👁️ And so farewell - you served me well over the years old friend. Time to reset my muscle memory.
Crucial Track 🎵 June 16, 2026
"Pictured Within (Live)" by Jon Lord
Jon Lord was always one of my favourites. My interest in Deep Purple emerged not from Taliesyn, Fireball or even 'In Rock', but rather their first live album 'In Concert'. He never managed to repeat that within Purple - but as a solo artist - that was Jon. I THINK I have them all - I certainly know them. But out of that library how do you choose a 'track'?
Hence the choice today - and again - NOT in studio from a live album with Steve Balsamo providing the vocals to one of his 'songs' ... extending it to over 10 minutes with Orchestra. Not sure. there is a single track that epitomises Jon's range - though Jazz and Rock doesn't appear in this recording.
Rock - well - you already know that side of him.
Jazz - well a little light fun introduction to Dave Brubeck's 🔗📼 Unsquare Dance
📺 Watched 🔗 Missing You - another forgotten series. That said it is a ‘Harlan’ story and as I have noted before there are some great Harlan’s - just not all of them. I think the other challenge is that they all start to blend in to each other.
★★
{Over the past few weeks I seem to have been in a ‘there’s nothing on’ mood. As I scrolled around a few ‘started and stopped’ shows popped up whilst others I’d forgotten all about reminded me that there wasn’t a post.}
📺 Finished 🔗 The Asset a while back and promptly forgot about it - which in itself tells you something.
★★
{Over the past few weeks I seem to have been in a ‘there’s nothing on’ mood. As I scrolled around a few ‘started and stopped’ shows popped up whilst others I’d forgotten all about reminded me that there wasn’t a post.}
📺 Finished watching the 🔗 Second Season of The Four Seasons, having already checked off Season 1 a while back.
★★ is the best I can do. Nice premise, plenty of Vivaldi - but didn’t keep me coming back and sometimes forgot it for months on end. I never saw the Alan Alda movie - but nice touch to see him pop up in the show from time to time … 89 at the time!
{Over the past few weeks I seem to have been in a ‘there’s nothing on’ mood. As I scrolled around a few ‘started and stopped’ shows popped up whilst others I’d forgotten all about reminded me that there wasn’t a post.}
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[🔗 Adding to my Action List for my newly emerging blog presence.]kevquirk.com/bloggers-…)
Good lessons ….
🔗 ‘Anthropic’s Safety Superpower’
Apple’s is design quality and user-centricism, Microsoft’s is market share with no regard for technical or design elegance, Google’s is market share with high regard for technical elegance, and Meta’s is strip-mining the world’s social graph for profit.
💬 John Gruber
.. he is sometimes very good at getting to the nub very efficiently.
🔗 Does the Rule of 40 Work for Hardware?
I first wrote about the Rule of 40 in 2015. I’d heard a late-stage investor describe it at a board meeting - growth rate plus profit should add up to at least 40% - and the simplicity stuck with me.
💬 Brad Feld
🔗 AI Isn’t Breaking Work. It’s Already Broken. - Cal Newport
Hinds was discussing a new survey of 6,000 digital workers, which included the following arresting statistic: although respondents claimed that AI saved them 11 hours a week on average, only 13% reported any improvement in company performance.
More in the comments.
🖋️ Using AI to Cut Costs is Valid - And Not New
But first ask the question - so you aren’t disappointed in the results.
🖋️ Is Human Agency important OUTSIDE of 'The Organisation'
Satya Nadella seems to be arguing that Human Agency is important inside the organisation and that ‘done right’ AI allows for real ‘Human Agency’. My take is that he is only talking about how humans serve the organisation. What about if you are ‘just’ a human?
💬 I guess someone took this literally.
Crucial Track 🎵 June 15, 2026
"Friday I'm In Love" by The Cure
I like to try and not pick the obvious ones on the more famous bands - but how could you not pick this one when it comes to the Cure.
“Congratulations to all!” Trump wrote on social media as he celebrated his 80th birthday Sunday with a UFC cage match fight at the White House.
and then
“I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,”
What can go wrong? Let me count the ways …
1️⃣ Iran signalled implementation would not start until the signing, which key mediator Pakistan said would occur Friday in Switzerland.
- Tяump then walked back saying the strait wouldn’t open until Friday’s signing - so he isn’t authorised?
2️⃣ Pakistan first announced the deal, with Prime Minister Sharif saying “both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”
- Unclear how 5 days to signature is ‘immediate’ and how long ‘permanent’ is.
3️⃣ 60 days to resolve what to do about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and its atomic program. (That took years to resolve in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.)
- Tяump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in his first term. (See also ‘2’ re permanent)
4️⃣ Israel’s continued hostilities with the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs Sunday, nearly derailed the negotiations.
- Remains unclear whether Israel agreed to that term.
👁️ I wonder how many ‘foreign national Anthropic employees’ were involved in the creation of Mythos?
Considering how the day started.
It turned out quite nice.
Certainly the local ‘Petanquers’ thought so.
