David Hughes

Notes From Afar

Archives (page 4 of 73)

29 October 2023

Weeknote 29th October 2023

As I mentioned in my last weeknote we visited Bath for a few days as part of a mini tour of the West Country.

A few highlights from our trip.

Bath

View out through the window of the Salamander pub featuring Mr’s B’s EmporiumIt was nice to revisit Bath, although it feels more touristy with each visit as it slowly morphs into a Georgian theme park.

On Saturday evening we found a fabulous Spanish restaurant Pinxto Bath and had one of the best Spanish meals I’ve ever had including Spain.

My favourite part of Bath is Queen Street, I’ve joked that I could live there quite happily, which has two great pubs in the The Raven and The Salamander (the better of the two), a fabulous place for brunch and lunch in Wild Cafe and quiet possibly the finest bookshop this side of Foyles in Mrs B’s Emporium of Reading Delights.

All of which were frequented and enjoyed.

On our last morning in Bath we watched the Abbey gradually emerge into view as the fog cleared and then headed over to Bristol.

Bristol

It was nice to be in Bristol and to be able to explore it more and do some ‘touristy’ things.

View of Clifton Suspension BridgeWe had lunch at Cargo Cantina on Wapping Wharf which was excellent and then wandered down to the SS Great Britain.

I think the last time I visited SS Great Britain was probably the early 80s when it was still pretty much a hulk being rescued. It’s now fully restored and a really great experience – highly recommended.

The next morning we walked up to Clifton via Constitution Hill which I assume is thus named as its test of one’s constitution.

We had breakfast and excellent coffee in Foliage Cafe and then walked over to Clifton Suspension Bridge which still slightly boggles my mind it’s so high over the gorge.

My Dad lived in Clifton for a period in his youth and used to drink in the Coronation Tap, one of only two places I had a drink with him, I was keen to revisit it but alas it was closed until the evening.

Cirencester

We drove home via Cirencester which has popped up on one of those 10 Best Places to Live type lists, so we thought we’d check it out as a possible move location.

I immediately felt young and poor, there seemed to be a startlingly high number of gents outfitters specialising in bespoke tweed and red corduroy trousers, and it was notable that every bank still had a high street branch there.

This tells me their customers are old and high net worth.

We won’t be moving to Cirencester.

22 October 2023

Weeknote 22nd October 2023

A quiet week, and a quick weeknote.

I finally took the plunge and ordered a new Mac, as my trusty 27″ iMac is now classified as ‘Vintage’ by Apple and isn’t supported by MacOS Sonoma. With no big iMac even rumoured before 2025 I’ve gone with a 15″ MacBook Air and Studio Display.

The MacBook Air will now be my only Mac, so I needed to increase the storage and RAM, pushing the price up to £1999.

£1999!

Now you see why I’ve put this purchase off for so long. I’m hoping a Studio Display will pop up on the refurbished store before the MacBook Air arrives to save me a few quid.

We’re on holiday for a few days now, I’m typing this sitting in a guest house in Bath over looking the Cathedral.

We arrived yesterday afternoon and headed into town over Pulteney Bridge, the river was the highest I’ve seen it with the water from Storm Babet rushing down over the weir.

high water at pulteney weir

I find it fascinating that my Dad used to stand on the weir fishing as a child, he wouldn’t have been yesterday.

15 October 2023

Weeknote 15th October 2023

Bristol

The beginning of the week saw me back in Bristol for a couple of days of workshops with Nomensa, a creative agency I’m working with.church tower lit by setting sun

Monday night we had dinner at The Coconut Tree an excellent Sri Lankan restaurant – superb food and lovely service.

Tuesday night I was flying solo and headed over to Wapping Wharf, a very cool collection of restaurants and bars all inside shipping containers.

I’ve always loved Bristol. My Dad was evacuated from London to the West Country and grew up in and around Bristol. He moved back to Bristol after a short period back in London and met my Mum when they were both working at Bristol University. As a child we used to visit my Dad’s mum, spending weekends in Bristol, Bath and Keynsham.

Bristol was weaved through the early part of my life, and it’s been lovely reconnecting with it over the last couple of  years.

London

Thursday I was in London for Interact, Nomensa’s annual UX conference. It was a really good day of talks and great being at a conference I wasn’t running. I wish I’d thought to count the number of times AI was mentioned, as a drinking game it would have been carnage.

90s rave detroit techno wednesday morning

Spotify mobile ui showing daylist called 90s rave detroit techno wednesday morning Spotify has a cool new feature called daylist and I’m really enjoying it. Your daylist is an automatically generated playlist that changes through the day with morning, afternoon, evening and night versions based on what you tend to listen to at that time on the day in question.

So far my daylists have been pretty good with a nice mix of old and new tracks. My only concern is that if I then listen to the daylist it will confirm to the bot that is what I listen to and gradually reduce the new and prioritise the listened to, which I’ve always felt is the risk of AI generated playlists and timelines – confirmation bias induced ever decreasing circles.

The daylist names are entertaining in their own right:

  • analogue minimal techno monday afternoon
  • krautrock motorik thursday early morning
  • groovy eclectic friday afternoon
  • frutiger aero breakbeat Saturday night
  • bells instrumental afternoon

Mind you confirmation bias induced ever decreasing circles isn’t a bad name for a playlist either…

8 October 2023

Weeknote 8th October 2023

Mug of tea and toasted tea cake with a copy of The Road Rat in the garden. Weeknote 8 October 2023.I want to get back to writing and publishing, I thought about resurrecting my newsletter but it never gained any real traction, mostly due to my rather ad hoc publishing approach I suspect.

I’ve recently seen a couple of bloggers using weeknotes and feel that could be a nice framework without any self imposed pressure or expectations. Time will tell…

Synthfest 2023

My son and I headed up to Sheffield (the spiritual home of electronic music?) on Saturday for Synthfest 2023. Synthfest has become a bit of a tradition and it was lovely to be back after a Covid induced hiatus.

The unexpected highlight of the show for us both was a seminar on the Theremin including a performance by Lydia Kavina who was taught to play by Leon Theremin himself.

18 November 2022

RIP Twitter?

RIP Twitter Tombstone

I took a break from Twitter when Musk took over and quickly laid off thousands of staff via email.

I didn’t think that even he could do so much damage so quickly.

I was one of the very early users of Twitter as it took off in the web design community.

I’ve made friends through Twitter that have become friends IRL.

Twitter was key to early success of Milton Keynes Geek Night, with our Twitter friends becoming a little black book of fabulous speakers.

I’ve watched as many of those friends have ebbed away from Twitter, some to other platforms and some away from social media completely.

It was a quieter place, but it was a place that still held a special place in my heart.

Which is why seeing it brought to its knees by Elon Musk has been difficult to watch.

Yes it’s just a website, but it’s more than that, it’s more than just the code and the pixels it’s a worldwide community I loved being part of.

I hope that if or when Musk finally breaks Twitter somebody better buys that code and brings back the community.

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