Month: February 2025

Weeknotes #109: maps and winter light shows

A week filled with reflection, culture, media, and curiosity.

Week commencing Monday, 17 February 2025

Illuminated experiences at Battersea Power Station and St Paul's Cathedral.
Illuminated.

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 53,600

Life

  • It’s been a year since I decided to remove trackers and other logging from this website. It’s not big enough for me to worry about the stats. I wanted to check nothing had crept in. Still not tracking you.
  • Two days in the office this week. It’s happening more and more but not enough to become a trend. It was nice in the office; the commute home remains frustrating. A minor issue with our software on Wednesday evening kept me later than I intended. We had a Chinese takeaway rather than a Tai Chi lesson.
  • Apple removed their most secure privacy capability from the UK. Nice explanation from Ian Betteridge. This is not a good look for our government, but I suspect there just aren’t enough people who think it’s important to make enough noise to change their stance.
  • Friday was an evening of dance seeing Birdboy at Sadler’s Wells East: It’s a lot less ‘dancy’ than I imagined, but the physical contortions and movement are mesmerising. The soundscape ranges from birdsong, through the child’s voice talking about life, to a fast-paced montage of sound snippets of the world: David Attenborough nature shows, weather forecasts, and music. Later, I saw it described as “dark and shadowy”, but I didn’t experience that at all; it was wonderful.
  • Saturday was the final night of Battersea Power Station’s Light Festival 2025. My favourite was the first installation we encountered, Spin Me a Yarn by Studio Vertigo: the pink neon worked well in the twilight and, later, after it got appropriately dark.
  • Related: on the way back, I bought two coffees and two cakes from Black Sheep, totalling £15, which I thought was a bit much given we had to order via screen and there was almost no interaction.
  • St Paul’s Cathedral is currently running a sound and light show, Luminous, which we saw on Sunday evening. It’s very impressive.
  • And, own your garbage. The world thanks you. (Via Kottke).

This week’s rabbit hole

  • When he was inaugurated, the President of the Twelve United English Colonies of North America decided to rename the Gulf between the US and Mexico. Most of the world, like Hillary, chuckled. This week, the providers of the maps most of us use daily—the big American tech giants—updated their maps. Gruber wrote a long thing about what places are called. But the map on my phone now says Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). We don’t all have to subscribe to this nonsense, so I tried to find out how this is done, because you’d imagine the British, with their history of colonisation, might have something to say about it. Turns out, I can’t find much. Let me know if there’s an organisation I haven’t consulted.
  • First stop: Great Britain’s national mapping service—you’d think Ordnance Survey might do official naming for the UK? Nope. It does maintain a Geographic Database, but that’s only for Great Britain. It contains over half a billion features, all in the UK.
  • Ah, second stop: the UK government’s Permanent Committee on Geographical Names. Quite a bit to say on English conventional names—recognised English-language forms of foreign geographical names, such as Moscow, Cologne or Rome. It has a nice list of country names, which comes close to saying this is how the UK sees the world. But I can’t find anything about the seas.
  • Official Government advice seems to suggest that, for the names of places and features worldwide, I should consult the United States Board on Geographic Names. And that’s returning the new name. So, is that what we should call it now from here?

Media

  • Stylish, absurd yet entertaining: we started watching Prime Target on Apple TV+—a brilliant Cambridge mathematician becomes a target for shadowy forces. A fun way to spend an evening.
  • I’ve been rewatching The Blacklist from the beginning. Still on series 1 and still enjoying James Spader. There are maybe too many crime thrillers on my watch list, this one featuring a lot of high-stakes deception on all sides.

Weeknotes #108: from Kyoto to Åre

A week of great food, entertainment, and cultural experiences.

Week commencing Monday, 10 February 2025

This image shows the exterior display of Sohoplace theatre at night, featuring a digital billboard for a play titled "KYOTO". The billboard includes the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) logo and the tagline "SAVING THE EARTH IS A FILTHY BUSINESS". The show's title is displayed in large red letters with an image of Earth in the middle of the 'O', surrounded by what appears to be splatter or debris effects.
Seeing Kyoto

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 14/7. (66%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 50,828

