At first I wasn't really sure what to talk about today despite the fact that about an hour ago I seemed to have loads of ideas. I really do need to start writing these down again as they come to me throughout the day.
First up, a bit of weather. As an amateur athlete with runs, rides and all sorts of outdoor activities planned all the time, keeping an eye on the weather and what it's doing is kind of important to me. So when the news broke that Apple had purchased Dark Sky many months ago - I was pissed. It was THE most accurate weather service I had ever used. I'm talking down to the minute "It's going to start raining for x minutes in x minutes" accuracy. So when Apple said they were pulling the plug on the Android app and their API, my blood boiled.
I've been using Accuweather since then. Accurate it has not been. It's given a general overview and seemed to be right 30% of the time if I was lucky.
Earlier today there was a post on Neowin about them extending access to the app for a little longer and one of the suggestions in the comments was for Yr.no. At this point, what's the worst that could happen?
After a quick look at the site and ensuring that it could even find the tiny little town that I live in, I grabbed the app and uninstalled Accuweather. I'm going to test it out for a few weeks and see how it does but it's been pretty accurate throughout the day so far.
Next on today's list of waffle is this post from https://fsfe.org/news/2020/news-20200630-01.html which I discovered on Mastodon from Erik Albers.
It's all about how a place called Bühl in Germany is using free software like Jitsi to improve the services they offer their residents. It's not a long read and is well worth it as they discuss a couple of other pieces of open source software that they put to good use and how they've given back to the community with code and translation.
I think this is absoloutely amazing and would love to see more of this happening across Wales.
I'm a strong voice for open source software being used in work - it doesn't always go my way, but I always try and show its worth and I think councils across Wales could do with following in the footsteps of places like Bühl and by following the principal of Public Money, Public Code, which I truly believe is the right and proper way forward.
Any way, I think that's quite enough torturous waffle from me for one day. I have tomorrow off so here's to a slightly longer weekend!