OUR STRANGE NEW WORLD

 (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?...

(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, ...

(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 Ch...

(Socially distanced, of course) I'm told today is the one hundredth day of the lockdown.  The lockdown never really felt locked down in the same sense as some of the very harsh measures taken across Europe.  I think early on the scientists and government recognised the novel Corona-virus (aka COVID-19) is a disease of confinement and proximity.  Being outdoors, soaking up the rays and having your body generate vitamin D the natural way, it turns out, is probably a good thing.  So I never really stopped going for a walk with a camera.  Early on, I sought out the wide open spaces, and avoided people who were, for the most part, kind enough to return the favour.  The air was cleaner, the blue skies a little bluer, the bees seemed more numerous than usual for the time of the year.   Eventually, it became clear that more and more people were venturing out.  The recreation area, pictured above, became a place to avoid at certain times of the day, s...

(What will the really small places do?) The pictured bar is called the Temple of Convenience, usually shortened to The Temple.  It is an old public toilet converted into a drinking establishment and is absolutely tiny inside.  Unless the owners are allowed to serve drinks in the space outside, I'm not sure how it can open on July 4th.  In fact, I'm not certain how any pub or restaurant that isn't large or has an outside space (or both) can operate profitably, or how they will operate.  If I sit facing a friend or colleague, will there be one of those ubiquitous perspex screens between us?  Or will the great British boozer be laid out like a classroom?  Speaking of perspex, hindsight is giggling manically and screaming "Why didn't you invest in perspex?" at me.  I hate hindsight.  It claims wisdom but is not wise.  I much prefer foresight. While I'm keen to meet friends and colleagues for the first time in months, I'm in no rush to do this ind...