Life

  • It was pub quiz again. One of the rounds was really tough for us, but it turned out that it was tough for everybody. Mid-table seems to be our position.
  • Food that was batch-cooked last Sunday lasted the week. And it was very useful. Also, tasty.
  • We had an impromptu dinner at Mora Meza on Thursday night, and it was delicious.
  • If I wrote that we went to see a play that dramatises the 1997 climate change treaty negotiations in Kyoto, it would sound a bit dry. If I added that a big scene featured arguments over the placement of a comma, you might think to avoid it. In fact, the high stakes of the event – and the politics for the ten years leading up to the Kyoto summit – were gripping. A fantastic piece of theatre at Sohoplace.
  • Related, it was the first legally binding agreement to commit industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The US never ratified it. The UK met its obligations for the first commitment period, to 2012.
  • Our Valentine’s dinner was post-theatre. The later hour meant we were the only ones in the restaurant. They were packing up around us. The food was delicious, but the ambience was – perhaps – not so romantic.
  • Saturday, to see Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy at the Odeon in Streatham (£7 seems like a bargain ticket). I’m not sure I’ve seen any of the movies since the original. It’s always best to have low expectations because I came out having thoroughly enjoyed it. Bridget is now a single mother and navigating life once again looking for love, but older, if not wiser. Surrounded by the consistent group of friends (including Hugh Grant, Sally Phillips and Emma Thompson) that helped make previous films. No spoilers, but is Roxster even a name?
  • Relatedly, related. I never read film reviews until after I have seen the movie and have my own opinion. But I love how The Guardian’s website can simultaneously have a poor review (2 stars, Peter Bradshaw) and a much more positive one (4 stars, Wendy Ide). I am not sure who that’s trying to help. My review: engaging, funny and not as clichéd as imagined. Probably 4 stars.
  • We saw Patti LuPone at the Coliseum on Sunday night. As PY quipped, Old Compton Street must have been deserted. The show is just Patti and two on-stage musicians. It had ballads and musical showstoppers, and the music spans her life, woven into her story. I think it was supposed to appear unscripted, but it was a bit too slick into and out of songs to be anything other than pre-written. There was a lack of personal showbiz anecdotes and not much spontaneity, but it was a wonderful evening of song. Did we just see an icon of stage? I think we did.

Media

  • More crime drama. This week it was the turn of Netflix’s Swedish drama, “The Åre Murders”. I was expecting subtitles but got the dubbed version. It was only on episode 4 I realised I could have the original Swedish audio; by then, I opted not to. It’s good, but the underlying reason for the show – detective Hanna Ahlander retreats to Åre after facing suspension in Stockholm – is somewhat glossed over. Be prepared for a lot of snow.
  • While watching another video about Dutch transit, I discovered a new word for the bricks used in road building. Technically, it’s a Dutch word: klinkers. See also this video.
  • Jon Stewart & John Oliver Welcome America to Its Trump Monarchy Era went on a bit. The monarchy bit was funny.
  • More YouTube rabbit holes: it’s been seventeen months since I worked in Staines. But I think it now has TFL contactless payments; no promotion: Gen-Z are saying they have ‘no interest’ in middle management; James May admits he ‘weeps’ about Brexit’s impact on television.

Usable, but only just

Struggling to let go of ageing AirPods despite their limited lifespan.

The image shows a pair of white wireless earbuds sitting in their open charging case. The earbuds appear to be Apple AirPods or a similar style of wireless earbuds. They're placed in their designated slots in the charging case, with the small black microphone meshes visible on the stems. The charging case is also white and shows some signs of wear and minor dirt along the edges. The case is sitting on what looks like a grey surface, possibly a table or shelf, with what appears to be a wall or baseboard visible at the bottom of the image.
Old EarPods

We have a box upstairs for storing broken electronics, so we can take them to a recycling centre at some point. It doesn’t have much in it at the moment: there’s a security camera that the manufacturers wouldn’t fix after around 15 months of service, and there’s the bedside lamp I broke (that got replaced). When there are a few more things, it will be worth making the arrangements for them to be properly disposed of.

We also have a collection of electronics like these AirPods. They are not broken and are still usable, but they are past their sensible, useful life. These headphones have batteries, and like all batteries, they have a limited lifespan. I’ve seen reports suggesting that these should last two to three years.

I bought these AirPods from the Apple SoHo store on a work trip to New York in February 2018. I was on my way back to my hotel from the office and had, yet again, left a pair of wired headphones somewhere (they eventually resurfaced in my suitcase). I decided to invest in a pair of (what were, at the time) relatively new in-ear devices. I remember some of this because it was snowing in New York, and the streets still had a dusting of snow, and I thought it was exciting to be in the Big Apple in the snow. I guess the SoHo branch was nearest my hotel because I recall checking to see if it would still be open on my walk back. I paid $159 (plus $14.11 in sales tax). It was pretty pricey, really, but I was getting all my travel and meals paid for on the trip, so I imagine I felt I’d put my usual expense money into something. I immediately liked them, especially once I’d got over the feeling they’d fall out of my ears (they rarely did), but I probably didn’t use them very often for the first few years.

By February 2022, they should have been beyond their quoted life. But the left pod was fine: it held a charge for a useful time. The right-hand pod had all but died. I complained to Apple (because I felt they should have degraded on a similar timeframe), who eventually sold me a replacement right pod for some ridiculous sum that, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have paid. I should have gone back to the wired set. But it meant the lifespan was extended for about another year. Then, the left pod refused to hold a charge for a usable period.

To me, a usable time is an hour minimum, but practically, it should be closer to ninety minutes. That’s time in the gym or a commute. And that’s a minimum as the battery fades. I want them to last hours and hours for the majority of their life. They are a pretty useless pair of headphones if they need charging more often than that. I guessed Apple wouldn’t send me another single pod, and, anyway, I felt the money I’d already paid for the replacement wasn’t good value. Instead, I replaced the entire set.

Yet, these sit on my desk all day long. I look at them. Occasionally, if there is excessive noise outside, I will use them on a short work call. But they are otherwise useless. As I write this, I am charging the case, which seems to have been fine since 2018 but is low on charge right now.

