Pupdate

We’ve (finally) had some warm and sunny days, so the coats have mostly been off for walks :)

Bath Half

$daughter0 is in her final year of her degree at Bath, and after getting into running last year she decided to run the Bath Half with some friends. That provided a good excuse for a weekend in Bath to support her (and of course visit some of our favourite restaurants and bars) :)

She completed the course in a (personal best) little under two hours.

AI training

Early in the month Google held an AI ‘train the trainers’ event at their London HQ. Attendees were a mixture of Google Developer Experts (GDEs), Google Developer Group (GDG) organisers and meetup organisers for various other Google platforms.

Whenever GDEs bump into each other for the first time it’s common for them to ask ‘what type are you?’ (meaning Android, Cloud, Dart/Flutter, Web or whatever), but at the community dinner somebody observed “we’ll all be AI by the end of the year”. That might not play out in practice, but I have a sense that it’s spot on in principle. Product specific knowledge isn’t the lever it used to be, versus being able to construct a good prompt.

The day itself gave me the chance to try out Gemini CLI and Antigravity. It was time well spent, as the following afternoon I got about a week’s worth of work done with Gemini CLI.

Conferences

The third week was very busy with two conferences back to back. It’s the first time I’ve ever spent a whole week in London, as the early starts and late finishes meant daily commuting wasn’t really practical.

Both QCon London 2026 then Monki Gras 2026 were (I think) the best yet :) More in the linked posts.

USB Shaver chargers

Whilst in Bath I went to use my shaver on the day of the race and nada… out of juice. Thankfully the front desk at the Doubletree was able to help me out with a shaving kit, but I was annoyed that I needed one.

The USB shaver charger I made a few years back is fine for longer trips (when I know I’ll need a recharge), but a little bulky to always have with me.

So… I went looking on Amazon and AliExpress, and found that other options are now available. I ordered a couple of these from AliExpress, though it seems similar ones are also available on Amazon (affiliate link) for a few pennies more, but faster shipping. They’re small enough that I can have one in each of my travel packs (UK/EU and US), and I already have the USB C adaptors there. On reflection I may only need one, which can live in the shaver case.

Cataracts

I’ve been back for more measurements and consultation, and my operation is booked in for next month.

Solar Diary

Not the best March so far, but one of the better ones.