LongForm on John PHI⑊PIN

📺 Hijack ★★

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:30:37 +1200

Originally Published: August 7th, 2024
Updated: April 3rd, 2026

In 2024 I originally wrote:

What’s not to love about Idris? Ok well not always, but this surprisingly worked.

Well - at least until the final episode.

Just finished the second series - and the fact it took us so many months to work through it speaks volumes. And when I say work … I mean work.

Series 1 ★★★ – that is old star rating - but still holds …

Do you remember the old (60 years old!) movie with Spencer Tracy - It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World? I liked the movie - but the images that find their way to the top of my memory is generally large groups of cast members randomly gathered together on a golf green, in a cab, looking in a hole … I mean for that movie - which was a great ensemble cast - total sense, not too mention that I bet that each star was guaranteed a certain amount of screen time … and this is one way to get round that.

Anyway, back to the plot. Watch the final episode of Hijack and tell me those scenes don’t come to your mind.

And yes - all the usual happy ever after, plane saved with seconds to spare, it was all about the money - etc etc

Series 2 ★★

And that rating is getting applied to the whole show. VERY disappointing - they took that final episode from Series 1 - and doubled down on it!

I was tempted to 1 star it - but that wouldn’t be fair to series 1.

ShowName on 🔗 Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

About that ‘spoiler alert’ - really - did you expect a different ending?

🎥 Nobody 2, 2025 ★★

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 21:24:03 +1200

Not as good as Nobody - but then Nobody caught me out - where as Nobody 2 was - well ... Nobody 2. Colin Hanks looks so much like his Dad. Sharon Stone looked nothing like Sharon Stone - and yet was. The whole film was way better than any of Chevy's vacation movies - and the set up for the final action scene was lifted straight out of The A Team - and just as much fun.

It's Fractal

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:06:33 +1200

I was in the late 80s that I set up Fractal Communications in the UK. It never happened and instead headed west - and a whole new world started up for me. BUT - the idea of fractal communications stayed with me. My early years saw social handles like fractals - eg over on Twitter - when it was good. If I was a little late to the network and it was taken - fractallion. I have presented on what I mean by it and how it works countless times. But life continued to move and it was never turned into the business I envisaged.

Fast Forward to 2026 and I find myself constantly ideating how best to package and present this new service we are developing. I can see it. I can feel it - but as my manager (Jax) oft' says to me - use less words - get clearer … its as if she is sitting in on conversations that I have with others. (I suffer a sever case of Cobbler’s children.)

This afternoon I picked up a collection of hand off docs that I keep after Claude conversations .. dropped them in a new project to strat again and in amongst its first pass of the docs …

This is the architecture. It’s fractal, not sequential.

I had not ever referenced the idea of fractal to Claude in the past. But it’s not a wrong thought.

🎥 Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, 2026 - ★★

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:20:19 +1200

This is a film - not a show and so lacked .. a lot. It also requires the watching of the magnificent series that preceded it to really get it. So yes … enjoyed, but if you haven’t seen the shows … don’t bother and if you have, you will be disappointed.

.. and very glad I missed it in the Theaters.

The star rating might seem harsh - it seemed that way - even to me - but this is a good example of how a normalised rating system can help you - dear reader - get better clarity on the 'why'. To cut to the chase - I did enjoy it - any film that sits with 2 or more stars in here are worth watches - but at this level - a lot of caveats.

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

📺 Godless ★★★

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:01:44 +1200

Can’t recall why I started to watch it .. but glad I did .. very good .. and it was a while back (well last year) - despite it being from 2017 - and yet for all of that it took @mitchwagner to remind me - when he referenced it - I couldn’t even recall the name - don’t make the same mistake.

🔗 Godless on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

📺 His & Hers ★★

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 13:48:48 +1200

Slow start … boring in the middle … but a couple o’ twists at the end.

🔗 His & Hers on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

📺 The Wives ★★

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:46:11 +1200

Remember ‘The Sisters’? Yeah - no where near as good. I watched a little bit because of being set in Malta - and being a fan of Madame LeBlanc - I thought … I was wrong.

🔗 The Wives on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

🔗 Just in from Scott Brinker

Similar Thinking. Different Thoughts.

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 11:30:17 +1200

I’ve been hypothesizing that the next iteration of great SaaS platforms could evolve toward context-as-a-service (CaaS)

Whilst I find that we seem to be on a similar journey with thought … on this we differ

Meanwhile - one of my ‘graphics under development’ .. this one talking about ‘forgetting’ the 4Ps and start thinking 4Es - that I most recently talked about 🖇️ here.

Bottom line - we keep talking about change - radical change - and yet for some reason - our thinking is not radical - witness that we keep building ‘systems of experience’ on ‘systems of record’ infrastructure.

… and we wonder why it’s not working?

My Wiki is Really Coming Together

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:59:53 +1200

Over the holidays I spent time really sorting out my Structured Thought Wiki - which is actually an Obsidian Vault on iCloud - that David Merfield’s Blot translates in to a living breathing web site. Claude helped me with a lot of the CSS - but also refining some of the cross linking between entries - the site now has 193 pages. (The nature of wikis of course - mention it once - out comes a page.)

Sorted - I now have YAML front matter including ‘pstatus’ = empty, claude, curated . and a few others besides and now bu using Desktop Commander - Claude is filling in the spaces.

This means that when you came to my wiki a week ago - basically you got a LOT of ‘stubs’

Now you typically get a page with words and images and links and cross references. All thanks to Claude - and when I have Claude do the writing - I change the pstatus from ‘empty’ to ‘claude’ - and as I go forward - as time allows - and I fix the page - well then the page status is changed to ‘curated’.

This is the kind of stuff that adds real value to what I do … I have tried to build wikis in the past - and they are HARD. ➕ I wouldn’t have anyone else do it.

I call that a #WinWin

You (Should) Say Goodbye - I (Definitely) Say Hello

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 13:31:46 +1200

Structured Thought Meets Music Meets The Business Equation … and probably more besides.

You say yes, I say no,
You say stop, and I say go, go, go,
Oh no.
You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello,

💬 Paul McCartney

First song from Paul after Brian Epstein (no relation) passed on to the next stage of his life …

Wikipedia:

“It’s such a deep theme in the universe, duality – man woman, black white, ebony ivory, high low, right wrong, up down, hello goodbye – that it was a very easy song to write.” McCartney also said that, in “Hello, Goodbye”, he was promoting “the more positive side of the duality”.

Which all came to mind this morning reading 🔗 this post by Manton Reece who observed …

If everyone can ship software, what will distinguish the successful companies from the apps that are lost in the noise?

To which I reply by quoting some lines from a less talented group of songwriters - and yet seem pertinent …

Shooting stars never stop even when they reach the top

💬 Those that believe they have won.

and

The world is my oyster

💬 Everyone else.

.. or perhaps more simply - as one door closes - another opens.

Corollary - not for everyone (the corpses of software companies that litter the technology freeway is testament to that.) … so what do we do?

The shift that Manton is describing is right - but IMHO falls short of what a business needs in The Age of Engagement which is pretty much what I have been writing about for a while now ….

Two Foundational Posts

🔗 The Age of Reason Is Over

🔗 The Age of Experience is Emerging

Just this past week

🔗 Coherence Is The New Moat

🔗 Engagement Platforms as Coherence Infrastructure

Bonus Post

🔗 Marketing in 2025 (and 2026 it turns out)

From a marketing perspective - the 4Ps have been part of the lexicon of any marketeer on this planet since before I was born. But now …

say goodbye

… to the 4Ps: Price, Place, Product and Promotion

say hello

… to The 4Es : Exchange, Ease, Essence and Experience

Price gives way to Exchange
Not what you charge. What you trade. Mutual value.

Place gives way to Ease
Not where you are. How frictionless you make it. If engagement hurts, product dies.

Product gives way to Essence
Not what you make. Who you are - through your customer’s eyes. Stop second guessing.

Promotion gives way to Experience
Not what you say. What they feel. Their perception is your only reality.

OR

You say ‘goodbye’ to ‘~~Product Efficient Supply Chains~~’ while I say ‘hello’ to ‘Customer Effective Demand Networks’

(Those are two thought threads of mine that go back to the early oughts and are integral to The Business Equation.)

When everyone can ship code (I know, I know), technical execution becomes table stakes - but I think although Manton’s words are different to my words he is recognising the shift that I keep describing … constraint has moved from PRODUCT to EXPERIENCE.

So - back to Manton’s list;

Marketing shapes perception
Customer support reduces friction
Documentation enables ease (even ‘easier’ intuitive UI)
Building trust demonstrates essence
Speed removes barriers to engagement

These aren’t the ‘other aspects’ of running a software business. They are now the primary aspects. Code is just infrastructure. In fact just last week, my friend and partner for the development of the apps we are building said just last week.

The cost of code might be coming down - but people don’t buy code - they buy software.

Actually - being who I am I think they are buying what the software will do for them - but that’s my marketing lens. What Tony was hitting on is right from th pot of what marketeers used to call ‘Full Product’.

The 4Ps assumed scarcity of products, distribution and information, whilst the 4Es assumed abundance where engagement is the only moat.

Manton’s list is actually part of The 4Es.

Essence: Building trust (who we actually are)
Ease: Documentation + Speed (frictionless access)
Exchange: Customer support (mutual value delivery)
Experience: Marketing (perception management)

The Age of Engagement isn’t coming. It’s here. Code is just catching up.

and clearly - Jimi was way ahead of his time! (But we knew that already. Right?)

If you want to set some time to explore how all this can be used to help your business transition into the ‘Age of Experience’. 📅 Let’s Talk

I Agree With ‘The Call’. I Totally Disagree With What That Means

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 11:03:30 +1200

TL;DR

Context as a product feature that SaaS vendors can package and sell is wrong thinking. It’s actually the foundational infrastructure layer that makes any system intelligently operational. Context is the operational intelligence that knows who, where, what, and how people interact across and with organisations and each other. In short - it is the essential layer that transforms disconnected capabilities into coherent, situationally-aware engagement.

Scott Brinker writes: 🔗 The SaaS Moats Are Crumbling, but the Opportunity Is Bigger - and I agree - but not for the reasons he lays out.

