I recently came across the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast via a post on Denny Henke’s blog.

Looking at the episode list for an interesting entry point I was immediately drawn to this limited four-part series diving into the rise, impact and uses of massive ‘hyperscale’ data centres worldwide.

I guess I was already aware of the resource demands of data centres, but perhaps not overtly aware of the scale of them worldwide, as well as some of the more political reasons for their locations.

This series gave me a lot to think about - especially regarding AI and the longtermist outlook of tech billionaires - but I won’t go over here. Best you go listen for yourself.

This is probably one of the best Apple ads in a long time. Doesn’t take itself too seriously - the category of Apple marketing that I like. Plus, strong LEGO Movie vibes.

I have no need for a desktop Mac right now, but the new form factor (and not to mention the specs) are very compelling.

TLDR; I bought some AirPods Pro 2 and I love them.

Earlier this year I was looking to upgrade from my 3rd generation AirPods to something with noise cancellation. At the time I was having a sort of existential crisis around being so embedded in the Apple ecosystem so I was railing against getting a set of AirPods Pro (they were also the most expensive option at the time), so I opted for a set of Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

They were good ...ish. I experienced some connectivity issues - oftentimes related to the Bose app on iPhone. But the sound (and active noise cancellation) were decent, and I stuck with them.

Fast-forward to September. I was wearing the Bose less-and-less - despite the mostly superior sound quality, connectivity gripes forced me back to using my older AirPods when going out walking. I just couldn’t deny the fact that Apple products just work within the ecosystem, and switching between my phone, iPad and two MacBook Pros (one being my work machine) was seamless.

The iPhone 16 launch event didn’t introduce a new version of AirPods Pro - the fact that Apple did not iterate on the hardware told me they had peaked, and the model was dialled in (based on current technology). The new soft / firmware features for hearing health are very compelling - as someone that had hearing issues when I was a young child, and am now moving into my late(r) forties, my hearing health is something that I am starting to pay attention to.

Whilst I didn’t need a new set of earbuds (the Bose ones are still pretty immaculate), I was sold on the AirPods Pro 2. So when Costco had them on special for $110 (AUD) less than Apple I took it as a sign and picked up a pair.

I’ve got to say, unboxing and setting them up was fairly anti-climactic - but in a good way. The fact that they just work, straight out of the box with no messing around, is Apple through and through. Plus, they sound great.

I’ll still be keeping the Bose earbuds as a backup, but expect them to gather dust.

I recently upgraded from a 4th generation iPad Mini to an 11” iPad Pro M4 with the express intention of replacing my personal MacBook Pro (original 13” M1 with Touchpad) as much as possible for everything non-work (including writing this blog).

One of the selling points of going pro was external monitor support, so one of the first things I did when I unboxed was hook it up to my 34” Samsung curved monitor.

This was my first time using iPadOS with an external monitor so it took a little getting used to (plus my monitor doesn’t really do the iPad justice as it isn’t 4K).

Shortly after plugging it in, it started to repeatedly disconnect. At first I assumed it was the monitor - it’s not the best and I’ve had the occasional connection issue with it over the years - but when I tried it with another monitor I experienced the same issue. I then tried a number of different USB-C cables, but no joy. It seemed that my pristine brand new iPad Pro was unusable with an external monitor 😩.

Defeated, I was about box-up the presumably faulty tablet when it occurred to me that every time the iPad disconnected and reconnected to the monitor it was accompanied by the ‘charging’ chime that all (portable) Apple devices make. I wondered whether it was related.

Up until now I had been using a USB-C connection from the monitor, which was charging the iPad as well as providing the video connection. I dug out a spare HDMI cable and a USB-C dongle I’d bought with my MacBook Pro and hooked it all up. So far so good - iPad is running on an external monitor (and running its battery down).

So here’s what is happening - and it kind of is the monitor that is at fault. When the iPad is running off a USB-C cable it is both charging and sending video to the monitor. Once the battery is fully charged, it (naturally) stops charging - unfortunately the monitor isn’t smart enough to stop sending charge back up the wire, so gets disconnected. This might be a USB-C thing, and if the iPad were connected to a Thunderbolt port (like on the Apple Studio Display) it wouldn’t have the same issue.

Unfortunately I’m not in the market for a new display at the moment, so for now my solution is to run the monitor off of HDMI, connected to an old hub (which also has a USB-C power cable attached to it). It’s not as elegant as a single cable for everything (like I have for my work laptop), but it works.

Kagi, a ‘user centric’ (and paid) search engine, maintains what is essentially a webring to find random posts from the various small web bloggers and the entire list is maintained, out in the open, via a GitHub repository.

Even if you aren’t a Kagi user, this is an amazing resource of some excellent creators. I’ve seen a few familiar names on there, but also found a lot of new people to follow also. You can submit your own recommendations as well, if you fork the repository and then submit your suggestions.

Serious workspace envy.

I think I'm going to start looking at static (as opposed to standing) corner desks again for my own office.

I won't spoil this for you by giving any context. Trust me, just go watch this talk by the co-founder of Panic and enjoy watching it unfold. So very, very good.

Update: Matt has since taken down his original post and apologised for it. To be honest, I thought that everything he wrote was fair (if not a little mean), but I understand that it was not a good example of how he would like to treat people.

I've only been broadly been keeping abreast of the WordPress / WP Engine / Silver Lake saga, and remain fairly ambivalent about it, but this latest development with DHH wading in with his extreme opinions (does he have any other type?) is painful.

Mullenweg starts by insisting that the post / discourse is respectful, but his frustration is palpable, and he's finding it hard to rise above it all.

To be clear, I'm no fan of DHH - I stopped following / subscribing to him a while ago (facts that would not concern him, nor should they).

Everyone seems to be getting confused over the issue, thinking it is a case of an open source project trying to shake down a large profitable VC-backed business. It's not - it's a trademark dispute. The fact that 'giving back to the open source project' is an option for restitution is very charitable in my opinion.

I’ve been going back and forth over what I want my online presence (i.e. this website) to be.

First, it was a blog, with regularly posted content with no real consistent theme. Then I wanted to break out of the constraints of having to post linearly by creating a digital garden, at which point I missed having the ability to surface content temporally (i.e. it was relevant at a specific point in time).

I'm still not 100% there, and suspect I'm going to end up with a hybrid of both, but for now I'm back to a simple blog.

For a short while I experimented with using Obsidian and Obsidian Publish to create a digital garden - I found it to be a pretty effective publishing flow and will certainly circle back to that once I have a better idea of the shape of that content.

Inspired by sites like Daring Fireball, and the personal websites of Freek Van der Herten and Matt Birchler, I also want to be able to easily share interesting links, especially when they are the jumping-off point for something I want to say.

So for now I'm back to using Jigsaw and Netlify to create and host a simple static site. I've decided to simply archive all of my previous content - some of it may find its way into the digital garden, but for now this is a clean start.