WWDC Predications Score Card

Having made a point of making some WWDC predictions in my last post, it seems only right that I should look back at them after the fact and see how I did. I’d also like to talk about a couple of the other interesting things from the Keynote. My Predications Firstly: how did I do with my predictions? A More Impressive Follow Up to the Integrat... Read more
18 Jun 2017 / 6 minute read / blogger, 2 more

Yet Another Rambling WWDC Predications Post

Tomorrow is the opening keynote of Apple’s WWDC1 conference. Two years ago I predicted that Apple would open source Swift, and I was right2. Last year my predication was XCode for iPad. That didn’t happen, but Swift Playgrounds did… which sort of made me half right. Rather than just tweet one prediction this year, I figured I’d try writing a who... Read more
04 Jun 2017 / 7 minute read / hacker, geek

When Apple (or Anyone Else) Really Gets a Product Right

Being British, I have a story about tea. It goes like this: For my entire life, it had tasted wrong. Not bad, exactly, but not quite right. I tried all different kinds, and just about every brand I could find. I drank it without milk which made it taste a little better1, and sometimes added lemon which pushed it a little more in the right direct... Read more
21 May 2017 / 6 minute read / hacker, geek

The Lady Who Lives in the Tube on Top of The Fridge

In our kitchen is a short white cylinder. Inside is an array of microphones, always listening passively. Whenever someone says the magic word it starts actively listening for instructions. This might be to start a timer, it might be to add something to our shopping list, or perhaps to turn a smart light or socket on or off. Within moments a femi... Read more
07 May 2017 / 10 minute read / hacker, geek

My Gymnastic Bodies Review

Previously I talked about getting back on the exercise horse, and how this lead my to following Gymnastic Bodies as my program. At the end of that post I promised a review of it, and so here it is. I also promised to talk about my nerdy system of tracking it, but this piece ran long so I’ll come back to that in a later post. The short version i... Read more
01 Apr 2017 / 12 minute read / gym-rat

International Women's Day

I’m going to interrupt the regularly scheduled (ish) programming in order to talk about something topical. If you’re reading this on the day it’s published, today is International Women’s Day. In the grander scheme of things, we shouldn’t really need to explicitly devote a day to recognising people who make up a little over half of the world’s p... Read more
08 Mar 2017 / 6 minute read / blogger

Getting Back on the Exercise Horse

When I resolved to start training again, I had a problem: what sort of program should I follow? After a good eight or nine months of not going to the gym I was pretty damn out of shape. When I wrote my previous posts on workout programs I was following the Greyskull Linear Progression program. Linear progression programs are great for beginners ... Read more
25 Feb 2017 / 6 minute read / gym-rat

Building My Shiny New Website Part 3: Tech Stack

This will be my last post on building the new implementation of this site. Having previously talked about the choice of platform and the theme, I’m now going on a quick dive into all of the other tech which keeps the site running the way I like it. Excitingly (for me), this means I get to make diagrams. Let’s start with this monster, which cove... Read more
19 Feb 2017 / 7 minute read / blogger, hacker

Goals for 2017

I don’t really do new years resolutions. They just don’t seem to work for me. I don’t see that there’s anything that special about January 1st. It isn’t even the first day of the year for a reasonable portion of the planet. Expecting to make sudden and positive life changes on that day just seems to silly and destined to fail. Especially given t... Read more
10 Feb 2017 / 10 minute read / blogger, 5 more

Building my Shiny New Website Part 2: Theme

I built the theme of the previous Jekyll based incarnation of this site myself. If I’m entirely honest I made a bit of hash of it. I just hacked the default Jekyll layout around a bit and slotted in some colours I though might look reasonable. They did not, in practice, look reasonable. Neither did the fonts, the vertical rhythm or just about an... Read more
15 Jan 2017 / 7 minute read / blogger