Blog

• Busy week, juggling lots. So much so I wasn’t in the right headspace to catch up with friends…which would have been the wrong option. Instead a good curry at Green Gates Cafe (tough lamb though) on Thursday and a much needed natter. Saturday a trip to Wex, Yo Suhi for lunch and La Gelatessa for some amazing ice cream. So good…although Yo Sushi has got pretty spendy for what you get.
• Been keeping my walks up this year, a little more each week than last year and it’s helping with well being and cracking through podcasts. Improving weather helping too.
• Oh Scotland. Amazing result on Thursday…amazingly bad result tonight. Tough watch.
• Digital Hygiene – good list of products to keep you safe online. Must give Brave another go.
• How I’ve run major projects – practical list of what to do if you find yourself running a project. Will share that with my team.
• I’ve plotted out quite the series of upgrades to my home office. Network, NAS, monitors, hub and eventually replace the Mac Studio with a MacBook Pro. Will be gradual over the next year but looking forward to incremental improvements.
• The Seneca – one thing I won’t be upgrading to but can still appreciate is this keyboard. So many amazing details but has a ridiculous price over $3k.
• Finished Severance season 2. Enjoyed it but found myself getting a bit annoyed with it towards the end. Feel this should have been done with two series rather than spinning it out over more. Getting Lost vibes and that’s not good.
• Adolescence on Netflix is the best thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time. Tough but important subject, Stephen Graham can do no wrong.

• Another full on week. Supported a day of interviews for another functions role and there was a stand out candidate whose interview I really enjoyed. Focus turning to cost workshops, KPI’s and q1 reviews.
• Something is Rotten in the State of Cupertino. A blistering essay from John Gruber after Apple postponed one of their key Apple Intelligence features, personalised Siri, to “the coming year”. What we saw last year at WWDC was vaporware. Something that’s often associated with Microsoft or Google but now Apple is guilty of doing. Most of the Apple Intelligence features have been sub standard. Genmoji gets a pass, Image Playgrounds awful, summarised notification unreliable and most of the Mail features I’ve disabled. Will be very interesting to see what Apple show at this years WWDC in June…and how much will be trusted and delivered.
• When looking at how poor Siri is in day to day usage and now seeing Apple postpone its big upgrade, Amazon’s recent demo showing conversational Alexa makes Apple feel even more behind. However theres not much of a surprise that Amazon is forcing your audio chats to the cloud from the end of March. Not a great look, equally running AI on current Echo devices is a non starter.
• Are tools like ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini leading us to use the web less? For me yes but like this post highlights, you go down far fewer rabbit holes compared to Googling for an answer.
• My Synology NAS is old and more than 90% full. An upgrade this year feels inevitable. Still swithering between an 8 bay Synology or building my own but I love the look of this new storage device from Gridstack. Looks fantastic, will still be noisy unless you go all in on SSD.
• FreeMediaHeckYeah – useful list of media sites from emulators to audiobooks and everything in between.
• F1 is back. Looks like Lewis Hamilton has swapped last years fourth placed team for this years fourth placed team. Only race 1 but Ferrari’s strategy calls are still the worst. Drive to Survive Season 7 dropped last week and while I enjoyed it, there’s still so much fabrication in it vs what actually happened. In its favour though they get a load of behind the scenes drama that isn’t seen anywhere else.
• The White Lotus is building nicely if a little slowly, The Pitt though has been outstanding. Loving it so far.

• Another full on week. Each one rolling into another at the moment with little time to catch breath although I did enjoy catching up with old and new colleagues at Ka Pao on Wednesday. Always love the food and atmosphere there – something for everyone and the only place I know that can make cabbage a must have.
• Some sensible guidance on owning your calendar. My work calendar often doesn’t feel like mines anymore as meetings, reviews, workshops pile in. Most frustrating are the ones that clearly come in without checking if you are already busy elsewhere.
• New Mac’s this week. My Mac Studio is three years old and there’s nothing I do that doesn’t feel sluggish in any way, so it will be a couple of years more I expect before I look at an upgrade. The new MacBook Air’s look good though.
• I do wish more sites would make full RSS feeds available, but for those that don’t, Chris Hardie has the answers.
• The news that Digg is coming back is interesting but will it take off? The original site was great, a daily driver for me. I’m now finding more via newsreaders and RSS again so it might have a place with less time spent on socials.
• Mastodon stuck with me mostly due to Ivory so the news that Tapbots are bringing out an app for Bluesky may mean I look again at that social site.
• Balatro is an amazing game. Many peoples game of 2024, this post on the development of the game and what happened at release is a great read.
• Video game magazines were at their peak in the 80’s and 90’s. Here’s some behind the scenes on what it was like to work in the industry. Amstrad Action was my first monthly magazine at the time…and I’m still picking up Edge.
• Stumbled on this – how the WoeMeter was made for this seasons Severance. So much love and craft.
• A nice twist on best TV lists, the 100 greatest TV performances of the 21st century. Has an American bias but a great list.

