ChatGPT iPhone app launch

Why the ChatGPT iPhone App Mattered

TL;DR The ChatGPT iPhone app mattered not as a feature release but as the moment AI shifted from a desktop destination to an everyday mobile utility Key additions - native interface, synced history, and voice input - were modest, but they fundamentally changed when and how people reached for AI Mobile AI is intimate in a way desktop AI is not, fitting into gaps throughout the day rather than dedicated work sessions The launch signalled that ChatGPT was becoming a platform and a habit, not just a viral website or a one-off experiment It pointed toward the future that followed: voice as a primary interface, cross-device continuity, and conversational AI as persistent infrastructure When OpenAI launched the ChatGPT app for iPhone, it was easy to see it as a simple mobile companion to a popular web product. ...

May 18, 2023 · 4 min · James M
AWS Summit London 2023 Agenda Announcement Banner

AWS Summit London (2023) - Agenda Announcement

The AWS Summit London agenda for 2023 went live in mid-May, and the schedule shape will be familiar to anyone who has attended a Summit before - a morning keynote followed by parallel technical tracks, hands-on workshops, and partner sessions spread across the afternoon. What to expect AWS Summits are the free regional cousins of re:Invent. You lose the service-launch spectacle but gain something useful: the content is pitched at the realities of running AWS in your region, often with local customer case studies that simply would not make the Vegas keynote stage. ...

May 18, 2023 · 2 min · James M

Worst User Interfaces

Sunday read. This is hilarious. Engineers are competing who creates the worst UI on Reddit. I think the winners are: 1/ Enter your phone number pic.twitter.com/944duji1Im — Aleksandr Volodarsky (@volodarik) May 14, 2023

May 15, 2023 · 1 min · James M
Favourite Physicists Banner

Favourite Physicists

Max Tegmark Cosmologist and physicist known for his work on the mathematical universe hypothesis and multiverse theory. His research bridges the gap between quantum mechanics and cosmology, exploring the deepest questions about the nature of reality. The Case for Halting AI Development Max Tegmark joins Lex Fridman to discuss the urgent need to pause advanced AI development, exploring the existential risks of artificial intelligence and what safeguards humanity needs as we approach transformative technologies. ...

May 11, 2023 · 2 min · James M
Favourite TV and Movies Banner

Favourite TV & Movies

Television Documentaries Planet Earth The Crown Cosmos Comedy Blackadder Fawlty Towers Monty Python Only Fools & Horses The Office The Young Ones Comedians Adrian Edmondson Ben Elton Chris Rock Dudley Moore Eddie Murphy Eric Morecambe Gene Wilder George Carl Jim Carrey John Cleese Mike Myers Norman Wisdom Peter Cook Peter Sellers Richard Pryor Rik Mayall Sacha Baron Cohen Steve Martin Stuart Lee Tommy Cooper Magic Paul Daniels Magic Show (1979 - 1994) Movies Aliens Avatar Avatar: The Way of Water Blazing Saddles Dumb & Dumber Gladiator GoodFellas Interstellar Planes, Trains & Automobiles Stir Crazy The Hateful Eight The Shining The Woman in Red Whiplash Directors Coen Brothers Quentin Tarantino Actors Al Pacino J.K. Simmons Joe Pesci Ray Liotta Robert De Niro

May 11, 2023 · 1 min · James M
Notion AI workspace

Notion

TL;DR Notion is a flexible workspace for notes, documents, databases, and task management - extended with Notion AI as a paid add-on AI features cover document Q&A, content generation, summarisation, and a writing assistant for grammar and tone Strongest as a single home for personal knowledge, team wikis, and lightweight project management - one workspace instead of three tools The AI layer is good for in-context drafting and lookup; less suited to heavy reasoning where a dedicated LLM tool does better Pricing is per-seat for Notion plus an AI add-on; check the current tiers before committing for a team Most productivity tools force a choice: notes here, tasks there, docs somewhere else. Notion bets that a single flexible workspace - one that handles all of these - is more valuable than three best-of-breed tools that don’t talk to each other. The bet mostly holds, and the addition of Notion AI has made the knowledge layer genuinely more useful. ...

May 11, 2023 · 2 min · James M
General Links Banner

General Links

Technology Linus Tech Tips - Consumer technology & video production TED - Talks on Technology, Entertainment & Design Podcasts Joe Rogan - The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is a long form conversation hosted by comedian Joe Rogan with friends and guests that have included comedians, actors, musicians, MMA fighters, authors, artists, and beyond Lex Fridman - Conversations about science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power PBD Podcast - The PBD Podcast is hosted by Patrick Bet-David where he discusses a wide range of topics from business to current events, politics and sports Personal Blogs Nicely formatted blogs ...

May 10, 2023 · 1 min · James M
DevOps Books Banner

DevOps Books

A working DevOps engineer draws from several disciplines at once - distributed systems, operating systems, network engineering, software development, and the organisational side that keeps it all moving. The books below are the ones I have either read cover-to-cover or regularly pull off the shelf to reference. I have added a one-line note on why each one is on the list. Culture and Practice The hardest problems in DevOps are usually not technical. ...

April 21, 2023 · 3 min · James M
DevOps Blogs Banner

DevOps Blogs

Good engineering blogs are one of the cheapest forms of mentorship available. The posts below are from teams and individuals I return to when I want to see how real organisations solve real problems - outages, scaling walls, migrations, and the occasional cultural mistake. Vendor and Platform Blogs These blogs publish architectural deep-dives and reference implementations. They are partly marketing, but the engineering detail is usually genuine. Atlassian DevOps Blog - practitioner posts on pipelines, incident response, and team topology AWS DevOps Blog - pipeline patterns, CDK/CodePipeline how-tos, and multi-account guidance Google Cloud Blog - the SRE-flavoured material that originated at Google Microsoft DevOps Blog - Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, and developer platform posts GitLab Blog - CI/CD and platform engineering content from the GitLab team HashiCorp Blog - Terraform, Vault, Consul, and Nomad in production Individual and Community Voices Ricard Bejarano - SRE at Cisco with sharp posts on minimal container images and infrastructure hygiene Charity Majors - co-founder of Honeycomb, writing extensively on observability and on-call culture Julia Evans - illustrated explainers on Linux, networking, and debugging fundamentals Gergely Orosz - The Pragmatic Engineer - deep dives into how large engineering organisations actually operate High Scalability - architecture breakdowns of well-known systems SRE-Specific Reading Google SRE Books - the foundational texts on SRE as a discipline Increment Magazine - long-form essays on on-call, incident response, and reliability Everything DevOps (Reddit) - less polished, but a useful pulse on what practitioners are struggling with this week How I Use This List Blog posts age quickly. A Kubernetes best-practices post from 2019 may actively mislead you in 2026. When I read any of these, I check the date first and treat anything older than three years as historical context rather than current guidance. ...

April 21, 2023 · 2 min · James M
Blockchain and Web3 Courses Banner

Blockchain & Web3 Courses

Overview Whether you’re a beginner exploring blockchain fundamentals or an experienced developer building decentralized applications, these curated courses provide structured learning paths from foundation concepts to advanced smart contract development. Beginner-Friendly Resources Start with fundamentals and core concepts: CryptoZombies - Interactive, game-based introduction to Solidity programming. Perfect for complete beginners to learn smart contract basics through engaging gameplay. Blockchain Council Certified Blockchain Developer™ - Professional certification program with structured curriculum covering blockchain architecture, consensus mechanisms, and development fundamentals Web3 University - Open-source education hub with accessible guides and tutorials. Great for understanding Web3 concepts without heavy technical prerequisites. ...

April 18, 2023 · 2 min · James M