Notes

Enjoyed drinks and a curry in Birmingham this evening alongside 6 familiar faces to celebrate an astonishing anniversary; 20 years ago this month, 4 web developers met in Walsall, and the Multipack was born.

The concourse at Euston station is now a festival of Rail Alphabet 2. Yet move beyond that and… well, God knows what font has been chosen for the gantries above the approaches to platforms (which themselves still use NR Brunel). One day there might be some visual coherence on the railway, but today is not that day.

Trying to buy tickets for a major tourist attraction in Barcelona. Three separate attempts fail to complete (session expired). Go to the attraction hoping to buy tickets in person; online purchases only. When speak to an official, tells me to use Google Chrome (I’m using an iPhone, which is a whole other issue but needless to say, this is not an option).

Just a small, insignificant example of how this century has rapidly turned into a techno-centric idiocracy.

Thanks to severe train delays, I have a morning to spend in Paris. Last night I booked into a charming hotel in Saint-Paul, and just met some of its extraordinarily friendly staff at breakfast. Going by previous experiences, I didn’t think any of this was possible! Paris might be growing on me.

Caught up with the Apple Event. Took me 30 minutes to realise I was watching last year’s event.

Tonight I watched Nye at the National Theatre, a play about the life (and death) of NHS founder, Aneurin Bevan. Beautiful and haunting, the very last scene completely broke me. Forget ten year plans; Nye had a vision, and he absolutely delivered on it.

Good services are verbs.
Bad services are nouns.
AI services are whimsical, opaque or vAPId.

I’m not convinced that the designer of a $10,000 gold watch (now obsolete), who gets driven around in the back of a Bentley, and who spends his spare time in coffee shops ‘inventing the future’ with the likes of Sam Altman, is capable of designing products for the rest of us.

Happy M&S cyber incident update day for those who celebrate.

If everything is working correctly, this is the first post from my website syndicated to Bluesky via Indiekit. 🤞

Just watched B. J. Novak’s directorial debut, Vengeance (2022) and oh boy, it’s a hoot. A hearty recommendation from me.

Micro Social is to Micro.blog what Tweetie was to Twitter. Sometimes it takes a passionate and attentive third-party developer to design and build the best app for an open platform. Astounding work @gregmorris!

That loud groaning noise you can hear is the sound of a 1000 employees at Williams Racing being told they’ve now got to use Jira.

Watched the penultimate performance of Elektra in Brighton this afternoon, before it transfers to the West End. Dense dialogue compensates for the short running time and an abrupt ending, yet the play is undermined by needless and nonsensical gimmicks (effect pedals, a random blimp, ink guns). Larson gave a forceful performance though, and was an absolute pro dealing with a mid-performance interruption (a cup fell from an upper circle).

Went to Lewes Depot this evening to watch a screening of Point Break (1991). Definitely one to file under ‘so bad it’s good’, with plenty of pithy one-liners to share for years to come.

Feeling quite proud of myself for getting my broken microwave repaired instead of mindlessly taking it to the dump and buying a new one. Only cost £45 to replace a blown capacitor.

Just received my first visual voicemail, 17 years after it was announced as a key feature of the first iPhone. 🤯

Prompted by their latest greenwashing campaign, only now twigged that Esso is the phonetic pronunciation of S.O. for Standard Oil. I prefer Jayesso, Just Stop Oil.

Binged the first season of Rivals sorry, not sorry.

Kinda wild watching a person sat on the train next to me using Twitter, and then posting an emotive, implicitly pro-Elon reply. Anyway, curiosity got the better of me and I logged in for the first time in ages; the site is unrecognisable, overflowing with spammy ads and pornography, with a user base of boiled frogs digging ever deeper trenches in one man’s manufactured culture war. It’s all very sad, bizarre and dare I say it, weird.

How should September be abbreviated?

• Firefox: Sept
• Chrome: Sept
• Node.js: Sept
• Deno: Sept
• Safari: Sep 👀

This is for en-GB, en-IE, en-AU and en-NZ locales (maybe more); for other English locales, everyone agrees it should be Sep. Standards!

At Stuttgart Kunstmuseum to see the Sarah Morris exhibition All Systems Fail, and saw actual Sarah Morris. 🤩

Thank you, Gareth – for everything.

HOW THE FUCK ARE WE IN THE FINAL!!!? YEEEAHHHHH!!! 🦁🦁🦁

It seems as though England have remembered they are playing the beautiful game. Promising first half! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

GET IN THERE LEWIS!

Never mind loveless landslides, England are practicing ponderous progression. Amazing! Unbelievable! How are we still in Euro 2024!? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Voted.

England are into the quarter finals of Euro 2024, and I have no idea how.

If a butterfly flaps its wings, it can affect a VAR decision given at Euro 2024.

Diabolical.

Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders AI-generated emoji!

Craig. Please. Stop.

Apt that my month of European rail travel started and now ends with me sat in seat 61.

No matter how many times I visit the Netherlands, I still can’t get over how throughly impressive its cycling infrastructure is; proof that a better world is possible.

Sat in Wurstelprater, a public amusement park in Vienna. Within my direct line of sight, can count at least 6 different ways people are being flung into the air. No thanks.