Week in review 2024-18
Saturday, May 18, 2024
The Vision Pro, Elle’s work trip and Adrian Newey shocks the F1 World
Notes on the week
I got to try out Apple’s Vision Pro headset this week. I thought it was going to be a long time before I got to try out the headset, but one of the PixelBar members has one for some of the work he’s doing for his day job, and brought it to the hackerspace for people to try out. After a few minutes using it, I’m convinced that this is the future of computing. Not in it’s current form - it’s far to heavy, bulky and inconvenient - but it feels obvious to me that the augmented reality view of presenting computing as a layer over the physical world feels like the next natural evolution in personal computing. Computers have gone from something we needed massive rooms for, to something we dedicated a space for in our homes, to something we carried in backpacks, to something we cant bear to let out of our sight. Our relationship with technology grows more and more personal over time, and after spending a moment inside the Vision Pro’s pass through spatial computing world I cannot wait to see where this technology goes over the next five to ten years.
Elle is home this week for another gig photographing an exhibition. I’m so proud of her for carving out this niche, a life in the arts is such an uncertain one, and to have a skillset that can be used for paying work on a regular basis and keeps her involved in the art scene at home is just fantastic to see. I might be biased, but I think she is insanely good at documenting exhibition spaces, and curators must agree with me because she’s already been booked for another gig later this year! Whilst she’s away I have the new flat to myself just after settling in, which is a recurring theme for us. Every single time we’ve moved into a new place as a couple, one of us has had to leave within the first week for work. The first time was in Limerick, where Elle started an artist residency in Dublin a couple of days after we moved into a house with our friends from college, then when we arrived in Rotterdam I had to fly home after a few days to finish up a project for Ericsson. I guess if the pattern continues then I’m next to have some urgent work trip when we eventually leave Charlois. I wonder what it will be.
The new office furniture arrived, and just as promised the delivery guys brought it to the front door and no further. For a €15 delivery fee I’m not holding it against them, but I (perhaps somewhat stubbornly) had to drag the desk up to the third floor on my own. I say stubbornly, because I could have spent a little time to disassemble it outside and bring it up piece by piece, but I did the lazy man’s load and lugged it up in one go. If anything had gone wrong, imagine how embarrassing the news article would have been? “Irish man abroad crushed by second hand bureau”,
In F1 Corner, Adrian Newey has decided to leave Red Bull at the end of the 2024 season. This is seismic news. In the 32 years since 1992, a Newey designed car has won 14 World Championships, and is all but certain to add a 15th this year. That’s a remarkable hit rate in a sport that attracts the greatest engineering minds from all around the world, and a huge loss for the Red Bull organisation that seems to be doing everything in it’s power to self destruct internally, despite utter dominance on the track. We don’t know where Newey is going next, but if Fred Vasseur can lure him to Ferrari, after already poaching Lewis Hamilton to the Scuderia for next year, they’ll build statues of the French man in Maranello.
Links
Rooster Teeth founders play Halo for one last time
Remaking Toy Story 2 game in Unreal Engine 5
Details of the Voyager repair performed across the solar system
Bertrand Serlet explains why LLMs work
The rise and fall of the LAN party
Reading
Wuthering Heights is next on my list to get through this year, and with zero background knowledge the first few chapters are already ‘spookier’ than I was expecting.
Listening
I’ve been in such a David Bowie mood this week