I want to talk about the UK's Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) situation because it is a perfect real-world illustration of what happens when you let legacy technology run past its end of life and do not have a migration plan that actually reaches everyone in time. The RTS is a system introduced in the 1980s that uses a radio signal to tell older electricity meters when to switch between peak and off-peak rates.

There is a specific kind of pride that I do not think anyone warned me about when my kid was small. It is not the pride of the little moments, though those are wonderful. It is the pride that arrives when you watch someone you raised become a whole, capable, thriving adult human being who is out here doing things and achieving goals and handling life in ways that genuinely impress you.

I came across a CNBC piece on Preferred Networks this week and I want to talk about it because it is the kind of story that puts the AI conversation in a different frame than we usually get. While most of the debate in US tech circles revolves around generative AI, chatbots, and whether AI will steal everyone's job, Preferred Networks has been quietly building AI that solves things that are physically real.

I have been on cruises before. I have sat by pools and eaten too much and watched the ocean go by in a very pleasant, low-key kind of way. Comic Con the Cruise Vol. 1 was absolutely nothing like that. It was a full sensory experience of fandoms, sequins, people in elaborate costumes at 9am, panel rooms packed with enthusiastic humans, and me, a grown adult IT professional, completely losing her composure multiple times in the best possible way.

I want to tell you about something that made me put down my coffee and actually read the whole article. Scottish researchers at the University of Edinburgh have built an AI tool that analyzes photographs taken during routine eye exams and detects early signs of dementia before any symptoms appear. Not a specialized brain scan. Not an expensive hospital procedure. A photograph.