I mean he even highlights things I talk about, like

Context.

Not just in passing either, the article’s subtitle is

Context-as-a-Service (CaaS)

I’ll just let that sit while you think about that for a moment - and return later.

Business are apparently moving on from being

systems of record

… with much more ‘relevant’ thinking …

systems of truth or single source of truth.

Cough - the ‘single source of truth’? New? A branding upgrade? We used to talk about the 🔗 single source of truth when I was part of Oracle - and 🖇️ as I pointed out recently - in my early days at Oracle - I had email - and could not use it to communicate with anybody outside of Oracle that I worked with … so we know that was a looooong time ago.

And systems of truth? Whose truth?

If my cell company believes that my primary email is mickeymouse@philpin.com - because when they asked me for my primary email I gave them mickeymouse@philpin.com - that may well be their ‘truth’ - but it is certainly not mine.

But back to ‘context’ …

Context is different. Context is personal and situational. It’s knowing not just what the data says, but what it means for this marketer making this decision, or for this customer in this moment.

So why is it a new service? Spoiler Alert. It isn’t - unless you are going to add it to a list such as this;

Buzzword-as-a-Service (BaaS) - The self-aware parody of vendor speak.
Synergy-as-a-Service (SaaS) - Corporate nonsense on demand.
Disruption-as-a-Service (DaaS) - Generates any pitch deck you will ever need.
Oxygen-as-a-Service (OaaS) - Because anything that can be ‘monetised’ - will be ‘monetised’.
Innovation-as-a-Service (IaaS) - Outsourcing the very thing you can’t outsource - but now you can.

Context is where domain expertise meets operational reality.

… amongst many other things.

Truth implies something universal and static — the same for everyone, in every situation.

It does. That’s why even 15 years ago - my mantra was

and as for ‘context’ being new thinking?

Another one from the archives

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:21:11 +1200

🔗 Engagement Platforms as Coherence Infrastructure

A slight restructure of this post - and so a reissue.

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:20:07 +1200

🔗 Coherence Is the New Moat

Another post restructure - and reissue.

Chris Best, CEO of Substack Wrote To Me

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:36:55 +1200

… but not with good news.

I’m reaching out to let you know about a security incident that resulted in the email address from your Substack account being shared without your permission.

I’m incredibly sorry this happened. We take our responsibility to protect your data and your privacy seriously, and we came up short here.

What happened. On February 3rd, we identified evidence of a problem with our systems that allowed an unauthorized third party to access limited user data without permission, including email addresses, phone numbers, and other internal metadata. This data was accessed in October 2025. Importantly, credit card numbers, passwords, and financial information were not accessed.

What we are doing. We have fixed the problem with our system that allowed this to happen. We are conducting a full investigation, and are taking steps to improve our systems and processes to prevent this type of issue from happening in the future.

What you can do. We do not have evidence that this information is being misused, but we encourage you to take extra caution with any emails you receive that may be suspicious.

This sucks. I’m sorry. We will work very hard to make sure it does not happen again.

This is one of the reasons I use a different email forevery service I sign up for - so if that email does find its way into unauthorised hands - it is obvious. (So far so good).

Identified on Feb 3rd - EMail sent Feb 5th - good

BUT - this data was accessed in October 2025.

So what was going on in October, November, December, January and into February where it was not spotted?

Who dropped the ball?

Pace Layers - Redux

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:08:34 +1200

🔗 Robin Sloan - Pace layers

As you climb the pace layers, your sources of information get fewer and farther between.

The Full Quote

As you climb the pace layers, your sources of information get fewer and farther between. Everyone has something to say about nature. But to remain relevant in the higher and more turbulent layers you must update rapidly, and be correct more often than not. Few people are worth listening to about commerce or fashion. Most people’s ideas are simply out of date. At a certain point you reach the edge of what is known or talked about at all, and there are only a few people left. I will find you there, among the researchers, the reporters, the shamans and the spies.

💬 ‘Deepfates’

I was referencing 🖇️🔎Pace Layers a few times through 2024 - and it very much ties to some of my recent thinking. More to come as I fold it all together.

How Early Adopters Fall Behind

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 11:13:31 +1200

🔗 Vanguard – The Government Project to get British Businesses to use the Internet – Terence Eden’s Blog

In that late 80s period Terence is writing about - I was part of Oracle and had email on my DEC terminal for communicating with others in the company around the world. Just gnashing my teeth over why people outside the company couldn’t see the benefit.

Probably because they understood that …

a single computer terminal was likely to set you back around £3,000 - and that’s before you take into account message transmission costs.

… better than I did

When Oracle moved me to California - I even had one of those terminals at home.

Of course - come the PC and laptop revolution they were so slow in adoption it was hard to understand that it was the same company.

It was kind of like how use of mobiles in geographies with bad landline coverage resulted in exponentially faster adoption

Back On To Content Again.

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:19:55 +1200

Chris Lockhead posted 🔗 this on LinkedIN

It’s LinkedIn oatmeal.

Chris is right, so I replied:

Content is homogenous, undifferentiated and fully interchangeable with any other content - like any other ‘grain’ that sits in a silo.

Can you really tell one grain of wheat from another?
Is your post/comment really interchangeable with every one else’s?

If so - content it is. If not - guess what - it is not content. So don’t call it content.

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, ‘anything will do’ kind of word and so - like a grain of wheat - any individual piece of ‘content’ has no value. The value is in the total silo.

It is also important to know that it is in the best interests of the ‘buyers’ (I use the term loosely) of our sweat, labour, thought and time to create our IP - to keep their costs down. So, content is what THEY will continue to call it. Don’t fall into that trap.

Our costs are not kept down. Our net earnings do suffer. They are suffering badly.

Oh - and a quick reminder - been saying this for years. As have others - like 🖇️ Will Arnett talking to Dana Gould

📺 The Chelsea Detective ★★★

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:08:30 +1200

Originally Published: Jun 6th, 2025
Updated: Jan 30th, 2026

One of those gentle English detective shows that holds it all together pretty constantly. And scenes from all around Chelsea, London .. suitably scenic advertising from time to time. Good stories. Nice characters. Nothing bad.

Series 1 ★★★

Nothing extra to say.

Series 2 ★★★

Still nothing extra to say.

Series 3 ***

After the first episode I knew it wasn’t going to be a binge watch. It wasn’t. But my star rating didn’t change.

🔗 The Chelsea Detective on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

📺 Run Away ★★★

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:51:32 +1200

Not all Harlan is good Harlan … this is good Harlan.

🔗 Run Away on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

🔗 The Last Frontier on Reelgood

Joe Boyd - So Much More Than A Producer

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:55:17 +1200

Ajay quoting Joe Boyd …

🔗 Joe Boyd - linking to a quote via @ajay.

It is a great quote from ‘White Bicycles’. And I know that Wikipedia positions him as a ‘producer’ - but for me is so much more - not the least of which is that he also wrote ‘And the Roots of Rhythm Remain’ Those those two masterpieces alone should guarantee him a place in our conversation around musical culture.

Now add that without him - no Pink Floyd, no Fairport Convention - and thus no Richard Thompson. How about Nick Drake - not to mention no ‘UFO’ - or ‘Duelling Banjos’?

Ok - maybe some of these artists … all(?) would have broken through without him - but equally - ‘producer’ doesn’t quite say it. Does it?

C3 Ain't What It Used To Be - More Rebrands than Facebook Meta.

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:08:42 +1200

C3.AI, founded by tech industry veteran Thomas Siebel, is in talks to merge with privately held startup Automation Anywhere being reported by The Information.

Which got me to thinking - C3 is a dot ‘ai’? When did that happen?

Heh Claude (because for this I really do not have the time or inclination) …

“What was C3 before c3.ai - when did it change - wasn’t it energy or something?”

🤖 Claude

You’re absolutely right! C3.ai has gone through quite the identity evolution:

2009 - Started as C3, where “C” stood for “carbon” and “3” represented “measure, mitigate, and monetize.” The original mission was helping companies manage their carbon footprints.

2012 - Rebranded to C3 Energy after founder Tom Siebel (who previously sold Siebel Systems to Oracle for $5.85 billion) saw opportunity in grid operators and utilities. The company focused on smart grid analytics, using big data and machine learning to analyze sensor data from power grids.

2016 - Renamed to C3 IoT, signaling expansion beyond just energy into broader Internet of Things markets across manufacturing, aerospace, financial services, and other industries.

2019-2020 - Became C3.ai to align with the hot AI investment trend (went public in December 2020).

Me

So essentially: carbon/energy → energy utilities → general IoT → enterprise AI. The company clearly adapted as market opportunities shifted and new technology trends emerged. Some skeptics have pointed out that the frequent rebranding feels more like chasing whatever’s trendy in the market rather than genuine business evolution, especially given how each rename coincided with emerging tech hype cycles (IoT around 2016, AI around 2019).

📺 The Last Frontier ★★★

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:47:36 +1200

First couple of episodes and - meh. Even so much as parked it for a looong while - until the other day …

… and thought to try Episode 3 and it got me. I thought it was only 6 episodes - so binged the next 3 and - I after the rollercoaster - a truly disappointing end. Or so I thought.

The ‘next episode’ invite came up - and the next night - followed through - assuming just another episode - have you noticed how odd numbers are appearing in episodes?

Long story short - TEN episodes - and the roller coaster of episodes 4 to 6 were nothing compare to 7 to 10.

It blurs - but I seem to recall that 8 and 9 were both more than satisfactory endings - but then ….

End of ten = END.

Except of course series 2 is definitely set up.

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

📺 The Morning Show ★★★

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:21:09 +1200

Originally Published: Dec 17th, 2023
Updated: Jan 19th, 2026

It took me a while to finally get round to watching .. but when I did … well .. I was in. I liked how they wove in current events … would love to know exactly how soon after those events were happening that it appeared on the stream.

Update

Overall thought it very good. Did my life change after watching it? No.

Here have been some zingers I saw on series 3 … forget about them … just watch it. It’s television for goodness sake.

Series 1 ★★★

It took me a long time to start for whatever reason - but finished very quickly.

Series 2 ★★★

Nothing extra to say.

Series 3 ★★★

Nothing extra to say.

