Weeknotes #346 — Hansen Sea-Cow

My diary was back-to-back this week, with very little discretionary time to get anything done. I’m going to have to do something about it to stop it from becoming the norm.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to get these weeknotes written. I still find the practice very useful, both in the moment when I’m writing them and for looking up things in the past, so I don’t want to stop. I’m going to think about how I can tweak the process a bit so that they feel fun and don’t become a chore.

This was a week in which I:

• Met with colleagues to review the strategic programme of work for our region and to start to investigate how I can help. I’ve got some reading to do.
• Was asked to step up more formally as a substitute for my manager in forums and as a decision-maker for our team.
• Met with my team, who were all at work on the same day for the first time in a while. We talked about how we can collaborate through learning together, and started a Loop note about the knowledge gaps we have with AI.
• Had a team discussion about our approach to some security changes that are being mandated by the broader Technology team in our company. There are some side effects of the change that I am not happy with, which we need to mitigate before we press go.
• Met with colleagues to discuss the business case for another security change, and agreed next steps to flesh out the risk and cost sides of the equation.
• Visited a bespoke furniture vendor’s showroom to review materials for a new set of meeting tables, credenzas and chairs for the largest room in our office. We managed to agree on a set of finishes and, after much back and forth, are finally ready to place an order.
• Took part in a discussion about our need for a technical architect, or technical architecture service, within our function.
• Met with colleagues at our sister company to discuss the requirements and feasibility of us providing a new service to them.
• Wondered what happened to cameras being on by default for online and hybrid meetings. It’s as if everyone has sunk to the lowest common denominator of engagement. I don’t just see this within our organisation but beyond it too. The Teams Fireside Chat sessions used to feel like a fun community, with participants trying out and showing off the latest Teams meeting advancements to each other, but all of a sudden it seems that everyone has decided to turn off their video feeds.
• Met with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion forum for a conversation about disability, and how our company approaches the issue in a South African context. We also had our regular monthly forum meeting, hearing from a colleague in our People and Culture team about the recent focus of the broader forum and what its priorities are.
• Enjoyed our weekly Learning Hour, where we welcomed an internal guest speaker to give us an overview of the current state of the generative AI tool landscape. Our guest doesn’t come from a technology background, so it was even more interesting to me how much these tools have piqued his interest. It felt as though we veered into dangerous territory when talking about AI’s propensity for ‘scheming’ and ‘deception’; this anthropomorphic language is so problematic when talking about a computer program. It got me thinking about Steinbeck’s description of the Hansen Sea-Cow, an outboard motor that he used during his trip to the Sea of Cortez. Maybe a bit of comparative humour like this would help make people realise that these AI models are not magic boxes with a conscience?
• Had another great Microsoft Copilot Working Group meeting with colleagues across our region. Although we only have a small slice of the possible audience joining each meeting, the people who do attend are really stepping up and sharing what they’ve learned.
• Discussed and agreed next steps for using Microsoft Copilot Interpreter, which gives real-time audio translation for Teams calls and meetings. Another step closer to technologies in Star Trek becoming reality.
• Enjoyed a British picnic-themed office-wide lunch.
• Had a video chat with a fellow member of the Society of Hopeful Technologists (SoHoT — oh yes) Signal group. It was lovely that she put it in the diary. It’s a bit daunting to join a new group where people around the virtual table have done lots of Important Things; I feel like a minnow.
• Took my shoulder for an MRI scan. It was my first time going into an MRI machine, but I kind of knew what to expect. The most anxiety-inducing part was mentally checking whether I’d completely got rid of everything metallic before they started scanning. I didn’t think my gold teeth would be a problem, but asked about them anyway, and was relieved when they said they were fine. I didn’t realise the machines got hot when they were in use; at one point I wondered if I was going to have to shift my position away from the wall of the machine as it started getting quite toasty. The headphones they give you as a distraction and noise suppressor are terrible; only when the machine stopped doing its thing did I realise that we were halfway through Mariah Carey’s Fantasy.
• Had a brief but thorough consultation with a dermatologist to check out a small, near-invisible mole on my hand. She quickly concluded that it is nothing to worry about.
• Was sad to learn that our second car, a 16-year-old Mini, is suddenly beyond economical repair. We bought it in May last year as a car that both our boys would be able to use as they learned to drive, but it’s been a bit of a money pit. Our local Mini garage investigated the latest issues and made some repairs, but within a few miles of driving, the engine light had come on and it had trouble starting. On Friday night, we drove it over to webuyanycar who had said it was worth around £750. After checking it over, and as a result of some problem with their system which seemed to deduct a random amount, they offered us £181. So we drove away. We’re going to see if we can find a way to get a little bit more for it than the cost of a pair of trainers, and then investigate leasing a small, as-cheap-as-possible car from the summer, when our eldest is back and our youngest turns 17.
• Enjoyed a fabulous dinner with friends on Friday night. Our hosts cooked a wonderful meal and we had great conversation all evening.
• Really enjoyed this weekend’s club ride. Towards the start of the ride I felt as though I was getting dropped by the main group; my heart rate was high and they seemed to be creating a gap between themselves and me at the back. But by the time we were three-quarters of the way round I was helping to pull some of the riders home and felt I could have gone longer. From next week we’ll be starting half an hour later, as the days get shorter and there’s a lack of light first thing in the morning. It’s been an excellent summer of cycling.
  

