‘Expect The Unexpected’ they say. We say the words. We have no idea what to do when it happens.


Big moves forward on my blog design yesterday. Still some glitches to resolve - but a whole lot closer to the vision of what I want a post to look like than 24 hours ago.

🖇️ Design Template Example


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📺 Finished 🔗 Criminal Record Season 2 last night as the final episode dropped. It is another repeat formula. Started strong - meandered with a good ending. Overall better than Season 1 … I think we are in ★★★ land.

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🖇️ Review Ratings


The date conundrum has been around and discussed forever, although ‘conundrum’ is really a misnomer. Quite simply the correct way to format a date is YYMMDD - or YYYYMMDD - any other choice is just wrong. Opinionated? Yup. Wrong? No.

🔗 How the World Agreed on a Date Format (Except the US) does a really good job of laying out the story and the challenge, ending with the observation that …

Us Americans haven’t adopted it (yet). We still write 06/08/2026 on bank checks, forms and filings, but the machines we all use are on 8601 and they are doing most of the talking.


🔗 The Market Behind the Wall

Which is why I would be nervous, were I sitting atop a five-and-a-half-trillion-dollar valuation built on a story its own executives call the tokenomics flywheel: AI gets cheaper, so people use more of it, so you sell more chips, forever. It’s a lovely flywheel. It also rests on two assumptions standing up indefinitely — that the lookups stay on the graphics chip, and that the hallucination tax, the wrongness, the wall, is simply the permanent cost of doing business, a thing you manage rather than cure. 2Brains is a bet that both assumptions fall in the same afternoon

From a ‘zinger’ perspective, this is a great piece from Bob Cringely.


One Small Step for Mankind ...

… one giant step for yours truly!


🔗 Kev Quirk makes a good point.

Is it so hard to add an “email me” link at the bottom of the post? 😏

Which is why I do exactly that and why 🖇️ I started doing this.


🔗📼 It’s not very funny for Charlie Chaplin - but needs to be watched. (Recorded 86 years ago.)

If you are reading this post on my site, you will see that this link is rendered as an embedded video at the bottom of the post. (THANKYOU @rknightuk]. It will render just fine - unless the video owner wants you to watch it over on YouTube (and to be fair - there are very good reasons for that). If that happens, click on the link above and you will be taken to YouTube. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it. That said - on rare occasions, it might actually be broken. If it is - sorry about that - try sending me an email and I will check if I made an error.

🖋️ Do You Want To Make A Company Successful OR Work For A Successful Company?

The transition might have been the undoing of Silicon Valley.


Crucial Track 🎵 June 10, 2026

"Rhythm Of Life" by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Listen on Apple Music

Not a 'musical/show' kinda guy, and this came out before I was old enough to 'get it' - but for whatever reason since I first heard it - have always absolutely loved it.

The image comes from 🔗 The Rhythm of Life

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View John Philpin's Crucial Tracks profile

Listen to my Apple Music playlist

📼🔗 A short video about The Rhythm of Life Art Installation in Yucca.


📽️ I’d been trying the other series and it really wasn’t working for me - so now watching the prequel because @dave said how much better it was. Jury out for this bear - but I did spend the first episode trying to spot Rhys Ifans and couldn’t. Apparently he’s changed a bit!


🎬👁️ Playing around in Git. I KNOW. Don’t ask.

Thing is 🔗 Repo Man came to mind.

Just me?


🔗 A new home for Progress Planner, and for us.

When we started Progress Planner, the idea was simple. A website is never “done.” The work that keeps a site healthy is small, repetitive, and a little boring. Almost nobody does it, because nothing reminds them to.

💬 Joost De Valk

I know what he means - but gotta say at some point - we just have to to say - ok done. Sadly, not quite ready for that in this house.


Crucial Track 🎵 June 9, 2026

"The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" by The Walker Brothers

Listen on Apple Music

Hard to choose which one of theirs to include in Crucial. Might have to add others in the future. Another 'liquid' voice.

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View John Philpin's Crucial Tracks profile

Listen to my Apple Music playlist


👁️ Golden Gate has an associated metaphor from John C. Frémont, who ‘compared the entrance to San Francisco Bay with the Golden Horn in Istanbul and described it as a “golden gate” to Pacific trade’.

Can’t help thinking that 🍎 are playing that metaphor as applied to new worlds opening …

// @numericcitizen


🎥 I just watched 🔗 The Sting for the first time in many many years and every bit as good as I remembered it. ★★★★

 

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🖇️ Review Ratings


👁️ The ‘silent fail’ - don’t know whether to be sad or frustrated.


I need to check - but back in the late 80s I had a friend that owned a ‘Bathtub Porsche’ - convertible version. Don’t think it was a really old one though – but I do remember that it was a lovely car. Great rides for sure.

🔗 Cory Doctorow: Porsche 356 Pre-A Coupé 1953.