Avatar for Leon Mika
Leon Mika

  • TIL you can save planned journeys in Google Maps for later. You make the plan, select a suggestion from the list, and instead of starting it, you “Pin” it. Then you can recall that journey from the “Go” tab. Not the most intuitive UI there is, but I’m glad that this feature exists.

  • A day of site-seeing around Milan. Going through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II on our way to Duomo di Milano, the cathedral.

    The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an open air mall with four spokes eminating from a central point. Around three stories up is a glass ceiling with a dome at the central spot. This was taken from one of the longer spokes, facing the dome and the opposite long spoke that opens out to the plaza.

    Another sunning building, the Duomo di Milano. A lot more “traditional” than the Sagrada Família but still very impressive.

    Inside the Duomo di Milano, the cathedral. Looking through the stone pillers and valted ceiling towards the alter and stain glass window at the back of the cathedral.

    Photos

  • On The Reddit Strike

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Long Form Posts

    Ben Thompson has been writing about the Reddit strike in his daily updates. I like this excerpt from the one he wrote yesterday: Reddit is miffed that Google and OpenAI are taking its data, but Huffman and team didn’t create that data: Reddit’s users did, under the watchful eyes of Reddit’s unpaid mod workforce. In other words, my strong suspicion is that what undergirds everything that is happening this week is widespread angst and irritation that everything that was supposed to be special about the web, particularly the bit where it gives everyone a voice, has turned out to be nothing more than grist to be fought over by millionaires and billionaires. Continue reading →

  • Arrived in Milan. It could just be the trams, but this feels like the closest city to Melbourne that I’ve visited so far. Of course, Melbourne doesn’t have buildings like the Castello Sforzesco.

    Front of Castello Sforzesco, a castle, with a large tower above the front gate, with a slightly cloudy sky

    Photos

  • This safe uses a curious choice of font for the keypad. I’d guess they wanted to go with something more interesting than boring Helvetica? But they didn’t go all in with maintaining the allusion, breaking it for the B, which would normally be shown in lower-case on a real seven segment display.

    A numerical keypad on a safe with digits 0-9 and the letters A and B on either side of the zero in a seven segment display font. The left side of the B is a solid line, used to distinguish it from the loops of the B which are represented as they would appear on a seven segmented display. To the left is the safe's breading, which is a T in a circle.

    Photos

  • Currently reading: The Song of Significance by Seth Godin 📚

  • Genova’s got this fun little lift near where I’m staying. It travels along rails to the end of the corridor, then goes around the bend to a transfer station, where it transitions to a traditional lift that rises to the street level at the top of the hill. Such a unique little thing.

    Empty lift car showing red fold-up seats and hand-loops on the ceiling. There are windows on all three sides of the inside of the car showing the corridor.The horizontal section of the lift, which is a corridor with rails heading into the hill and fluorescent lights on the right wall.

    Photos

  • Walking part of the Cinque Terre trail today. It was hard work — lots of steep runs of stairs going up and down — but it was great to be able to get out into nature for a bit of a hike.

    Shot of the coastline along the Gulf of Genova, on a slightly cloudy day, with large hills descending down to the Ligurian Sea. Photo shot through branches of nearby trees.

    Photos

  • Truthful Travel Talk

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Long Form Posts

    It’s time to be honest: I think overseas travel is wasted on me. We were driving down from Antibes to Genova today. It was a nice trip, complete with picturesque towns passing us by as we drove along the motorway. My friend was oohing and ahhing at each one: remaking about how nice it would be to see them, stay in them for a while. He was also remarking on what we would do when we arrived at our destination. Continue reading →

  • Brief stop at Saintes Maries de la Mer today to look for some wild flamingoes. It was just a chance encounter that we found this small flock of them.

    Flamingo wading in a swamp with its beak in the water looking for food.

    Photos

  • Paging Alanis Morissette

    A positive COVID-19 RAT test

    Photos

  • Gare Aix en Provence, and the first railway line in France I’ve seen that is not electrified.

    Railway station Aix en Provence showing empty platforms

    Photos

  • Visiting the Dalí Theatre and Museum, in Figueres this afternoon. I’ve seen Dalí work before but I knew nothing about him before this visit. Some really evocative pieces in this collection.

    The maroon wall and tower of the Dalí Theatre and Museum building.

    Photos

  • I’ve fallen behind on the tech news, but I’ll briefly say that after hearing Ben Thompson talk about Apple’s Vision Pro, it’s made me excited about AR/VR for the first time since… well, ever. I look forward to watching the WWDC sessions about it when I get home.

  • Mercado de La Boqueria, and the location of our Covid-safe celebration lunch for my friend’s recent marriage.

    An open air shelted market with stalks selling produce and meats with a large number of visitors.

    Photos

  • Visited Sagrada Família this afternoon. Absolutely stunning cathedral. Photos don’t do it justice, especially from cameras with dirty lenses (sorry for all the lens-flares).

    Looking up and across the nave of the cathedral revealing the high archways and stained glass windows near the left side.

    Photos

  • I resisted for so long, but today I relented: I installed a Meta app on my phone (Whatsapp, which is probably the better ones of the bunch).

  • We were planning to meet friends for a wedding lunch here in Barcelona tomorrow. It was organised months in advanced, but they had to cancel it because they came down with Covid. Feeling really bad for them. Plans just have a habit of falling apart when you’re travelling.

  • Making this my first photo of Barcelonia: the lift in our hotel has two doors at 90° of each other. First instance of seeing this.

    Inside of lift cart with two silver doors next to each other.

    Photos

  • Product developers of Android Auto: make it easy for someone to operate the phone as a navigator. Having someone use the phone to type in map searches is easier than using the car’s touchscreen. If you can’t do that, for the love of Pete make it easy to turn off Android Auto!

  • Morning walk along a wooded trail just outside Elorrio. Perfect for recharging my social batteries after last night’s wedding reception.

    Small roadway flanked on both sides by European woodland.

    Photos

  • Elorrio, and the day of my friends wedding. It’s been a few years in the making, due to the pandemic, but the day has arrived.

    Elorrio, looking towards the town center.

    Photos

  • It never ceases to amaze me how large the seagulls are in Europe and the UK. So much larger than the ones back home.

    Two European seagulls standing on a beach.

    Photos

  • Now we’re really checking items off my bucket list. TGV from Paris Montpanasse to Hendaye, on the French/Spanish border. Speed topped at 312 km/h on the way to Bordeaux.

    Front of a TGV locomotive with livery Inoui under the canopy of Hendaye station.

    Photos

  • Did a very broad siteseeing tour of Paris today. Mixture of Metro and walking: we walked 26.17 km. Looked at many of the popular landmarks (not all of them — can’t see Paris in a day), but I think my favourite parts were walking the quieter back streets, away from the crowds.