Series 4 ★★★

The quality continues. It’s never been a show I binged - and was late to Series 1 - but it doesn’t ever disappoint - provided we remember it is a TV Show❗️

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

🖇️🔎 Here’s a few from the archives.

The Tyranny of the Town Square

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:30:58 +1200

The internet was supposed to celebrate differences. Instead, it’s weaponised conformity. We’ve narrowed acceptable discourse to a narrow band. A band where ±1 standard deviation seems to be too wide and anything outside the ‘consensus’ gets you piled on. (Consensus with a very loud and increasingly violent minority.) The phrase vive la différence is nearly extinct in modern English, and it shows. We are not ignorant of diversity - we’re terrified of it. So we hide the messy, interesting parts of ourselves and perform an acceptable vanilla version for the town square.

The result? A society suffocating under its own self-censorship. The crowd isn’t forcing us to conform - we’re doing it preemptively, trading authenticity for safety. We’ve accepted the bargain that you’re either with us or against us, and nobody wants to find out what happens if you dare explore the edges.

The road less taken isn’t less travelled anymore; it’s invisible.

This prompted on reading Om this morning: Our Algorithmic Grey-Beige World, but it isn’t a new theme of mine … or indeed others …

And when they don't, we judge competence, take it personally, make assumptions, or shut down.

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 10:19:40 +1200

🖇️ What’s strange is how little of that generosity we extend to each other

Quoting the quote:

I’ve been thinking about how quickly we’ve adapted to working with AI. We all understand the deal. If the output is bad, it’s probably on us. The prompt was vague. The context was missing. We didn’t give it enough constraints. So we revise. We clarify. We try again. No frustration. No judgment. Just iteration.

I know right? … and then the clincher

What’s strange is how little of that generosity we extend to each other. Somewhere along the way, we learned to treat machines as systems that need better inputs–but we still treat humans as if they should just know. And when they don’t, we judge competence, take it personally, make assumptions, or shut down.

Guilty. NO argument. Going to try harder.

The link above also references:

🔗 Wikipedia

But better to read 🔗 UXtopian

Exploring The New Claude PlugIN For Chrome

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:45:54 +1200

Cough - is it in fact ‘new’?

Anyway - installed and popped over to a local banking site here in New Zealand and asked Claude ‘what the strategic imperatives of the business at that page are … It built a plan and asked me to approve - I did - no modifications …

Based on my research of ANZ Bank New Zealand’s website, their strategic imperative can be summarized as follows:

Core Strategic Imperatives:

Long-term Community Commitment ANZ positions itself as Aotearoa New Zealand’s oldest bank (established 1840, 180+ years) dedicated to supporting Kiwis with their financial goals. Nearly one in two New Zealanders have a banking relationship with ANZ.
Digital Transformation & Accessibility They’re modernizing banking delivery through digital channels with quick, secure, and convenient options, while maintaining physical branches and contact centers to serve diverse customer needs.
Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Leadership A major strategic focus is supporting “Aotearoa’s transition to a low emissions, inclusive, climate resilient economy.” Specifically, they aim to help customers reduce emissions and enhance resilience to climate change, with plans to publish Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
Cultural Inclusivity & Māori Focus “Tākiri-ā-Rāngi” is their Te Ao Māori strategy that “sets our course as a bank inspired by the hopes and aspirations of all,” reflecting the communities they serve through equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives.
Comprehensive Financial Services Offering a full range of products across Personal, Business, Institutional, Funds Management, and Private Banking segments.
Community Contribution Making significant contributions through volunteering programs, a Staff Foundation, and strategic sponsorships in the communities they serve.

In essence, ANZ’s strategic imperative is to be a trusted, inclusive, digitally-enabled bank that supports New Zealand’s financial wellbeing while leading environmental sustainability and honoring Māori cultural values.

Which got me to wondering about the other banks:

Based on my analysis of Westpac New Zealand’s website, here’s their strategic imperative:

Core Strategic Imperatives:

Purpose-Driven Mission: “Taking Action Now to Create a Better Future” This is Westpac’s overarching purpose statement that guides everything they do. It’s not just about banking products—it’s about actively creating positive change for customers, employees, communities, and the broader economy.
Customer Financial Security & Empowerment Their responsibility is “to support our customers to become financially secure.” They aim to help customers manage money well through free financial education, online tools, and workshops.
Comprehensive Sustainability Commitment (ESG Leadership) Westpac has embedded sustainability into their DNA with three major focus areas:

Climate Change: Supporting a low-emissions and climate-resilient transition for New Zealand Human Rights: Respecting and advancing human rights across operations and supply chains Natural Capital: Supporting positive outcomes for nature and environmental conservation

Sustainable Finance Innovation Providing innovative financing solutions specifically designed to support a net zero economy, including sustainable equipment finance loans and sustainable business loans.
Community Partnership & Social Impact A “proud history of working with and supporting local communities throughout New Zealand,” with a focus on creating a society where everyone thrives—not just shareholders.
Inclusive Financial Ecosystem Using “financial expertise to generate positive economic, social and environmental outcomes” for customers and Aotearoa as a whole.
Large-Scale Economic Impact As a major NZ business with 1.5 million customers and 5,000 employees, they leverage their scale to drive systemic change.

Adding …

Key Difference from ANZ: While both banks emphasize sustainability and community, Westpac explicitly frames their purpose as “taking action now”—suggesting a sense of urgency and proactive commitment to transformation. Their sustainability commitments (2027 targets) are formally published and tracked through dashboards and regular updates, indicating a more formalized accountability framework.Get notified

One more - just for kicks

Based on my analysis of ASB Bank’s website, here’s their strategic imperative: Core Strategic Imperatives:

Purpose-Driven Mission: “Accelerating Progress for All New Zealanders” ASB’s fundamental strategic imperative is rooted in the belief that all Kiwi, whānau, businesses, and communities have “the right to benefit from progress.” This is described as their “whakapapa” (genealogy/foundation), indicating it’s integral to their identity.
Three-Stranded Progress Model ASB uniquely frames progress as three interconnected pillars that cannot be achieved independently:

Financial Progress: Helping New Zealanders “get one step ahead financially” every day Social Progress: “Step up when it counts” and make a difference in communities Environmental Progress: Care for the planet and empower a sustainable future

Climate Action & Low-Emissions Transition A major strategic focus is supporting New Zealand’s transition to a “low emissions, climate-resilient economy.” ASB is Toitū Net Carbon Zero certified and actively measures, monitors, and reduces operational greenhouse gas emissions.
Sustainable Finance Innovation Developing products and services specifically to help customers with energy-saving electrification and transition toward net zero. They provide financing options “designed to make sustainable opportunities commercially viable.”
Core Values Foundation (Caring, Integrity, Passion, Courage, United) These five values are deeply embedded and guide how ASB works with customers, communities, and each other—reflecting what they see as essential to their identity.
People-Centric Culture “People are at the heart of everything we do”—with 5,500+ staff and over 1.3 million customers, ASB positions its people and their ability to bring their “whole selves” to work as a competitive differentiator.
Ethical Supply Chain & Responsible Business

Living Wage NZ accredited employer Strict supplier standards against modern slavery and child labour Climate impact reduction expectations throughout the supply chain

Innovation Legacy ASB emphasizes being “one step ahead” in products and service—tracing this back to introducing internet banking to NZ and creating the world’s first digital moneybox for kids. Key Differentiators from Competitors: ASB’s unique strategic position:

Uses Māori cultural framing (“whakapapa”) to ground their purpose, suggesting cultural authenticity Explicitly interconnects the three progress pillars, suggesting they cannot pursue financial gains without addressing social and environmental needs Emphasizes “one step ahead” positioning—innovation is a strategic pillar, not just a tactic Multi-stakeholder responsibility: Balancing outcomes for customers, communities, suppliers, and employees equally

This positions ASB as the most culturally integrated and innovation-focused of the three banks, with a holistic view of progress that goes beyond traditional ESG reporting to make it foundational to how they operate.Get notified when tasks complete or need inputNotify me

And Finally - Kiwibank - the only bank that is actually a Kiwi bank - the rest all Australian owned

Based on my analysis of Kiwibank’s website, here’s their strategic imperative: Core Strategic Imperatives:

Fundamental Purpose: “Make Kiwi Better Off” (with explicit 2030 targets) Kiwibank’s strategic imperative is uniquely structured around three interconnected, measurable goals:

Tamariki are better off: Ensure all children have access to quality financial education by 2030 Kiwi are better off: Help 2 million Kiwi take action to be financially secure by 2030 Aotearoa is better off: Deliver $2 billion of sustainable finance to improve Kiwi businesses by 2030

100% Kiwi Ownership & Profit Retention A distinctive strategic differentiator: “Every cent of our profit stays right here in New Zealand.” This positions profit retention as a core value—profits benefit New Zealand, not overseas shareholders. This is both an ownership statement and a purpose statement.
Financial Inclusion & Accessibility

Low-deposit home loans for first-home buyers Partnership with Ngā Tāngata Microfinance to provide interest-free loans for low-income Kiwi Digital banking support for vulnerable populations Resources for those experiencing financial abuse

Purpose-Led B Corp Certification Unlike other banks seeking B Corp certification, Kiwibank emphasizes this as evidence they “put people and the planet before profit”—suggesting ethics and sustainability are fundamental to decision-making, not added initiatives.
Gender Equality & Living Wage Leadership

First bank in New Zealand to achieve Gender Tick accreditation All employees (including contractors and suppliers) paid Living Wage—a leadership stance on equity These aren’t compliance measures but core to “uplifting the wellbeing of our people”

Sustainable Finance at Scale

$2 billion sustainable finance target for businesses by 2030 Sustainable energy loans for home customers Responsible Business Banking Policy that prioritizes people and planet over profit Partnership with Cogo to help businesses measure carbon footprint

Financial Literacy as Generational Strategy Partnership with Banqer reaches nearly 500,000 students, positioning financial education as a societal investment that will create better future customers and citizens. Key Differentiators from Other Banks: Kiwibank stands apart with:

Specificity & Measurability: All three strategic goals have explicit 2030 targets (tamariki access, 2M Kiwi, $2B finance)—this is concrete accountability, not aspirational messaging Ownership as Strategy: The 100% Kiwi ownership is woven into their purpose—it’s not just corporate structure but part of their identity and promise to New Zealanders People-First Values: Living Wage for all (not just employees) and Gender Tick accreditation are presented as fundamental commitments to equity, not corporate social responsibility add-ons Generational Thinking: Heavy investment in financial education for children suggests they’re building long-term societal and customer value, not just quarterly returns Simpler, More Human Positioning: Where larger banks use sophisticated ESG frameworks, Kiwibank uses simple, relatable language: “make Kiwi better off”—focusing on direct human impact

Overall: Kiwibank’s strategic imperative is fundamentally about inclusive economic empowerment with measurable impact. They position themselves as the bank that puts the nation’s wellbeing (tamariki, Kiwi, Aotearoa) ahead of profit, backed by tangible 2030 commitments and institutional accreditations that verify their claims.