Media

Podcasts

• Lionel Richie seems like such a lovely guy. My respect for him went up massively when I saw The Greatest Night In Pop (2024) (an incredible thing — you should see it if you haven’t already), and only increased when I heard him this week on the SmartLess podcast. The anecdote about his dad bringing a random guy home, feeding him and then giving him one of his suits for a job interview is so great.
• The Teams Insider Podcast has a great episode with Simon Dudley about the Microsoft Teams Room device market.
  

Articles

• Wired has a good article by Steven Levy about the shift to the right in the politics of Silicon Valley:
  

“The people that are doing fabulously well, they’re really having a terrific time,” Hancock says. For everyone else in Silicon Valley, the wealth gap is getting more punishing, more absurd. When Apple had its IPO in 1980, Steve Jobs’ net worth topped an almost-unheard-of $100 million. Now Zuckerberg is reportedly offering AI researchers that much moolah for a single year’s labor. Hancock brings up the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality that’s popular among the World Bank crowd. Since the ’90s, “we went from 30 on the Gini to 83,” he says. “Those are the conditions for the French Revolution.”

• This thread by the ‘depths of wikipedia’ account on Bluesky is a delight. Websites that were created for, and about, people with the same name.
• Ian Dunt on The Empty Horror of Robert Jenrick is much more than just an insult piece, but the insults are so good:
  

In Britain, we get Robert Jenrick, a man whose face is so forgettable you sometimes struggle to visualise it, despite him appearing in our newspapers almost every day. He is the human equivalent of beige wallpaper or mouldy curtains. He is at once banal and monstrous, an exercise in paradox.

• A tool used for “preserving TikToks, Instagram reels, news reports and video”, specifically about abuses by ICE in the US, has been removed from the Apple App Store. Without comment from Apple, it’s hard to tell how sinister this is.
• Euan Semple contemplates where tech compliance with authoritarian governments is heading as he buys a new iPhone, and wonders what the next purchases will be.
• I’m with Carlos Sainz in saying that the TV coverage of F1 drivers’ partners is excessive. There were so many reaction shots in the broadcast of the Singapore Grand Prix, and barely any of them showed any meaningful reaction anyway.
• The worst kind of link rot with a serious real-world impact. What are the new domain owners hoping for as an outcome from what they’ve done?
• The upcoming election for the presidency of the FIA is democratic in name only. What a joke.
• Strava are suing Garmin. Strava are also lining up for an IPO. I’ve used Strava and been a subscriber for many years, but who knows how long that will last. I suspect enshittification may be coming for Strava.
• “Parties are a public service, you’re doing people a favor by throwing them. Someone might meet their new best friend or future lover at your gathering. In the short term, lovely people may feel less lonely, and that’s thanks to you. In the long term, whole new children may ultimately exist in the world because you bothered to throw a party. Throwing parties is stressful for most people, but a great kindness to the community, so genuinely pat yourself on the back for doing this.” From 21 Facts About Throwing Good Parties.
  

Video

• It was interesting to hear Sacha Baron Cohen talking through some of his characters and roles. I didn’t realise how close he came to physical danger on multiple occasions.
• DIY SOS is back and the first episode has already had me in tears. As I watched, I thought about how much the community spirit is so much more the version of the UK that I know than the one that we see presented by the Reform Party and in the media. More of this sort of thing, please.
• Loved John Candy: I Like Me (2025). He just seems like a wonderful guy who would have been fun to be around. Macaulay Culkin’s memories of how Candy looked out for him as a child actor, as he realised Culkin may not have been in a good family situation, were very moving.
  

Web

• I found Scour through the referral logs for my website. It looks quite interesting in that you give it topics that you are interested in and it then surfaces links and articles from the web related to those interests. I haven’t spent that much time with it yet, but it looks like a useful tool for broadening horizons beyond the things I already follow and read on the web.
  

Books

• Reached the final part of Jon Savage’s The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955–1979).
  

Next week: Grant-Lee Phillips.