There are 56 in the series .. I just counted. There only going to be two more and then the unplanned series that you probably thought was never going to end .. well, it is ending.

๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ The Photo Gallery

๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ For posterity - because the photo gallery will get redefined soon.


It all starts at ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ john.philpin.com - which reposts to

๐Ÿ”— Threads and ๐Ÿ”— Bluesky and ๐Ÿ”— Mastodon

Seperately my blog on john.philpin.com is revealed as @me@john.philpin.com on Mastodon - which is also followable - so of course i follow it with my (real) Masto account.

So if i post on Masto with my ‘real’ Masto - my blog’s Masto can see it and so those posts can manually find their way back to the blog …

I can also post a message on Threads and Bluesky BUT those messages would stay in their respective domains โ€ฆ until today.

I just enabled Fediverse sharing on Threads - so now if I post to my blog, like always it gets pushed to Threads - which is now visible on the Fediverse - so I can follow myself with my Threads account on Masto - and I presume vice versa.

I am writing this to get my head straight.

So far - BlueSky is only federated via Bridgy which I am not going to use because there is enough to do now in working out what goes where, why and how on my accounts - and do not get me started on the new accounts I am setting up for The Future Found - where I have already enable the Threads account for Fedi access.

I mean, you’re either ‘all in’ or why bother. Right?

A. There is a lot wrong with that last sentence!



Is This How You Get 'Silenced'?

Over in a more ‘private’ group there was a side discussion on Music … specifically .. ‘Country’ and someone had brought up Beyonce .. and well, time to throw in a comment …

Beyoncรฉ does โ€˜Countryโ€™ and not one word about โ€˜cultural appropriationโ€™ ๐Ÿคช no comment from this section of the Peanut Gallery โ€ฆ even Tay Tay had to break out of that genre. I will look up Garthโ€™s contribution to the Muppets Multiverse.

Feeling that my strategically placed emoji was sufficient to indicate that there was a certain amount of playful humor going on. (Or so I thought.)

It took a few days for this reply (my bold)

I understand you were just making a comment, but I feel it is important to check your facts before making claims about cultural appropriation that may just be fuel for a false fire. ….

… and the writer went on about the contribution of black musicians to the genre " who have been unheard and unacknowledged, and who have contributed so much in largely unrecognized ways." .. etc etc, stuff anybody with a pulse would know .. and then went on about what they have done in ‘Country’.

… and .. what facts?

I resisted responding how the Beatles at the beginning and the Stones - almost forever - did exactly the same thing, as did Led Zeppelin - oh and Elvis. I KNOW - well documented ….

I elected not to respond at all. And instead became decidedly less vocal in there at least ๐Ÿ˜ตโ€๐Ÿ’ซ)

Curious that back in April ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ I had cause to write this. I didnโ€™t highlight it at the time - but I wrote it in response to a different thread in this exact same group where I was accused of using tired and well worj sterotypes and tropes.

My approach is not to respond and ignore. Easy.

But - is there something else going on?

Thoughts?

Prompted to write all this because - well this reminded me …



๐ŸŽˆ168/366 Guestbooks, Blogrolls, Reciprocity and Paying It Forward

Trying to tie it all together for the occasional visitor.

It all started with Guestbooks. ( ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ I have one ) and yesterday I caught up on reciprocating and getting ahead of the curve. โœ…

I then created a new page that is connected to and referenced from my guest book page - so that there is a quick check for those I have visited. ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ You can find that here. - and anyone signing mine can move on to the next โ€ฆ

And then I added a new blogroll. If I sign your guestbook, I add your feed to my NetNewsWire and from there it appears on my ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ โ€™Guestbook Blogrollโ€™

Enjoy.


Image courtesy of ChatGPT 4o - prompt - “Guestbooks, Blogrolls, Reciprocity and Paying It Forward”


๐Ÿ“บ Turn Up Charlie

Just like ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ Loot .. not one to dislike โ€ฆ and likely more a passion project for the only reason I watched it ( a while back now) .. Idris.

But I do like to occasionally log some older stuff .. cos we donโ€™t all watch everything at the time do we โ€ฆ so you still need to know.. right? Wrong?

Or do you?

Turn Up Charlie on ๐Ÿ”— Reelgood

โ€™Allโ€™ My TV Show Reviews

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ShowNameBanner


๐ŸŽˆ155/366 The First Vision Pro Concert Movie

I have touched on this before but after reading a Lefsetz post over the weekend, decided to expand a little and log the thinking for posterity.

๐Ÿ”— Lefsetz Letter - Company At The Sphere - that’s the link to where ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ this quote came from that I published this weekend. I said I’d be back…

Around 2016 - ‘the term ‘spatial’ was being coined’. - though I personally think Apple’s ‘spatial’ is a light year or two ahead of where Mr. Scoble was at the time (He’s very quiet these days, isn’t he?)

๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ But February this year I made some pretty logical predictions about the first Vision Pro Movie.

๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ And in October last year I was predicting that The Sphere was a pretty good place to start on a โ€˜Vision Pro Concert Seriesโ€™ - and I think Apple will be the one to do it. Well, maybe not ‘doing’ it - but certainly financing it.

I still think that.

But who will be the director and/or subject matter for this groundbreaking event?

Who’s Out?

Despite Tay Tay’s global appeal, it won’t be her. The Swifties don’t have the money to buy the Pro.

Peter Jackson is deep into the latest tech to do great things, definitely a friend of Apple - and his foray into music with The Beatles is interesting - but no, no Sphere experience and besides ๐Ÿ”— he is deep into his next Trilogy .. as Producer - not Director, but still ..

Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.

Phish? I dunno - not seeing it.

So Who’s In?

Two very real possibilities …

U2 - deeply intertwined with Apple - remember the album? And then they were first up at the Sphere - and Zane Lowe hanging out with them, talking with them. We have seen some of the footage, but who knows what was taken off the ‘back stage’ for the first Vision Pro movie?

… but I am wondering - and well out of left field - but …

The Grateful Dead - who have always been at the bleeding edge of touring and spectacle

  • The ‘Home’ band for Bay Area based Apple
  • Sphere residency happening - even as I type
  • Residency coincided with Earth Day 2024 (very โ€˜Appleyโ€™)
  • Lots of San Francisco through time imagery featured in the show
  • ๐Ÿ”— and then there is this - Huff Post - so maybe a pinch of salt is needed, written eight years ago โ€ฆbut written by Bill Bradey, so not his usual subject matter - but certainly no slouch.
  • Note that Mayer is also part of The Sphere residency.

Itโ€™s all fitting in for this bear.

The only hard thing to reconcile is that โ€˜Tay Tayโ€™ problem. Is there an overlap?

I think there just might be.

What do you think?


Today I got my first ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ guestbook signature from a total stranger.


๐Ÿ“ธ ๐ŸŒŠ After ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ yesterdays weather - this was rather welcome particularly since it was so bad that it knocked the power out. Bed by 7 for this bear.

But … the next morning - what do they say ‘calm after the storm’?

Or is it before?


๐ŸŽˆ149/366 | ๐Ÿ“ธ ๐ŸŒŠ Some days you see the conflict of the weather over time and I publish a short series - like ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ yesterday. Today the conflict is happening all at once.

straight line

.. and yes this post features in both series I am running at the moment.


๐ŸŽˆ148/366 Talking about ‘series’ .. as we are in the process of closing out ‘May’ - I finally got round to updating my ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ ๐Ÿ”Ž 366 series


๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ Back then I was undecided whether the early images constituted a series. This morning I hit ten - so I hereby declare that ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ we do in fact have a series.



I stumbled across this today as I was collecting ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ these. I nearly moved through because โ€˜Kellyโ€™ - but I am a sucker for Jeff, so โ€ฆ

Holy Crap โ€ฆ๐Ÿ”— ๐ŸŽต ๐Ÿ“ผ Jeff Daniels

.. I was under the impression he had only recently written it - but this from 13 years ago - suggests otherwise.

๐Ÿ”— ๐ŸŽต ๐Ÿ“ผ Jeff Daniels.


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.

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… another two ‘broken links’ .. has something changed?


๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ ๐ŸŽ™๏ธ Vinyl Sneak Peek

Conanโ€™s short promo had me laughing out loud ๐Ÿ˜‚ as I wandered down to the ferry this morning.


๐ŸŽˆ142/366 A Bucket Of Slop

I am well aware that despite my years long campaign to stop people from describing their words, articles, photographs, thinking … beliefs, soul โ€ฆ Intellectual Property even โ€ฆ โ€˜contentโ€™ โ€ฆ they continue toโ€ฆ unabated.

๐Ÿ”Ž ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ It drives me nuts.

But I am not giving up โ€ฆ

That said - there are people that โ€˜get itโ€™. (Though I will freely admit that we are also in the minority there!)

Meanwhile the ‘bot farms that have been delivering the real content (sic) to our uncurated feeds and inboxes have been gearing up for the AI revolution - and indeed as reported in many places are already shaping our ‘thinking’. (I use the word loosely.)

Imagine then my delight to read that ‘Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content’.

Sidebar - if you don’t know what a ‘bucket of slop’ is - ‘Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content’.

Perfect.

Slop is also a name given to what is left at the bottom after any of the remotely useful homogenized content that has been stored in a silo has been removed.

The trick now is going to be how readers will be able to spot the slop - given that they already have difficulties separating content from any kind of value.

Read the whole piece …

๐Ÿ”— Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content

… and hat tip to John Gruber who referenced this post on Daring Fireball.


๐Ÿ”— Meanwhile, over in Finland, they do have an idea or two.


๐Ÿ“บ Sugar

Stunning .. great job from Colin F .. but the homage to โ€˜noirโ€™ yet modern, the direction, the cinematography, the colors, the lights, the nuance โ€ฆ everything. Just so good.

I have read that people loved the mid season โ€˜twistโ€™ โ€ฆif we are talking last scene in episode 6 .. yeah no .. I had that scene in my head for a couple of episodes prior, so no twist for me. In fact, it happened to coincide with when I thought the show had finished .. and I ๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ even posted that I was very disappointed with the ending (EEJIT I am).

Anyway .. all this to say โ€ฆ loved it. If you have ๐ŸŽ ๐Ÿ“บ, whatever else you are watching stop - and go take a look.

Sugar on ๐Ÿ”— Reelgood

โ€™Allโ€™ My TV Show Reviews

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Sugar


I’m gonna say that even though my ‘pages’ - you know the ‘about’ .. ‘doing’ .. ‘new’ .. ‘using’ .. aren’t ‘done’ - they are clearly done enough to add them to the menu.


๐Ÿ˜‚

๐Ÿ–‡๏ธ Me - in the middle of April - but had been having the problem (an out of control mouse) for a lot longer.

Cracked the issue this morning.

Sidecar.

It seems recently that I have not been closing my iPad, and so my Mac believes that I have a second screen.

Issue resolved.