Based on your values of putting people and community first, here’s how I would rank the four New Zealand banks: Ranking (Best to Worst for Your Values): 🥇 1st Place: KIWIBANK - 9/10 Why they win:

Explicit people-first commitments with measurable 2030 targets (2M Kiwi financially secure, $2B sustainable finance) 100% Kiwi ownership means profits genuinely stay in New Zealand and benefit communities Financial inclusion focus: interest-free microfinance, low-deposit home loans, digital banking support for vulnerable people Living Wage commitment extends to contractors and suppliers—showing values aren’t performative Gender Tick accreditation (first bank in NZ)—demonstrating institutional commitment to equity B Corp certification with genuine “people and planet before profit” framing Generational thinking: Financial education partnerships affecting 500k students

Minor deductions (-1):

Newer bank (2002), so less historical track record than established competitors Smaller scale may limit some service offerings

🥈 2nd Place: ASB - 7.5/10 Why they rank second:

Strong three-pillar framework: Financial, social, and environmental progress are genuinely interconnected (not siloed) Innovative thinking: “One step ahead” innovation culture shows they lead rather than follow on values Cultural authenticity: Using Māori concept of “whakapapa” grounds their purpose in local culture Specific value set (Caring, Integrity, Passion, Courage, United) is operationalized Toitū Net Carbon Zero certified and actively investing in climate transition 1.3 million customers = significant community impact at scale

Deductions (-2.5):

Less explicit about financial inclusion/accessibility for vulnerable populations Targets feel less concrete than Kiwibank’s (more aspirational than measurable) Emphasis on innovation occasionally overshadows community-first messaging Part of larger CBA Group (Commonwealth Bank Australia), meaning some profits leave NZ

🥉 3rd Place: WESTPAC - 6.5/10 Why they rank third:

Urgency in messaging: “Taking action now to create a better future” shows genuine commitment Large-scale impact: 1.5 million customers and 5,000+ employees means significant economic footprint Solid sustainability framework: Climate change, human rights, natural capital pillars are comprehensive Community partnerships with genuine depth (volunteering programs, Staff Foundation) Sustainable finance solutions for net-zero economy

Deductions (-3.5):

Generic corporate responsibility language—less distinctive than competitors No B Corp certification or equivalent third-party verification of claims Sustainable investment policy focuses on investment returns as much as impact Targets are vague (“support transition,” “positive outcomes”) vs. Kiwibank’s specificity Large Australian parent company (Westpac Banking Corporation) means profits flow offshore Less emphasis on systemic financial inclusion or accessibility

🏅 4th Place: ANZ - 5.5/10 Why they rank fourth:

Long heritage (1840): 180+ years serving communities creates credibility Scale and breadth: Largest by customer base (nearly 1M), significant employer, major taxpayer Te Ao Māori strategy (“Tākiri-ā-Rāngi”) shows cultural commitment Some good initiatives: Climate financial disclosures, ESG focus, diversity emphasis

Deductions (-4.5):

Most generic articulation of purpose and values among the four No specific targets or measurable commitments (unlike Kiwibank’s 2030 goals) No B Corp certification or third-party values verification Financial services focus (KiwiSaver, investments) somewhat disconnects them from accessibility-first positioning Australian parent company (ANZ Group) means significant profit leakage offshore Less distinctive on financial inclusion or community-first positioning ESG feels like compliance box-ticking rather than cultural integration Longest history sometimes means more legacy thinking vs. innovation

Summary Scorecard: BankScoreKey DifferentiatorKiwibank9/10100% Kiwi ownership + measurable people-first targets + verified B CorpASB7.5/10Innovative, culturally grounded, integrated three-pillar approachWestpac6.5/10Scale of impact, but generic messaging and offshore ownershipANZ5.5/10Longest history, but least distinctive values alignment

The Verdict: If people and community come first for you, Kiwibank is the clear choice at 9/10. They’re:

✅ Explicitly people-focused with measurable targets ✅ 100% Kiwi-owned (no offshore profit leakage) ✅ Verified through B Corp certification ✅ Inclusive toward vulnerable populations ✅ Most transparent about their commitments

ASB is a respectable #2 if you value innovation and cultural integration alongside community impact. Westpac and ANZ, while solid banks, are oriented more toward profit maximization with community responsibility as an add-on rather than foundational.Get notified when tasks complete or need inputNotify meAsk before acting

Guilty? Surely Not? A Quick Chat With Claude.

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 08:42:55 +1200

🔗 The Redacted Smith Transcript

So I 🔗 asked Claude a simple question …

Please only consider this document and no other information. Bottom line - if you were the judge - would you find the defendant guilty or innocent. If guilty - on what counts. For each of those counts - What SHOULD the punishment be, what would the punishment be and what could the punishment be. Please keep succinct.

The Caveat

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: This is one-sided testimony from the prosecutor. A judge would require actual evidence presented at trial, cross-examination, and defense arguments. This deposition alone is insufficient for judgment.

That said, based ONLY on Smith’s testimony here:

The Conclusion

GUILTY ON:

Conspiracy to Overturn the 2020 Election (18 U.S.C. § 371)
- Smith testified they had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” of a criminal scheme
- Described coordinated false statements about fraud, direction of supporters to Capitol
Obstruction of Congress/Certification Process (18 U.S.C. § 1512)
- Directed co-conspirators to make calls to Members of Congress to delay certification
- Refused to stop Capitol violence after becoming aware of it
Willful Retention of Classified Documents (18 U.S.C. § 793)
- Smith testified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago post-presidency
- “Willfully retained” per Smith’s characterization
Obstruction in Classified Documents Case (18 U.S.C. § 1512)
- “Repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal” documents

SENTENCING (per guidelines):

Conspiracy/Obstruction: Should be 10-20 years; Would likely be 5-10 years; Could be 0-20+ years
Classified Docs: Should be 3-5 years; Would likely be 2-3 years; Could be 0-10 years

Total: Likely consecutive sentences totaling 5-13 years

Spring Cleaning

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +1200

Still To Do

On the Blog

Categories: Remove category ‘LongForm’ from Film Review Posts
CSS: Simple Recent Posts - finish styling
CSS: On a phone close up ‘spaces’ on home page
CSS: Sort all home page blog styling
CSS: Get the bullets back
Functionality - Add the ‘Replies’ page back ❓
Functionality - Second Archive Page to pull entire Archive
- going to need JSON/Micro.Blog Help
Import My Instagram. It is time.
Import The ‘Quotespace’ Blog. (Troubleshooting)
Search - resolve PageFind, @sod search, categories, archive et al - way too confusin

Elswhere

Sort my DayONE posts
Wiki Styling
Relaunch Philpin.com
Revise Uses Page and Add Defaults (and hardware?)

Inspirations

Thank you Claude for developing scripts that

Add ‘Long Form’ to all posts called ‘Titled Posts’.
Remove ‘Long Form from all posts categories as ‘MyFilmReviews’ - it just needs to work

Software To Think About

MailBrew
Examples of programming your own algorithm: asking ChatGPT to build RSS feed lists for NBA news without paywalls, or student newspapers at US universities. The speaker’s blog at scripting.com features an innovative blog roll that’s actually a feed reader.
Graft - Craft Document Graph
John Parker’s Musical Thoughts

Its Decision Time

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:11:41 +1200

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

🔗📼 The Clash

Org Charts: Why They Are Wrong

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:24:54 +1200

Let me count the ways - but for now a short primer ….

Wrong - In What They Are

A static snapshot in a dynamic system - Org charts freeze people in place, in a world that’s fluid, adaptive, and always in motion.
An illusion of control - They suggest neat lines of authority, when actual influence flows in networks, whispers, and Slack threads.
A power fantasy - Designed more to reassure executives than to reflect how things really work on the ground.

Wrong - In How They Are

Too hierarchical, too linear - Most charts resemble military command structures in an age that demands collaboration and cross-functionality.
Built top-down, not inside-out - They reflect formal reporting lines, not value creation, lived relationships, or trust pathways.
Exclusionary by design - Contractors, advisors, ecosystem partners, AI tools? Nowhere to be seen, yet often critical to delivery.

Wrong - In the Information They Contain

Titles ≠ capability - Job labels are vague proxies. They reveal little about what someone is great at, trusted for, or actually doing.
Missing the real flows - No view of how decisions are made, who connects teams, or where knowledge is hoarded vs. shared.
Performance blind - They say nothing about value contribution, outcomes, energy, or momentum.

Wrong - In How Work Is Understood

They reduce people to boxes - And forget that work is a web of conversations, motivations, tensions, experiments, and progress.
Ignore emergence and adaptability - Real work happens across silos, shaped by informal leaders, not always those in bold font.
Reinforce outdated logic - Built for predictability and scale, when today’s work is about learning, iterating, and adjusting on the fly.

The Fractalisation of Work

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:09:35 +1200

To understand how the fractalisation of work (doesn’t) work - consider ‘the taxi’, the definition of which is in the process of being redefined as a personalised vehicle that will take you for a to b.

