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🎈015/366 | 🚶♂️They Walk Amongst Us
“We are all going to be saved by King Harry.”
Don’t’ you mean King Charles?
“No no no. He is the evil one. Like his son William. The dynasty is evil. Harry has seen the light. He will come back and save us - together with the son of the Shah. Palestine will once again be reunited with Persia and the descendants of the devils that destroyed us will be no more.”
The son of the Shah?
“Yes yes - he is ready. He has been tutored to show the way. God is on our side. He is the light in the darkness. God, the son of our Shah and Harry are our saviors.
I paraphrase .. but this was roughly the flow of a ‘conversation’ in a ‘rideshare’ the other night in Wellington.
I elected to not engage too deeply. I am far from a mid Eastern scholar, much less of Persia. Although I am pretty sure that for Palestine to be ‘reunited’ with Persia would also require some fundamental changes in countries such as Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq? But what do I know?
Here’s what I do know.
His vehicle was spotless. His timing punctual. Hair neatly cut, his glasses giving a façade of ‘accountant’ were you to meet him at a party. That is what I know.
🎈014/366 | 💩 The Gamekeeper Is The Poacher
An excellent show from the mighty John Oliver taking on McKinsey in this one. You know … the company that advised Purdue on how to sell more Oxy. Spin through to 15:50 … to hear this one.
Mr. Sternfels they didn’t have experience - they were the identical humans working for both at the same time.
💬 Katie Porter
Cleaning out the swamp, stopping the revolving door of public service and corporate interest … it really doesn’t matter what you call it - what is clear that the swamp / cesspool / revolving doors are very much alive and well - no matter what anyone claims.
🎈013/366 ⌨️ Typewriters .. and more
A quite lovely story which I have chosen to share through my Readwise account, so you can speed through my highlights if you so wish.
Alternatively, 🔗 this is the original New Yorker article, written by Ann Patchett.
It’s from 2021, it’s mainly about removing clutter from your life, but sharing it here because of the ending which focuses on the typewriters in her life, and thought this was quite beautiful.
.. and beyond beauty …
After he died, Tavia found two laminated cards.
‘He’, being Kent, ‘Tavia’s father’, who had seemingly continually transformed his life, leaving behind a veritable museum of artifacts .. and yet these two laminated cards tell the entire story.
I don’t know .. it just stopped me in my tracks.
🎈012/366 | 🎂 Cake By The Ocean
It’s true. My ‘under the rock’ habitat continues into 2024.
I asked a six year old yesterday if he liked music … yes … so what’s your favorite song?
I hadn’t heard of DNCE - but liked this one enough to poke around … wait … it’s Joe Jonas?
Personally, never a big fan of the Jonas brothers - but adding this to my list of (two so far) singers that switched me. The other one is Harry Styles (never a big fan of One Direction).
If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video might me giving an 'error'. That is generally because the creator wants you to go to YouTube to watch it. To do that - click on the link above.
🎈011/366 | 🔮 Indie Publishing - Future Vision
A couple of click throughs in this morning’s review triggered this post.
It started here … 🔗 Substack Barely Does The Bare Minimum
which linked to here … 🔗 gilest.org: Make the indie web easier
which then linked to here … 🔗 gilest.org: More on the easier indie web
TL;DR
A few links to interesting places that are about the indie web - but with an undercurrent of something that I have been banging on about forEVER …
If we truly want to open up the web for everyone to publish on, we have to make it easier. Let’s give people choices. Let’s give people options for tools they can set up and use, with no more knowledge than the knowledge they already have.
💬 Giles Turnbull'
YES
There are a few - and indeed MicroBlog is one such example (that is not listed in those links) … although even MicroBlog has its challenges.
I think the overall challenge is two fold;
1] It is not easy.
- so requires significant resources to make it a reality.
2] Does ‘everybody’ care enough?
- because if they don’t - I feel the TAM might be pretty small - and will include a large number of people already in the camp of what we have is good enough.
🎈010/366 | ✍️ Rewriting Future History
🔗 Interesting piece from Om today.
I think he’s right about that up there. What I am not so sure about is this down here.
Why?
Because it will bring all those ‘EEJITS’ out of the woodwork, who maintain that ’Steve’ did everything and Tim has done nothing, isn’t innovative, riding the coat tails etc …
(Count me in the camp of the people that believe that had Tim NOT done what Tim did when he did it, that there wouldn’t even be a significant enough Apple to do what he is doing now.)
🎈009/366 | 👀 The Irony Continues
… at least I think it will.
The furor as to the how and why ’The Facebook’ are ’allowed’ to do this will continue unabated as people continue to post these questions on Facebook … and Instagram … and WhatsApp … and Threads.
🎈008/366 | ❓ Solving The Right Problem
Today’s Sketchplanations resonated, even though I had never heard of the ‘problem’ being ‘🔗 The XY Problem
Back at Group Partners we would help people ‘avoid solving the wrong problem really well’
Others talk about ‘peeling back the onion to get to the root cause’ (think a doctor treating your hip to solve your back pain), etc etc.
Whatever it is known as, this is what anyone should do to solve a problem. Never treat the symptom.
If you don’t agree, comment below.
If you do agree - do you have other names you use?
🎈007/366 | 🚣♀️ The Pace of Change
A couple of days ago I wrote a little (very little) about Stewart Brand’s 🖇️ Pace layer. It’s worth clicking through - not just to my short piece, but in turn the links in that post.
Still - to the point.
Andy Hamilton dropped a post on LinkedIN a couple of days ago referencing an Australian report called ‘Barriers to collaboartion and commercialization’ asking if there were lessons that can be learned fro New Zealand. And so ‘the people’ weighed in - with the inevitable group waxing lyrical about business and government working hand in hand to innovate and become world leaders in ….
Pipe dreams - and ‘Pace Layers’, illustrated above explain why.
The model was developed by Stewart Brand and Brian Eno of all people. A quick study will reveal why government involvement in innovation is flawed. If you are still missing the challenge comes down to the
The order of a healthy civilization. The fast layers innovate; the slow layers stabilize. The whole combines learning with continuity.
💬 Stewart Brand
It reminds me of something 🔗 Venkatesh Rao wrote about many years ago - and which I in turn referenced in my 🔗 book a couple of years ago.
Bottom Line
I have always had a fundamental problem with government being joined at the hip with business. In principle, it sounds lovely. It can work. It does work … but not if you want to be fast, innovative, different, leading edge, using new technologies - all of these things are not part of a government’s DNA - the pace layer model reveals why it won’t work.
Whatever speed government works at, it still wont be fast enough for business and if you slow down business to more readily accommodate government, then others will beat you to market.
Just three case studies out of the hundreds if not thousands just in the software industry; Uber, AirBNB and Facebook.
And don’t get me started on Tesla, The Boring Compnay, SpaceX, X, xAI, Neuralink and the rest of the ‘Musk Suite.
🎈006/366 | 🗂️ The First Collection
Today marks the completion of the first set of 6 days. There will be exactly 61 such collections over the next year. I (at least) find this interesting because this year there are only roughly 52 collections of 7 days and roughly 73 collections of 5 days.
As long as I can remember, my mind has always played such number games, so I am not surprised to find myself thinking this way. Then again, I am reading a lovely little book by Mark Haddon so I wonder if I am even more tuned in. (If you’ve read it, you will know what I mean.)