Finished reading: 📚🔗 A Cold Wind From Moscow by Rory Clements - and yeah - not really - just way too slow for my taste.
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Just finished reading: 📚🔗 The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman - and every bit as good - better(?) as the first four.
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My three words for 2026 are 🖇️ Engage - Enable - Excite. But there’s a catch. Underpinning all of that is a requirement to both stop and start. Stop what’s bad for you, what isn’t working, what’s draining you. And start what’s good for you, change things up, do something different when something clearly isn’t landing.
That’s where the tension lives. One voice says when things aren’t working, change the game. Do something different. Move it up. Stagnation demands disruption. You’ve got agency, the ability to reframe, introduce new variables, step outside the rules you’ve been playing by. This voice won’t accept circumstance as fixed.
The other voice says if things aren’t working, they’ll persist anyway. Be patient. All will be well. Not wishful thinking, but confidence in process. The recognition that what’s broken right now is already being worked on by time and circumstances you can’t control yet. Patience here isn’t inaction. It’s understanding that some shifts simply require waiting.
Both are right. And so - by definition - both are wrong and the decision is made by applying the real skill of ‘sensing’. Very useful!
When does the system actually need you to disrupt it, and when is your job to hold steady whilst deeper shifts take hold? Get that distinction wrong and you either exhaust yourself with constant pivoting or you surrender to inertia. Sometimes both.
For me this is not theoretical. It’s the fork in the road. It’s not about the new year - it’s about life that continues to get harder and harder.
This all came to mind this afternoon when this popped up on my phone.
Song For The Post
🔗 David Sacks sees 2 cities replacing NYC and SF as finance and tech capitalswww.businessinsider.com/david-sac…)
In case you are wondering .. Miami and Austin … right!
🔗 Tesla Car Sales Dropped 9% in 2025, Falling Behind China’s BYD - The New York Times
Tesla’s decreasing sales suggest that a wider slump is in store for electric vehicles
No it doesn’t.
- All markets outside the U.S.A. grew … significantly depending on region … 20 to 30 percent
- The U.S.A. market shrank by 1% and Tesla was 45% of that
- BYD outside U.S.A. grew 28%, Tesla declined by 9%
- BYD OUTSOLD Tesla in every market except U.S.A.
- BYD INSIDE THE U.S.A. close to zero .. that’s what 100% tariffs will do to a business
This from a non journalist using Google for 20 minutes .. SHOULDN’T NYT READERS DESERVE … EXPECT … BETTER?
🔗 Flock Exposes Its AI-Enabled Surveillance Cameras - Schneier on Security
All good I am told - nothing to worry about. Move along now.
No, he shouldn’t have done it. No he shouldn’t have invaded, deposed the government, and seized the resources. No he should not have flaunted international law and the sovereignty of nations. But that’s what great powers do – and the greatest tragedy is that this latest act legitimizes such acts by other great powers, from the invasion of Ukraine to the (eventual) taking of Taiwan into China. It reminds us that colonialism hasn’t ended, and that the international order is allowed to exist only if it doesn’t interfere with the desires of the wealthy and powerful
🔗 Derek Peden - Posts need to be more specific
I do the same thing. Sometimes I am so cryptic that when I revisit an old entry - I have no idea what was about. So yes - I understand.
That said - not sure I am going to change that much. Rightly or wrongly.
On Bluesky: I can’t tell you how tired I am of copying and pasting the same text into five different silos. When will this ridiculous system that claims to be the web, get its shit together and start acting like the web (ie interop). #
This is one reason I use 🔗 Micro.Blog for 🖇️John.Philpin.com
Straight from the presidential playbook : When in trouble, distract the voters away from your own performance by an act of war. This time it’s the people of Venezuela who are paying the price.