I suspect some people are suffering from “lock in” PTSD. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to see masses of young people, and those in their twenties, clogging the streets up now that the pubs are open. Most of them have spent months not drinking with friends and not screwing people who may not be friends. They think they have to catch up.

Those who are healthy and perhaps vaccinated, but dragging their feet when it comes to reengaging with the world? That may be a surprise and should be a worry. I’ve been speaking with people who tell me that they have relatives who are afraid to go out and do things. Here’s my completely unscientific advice, do what it takes to get them out of the house. Do anything.

A socially distanced walk with those who are unvaccinated or a tea/coffee/drink with those who are is good for the soul. If they are vaccinated send them in to get to the drinks, you can have them outside.

Part of the clean-up of the Covid mess is going to be in helping those who can’t move past these months of stress.

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

I stopped buying Macs in 2012. At that stage Apple's disinterest in the Mac was apparent to anyone paying attention. It was all crappy keyboards and the odd incremental update from then on. What with the western world opening in the later half of this year I was thinking of replacing my stalwart travelling companion, the 11" 2012 MacBook Air, with the latest model.

With the idea of a purchase in mind I was browsing the magazine racks at the local newsagents when I realised the Mac focused titles I would have expected to be there were gone. MacUser, MacWorld, et cetera, et cetera. It turns out they have been gone since 2015. I appear to have not been the only one who noticed Apple’s boredom with their computer business. Publishers and their subscribers did too.

Tragic.

The high watermark for the Macintosh was in the late 90s and the early 2000s.  The company had its back against the wall and every step had to be a step up and away from disaster. MacWorld and the WWDC brought crazy new innovations in the operating system and hardware. I remember the mad scramble to get off the rusting System 7 family and on to something modern. The journey there was exciting. MacOS Copland was a collection of pieces, Gershwin existed only in some product manager's imagination so they had to buy in the tech from the outside. No need to rehash that piece of history again. At every conference for three years there was a roadmap with a ticking clock of six-month releases for System 8 (Tempo), 8.5 (Allegro), System 9 (Sonata) and Mac OS X. They shipped all of them when they said they would and each release brought killer new features. Then it all slowed down to a crawl until MacOS 11.

I did not notice if there was an iOSUser or iOSWorld magazine. I would be disappointed, but not surprised, if there was. But iOS isn't exciting either.

(Again) Tragic.

Photo by Daniel Korpai on Unsplash