Week 24

📝 Life Notes

• As expected, a more routine week, although I was home alone from Sunday afternoon through to Tuesday evening which meant I got to watch the WWDC Keynote on Monday evening (I skipped Tai Chi as my foot was oddly sore). An intriguing set of new stuff coming, if Siri AI works as well as it did in the ‘live’ demo’s it could finally deliver what was promised? And all the little improvements across all the other OSes will be good to see. Will I run the Public Beta on my iPhone? Probably.
• Tuesday saw the one year anniversary of my best mate’s husband passing. A year already. Ugh.
• Early today I met with my pal Andi who is back from a holiday in Vietnam, lots of photos and memories were shared, what an amazing place. She’s already keen to go back.
• I’m still exercising a little every day too, even if it’s just a walk. I am determined to keep the streak going and already find myself not ‘settling’ for a quick 20 mins but pushing myself to go further.
• Booked Vera (our motorhome) in for her MOT next week too, fingers crossed everyone!
• And of course the World Cup has started and yes, I did get up early to watch the Scotland game (2am this morning) and yes we won, and no I didn’t get back to sleep., and yes it was worth every excruciating second!!
• In other sporting news, the Knicks won the NBA Finals, much to the delight of my wife’s family (she was born in NY). And in other sporting achievements, Sir Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish Grand Prix for Ferrari, a lifetime goal for him achieved.

📚 Books

• Ask for Andrea by Noelle W Ihli – an imaginative thriller. 3 dead women stalk their killer… a fun quick read.

📰 Articles

• Gamers make me embarrassed to be a gamer — I am not a big gamer, and only play sports games (FC26 for the majority of my gaming time), but this doesn’t surprise me. These men need a gentle education, and maybe to go touch grass too.
• David Attenborough and the Voice That Revealed a Planet – The Ringer — A voice that I grew up with, the quiet authority, the knowledgeable excitement. People like this should be in power across the world but are the ones most jaded with power.
• idle.news — On the Difference Between Rest and Idleness — I think watching the Monaco Grand Prix last week counts as idleness. Or was it just boredom?
• I want my friends to have blogs too — I remember when I had not long started my blog and wondered why no-one else was. I still do but part of me likes the fact that my blog is its own entirely separate thing, part of me but not my wider life.
• I’ve made an anonymous blog | Alter’s Blog — This is why I journal, privately. Where I can write ONLY for me. A blog is never that.
• Security Risks of Apple’s AI Changing Your Passwords – CybersecKyle — “genuinely useful and slightly terrifying at the same time” I agree but I really hope this works out (so I can stop doing it manually!)
• “Imagine being a pixel on an old Pac-Man game.” – Unsung — I love me a good screensaver. What a great article.
• Grassware – Hi, I’m Heather Burns — Can’t recall how I got to this article but it, and the rest of their blog, is well worth reading. I am aware of my ignorance in a lot of these things, so it’s good to have a starting source to learn. BTW ‘Grassing’ is British slang for informing the authorites on someone.
• The trouble with font previews – Unsung — I’ve been on the receiving end when design publications (ahhh QuarkExpress, wherefore are thee). I can attest, fonts are gently evil.
• Galactic Hunter’s Star Wars Figure of the Day with Adam Pawlus — A proper geek deep dive hobby site. LOVE IT!
• thriftmac | free Mac apps — Mac user? Like free stuff? Try this, so many little apps, so little time.
• How I Turn My Brain Dump into Notes and Tasks using AI — Intriguing. An ACTUAL use for AI! I’ll wait to see if Siri AI can handle this though. Notes, Reminders, Calendar all working together… at last?
• Ian’s Is Still The Best Site For Tying Your Shoelaces — I remember finding Ian’s amazing website not long after it must’ve launched.
• How to get out of bed • Buttondown — What little thing are you gonna do tomorrow? Great read this, we are all dealing with shit, but we can get through it.
• Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring — You do not need to visit this website. But you will. And you will stay. For too long. Glorious internet at its best stuff
• friction — Great discussion on friction, something I’ve been writing about recently.
• Discover the most common AI vocabulary words. — I might throw some of my blog into this for a laugh.
• Why Make Your Website Accessible, Anyways? · brennan.day — I really need to do this. Adding to my list.
• Don’t Think About It Again – Hydragenic — Build those little habits.
• Pac-Man, but you’re the ghost | Garrit’s Notes — Do NOT open this link. You will lose hours playing this game. It’s so familiar yet so different.
• The New Siri Doesn’t Suck – MacSparky — This is what I’ve been hoping to hear. Although as for non-Apple apps providing deep context, I can see why Apple wouldn’t rush that. Why should they, they provide apps the cover the majority of things everyday people need. Right?

📺 Media

• Criminal Record – Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi are stellar in this police thriller series. Finished the second season but it’s well set up for a third. A great twisty tale, alas all to likely to be based on true life these days.

🎧 Music

• Limp Bizkit – just smashing through their ‘greatest hits’ which still require the volume set to 11. Nice to go back for some comfort noise!

🫀 Health

• Current Weight: 113kg . Up from last week. I was a bit miffed when I saw this, hoping it’s just a blip.
• Avg. Sleep: 6h 20mins. Much the same as last week, which given I got all of 2hrs 34 mins sleep last night, kinda figures.

🧑‍💻 Tech

• Apple/WWDC wise I think the biggest impact will be the immediate use of allowing the Passwords app to update any passwords that have been flagged for security reasons. I am currently doing that by hand but think I’ll just wait for iOS27!

💻 Site Notes

• A fix! The featured image was expanding beyond its container and mucking things up on mobile views. Thanks to Mat for pointing it out!

🗓️ Next Week

• Back to Tai Chi tomorrow, and fairly quiet the rest of the week until Friday. Vera MOT, and Jack’s Nursery Graduation! He finishes Nursery at the end of July, and two weeks later starts school. No, I can’t get my head around it either.