Notes for March 15th 2024

Song of the week:

- This weekend is a long one for us in Ireland, which is fantastic. I need a bit of a breather from work, to be honest. I'm a bit run-down, tired and and been burning the candle at both ends for too long. Time to decompress and not look at the laptop for a few days! - Looking at the litany of issues coming from Boeing is insane. It's astounding how such poor managerial decisions were allowed to pass by the board or shareholders. Outsourcing critical parts of product development should never be allowed in such a regulated industry. And now the cost is insurmountable; passengers don't trust the airlines, so airlines are seeking other aircraft. Which now means European Airbus is a more valuable company than Boeing, which I don't think has ever been the case before. - Looking at the coming weeks, I'm on the road a lot. In 2 weeks I'm in Vegas for Adobe Summit, where my calendar is being jammed for me by colleagues, which is... good ? Then I'm off to Poland to spend some time with Accenture. Then I'm in London with my actual colleagues. And then I'm off to San Francisco for our annual conference. May is quieter thankfully, with one quick stop in London. But then in June I'm in Cannes, and then possibly Japan. - Luckily it all dies down in H2! - I've owned my Van Moof bike for a few years. Obviously Covid put a stop on a lot of travel but looking at the stats, I'm nearing 2,000km on the bike. That's with 222 rides with an average distance of about 7k. Basically I just commute to/from work on it. But my average speed is 22.6km/h and the average ride time is 20mins. If I drove to work the average speed would probably be about the same, if not lower, and the time would be double, if not more. - TLDR; get a bike. - Apple's reaction to EU legislation for alternative marketplaces and giving more ownership of choice to the consumer has been pathetic. I've been an Apple user and customer for decades now, and this is the most I've felt betrayed by their idiocy. They've fallen for their own sycophantic ideals. I understand their utterly ridiculous blogophere types to fall to their knees over things like _being able to install apps as you wish_ but Apple not turning this into good news and digging their heels in has been a masterstroke in irritation. To the point that I've started looking at reviews for Android phones or, ideally, the viability of Linux phones. - Imagine the iOS walled garden on your Mac. You'd throw that shit in the bin immediately. And don't even get me started on iPadOS; one of the most pointless things sitting on genuinely great hardware in existence today. Jobs would genuinely roll in his grave if he could see the shit they sell us. And they want us to buy into VR headsets!