Paid a visit to Braehead Shopping Centre in Glasgow today. I went into the Apple Store and came out ten minutes later with an unplanned brand new iPad Pro. It was inevitable, wasn’t it?
I’ll be up late for Thursday’s UK election results and I’m looking forward to lots of “Portillo moments”.
Recently Read: Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. I loved this one even more than Cahokia Jazz. It’s another historical novel but set in mid 18th century New York this time. A young man arrives from London with a large money order and sets off all sorts of suspicion and intrigue. Loved the ending. 📚
Big fire to the west of Glasgow a couple of nights ago. It was well over ten miles from here and I could see the smoke from my window.
Recently Read: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. Loved this one. The setting is an alternative 1920s USA where the state of Cahokia is run by a native American/Catholic monarchy. Mix in murder, jazz, politics, and hard boiled detectives and it makes a world I’d like to read more of. 📚
I Don't Really Like Social Media
Yet, off the back of Manton’s recent posts regarding OpenAI, I read a number of responses from people on Mastodon that were needlessly antagonistic and emotionally detached, with some cancelling their subscriptions. Pile on!! These were posted to Mastodon but could be seen in an otherwise tranquil Micro.blog app thanks to the platform’s support for ActivityPub.Source: Protocols, platforms and priorities · Paul Robert Lloyd
I like this response. It gets to why I’m disenchanted with social media in general. I think it’s obvious that @manton is a good person so some of the reactions to his comments were way over the top. Federated social media hasn’t fixed the self-righteous blowhard problem but micro.blog is going a long way to make things better.
My usual online notebook source had a sale and I couldn’t resist. I love the Hobonichi notebooks. They’re expensive but I actually use these and fill them up. It’s nice to have some different cover designs (the cat one is great).
Started to read: Three Rocks by Bill Griffith 📚
I found a decent frame for my Jacques Tati film poster at last. It’s big but looks pretty good on this wall.
The new version of the Sonos controller app is getting slaughtered on the App Store and rightfully so. It’s a horrible buggy mess that doesn’t even work half the time. I wish I could roll back to the previous version.
Almost forgot about the upcoming Yes concert in Glasgow. My ticket for last year’s cancelled show is still valid. The current lineup gets a lot of stick (“Tribute band!") but as long as Steve Howe is still there I’m on board.
Logged into my old Gmail account for probably the last time time before I shut it down. I had to check that one important message source had stopped going there. The amount of spam in the inbox is incredible. It seems to flow in by the hour. Gmail used to have great spam blocking. Good riddance.
For the 50th anniversary of Richard and Linda Thompson’s first album as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, we take a detailed look at how it was made.
A fantastic deep dive into one of my favourite albums. 🎵
Quick rule before signing up to any new online service - check how easy it is to find the exit door.
The Guardian: Billy Bragg: ‘There’s nothing like going out there singing your truth. That ain’t changed’. Billy has always been a force for good and it’s great to see he’s still fighting the good fight. I’ve seen him live a few times over the years. 🎵
I always set up a new computer/device as a new user. It lets me get rid of all the rubbish and unused applications that have been taking up space for years. All the important stuff is backed up to iCloud. If I find myself missing something I can always download it again. So far so good.
New MacBook
I became a full time laptop user this week after years of using iMacs as my main computer. My current iMac was the last of the 27 inch Intel machines and I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by the current lineup. My useage has also changed in a lot of ways and so I decided to go for the best MacBook Pro I could afford. I went for the MacBook Pro M3 (Pro) with the default memory configuration and I’m very pleased with it. There’s a lot more power here than I probably need but this thing will be good for years to come.
Link: Creative Good - To resist the robots, get a typewriter
Nice list of reasons for why typewriters are superior to robots.
“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”
Attributed to Alfred Hitchcock. The older I get the more I agree with this.