That continues - BUT … it also used to be a place for …

Human conversation - spontaneously - about local gossip, life advice, or even silence. And all without algorithmsmonitoring sentiment.
A helping hand, someone who’d load your luggage, not because it was required, but because that’s what people do.
Navigation expertise by someone who knows the backstreets better than GPS, and magically avoid traffic lines.
The ‘welcome committee’, offering recommendations for where to eat, what to avoid, and how to make the most of your stay.
An interpreter or cultural guide, especially in unfamiliar cities or countries, bridging gaps in language and local norms.
A protector that waited until you got safely inside your home or hotel before driving off.
A confidant that listens to everything from your job woes to relationship breakdowns .. no subscription required.
A fixture of community memory in the form of a driver who knew your parents, remembered your last trip and asked after your kids.
A micro-economy participant, in that they often owned their vehicle, had real agency over hours, routes, pricing, and long-term plans and what they earned was part of the local economy where they plied their trade - no profits siphon off and extracted to the banks of the ride share company.
A professional, who knows that the job isn’t just driving, but care, awareness, and service - all wrapped in experience.

None of which is really provided by the things replacing taxis …

And yes - I know that doesn’t describe all Taxis - but it certainly describes the good ones.

We should all do the right thing by and for our children ...

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 10:09:48 +1200

Not My Words - but those of ‘The 🔗Jax’ - over on 🔗 LinkedIN

(Lightly edited to make sense in a blog post.)

“We should all do the right thing by and for our children - they are our future and deserve to be protected.”

💬 Jax Harrison

Keeping #CHILDREN - babies literally safe online should be #EVERYONE ’s priority. Sadly this causes so much damage - and I am so sad for the loss of this young boy 13 year old -Levi and for the family who lost him.

Maybe Australia has it right.

Children don’t have the wisdom or knowledge to know what is real and what isnt - or how to cope when things go wrong…

Parents are not sure how to explain it or talk to their children about it - the dangers of hashtag#chatbots and #sexbots and #sextortion to a child of 13years old. And not only that - because it is supposed to be safe for them to use the Apps. Is it awkward to tell your 13yr old these things? Yes, but now a more than necessary and urgent conversation to have.

Why? It is because of the consequences of lack of hashtag#safety parameters of private companies - who are larger than many nations - who are deciding the fate of our #CHILDREN and their futures - without the appropriate intervention and guidance from lawmakers and governments or even counsellors. Without full disclosure of what they are allowing.

Do you really think if there was a warning label like on a pack of cigarettes - every time you or your child logged in to the App - if there was a flashing for 30 seconds a warning ‼️ “Use of this app may expose children and others to harmful sextortion, potentially harmful relationship bots, cutting and self harm groups and challenges, radicalisation, bullying, and may cause severe anxiety, self harm and suicidal thoughts … everyone would be so keen on it - NO. Of course not - parents and teens would think twice.

And that’s the smallest step the companies could do. It would cost them nothing … just less children on their platform.

Instead they just take the risk and do nothing to make it better because it doesn’t cost that much to them.

The value of collecting our children’s data is worth more than that. Think about it. Read that again.

Somehow as a human society we are abdicating responsibility of the protection of our …

#childrensrights
#childrensminds
#mentalhealth
#hearts

… to private companies who have #profit first and #safeguarding second.

We cannot trust them to do the right thing - because “when a leopard shows you its spots you should believe them”.

Their actions tell you who they are.

#OnlineSafety prevents hashtag#OfflineHarms and companies like hashtag#Instagram hashtag#Meta can and should do better.

“We should all do the right thing by and for our children - they are our future and deserve to be protected.”

Governance and regulatory accountability and actions don’t hinder innovation they #savelives - our children’s lives.

#thefuturefound
#onlinesafety
#AI
#governance
#regulation
#policy
#children
#stopchildtraffic
#socialmedia

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:14:35 +1200

This is from iAWriter.

Trust Requires Trust. Who Do YOU Trust?

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 13:01:28 +1200

If ‘the future’ is trust.

Who/what - do you trust?

I mean really really trust?

And why?

How many such entities are there?

Now you meet someone outside that 🔗📼 Circle of Trust.

How do you include them in your circle of trust? What are the qualifiers?

If not include them completely - at least for a single transaction?

How many ‘circles of trust’ does the average person need?

You are boarding a plane. How much trust do you need in ‘the system’ that ensures that the pilot is qualified, that there is nobody going to be on board plotting a nefarious action, that nobody has broken into the supply chain for (say) water and poisoned the supply - and so many more things that can go wrong. How many circles of trust do you need to be confident that you can fly safely between two points without an incident?

I definitely trust Jax - but not even she can make those kind of ‘trust guarantees’. I have to trust people that I do not know, that they know something and that something is more reliable than average. Ideally - a LOT more reliable.

Now now flip it - with those considerations in mind - consider a single airline - put yourself in their shoes and ask if they’re going to let you on the plane with your ‘self sovereign identity’ that has been ‘authorised’ by an identity that they have never heard of - much less trust.

So - in order that one of their planes doesn’t suffer an incident - who do they trust and why?

Should they?

This all coming to mind as I read a couple of posts over the holidays that were totally unrelated and yet totally connected.

Separately - still waiting to see how self sovereign identity is going to work. The idealism being concocted in NZ, the UK et al will almost certainly fail (or at best be redefined to suit the outcome).

Phil’s connection to ’Visa thinking’ makes sense - but at some point - somewhere - validation with somebody / something need to be made with a ‘trusted authority’ that is bigger than you - and even 🔗 The Principality of Sealand and other similar places.

That is distributed trust - across a network - not centralised - distributed. But we know where the dominant distributed nodes are on the internet? Don’t we. We know that when we say that TCP/IP is by design decentralised. But we also know that despite this - the internet is in practise increasingly centralised.

Through Access Points
Through DNS
Through Platforms
Through Hosting

Not sure there is going to be that much of a change with DIDs - given the current reality - and even then - careful what you wish for.

There is room for an alternative that demonstrably works. It just doesn’t fit into the model that everybody is talking about which is anyway really only about trusting devices - not people.

Replying To A LinkedIN Post

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:30:40 +1200

My reply to a LinkedIN question was too long for LinkedINs highly advanced tech to support - hence this post »>

🔗 This was the question.

I’ve no idea if this is a generic funnel or one you’re actually using, but let’s start with the fundamental issue: linear funnels aren’t real. Reality is messier. The jump from ‘Appointment Booked’ to ‘Work Completed’ in a single step tells me this is almost certainly generic - which isn’t a criticism of the diagram itself, just a reality check on what it can actually model.

Here’s what concerns me: there’s as much (more>) not asked as asked. You can’t sensibly model a funnel in isolation. Not all SMEs are equal, for starters. Industry matters. Geography matters. Market dynamics matter. Deal size expectations matter … what matters is a long list.

Some will argue that ‘funnels are dead - long live the flywheel’. I’m not in that camp - BUT I am in the camp that you should at least work out intentionally how a flywheel fits in or around your funnel model. They’re not mutually exclusive.

The graphic opens with ‘Lead Comes In’. The first SME question should be how did that lead get there in the first place? That informs everything downstream. You also need to be explicit about qualification - not all ‘leads’ are ‘leads’.

The flow itself is too linear. There are no loops, no decision rules, no explicit criteria for what happens when someone doesn’t follow the ‘happy path’. Reality has friction, objections, false starts, and reversals. In fact the linearity of the model suggests to me that the business is confusing the ‘buyer journey’ of the customer with the ‘sales journey’ of the business.

Most critically, it also seems to assume a one-time transaction. That’s rarely a business model worth optimising for. Where do repeat business, churn, extension sales, retention, cross-sell, and upsell live in your model? If you’re thinking subscriptions or ongoing relationships, the funnel shape changes entirely.

Finally - where’s the data? Today’s numbers and tomorrow’s requirements. If you don’t need much data to manage this funnel, that raises a question about why you’re automating it at all. But if you do need data - which you should - then measurement becomes the whole game. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

And why do I write all this?

Because for me - until you can bottom out all of this - and a whole lot more - there is no point in looking for the ‘ideal’ technology. As I always say ….

Can New Zealand Win? No. Unless it redefines the game.

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 12:16:23 +1200

🔗 Responding to Bill Bennet’s article.

The dependencies are clear - but if the EU, with 450 million people and deep talent pools, is only now waking up to the fact they can’t compete head-on in AI and cloud infrastructure, then NZ’s current posture makes even less sense.

The EU’s defaulted to regulation because that’s what they can actually do. But even that gets framed as geopolitical interference by Washington. They’re playing defence from a position of relative strength.

NZ pursuing direct competition in AI, quantum or advanced chip manufacturing isn’t realistic. More importantly, it’s the wrong game entirely. Our constraints should force us to be smarter, not just smaller versions of what’s happening in ‘The Valley’.

We have genuine strengths if we care to look around … Agriculture. Biotech. Climate tech. These are domains where our size becomes an advantage because we can move faster and stay coherent. They’re built on foundations this country has already established.

From where I’m sitting, I see less of that and more of organisations either chasing every race simultaneously or reinventing the wheel in isolation. It goes all the way to government. Nobody asks the straightforward question: where can we actually win? We’re all chasing whatever we’re afraid of missing. The EU might sustain that scatter. New Zealand has no chance.

We need to stop managing dependencies and choose the fights we can win. Then do them exceptionally well. That’s the part we struggle with, even with our number-eight-wire mentality.

Then again - here’s a win - fiscally a BIG win

Chris Keall reported last week …

Rocket Lab will deliver satellites equipped with advanced missile warning, tracking, and defense sensors to provide global, persistent detection and tracking of emerging missile threats, including hypersonic systems.

Luxon has historically been a big drum basher for RocketLabs - but on this one - so far - silence as far as I can see - including nothing from www.beehive.govt.nz - as surprise given how often they are helf up as ‘a great Kiwi Company’ ..

Maybe it’s how these are going to be used for (apparently) the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture

So I guess we need to first define winning?

In Praise Of Drafts

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 07:58:29 +1200

🔗 In praise of Drafts // @ameripie

… an app by Agile Tortoise (AKA Greg Pierce), remarkably won App of the Year for 2025 at Mac Stories, a full thirteen years after its release.