• March already, spring is in the air as bulbs burst into flower around Glasgow. More importantly, driving to and from work is now almost in daylight. Sounds a trivial thing but it makes such a difference.
• Sad news this week, one of my old gaming buddies passed away following a stroke. Jon was the nicest of people and always went out of his way to help. Met him a couple of times when he worked in Glasgow and was even nicer in real life vs online. RIP Jon.
• Last week was an impressively busy week at work. All different topics, a lot needing attention. I saw a blog post elsewhere talk about minutes in meeting and for me it was just over 2000 minutes. Considering that’s 90% of the contracted hours I should work its no surprise I fell massively behind in delivery. Need to make some changes to free up thinking/doing time.
• I have often been described as a fixer – might not know the topic but can get to the bottom of a problem and work out way forward. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with that tag but this post on troubleshooting resonated massively. A good read for anyone solving complex problems or having to address a business continuity challenge.
• Why aren’t the potholes fixed yet. Good post on opportunity (or not) for AI to fix the mess that is potholes in the UK.
• Its the Oscars later this evening but finding out if Harvey Weinstein was thanked more often than God at the Oscars will be more interesting than anything happening in Hollywood tonight.
• The Pitt is giving me modern day ER vibes. Really enjoyed the first couple of episodes and it feels a more realistic look at todays healthcare where money is tight.
• Framework released some nice hardware this week, both laptops and desktops. Modular and repairable hardware ultimately means its slightly bigger and clunkier that a Mac laptop for example, but if I was looking for a Windows laptop I’d be putting these devices near the top of the list.
• Also new this week was Hyperspace, a disks space reclaiming app from John Siracusa. There are many similar apps but I’d trust Hyperspace over any others. The icon is gorgeous too.
• Picked up some new wall art from Turadh Design Co. Hope it will brighten up my pretty soulless office.
• Final link this week is a video that answers one of life great mysteries – Where do Red Dead Redemption 2’s Rivers Come From? Watching it brought back great memories of completing Red Dead 2 and also just how good some of the water and graphics in that game were. GTA VI this year???

• Packed week and ended up behind with admin, mails and work in general. Travel always leave me behind. And tired.
• The travel was down to Barrow-in-Furness for work. The drive is always a bit of a pain once you hit the A590 but the two days there were really useful. Important session with a key supplier, a walk round the site to see some of the impressive investments underway but also good to catch up with old friends. Couple of meals were good particularly at The Crown on Walney. Good atmosphere, great food although I couldn’t understand a word the barman was saying 🙂
• Apple removing Advanced Data Protection isn’t surprising but still disappointing. Lots of words written, Ian Betteridge covers the topic best in my opinion. Slippery slope but ultimately feels a bad law poorly implemented has impacted a small number of people in the UK that used this pretty hidden feature.
• When I first read about HP adding 15 minutes of wait time to phone support calls I thought it was an Onion article. Then I remembered it was HP. They’ve now reversed the policy but add this to the list of reasons not to buy HP.
• Got some refining to do? Apple have released a set from ODESZA that is really a 23 minutes looped audio track with some accompanying Severance videos. No spoilers…or is there?
• Scotland lost that rugby game rather than England winning…although the stats won’t lie and a win’s a win. Feels like this generation of Scottish players should have achieved so much more. Every year feels like unfulfilled promise.
• Clement binned at Rangers. They had no choice really – Euro run isn’t enough given how poor they’ve been domestically. What’s next? Is there a plan?

• Work was mainly focussed on escalations. Understanding them, removing drama from reality and then dealing with the fallout and navigating an actual way forward. It’s frustrating how much time is consumed from a sometimes 2 minute conversation with the right/wrong person that then dictates much of the working week. Sometimes for good, often not. It was also pretty full on with little downtime – must avoid falling back into old habits. Work to Live and not Live to Work.
• Increasingly retreating my online reading to only what I want to consume. That means RSS so I get to choose who I read and not an algorithm, BBC and Guardian for news and Mastodon. While I still have Threads and Bluesky accounts I don’t spend time there. Being forced fed content (rich after loving Twitter for so long) is making me switch off. Instagram also on a shaky peg after the recent Meta changes. Getting so much nonsense thrown my way when I do use it.
• And related to that, Why Blog If Nobody Read It struck a chord with me. If I want to put something on my site, or a photo on Flickr, does it matter if anyone else consumes it? Nope.
• A cracking long read, The hardest working font in Manhattan is a love letter to typography nerds.
• Matt Gemmell is back on a Mac. Struck a chord with a number of people I follow. I love the iPad Pro M4 I picked up last year but it will never replace my Mac even though it could and should have years ago. Apple are not pursuing that slice of the market no matter how many people try and bend it to make it fit their workflows. There are still too many activities that are easier/quicker/better on the Mac thanks to glacial iPadOS updates and Apples restrictions on what you can use the platform for.
• Some great travel tips from Kevin Kelly although I’d need a personality transplant for some of them!
• Louie Mantia makes fantastic icons and his new release of drive icons based on Super Mario characters, Super Storage, is no exception. Makes me want to customise my Mac icons like I used to back in the day.
• Caught up on Severance and loving it. Best thing on Apple TV+ and feels like their first show where you anticipate the drop date. Enjoyed September 5.

