuster’ Ernie Hudson
- GHOSTBUSTERS FanCUT Teaser Trailer HD (RECUT) – So much better then the official trailer.
- Doing a TED Talk: The Full Story
- The Lonely Launchpads and Rusted Rockets of America’s Abandoned Space Facilities
- The Complete Conceptual History of the Millennium Falcon – Long but rewarding read.
- How we made Angry Birds
Backpocket
- Why Michael Gove is wrong on Europe – He’s never been right on much to be honest
- A Message to Our Customers
- Apple, FBI, and the Burden of Forensic Methodology
- Apple Versus The Fbi, Understanding Iphone Encryption, The Risks For Apple And Encryption – Apple’s stand in an increasingly strange and important test case.
- Apple and Fashion: A Love Story for the Digital Ages
- The Most Important Apple Executive You’ve Never Heard Of – Core of much of Apple’s competitive advantage comes from this decision.
- The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens
- Too many people have peed in the pool – Twitter drama
- I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body
- Which Type of Exercise Is Best for the Brain?
- The NSA’s SKYNET program may be killing thousands of innocent people – Whoever named this program Skynet and didn’t think it could go south has a lot to answer for
- The superhero of artificial intelligence: can this genius keep it in check?
- Hard Drive Reliability Review for 2015 – Backblaze put this report out each year – fascinating read.
- The Daily Mail Stole My Visualization, Twice – Thief’s!!!
- How Renegade Filmmaker Casey Neistat Breaks Rules, Reinvents Himself, and Gets Thanked For It
- How One Mashup Artist Got Legal Permission to Pair Calvin & Hobbes with Dune
- 10 Adventure Trips Every Photographer Should Take
- If company slogans were honest
- Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself – Still looking forward to this game