💯

Apps @ameripie uses with drafts - with my annotations

Obsidian ✅
Things3 ✅
Fantastical
DayOne ✅
Shortcuts - I really should use Shortcuts (more?)
Dropbox - I use it - but not with Drafts * Fastmail
Apple Notes ✅
ChatGPT - I use it - but not with Drafts * Ulysses
Mastodon - not really - my stuff arrived there thanks to Micro.Blog
BlueSky - not really - my stuff arrived there thanks to Micro.Blog
Micro.Blog ✅

PLUS

Reminders
Mail/Spark
Craft
Notes

As I have written before - 99% of my written words (outside of email) start in Drafts.

The Information Gets Its Facts Wrong - Again

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 13:43:45 +1200

The appointment is reminiscent of Meta Platforms’ hiring of former British Prime Minister Nick Clegg as a global affairs executive in 2018 …

💬 Martin Peers - The Information - talking about Osborne and OpenAI

No he wasn’t. He was ‘Deputy’ PM - a bit like ‘Winnie’ and ‘Seymour’ in New Zealand at the moment (a thank you from the dominant party that still couldn’t get a majority on its own - so formed a coalition.)

Nick was so good at his job that in 5 short years as Deputy he took the LibDems from 57 seats to just 8. After which he lost his position, resigned from party leader and a year later lost his local election. After that the Brits made him a ‘Knight’ in the UK and Zuck made him whatever it was called for Meta.

Imagine how far he could have gone if he was a success.

( 🔗 The Link

Tяump and The Tяump Аппаратчик

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:45:23 +1200

Consider that in the wake of the national security announcement from Tяump and The Tяump Аппаратчик

What’s most striking to me about this document isn’t any specific policies, but what it reveals about values. Increasingly, the United States and Europe don’t share them. This reflects a change in America far more than a change in Europe. Trump sees a G-Zero world ruled by the law of the jungle, where might makes right and everything can be bought. For all its flaws, institutional quirks, and bureaucratic sclerosis, the European Union stands for something else: rule of law, liberal democracy, human rights, multilateralism. You can roll your eyes at that list all you want, but it’s the foundation of the entire European project. Heck, it’s why America built the transatlantic alliance in the first place. (The alternative, two world wars, didn’t work out too well for anyone.) And it’s now in direct tension with what Washington is selling.

💬 Ian Bremmer

🔗 Full Piece which also includes this reminder …

The only time NATO’s Article 5 has ever been invoked was by the United States, after September 11, 2001. Every European ally came to America’s defence despite different approaches to free speech, regulation, and countless other policy disagreements. They showed up, fought, and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan.

💬 Ian Bremmer

So … Europe is the enemy, China - despite rhetoric seem to be closer and Russia - with no cards but all the influence - blood brothers.

I would note that …

Together, the EU countries hold more US debt than Japan and China put together - to the tune of $2 maybe 2.5 trillion. - well above twice that of China - and that doesn’t include the UK who is in the same ball park as China all by itself.

All that wringing of hands a few months ago about China selling its debt and now we have this.

Of course - they didn’t.

No economist in this house - but I do wonder when a country - any country - will get to do something radical rather than putting up with this shit.

Where's Waldo

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 13:45:07 +1200

I was going to publish this in my newsletter - for interest it might have - the audience is possibly something with a broader interest, so here it is - and I will link to it from there.

My Blog: has been around a long time. (Well over 10,000 posts - and my first post recorded there in April 2005) - and I know that isn’t everything - because on my hard drive I have an archive folder called ‘blogs over time’ - still waiting to be assimilated.

Beyond that, whatever I post there is automatically routed to;

🔗 Mastodon

🔗 Bluesky

🔗 Threads and even

🔗 Tumblr and no - not Twitter

In this way - you can keep up through your preferred social feed of choice - follow along with your own account - reply and everything is routed back to the mothership.

If you want the best way to follow (IMHO) , then RSS is your friend.

My Wiki: on ‘Structured Thought (newly launched - early stage) can be found at

https://wiki.philpin.com - with its own RSS or JSON

.. and then there are;

my ‘cobbler'**s shoes’ web site at https://philpin.com is under a refurbishment program that I hope to complete soon.

my currently dormant podcast

my public library of public and private documents

… and much more to come.

Just Good Music

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 08:27:01 +1200

My friend (and co founder of the original Just Good Music blog) John Parker sent me an email …

I have found that the number of people that really listen to music is vanishingly small, and I KNOW that you are one of the ones that does, hence my email. Every once in a while I need to reach out and touch base just to know that I’m not insane, it’s the rest of the world that is lost.

And

So you motor along and see cool music videos. and you say"yeah!" and “cool!”. And everyonce in a while, you see one that makes you close your computer just go take a walk. Like… goddamn. This is a goddamn video …

This is that video - and DAMN - he’s right.

🔗📼 Ren

And if you like this - here is Ren’s YouTube channel .. so you can fill your boots.

🔗 Ren on Wikipedia tells a story for sure.

As to John’s throwaway line;

“the number of people that really listen to music is vanishingly small”

Needless to say - I wholeheartedly agree which is why I take solace in podcasts like The Rockenteurs, YouTube channels like Rick Beato and Newsletters like Ted Gioia.

If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.

About This Blog - Part Two

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:45:52 +1200

After this, I asked for “the top 5 themes of the entire blog - and how those themes might be categorised.”

⸻

1. Systems vs People

Category: Human-Centric vs Mechanistic Worlds

This is the spine. You’re constantly examining how systems — corporate, political, digital, economic — drift away from the people they’re supposed to serve. The writing teases out the gap between stated purpose and lived reality. When you pull the thread, it usually reveals misaligned incentives, bureaucratic decay, or the slow capture of human agency by structures not built for complexity.

This theme is broad, but it’s recognisably yours: the quiet insistence that the world works better when humans aren’t an afterthought.

⸻

2. Digital Culture & Identity

Category: The Internet as a Social Mirror

You’ve been tracking digital behaviour long enough to see its cycles. Posts float between the technical (protocols, decentralisation, identity plumbing) and the cultural (“what is the internet doing to us?”). You keep returning to the tension between centralised power and distributed potential — especially identity, agency, and data ownership.

There’s a through-line about the internet revealing who we are, not who we pretend to be — and how platforms distort that mirror for profit.

⸻

3. Organisational Drift & Work Dysfunction

Category: Structural Failure in Modern Work

You dissect how organisations lose the plot: misaligned goals, leadership illusions, management fads, the tyranny of systems of record, and the way noise crowds out thinking. It’s not just critique; it’s pattern recognition. You keep orienting back to: • why clarity erodes • why communication collapses • why strategy gets replaced with theatre

This is the foundation of your People-First and Structured Thought work — the blog was the long preamble to those frameworks.

⸻

4. Politics, Power & Narrative

Category: How Stories Shape Systems

Politics shows up not as team sports but as a study of power mechanics: incentives, misinformation, propaganda, social drift, and institutional self-preservation. You’re tracking how political narratives shape behaviour, how media distort signals, and how systems use confusion as a feature, not a bug.

It’s less “left/right” and more “how does power behave when no one’s watching?”

⸻

5. Personal Reflection as Calibration

Category: Lived Experience as Data

Scattered between analysis are personal markers — moments of doubt, frustration, humour, curiosity. These aren’t diary entries; they work like calibration points. They show why you care about the themes above and how your lens shifted over time.

It’s not nostalgia — it’s grounding. The personal posts remind the reader (and you) that all the system-wide reasoning still begins with lived experience.

⸻

How These Themes Organise Themselves

If you zoom out, the five themes collapse into three overarching categories:

A. Systems Analysis
• Systems vs People
• Organisational Drift
• Politics and Power
These posts decode how things really work — beneath the surface narratives.

B. Digital Life and Identity
• Digital Culture
• Decentralisation
• Protocols, platforms, incentives
This is your long-running preoccupation with how the internet reshapes agency.

C. Personal Lens & Human Anchors
• Reflections
• Observations
• Small signals
They keep the whole thing from becoming a cold systems textbook.

About This Blog

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:36:45 +1200

Before I get there - everything below the line below was automatically generated by an AI (does it matter which one?)

🖇️ Blog.Philpin.com is a combination of imports of older blogs from other personal spaces together with this latest iteration which has been going since around 2017/18? I am in the process of reorganising my different sub domains into a coherent view of my thinking - it will - I guess be an eternal WIP - but slowly we are getting there.

I was interested as to how much of what sits in what I call my ‘Personal Journal’ - was ‘on topic’ - so to speak. (Hard - when the topic is not clear - even to the author.)

That said - Structured Thought is revealing itself as my broad category - and I have a LOT of material that fits there scattered across my hard drive - enter my new Wiki - where I am starting to collect and curate the material.

So - with thanks to @manton and #micro.blog it took no time at all to export my thousands (no exaggeration) of posts and easily as many replies to zip and json files - upload them to a new project and with that said - let the analysis begin …

I asked the AI just to give me a quick 4 paragraphs on its take of what it found in the archive.

Your blog reads like a long, rolling attempt to make sense of systems that don’t behave the way they pretend to. You’re tracking the gap between how the world is structured on paper and how it actually functions in practice — whether that’s tech, politics, identity, business, or the internet itself. Underneath the commentary, there’s a consistent itch: why do institutions keep choosing the path that works against people, complexity, and common sense? And why do we keep letting them? It’s observational, sometimes wry, sometimes annoyed, but fundamentally grounded in curiosity about how things should work if we weren’t so collectively distracted.

Another through-line: you’ve always been a ‘people first, systems second’ thinker, even before you had the language for it. The posts keep circling back to the same tension — humans don’t behave like the tidy diagrams or workflows created to manage them. You poke at corporate theatre, political spin, tech evangelism, and the strange incentives that create distortion instead of coherence. More often than not, you’re tracing the hidden mechanics: the power relationships, the data trails, the business models baked into digital life. There’s a quiet sense of accountability running through it: don’t just look at what a system claims; look at what it rewards.

There’s also a personal arc that floats just beneath the surface. The blog isn’t memoir, but it carries the fingerprints of someone who’s lived enough cycles to spot the patterns early. The tone shifts over time—from early curiosity, to a kind of mid-period frustration, to a more recent strategic clarity. You’ve moved from ‘this is odd’ to ‘here’s the underlying structure’ to ‘and here’s how we might actually fix it.’ The personal reflections act as calibration points, showing how your own lens sharpened while the world got noisier.