• Upped my walking this year. Weather at this time not helping as its mostly cold and grey but every so often you get a nice winter sunset.
• An older weeknote from Andy Callow really struck a chord. He talked about being a leader is a bit like a T-Rex – their arms are short, so the ability to change things become much less than others would expect, but has a long-tail, such that decisions made can have a big impact on the time and focus of others behind them, without necessarily being fully aware of the consequences. Since taking on the director role I’ve had a few comments along the lines of “your words carry weight” but much of the time it feels like I can influence very little. In retrospect though there are comments I’ve made that do end up carrying further and wider than I’ve expected and had a negative impact. As Andy states in the blog post, holding that mental image of a T-Rex going forward will be useful and also I need to be more deliberate in decisions and actions.
• Love this from Tom Loosemore, “Trying to help an organisation change? Coming up with the “right” answer is the easy bit, be that strategy, org design or whatnot. Taking the organisation with you.
  
  That’s the work.”
• In amongst “the coup” taking place in America the UK have asked Apple to create a back door to any data that a user may store. Outrageous, I guess Apple or someone close to the technology capability notice has leaked this as APple officially can’t say if they’ve been served a notice or discuss it. This really is madness. I was optimistic on the new Labour government but they are dropping the ball in a number of areas and at an alarming frequency.
• Noclip allows you to load some classic gaming maps in your browser and then fly around. Mostly Nintendo but was great to pick some Half-Life 2 maps and tour them in the browser. Phoboslab also does the same for WipeOut. Stunning.
• Speaking of WipeOut, XF Extreme Forumla is out on Steam and gives off strong F-Zero and WipeOut vibes. Enjoying it so far.
• Watched Nosferatu – 3/5 – art over substance. Also rewatched Pulp Fiction – glorious.

• January done already. Some small changes – more sleep, more water, slightly more exercise and my weight has stabilised and dropped a bit which is a good thing. Heads/migraines that plagued me through November and December have also dropped significantly which is another good thing. Progress.
• An ugly week of politics in which Trump has veered more and more into many aspects of project 2025. Many will feel threatened, unwelcome and have lost their jobs thanks to the change in regime. Highlights how lucky I am to be at a company that champions the few.
• Pebble is back. I’ve a soft spot for Pebble as I ordered one on Kickstarter back in 2012. At the time I was looking forward to a customisable smart watch but my experience didn’t match expectations. A couple of years later the Apple Watch was launched, and there are now so many smart watch options, the Apple Watch alone is 10 years of constant iteration. I get that the list of features for the new Pebble don’t really exist elsewhere…but there’s a reason for that. Good luck to them but I’ll be passing the time.
• There’s a new app at no 1 in the App Store. DeepSeek got all the headlines – is it better than ChatGPT? Did it steal OpenAI’s data (laughable as OpenAI trained its model on everyone else’s data)? Is it safe? Last one needs a bit more unpacking as Wiz found some unsecured information. ChatGPT is more reliable in my testing with DeepSeek often at capacity. There’s also quiet a bit of information suppression in DeepSeek but there’s no doubt it’s shown that AI wars are going to be interesting over the next few years.
• The Video Game History Foundation launched its Digital Archive this week. Some great old magazines in there, shame there’s no Edge at the moment. My own cover scans from Edge can be found here.

• Work this week was focussed on the future. Strategy, goals and some proposed changes to my role. Lots to look forward to but also lots to unpack as there’s much of it still to be resolved. Onwards.
• Storm Éowyn blew through Scotland on Friday. I popped out early ahead of the red warning for a quick walk and even then there were branches down and it was really blustery. Rest of the day was noisy and damaging. We were fortunate in that a fence panel and some minor damage on the garage roof was the worst we got. Others were not so lucky and a walk around Glasgow was pretty sobering. Lots of trees down especially in the parks and by the Kelvin and quite a number of roofs damaged too. It’s unusual for Glasgow to get a red warning but named storms are becoming much more common.
• Traitors S03 came to a satisfying finish. Felt the challenges were a bit more consequential this year and the addition of the seer kept the final episode contestants on their toes. And thank goodness Joe didn’t win.
• Making good progress on digitising a lot of the paperwork I’ve got/hoarded over the year. Picked up a ScanSnap iX1600 last year and while it was pricey it eats through paper with ease and delivers a good quality and searchable scan at the end of it. Recommended if you’ve got a pile of paperwork that you want to keep but shred.
• Enjoyed Wicked more that I thought I would and Black Doves is pretty good too. Silo season 2 I blasted through in a week and loved it. Next up…Severance. Rewatch season 1 or not???

I’ll finish with some of the many tree’s that succumbed to Éowyn. Hope they are replaced through time.