There has been very little change for me. The one area where AI has been of use is for providing debugging suggestions in those circumstances when I am so short of ideas that I am contemplating posting a question on Stack Overflow. Only once has Chat GPT actually found a bug directly, but on a handful of occasions it has made suggestions which have yielded results when investigated further in traditional way (e.g. reading documentation). Still, At least the AI actually does something rather than ignore me or scold me for the way I have posed my question.

Containers are also very useful indeed; I have to log into various different Google and Github accounts and can do this in a single browser window.

Yeah I see 1,000 comments about uBO but Containers was/is a game-changer for my workflow.

Indeed; I could probably get away with the minimal uBlock Chrome now offers, but it's no good for me without the containers.

Normally I have had very good experiences as well. My colleagues almost always speak very good English and even those who don't are understandable. Everyone is happy to conduct meetings (with many nationalities, as I work in a scientific field) in English.

Only once have I encountered a problem. A colleague berated me in front of others for speaking "difficult English" and accused me of doing this on purpose to cause trouble for them, instead of speaking proper international English like everyone else did. But, I am a native English speaker with an RP accent and we were all in England at the time, working for a British organisation. I was simply speaking normally and otherwise had no issue with this colleague, whose English was very good. I don't recall their having been any misunderstandings between us before.

I lived in Dundee during the 1990s and they were available. I'm told that they were popular at the Victor (https://maps.app.goo.gl/9g3je56Gt7spifo26) though I don't see them on the menu today.

Readers may be interested to know what my MP had to say when I got in touch about this:

Thank you for your email.

The UK has a strong tradition of safeguarding privacy while ensuring that appropriate action can be taken against criminals, such as child sexual abusers and terrorists. I firmly believe that privacy and security are not mutually exclusive—we can and must have both.

The Investigatory Powers Act governs how and when data can be requested by law enforcement and other relevant agencies. It includes robust safeguards and independent oversight to protect privacy, ensuring that data is accessed only in exceptional cases and only when necessary and proportionate.

The suggestion that cybersecurity and access to data by law enforcement are at odds is false. It is possible for online platforms to have strong cybersecurity measures whilst also ensuring that criminal activities can be detected.

It should be noted that the Home Office cannot comment on operational security matters, including confirming or denying the existence of any notices it has issued. This has been the longstanding position of successive UK Governments for reasons of national security.

I support the responsible use of data and technology to drive economic growth, create new jobs, and empower individuals. It is essential that data is used safely and wisely, and that individuals remain in control of how their data is used.

Additionally, I welcome the Government’s transparency regarding how data is used, including on the algorithms that process this information. Several algorithms have already been published for public scrutiny, with more to follow—as resources allow—across multiple departments.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this important issue.

Recently, I was referred by my family physician to a healthcare provider. That provider required a mobile phone number for registration. I emailed them to complain about this and their reply was that if I did not have a mobile I should contact the referring medical practice to find an alternative means of treatment. I did, and their response was that I should take it up with the provider. But this is, of course, just one anecdote. I would also be interested in seeing more information.

Pixel watches are pretty good now, and I didn't much like the changes made in WatchOS 10. But, it's a fair point.

I've encountered a similar issue in academia - PI's don't want to make their data available to be scraped (or, at least not easily) because the amount of grant funding is limited, and a rival who has scraped one's data could get the grant money instead by using that scraped data to bolster their application.

iTunes used to be extremely buggy for me, and things got a bit better with the Apple Music app. But, within the last week a bug which messes up all the album artwork on a synced iPhone struck my partner's device - I've not seen that one since iTunes.

> personalised StackOverflow without the negative attitude

Phrased in that way, it does sound very tempting. Over the past few years it's become pretty much a waste of time to post on SO (well, in my experience, anyway).