And stitched through all of it is the same project you’re running now: trying to build ways of thinking that actually help people navigate complexity instead of collapsing under it. The blog, taken as a whole, is you working that out in public — testing ideas, calling out nonsense, mapping where things go wrong, and nudging toward a more honest, human, future-oriented frame. It’s not a brand play. It’s a long record of someone interrogating the shape of the world and refusing to take shallow explanations at face value.

Call It A Public Service

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 15:04:38 +1200

Interesting🔗 read.

Or is it?

My ten cents so you don’t have to wade through the whole thing.

The report sketches a workplace where confidence has thinned, power has tilted back to employers, and employees are left carrying the weight. Trust in leadership keeps sliding as people call out misalignment, muddled communication, and a shift from occasional layoffs to something closer to a permanent drizzle. Remote and hybrid staff have stalled on career progression, which explains the quiet drift back to offices. AI anxiety is loud enough, but the actual impact on job satisfaction is tiny. Job seekers are taking whatever lands in front of them in a flat hiring market, though early-career workers are finally seeing real wage growth again, particularly in the up-and-coming second-tier cities.

So - same old same? B(S)AU.

Takeaways

Trust in leadership keeps dropping as workers feel disconnected, insecure, and overlooked amid constant micro-layoffs.
Remote workers might love the flexibility, but the career ceiling is showing, which will keep nudging people back into the office.
AI disruption is mostly a storyline for now; the data shows only a faint effect on sentiment.

… no shit Dick Tracy.

And the big reveal?

The real trust gap isn’t RTO or AI, it’s that workers no longer believe leadership acts in their interest.
- Newsflash, they never did.
Cities like Provo and Boise are beating the big tech hubs on early-career wage growth.
- Well yes, after what those hubs were paying, reality was always going to bite.

Then again, it’s Glassdoor. What exactly was I expecting?

Its All About Execution - The Business One - Not The Political One.

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 10:17:49 +1200

In the country of New Zealand there continues to be a lot of wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth and even self flagellation over the ‘Kiwi productivity issue’ - working harder and harder every year and somehow falling further and further behind others on ‘the league tables of productive nations’ … what’s to be done?

It’s a question that is constantly asked and answered in posts all over LinkedIN - everyone seems to have an answer - but ‘execution’ remains lacking. I have also attended a few sessions in the past couple of months where the same questions are asked. The same answers emerge The inaction continues.

I have my theories - not least of which is answered by what will be going on in Aotearoa soon - and will continue until Waitangi Day (ask a local). It’s worse - because there is a lead up to the period - already in full flow as the ‘great wind down' begins to kick in.

Apocryphal? Maybe - but some told me recently that in their “28 years in business they had not once received a purchase commitment after October 28th.” .. he didn’t say - but I am guessing “and never before February 6th”.

Doug wrote ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus in 2016’. This quote just popped up in my feed and prompted this post

It’s taking a while to sink in - though it always does ‘down here’.

This in turn reminded of this observation by Alex Pawlowski over in the land of Substack (coincidentally - ‘Hamish’ one of the two co-founders is a Kiwi).

Alex was riffing on AI …

AI has made ideas abundant. You can generate a strategy, a campaign, a business plan in minutes. The new scarcity isn’t insight — it’s implementation. Execution becomes the strategic moat.

I would argue that has always been the case. I’d be a billionaire if I had a dollar for every time I have been told ‘that idea isn’t original - I visualised that years ago’. The correct reply?

They executed.

(A dollar? What happened to cents? Dollars only accepted because the cent is apparently no more.)

That (execution) is what we are not doing. (Broad sweeping generalisation for sure - but in a nation that prides itself with its ‘edge’ - the blade does seem to have become a tad ‘dull’

Having a coffee this week with someone I saw talking about this very problem last week. I know we are on the same ‘thinking’ page - I wonder how we can move the conversation to action - because down here we do seem to be waiting - for everyone else - to make the move.

If you want to red more of my related ramblings on New Zealand - you can do that

My Mouse Issue Has Been Fixed

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 11:36:02 +1200

🤯

If you have at all been paying attention to this stream you will know that I have been wrestling with a mouse issue. My Trackpad is fine - never an issue. My Magic Mouse is fine - only one issue - in a browser - any browser - I have to swipe and swipe and swipe to scroll down a page - any page. With the trackpad - smooth as silk. Outside of a browser - no problems at all.

I have posted into bulletin boards, logged onto community, changed my user profile, asked Apple - changed every friggin' setting known to humanity - and much more besides - including for the cognoscenti - I even learned about ‘EtreCheckPro’ and installed … ** Nada.**

This morning I happened to read about someone having an unresolvable Mac issue - and so turned to ChatGPT … 🤯 - number two.

I have been a paid user of Claude and ChatGPT for a while - but sometimes I still forget that they are there … so I thought - hell - why not.

it took it 4 or 5 minutes of back and forth to make sure it was happy that I had all the right bits switched on and off - and then we did some testing on sites - and then - Terminal …. so now I knew I was going into uncharted waters.

AND - I kid you not - about another 5 minutes later including a couple of reboots - FIXED - after months of elapsed time and HOURS of actually trying to fix this very weird thing … all done in less than 10 minutes.

This was the final recommendation that turned it around.

No Title …

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 11:05:52 +1200

… needed.

🎥 Red Notice, 2021 - ★★★★

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 06:27:26 +1200

Just rewatched - had forgotten all about it - so good.

Electron Apps On Mac Tahoe

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:40:37 +1200

🔗 Safari 26 Bug Turns Routine Browsing into a Memory Nightmare

.. I have been suffering from this - and I THINK this is the problem.

I originally THOUGHT I had narrowed it down to TextExpander since every time I closed TextExpander the problem seemed to right itself. Escalated to TextExpander - who told me how to do a clean install - which I did - but it didn’t fix the problem - because of course Text Expander isn’t an Electron app.

Props and big kudos to ‘Christa’ at Text Expander for the response time and help. 🙏🏼

Later: TURNS OUT NEVER WAS A TEXTEXPANDER ISSUE - all coincidence.

This morning I gave Claude a list of all my Mac apps - and it tells me that these are the electron ones …

ChatGPT
Obsidian
Signal
Microsoft Teams (the only part of Microsoft allowed on my Mac)
Dropbox
Slack

So I think ChatGPT and Slack are my likely biggest culprits.

I am #KeepingAmEyeOnThis

🎥 Black Bag, 2025 - ★★★★½

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 06:34:50 +1200

Marvellous … so good.

When You Are Ahead Of The Curve It's Hard

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 11:33:10 +1200

I joined Lyris roughly 13 years ago. On my arrival - I had the ‘swag bag’ waiting for me in which was a mouse mat …and 13 years later not only do I still have it but it travels with me to most places I go.

Today I was taken by an article by 🔗 Scott Brinker - famed for his ‘stack maps’ - in which Lyris used to feature.

His articles arrives - and I either miss it - or I scan it - or I read it. On this occasion 🔗 1967 was the summer of love we will remember 2025 as the summer of vibes I read it - and - ummmm - no.

Umm - hell no.

…maybe one day I will follow this up with a more detailed reasoning why - but for now “yeah, no” is the only appropriate response.

Why?

1967 was music, movement, and meaning.

2025? Unless you live in a tech bubble (and clearly many do) I would suggest that when people look back from 2050, and ask how they remember 2025 - I suspect the answers or more likely to fall into categories such as;

That America lost democracy.
That the world slipped further into fascism.
That we tipped past the point of no return on climate.
That AI passed the tipping point - ushering in 50% unemployment. OR
That AI passed the tipping point - and finally - humanity is actually free to live, create, and flourish.

My bet? However it lands, it won’t be remembered as the ‘summer of vibes’.

I am assuming that Scott has one of his tongues in one of his cheeks - so I won’t get too uppity - but just one more question - how many of you look back to 2022 as the year of

The SPACs (and their collapse) - until their 2025 revival
Web3 (remember when that was going to save us?)
Cyber <fill in your ‘phrase du jour» it mainly created headlines)
The restart of the Ukraine War (potential start of WW3)
The end of free money
The arrival of ChatGPT

.. and this was just 3 years ago

That said - BIG doff of hat to Lyris CMO and all round lovely man - 🔗Alex Lustberg for being 15 years ahead of tech culture and capturing ‘vibe’ as part of The Lyris culture.

I Am A Patriot

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 15:42:25 +1200

This post is extracted from something I received from my friend 🔗 Randall Rospond - over on Maui.

He writes …

I first became aware of this song in 1989 when I purchased the cassette of Jackson Browne’s ‘World in Motion’ … and it spoke to me deeply then and has throughout the years.
It speaks to me more these days in the midst of America’s great lying disaster in the White House and the ruin of what I believed the USA had always ‘tried’ to stand for. Freedom. The song was written by Little Steven … and released on his Disciples of Soul album 1984. With this … I pray some sanity , rule of law , integrity , honesty and compassion return to America and the world … asap. … peace and aloha Randall

🔗🎵Jackson Browne 1989

🔗🎵Little Steven 1984

🔗🎵Jackson Browne … recent performance

🔗🎵Kris Kristofferson Live @ Farm Aid 1990

Lyrics :Ben Harper’s website 2025

Surveillance - It's Getting Worse.

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 15:15:47 +1200

Ticketmaster - for it is they that own ‘Moshtix’ now have in THEIR system MY full and legal name that ‘must match’ the name I used to book my tickets, my phone number, my email, which city and country and zip code I live in - all of which was ‘needed’ as I booked tickets for a concert. Quite why they needed all that is unclear - because even the ID ‘enshitification’ stuff is their ‘information grab’ doesn’t solve the problem of scalping - they are just forcing data out of people - the bad guys have ways round it.

This all came to mind as I read 🔗 this from Don Marti - after he read this from Doc Searls.

Doc is a personal story - the key one to read is Don’s where he summarises surveillance ‘myths and the reality’.

I particularly liked this one …

surveillance myth: small businesses want social media advertising
reality: they wanted social networking and got switched over. Policy changes that limit surveillance will make independent businesses better off.

.. but the others are just as important.

