{"id":7335,"date":"2017-12-10T18:57:23","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T18:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7335"},"modified":"2017-12-10T19:01:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T19:01:32","slug":"weeknote-7-traffic-snow-and-an-awesome-party-week-49-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2017\/12\/weeknote-7-traffic-snow-and-an-awesome-party-week-49-2017.htm","title":{"rendered":"Weeknote 7: Traffic, snow and an awesome party (Week 49, 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another week means another weeknote and this one finished on a high because last night was the risual Christmas Party!<\/p>\n

risual does Christmas parties rather well and I won’t go into the details here but suffice to say, a good time was had. I knew the weather forecast though and needed to be sober today (Mrs W wasn’t too happy about the idea of driving home in the snow) so I can bask in the delight of not-having-a-hangover.<\/p>\n

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Wonderful view to wake up to! #uksnow<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/JrfxSIWPx2<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Wilson ???? (@markwilsonit) December 10, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyway, it was a joy to wake up in a Country House hotel<\/a> this morning and see how the landscape was transformed.\u00a0I took quite a lot of photos on my iPhone but Dropbox is currently refusing to upload them for me, complaining that one is corrupt (but not telling me which one!). I’ll edit them next week and post them then…<\/p>\n

Then I drove home in the snow and ice. England can’t cope when it snows (or indeed with any other extremes of weather: too wet; too sunny; too windy). We do mild-grey really well though.<\/p>\n

The week<\/h3>\n

My week was the usual mix of consulting (paid work), training and pre-sales. I was fortunate to spend a day at Microsoft in Reading on Tuesday, topping up my Microsoft 365 (Office 365, plus Windows 10, plus Enterprise Mobility + Security) knowledge. I’m hoping that, time permitting, some blog posts will come out of that.<\/p>\n

I’ve been driving around the UK almost 30 years, and driving for work for most of them. This week drove home to me (excuse the pun) just how overloaded the UK’s road infrastructure is, when it took me more than 5 hours to drive to Reading and back (about 75 miles each way), then around 4.5 hours the next day to drive 190 miles on nothing but motorways and trunk A roads (180 miles of which were dual carriageway). It seems likely that the first place autonomous vehicles can take a hold is on major routes like this and I for one can’t wait. Maybe one day we’ll have segregated autonomous driving lanes on the motorways, where the cars can drive closer together (in constant communication and not constrained by human reaction speeds) and maybe even faster (if the law is changed).<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s UK motorway delights brought to you by the M1 and the M25! Glad to be working from home for the rest of the week! pic.twitter.com\/CpUI1mAn6F<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Wilson ???? (@markwilsonit) December 6, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This week also saw the quarterly Milton Keynes Geek Night<\/a>, which I’m proud to have attended every one of! I’ve made a lot of contacts over the 5\u00bd years it’s been running – some of whom I can now count as friends and this event had one of the best set of talks in a long while including:<\/p>\n