These AirPods should be going to an electronics recycling box, but I can’t quite bring myself to part with something that retains some usability. I feel guilty about the waste. But everything has a battery these days, which means many things are disposable. I know the replacement headphones are better (I love the noise-cancelling features when I am commuting), but I can’t help but feel that $173.11 should get me more than a three-year rental period.

This is how clutter arrives in our lives.

Weeknotes #107: tofu and gardens

A week of discoveries, good food, and reflections.

Week commencing Monday, 3 February 2025

This image shows a winter scene at RHS Wisley, capturing one of its distinctive rock garden areas alongside a reflective pool of water. Despite being taken in February, the garden displays the characteristic year-round interest that Wisley is known for, with various textures and forms creating visual appeal even in the dormant season. The rockery rises in terraced levels, with moss-covered stones creating natural-looking steps and platforms. A gravel path winds through the rocky landscape, leading upwards through the garden.
A winter scene at RHS Wisley

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (57%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 46,616

Life

  • To prove that I am nothing if not a mass of contradictions. After last week’s dive into, perhaps, useful AI, this: “The LAST thing we needed was a better way to generate plausible-looking horse shit for random gullible people to consume unwittingly, but here we are, and it’s only going to get worse.” Rachel By The Bay is also spot on. What a world.
  • Relatedly related. It was announced that Google’s Gemini assistant is being enabled at work. That would allow me to add material to the notebook service I talked about last week. I am not expecting hitherto unnoticed insights. Yet.
  • Thursday was too cold to sit out for drinks for our usual Thirst Thursday, so we moved to Mildreds, where I continued my rule of not ordering anything “chick+n” but broke my rule of avoiding tofu. The kimchi bokkeumbap, which contained salt and pepper tofu, was delicious.
  • Saturday, to the RHS gardens at Wisley. The Orchid House had colour, and there were snowdrops in bloom. I bet it’s even more impressive in summer.
  • Sunday to a crowded Ikea to buy a light. And then a tram and bus to Lower Morden Garden Centre, where we bought some new plants. To avoid carrying it, potting compost was ordered from Amazon for delivery tomorrow.
  • Note to future self: parsnip gnocchi was a lot of work, but delicious.

Media

Weeknotes #106: Happy Lunar New Year

AI experiments, personal reflections, life updates, and intriguing challenges explored.

Week commencing Monday, 27 January 2025

A sea view at Seaview

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 5/7. (86%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 58,567

The weeknotes are a bit different this week as I spent some time reading and playing with a number of AI tools, specifically using my own material—like these weeknotes—to see what the models might do with them.

Let’s talk about AI

  • Once again, there’s a lot of chatter about AI. The Chinese DeepSeek models made a big splash this week and caused US technology stock prices to plummet. It’s so overhyped.
  • Unrelated, I am experimenting with Google’s Notebook LM, using last year’s weeknotes and a collection of old blog entries from 2002/3. Even though the app says my data is not used to train the AI, I figured it’s public anyway. This is where the real power of AI will come to most people: when it can be used on their own data.
  • – I asked for a cast of characters, which came out OK, but I guess it’s a surprise for people I know IRL called Frank who the AI assumes are the subject of a drag musical. For clarity, they are not the same.
  • – Related, the AI says my weeknotes highlight “a lifestyle that values social connections, shared experiences, and cultural engagement”. I think that’s mainly because I don’t write about the hours I sit at my desk typing product requirements for work.
  • – I was pleased it said that the overall tone of the weeknotes is generally positive and reflective, but it’s missing so much information about me it made me think about how I am characterised online.
  • – In another task, the AI couldn’t distinguish between me and my father when writing about countries where I have worked.
  • In response to this, I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I was. It basically regurgitated materials I have online, which (I think) is good. Other AIs, including DeepSeek, didn’t come back with anything.
  • Google Notebook LM will produce what it calls an Audio Overview which, for me, was like somebody had created a podcast about my life as viewed through those blog entries. It was uncanny. And, yes, I think it’s very much like the fortune reader whereby much of the generic stuff sounds really personal but isn’t, but it was unnerving listening to a podcast about yourself; there was enough reality alongside the generic to make it seem like it knew more about me. It was capable of referencing cultural changes between the early 2000s and today, which made the analysis seem very real. A bit like listening to my own obituary. I can’t decide if I liked it or not.
  • There are a lot of interesting capabilities. I wonder how much longer before I decide to pay for access to more powerful models and tools?

Life

  • I am trying to arrange broadband for a place in Spain while not speaking Spanish nor understanding the format of many things. It’s more stress-inducing than I imagined.
  • On Wednesday, we passed into the Lunar New Year of the Wood Snake. At my Tai Chi class, we all wished each other a happy new year.
  • This week, I learned the government has a Hammersmith Bridge Taskforce. The taskforce met 16 times between 1st October 2020 and 25th November 2021. The bridge is still closed. Pretty terrible such vital infrastructure isn’t funded so it can be repaired.
  • Our first visit to the Isle of Wight for 2025. Delighted by how lovely it was.

Media