OUR STRANGE NEW WORLD

(They get in the way) Based on my recent comment to an article in The Register . The Argument For Face Masks? One of the surprising aspects of the pandemic is that a behaviour considered pretty normal, in much of the Far East and South Asia, is so controversial in West, attracting many conspiracy theories.  That act is wearing a face mask, in public, either where one has cold or flu, or during an epidemic, is done by pretty much anyone who lives in China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.  In the Far East, personal responsibility is still very much a thing; people tend to keep their diseases to themselves and the masks are pretty ubiquitous at any time. So why do we wear face masks when in confinement? Masks are just used as things that get in the way of other things. In this case, we are hoping masks get in the way of airborne droplets containing a virus. Masks are porous, which is generally a good thing.  The wearer of a none porous mask would have a worse problem than the virus itse

 (Curiosity Killed My Current Account) Apple has killed my current account for the second time this year.  The first was when I spent my lockdown savings on an iPad Pro.  The idea being I wouldn't need another laptop.  The background to this is that Apple has, for the third time, radically changed the processors it uses in the Mac line.  This time, to a processor of its own design based on ARM. As is normal for Apple, they held a big glitzy event that included graphs without numbers, promises of insane battery life and processing power beyond our wildest dreams.  Then, after an embargo period, the first print and YouTube reviews arrived showing the new models chewing through video editing and complex software builds like products that are i) usually larger and ii) usually quite a bit more expensive. All this had me dangerously curious so I clicked Buy on a new MacBook Air.  I bought it to augment my five year old MacBook Pro.  The verdict so far?  I simply like it a lot.  It doesn&

(In this strange  new world) Hours before the government did its latest u-turn in a long series of u-turns, telling people to work from home wherever possible, I was doing what turned out to be the contrarian thing.  Commuting to the office for possibly the last time until well into the new year.  I had things to collect and a desk to clear.  When some semblance of the old normal returns, probably when reliable vaccines are available, I will no longer have a desk I call my home.  I will be a hot-desker, probably going into the office once or twice a week at most. I chose to go early, leaving the house at 05:45 for a tram on the airport line shortly after 06:00.  Prior to lockdown, my commute was something of a toxic affair and I’ve long suspected I’ve already had a dose of you-know-what.  The airport line goes by several schools, a large hospital, a major Amazon fulfilment centre and culminates at Britain’s third largest international airport.  The outbound trip of this this partic

(In which I ponder its future) A solitary visit to the office, early June left me in a somewhat sombre mood.  We've had the current office for over three years and, by any measure, this is a good office.  Once it was clear we had to make the move form our rather run down old office, a great deal of effort went into locating the new office and then designing the form and function of the place.  Not perfect and certainly not funky but nevertheless a pleasant, modern and productive place where, unlike the old office (pictured below in its sad, final weeks), I'm not the snot monster several days in a month. I can't speak for my employer's thinking, but what once looked like temporary changes, brought about by the pandemic, now has me contemplating the future of office spaces and work in general.  Since March we've worked from home with no apparent difference in productivity.  Will the old order re-assert itself, post pandemic? Of course, there is both a human and econom

(A dystopian sense of humour required) I hear the science supports this.  Then I hear the science supports that.  I hear these things day after day and, eventually, I conclude the science supports whatever the government wants the science to support.  The truth is therefore whatever you are being told, or is written on the side of a bus, or a promise made but now denied and erased.  It all has a dystopian hallmark as government clumsily attempts to modify and direct unruly human behaviour, on a grand scale, in this direction or that.   The above was a working bit of script, by the way.  Names have been changed to obscure customers and obfuscate certain semantics and product.  The whole thing builds on a (by now) three year project to upskill and have something a moving skillset compared to the something of a static skillet that had carried me for the better part of twenty years. Gluing (excuse the pun) Gherkin, to meagre Java and Selenium skills, developed in Paris on the kind business

(Pandemic, demagogy and geopolitics collide) A friend has an Uncle who, in the early 1970s, won the Pools and went and travelled the world.  Postcards sent home include one from Afghanistan, taken soon after crossing the border from Iran.  That's two countries most people wouldn't think of visiting, right now, and a border most would would rather not cross.  And postcards from Afghanistan!  Do such things still get made? I've been to Hong Kong on three occasions.  Thanks to unrest, Hong Kong had ceased to be a tourist destination before the pandemic emergency.  Fast forward to today, and I don't know when/if I'll be going back to this favourite (and most photogenic) city. I've been to mainland China once.  I have a friend who lives and teaches in Shanghai.  I have a multiple entry visa, valid through to August 2021.  That visa wasn't cheap, so I'd rather it didn't go to waste.  Likewise, I don't know when/if I'll be going back to China.  Once