David Hughes

New Years Eve 2023 – I must resist the urge to write a yearnote, but if I’m honest I’ll be glad to see the back of 2023 as, with the exception of a few highlights, it’s been a distinctly underwhelming year.

Back to the weeknote – this week has been a traditional Christmas with family, food and drink and rather a lot of Indiana Jones.

Having watched The Dial of Destiny, I decided to revisit the earlier films; Temple of Doom is, unsurprisingly, by far the best and it was glorious to watch a film without CGI and where all the stunts were real and so much more impressive for that.

On Friday my wife and I took advantage of a break in the weather and headed out for a walk around Stowe Gardens, which was a welcome breath of fresh air and a chance to stretch the legs and burn off a couple of pigs in blankets.

It highlighted how little I’ve moved, literally, over the last few months. I got a little bored of trudging around my local area on the same old routes that became embedded during lockdown and my employer seems to have a culture of lunchtime meetings.

Having recently been diagnosed with low Vitamin D as a result of working like a dumbass and barely leaving this desk through the summer, that will be changing in 2024.

As will where I publish my weeknotes, as I said a couple of weeks ago for 2024 I’ll be publishing them via my newsletter.

So this is the last weeknote here on my blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed them and will join me on my newsletter.

Happy New Year!

A short weeknote for a relatively short week as I was ill for a few days.

My iMac finally sold and was collected by the new owner, it seems to be going to a good home. The longevity of Apple hardware is unique in the world of technology I feel, I do sometimes wonder why I’ve spent all this money on the Studio Display and MacBook Pro if I’m honest.

My daughter and I popped over Canal Street Coffee for a morning to get a change of scene. The light over the marina was striking as the sun came up to burn off the morning mist.

In May my friends Richard, Simon and I ran the first All Flows Festival, which was an amazing two days of fantastic talks and cool side events. I had thought I wouldn’t be able to give enough time to All Flows for 2024, but I’ve found I need an interesting, creative and rewarding distraction from my day job so I’m back on board.

Richard and Simon have done a great job lining up some fabulous speakers and we made a big decision about the venue at the end of the week – watch this space for more news early in 2024.

I was in London for a Christmas event with a supplier on Tuesday evening. The event took place at a rooftop bar deep in the City of London – a venue I imagine would be fabulous in the summer months.

As I made my way there in a cab I noticed the names and offices of very big, very global companies that occupy the square mile and became aware of a feeling of envy of the people that work for those firms.

Not because of the companies themselves and the assumed rewards of working for such beasts, but because I’ve never felt the desire to do so. The desire to work my up in a business or an industry, the desire to suck up to the boss and to compete with my peers. I’ve never seen the attraction or felt the desire to do so. On that dark night in the City of London I wondered how my life might be now if I had.

On Thursday I co-hosted the 46th MK Geek Night, this time at a new venue The South Central Institute of Technology at MK College, Bletchley. We had the usual new venue teething problems but they were quickly ironed out and we had a great evening.

Two great talks from AJ & Ceb and my friend Documentally, superb food from the college brasserie and excellent beer from local brewer GRID Beer Project.

On Saturday we headed down to Oxford for the Oxford Triangle of coffee at Society, lunch at Mowgli Street Food and hot chocolate at Knoops.

It’s notable the impact the new modern shopping centre has had on Oxford with many empty shops on the old High Street and a feeling of slow decline and decay, not helped by the constant stream of old diesel buses that rattle through Oxford constantly.

Rubber Soul

I’ve been listening to Rubber Soul by The Beatles this week. I normally listen to later Beatles – Revolver onwards – but thought I’d listen backwards through their catalogue.

I found Rubber Soul interesting as it feels like a transitional album, a stepping stone between the earlier I Wanna Hold Your Hand pop Beatles to the later Sgt Peppers, spending months in the studio psychedelic Beatles. Well worth a listen.

AI Dreaming

I don’t often dream, my wife says I do but don’t remember them as everyone dreams but I’m not convinced.

Anyway, I had a fascinating dream about different AI’s going rogue, each had a cool name I can’t now remember and I was just about to be killed by one when I was woken by the alarm I’d set on our Alexa.

Spooky.

Books On A Train

I’d set an alarm as I was once again being dragged into the office.

The train I have to catch is always very busy and this trip was particularly annoying as I had to sit next to a non-commuter.

You can always tell somebody that isn’t used to commuting; they sit there in their coat, with their bag on the floor not the luggage rack, keep checking the time and which station we’re stopping at and generally take up too much space. When you’ve commuted for a while you learn how to coexist in relative peace with your fellow passengers.

This non-commuter did have one saving grace – he was reading a book, a real paper book.

This made nostalgic for when I started commuting in the days before Kindles and watching video on your phone which seems to be far more common now, when people read honest to goodness books.

It was fascinating as you could see what people were reading and what book was popular, I’ll always remember being on the tube and almost everybody seemed to be reading The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman.

A week like this week makes writing a weeknote a little challenging as it has been really rather quiet.

I forgot to mention that I managed to catch an Apple Studio Display on the refurb store and it arrived last week.

This week’s nerd action has therefore been planning and executing a cable free desk setup which was completed mere hours ago.

I’m now living the single cable lifestyle and can easily swap between my personal and work MacBook Pro’s simply by plugging in the Thunderbolt cable and choosing the right device on my Logitech keyboard and mouse.

I keep forgetting that I have the flexibility of the MacBook as the Studio Display feels so similar to my old iMac, although it is much slimmer and being the height adjustable model has more space beneath making the desk space feel more open.

On Thursday I had to visit my employers offices in Birmingham. I don’t think I’ve been there since September and I can’t say any part of the experience made me want to rush back. The train was heaving, the office is not designed for tall Mac users and Birmingham is most definitely not London.

I do miss working in London at this time of the year, seeing a dark and cold London brought to life by Christmas lights, popping into a warm pub for quick pint on the way home and meeting friends and colleagues for dinner and drinks.

Despite us having a quiet weekend at home, I woke this morning thinking I needed to drive home, it was a relief to realise that I didn’t in fact have to.