Which is all currently high in my mind - because I am reviewing a new app that someone has recommended to me - and on their web site they write ( I paraphrase and add bold)

… a B2B marketing company that helps businesses find and close high-value customers faster by identifying which companies are most likely to buy before they raise their hand. They use AI and data signals to spot early intent, then deliver targeted ads and personalised outreach to decision-makers at those companies. Their model blends analytics, account-based marketing and sales activation to reduce waste and boost conversion.

I wonder how they do all that if they aren’t into surveillance … which as you know - I am not a big fan of … back to Don

surveillance myth: content is fungible, targeting algorithms are uniquely valuable.
reality: expert brands such as King Arthur Baking and Tieman Tire have product and service knowledge that differentiates them, and that the company can keep and build on.

The problem with that reality is that it takes time - and most people want the shortcut.

The Gorge, 2025 - ★★½

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:36:51 +1200

What was I thinking? I knew it wasn’t my kind of movie. And still I watched and … yeah. No.

🎥 The Gorge, 2025 - ★★½

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:36:51 +1200

What was I thinking? I knew it wasn’t my kind of movie. And still I watched and … yeah. No.

Part Two Of The ‘Ages’ Series

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 15:34:01 +1200

If you are keeping track of - the second part of my ‘Ages’ series has just been published on Substack.

The Age of Experience is rising even as the Age of Reason declines. Not to erase it, but to end its monopoly. Power is shifting from rigid logic and control to lived insight, emotional depth, and adaptive thinking, where success depends on how well you sense, respond, and connect. How then does Business adapt to survive? It must relearn its purpose: to serve people. To feel as well as think, to listen as well as plan, and to treat people not as inputs to optimise, but as meaning-makers to support. A feeling business? How? Well that’s down to the people in the business.

🔗 Read ON

Echo Valley, 2025 - ★★★

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 19:36:53 +1200

It was ok. Something to watch. Didn’t like ending.

🎥 Echo Valley, 2025 - ★★★

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 19:36:53 +1200

It was ok. Something to watch. Didn’t like ending.

📺 Dept. Q ★★★★

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 22:43:24 +1200

Really, Really, Really Good. Totally out of left field. AND Nice job of building the cast and the backstories in parallel. Highly recommend.

Dept. Q on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

📺 Dope Thief ★★★

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 22:12:46 +1200

Definitely solid - a little slow at times - but work with it - it’s a good one

Dope Thief on 🔗 Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/nz-herald-news-rss-feeds/SOA2EBUD5L72DYXMP3A267XOKI/

Leaving This Thought

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 17:03:45 +1200

The straight-line, box-ticking path to the finish line belongs to the Age of Reason. And good riddance. An age when most of humanity tried to shape the universe in their own image, then crushed its complexity into two-dimensional metaphors.

The Age of Experience doesn’t flatten, it folds. The grids morph into swarms of tesseracts, truly seen only in equations, never in full. Creativity spirals into infinite fractals. Community pulses - unpredictable, electric, impossible to ignore. Collaboration completes the pattern break - thriving in asymmetry.

And somewhere in that beautiful mess, we finally admit: the world never - ever - fit into three dimensions, let alone two.

Are Blogs Dead?

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 13:00:00 +1200

A short chat last week sparked a familiar question:

“Is blog even the right word anymore? Do people still use them? Isn’t the whole thing outdated?”

Yes. Yes. And no.

You’d be forgiven for thinking blogs died off, especially if your online life happens on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram - like most of the world. Even mainstream media barely mentions them. And yet, nearly every news outlet runs a blog. They just don’t like to call them that. More on that in a moment.

For now, if you’re reading this, you’re either on a blog or using a feed reader. So yes blogs are here and relevant - because you wouldn’t be reading this if it was irrelevant. Would you?

Some quick history.

The oldest continuously running blog is 🔗 Links.net, started by Justin Hall in 1994. It’s still live, though ‘regular posting’ is clearly not its hallmark. One post this year, nothing since last February. But still: there.

A more famous long-hauler? 🔗 Scripting News, from 🔗 Dave Winer, the guy behind RSS and podcasting. He also started in 1994. Justin might’ve gotten there first, but Dave’s still publishing like clockwork. Double-digit post counts, most days. No contest on stamina.

But this isn’t about nostalgia. It’s not a leaderboard. It’s about blogs:

Are blogs still here?
Are blogs still relevant?
Why do people think blogs are dead?

Are blogs still here?

I did a rough count this morning: about 600 million blogs exist globally.

The internet hosts ~1.9 billion websites.
A third of those are blogs, if you include personal sites, company blogs, and microblogs.
WordPress powers over 450 million sites—most with a blog.
Other platforms (Blogger, Ghost, Micro.blog, Substack, etc.) add millions more.
Even LinkedIn Articles, Substack newsletters, and YouTube community posts blur the lines.

Yes, newsletters too. Every Substack is a blog in disguise. The ‘email’ you get is just a post, sent to your inbox. Substack simply stopped calling them blogs. That doesn’t make them something else. (Same for Medium, Ghost, Micro.Blog) - the idea of a newsletter is a push to an email address (or app) - a blog (through its RSS feed) is also a push - just not to your email - but to your app of choice and there are many to choose from;

MetNewsWire, Feedly, Reeder and Readwise to name just fiur that I use (it’s a sickness - it doesn’t have to be this way. One is fine.)

So yes, blogs are very here. Many are quiet, some unread, but together, they form the internet’s chaotic chorus. And now and then, you catch something brilliant.

So what’s the problem?

Discoverability. Let me show you.

The New Zealand Herald, one of our local papers. 🔗Here’s their ‘blog’ page, but don’t try finding an RSS feed for it. It isn’t there - BUT - they do keep RSS feeds tucked away over here:

… ten different feeds, but none for the blog. Helpful. NOT. (And it’s been there since at least 2017.)

Worse, click one of those RSS links and you’ll see … code. Which looks like gibberish unless you know what you’re looking at.

But if you’ve got a feed reader, it’s gold. You copy the link, paste it into your app, and boom—custom news stream, no algorithm required.

The screen shot below is from ‘Reeder’. I’ve got all ten Herald feeds in one tidy folder. Local news, technology, business, whatever. It’s fast, focused, and completely under my control.

So why bother? Why not just visit the Herald’s site?

Because one feed reader can hold hundreds of sources. I don’t browse around - I bring the good stuff to me. It’s the difference between wandering through multiple stores and supermarkets - with car rides between - and still not finding things, definitely missing them and getting frustrated versus receiving a curated box delivered daily to your door step AND you are the one doing the curation (no algorithms) AND you can discover other curated feeds that you can also follow.

Of course, the Herald is a business. They pay journalists. They want ad clicks and subscriber logins. Fair enough. But their reluctance to promote RSS (or blogs more generally) feels less like innovation, more like a gate.

Are blogs still relevant?

If they’re not, then:

600 million websites are a waste of space.
Most of the media is irrelevant.
And people’s voices don’t matter.

Meanwhile, if blogs are irrelevant, then:

Facebook is relevant.
TikTok is relevant.
LinkedIn is relevant.

That’s the supposed trade. But it’s not a fair one. Relevance isn’t binary. It depends on context—and trust.

Why do people think blogs are dead?

Because tech giants and media companies want them to be - because both want you to stay on their sites - that is how they make money. BUT, you can make money without lock in. But that is a different topic.

If you read everything on LinkedIn or Facebook, you stay on LinkedIn or Facebook. That’s the whole game: lock-in. Get you scrolling, keep you scrolling, make it feel like you never need to leave. Blogs don’t play that game. They sit outside the walls.

And that makes them dangerous - in the best way.

This is part one of a very long post - trying to decide if I should publish the rest?. What do you think.

📺 The Big Door Prize ★★★

Sat, 31 May 2025 17:19:58 +1200

I dunno - wouldn’t go out of my way. Been watching off and on for the last few weeks just to let the brain drain.

Series 1 ★★

I started it way back in the day and it fell off the watch list and ver missed it. Recently rediscovered - and sure.

Series 2 ★★★

Definitely better - definitely liked the characters more - but again - not too much to write home about.

The Big Door Prize on 🔗 Reelgood

📺 Your Friends and Neighbours ★★★½

Sat, 31 May 2025 17:12:40 +1200

Yeah. Good. Never saw Mad Men - but I like how he can be ‘smooth, suave and sophisticated’ one minute and so ‘quickly’ switch to down and out. It started slow - for me - and towards the end was waiting for the next episode.

Good life ~~lessons~~ thoughts to boot.

Your Friends and Neighbours on 🔗 Reelgood

🔗🎙️ This podcast is from Decoder

About Those PE Companies

Sat, 31 May 2025 16:37:11 +1200

If you are a regular reader of this blog - you will know that I am no financial expert. I haven’t even played one on TV - BUT - fascinated by it since the people in finance are (too?) often the one that dictate the funds available to do what I think businesses need to do - focussing too much (IMHO - on cost not value) .. but lets move on.

Today’s topic - PE. Which is NOT the same as VC. Not at all.

Today, I’m talking with journalist Megan Greenwell about her new book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. It comes out June 10th. It’s fantastic and maddening in equal measure. I highly recommend it.

💬 Nilay Patel - (Decoder)

It is - not unnaturally - US centric - and there, for sure, the problem has been growing since KKR and Nabisco back in the 80s. (Made famous by Bryan Burrough’s Barbarians at the Gate book at the time.

Moreover, there are plenty of people far more qualified than I to fill you in on PE. But I can’t resist setting a little scene …

Though the podcast went into the history and problems of PE in the US, it did not explore one of the more insidious aspects of US PE companies - the ‘roll up’.

Example, if you have a pet, you know who your local vet is … BUT - you may not know that between 30 and 50 percent of those ‘local’ veterinary clinics are now owned by a PE company (sorry - hard to get the percentage more specific - but that is also why this can happen). This? Yes - that ownership was just 10%, 10 years ago.

In 2020, NONE of the top 30 CPAs had taken any PE money. In 2025, 50% of the top 30 companies in the U.S.A. are either wholly owned or partially owned by PE.

Today, somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of ALL PE investments is into the US ‘consumer services’. Consumer Services is primarily what we call ‘Hospo/Supermarkets’ in New Zealand.

Which brings me to my point. Our language - MY language has been for years; ‘Buy local.’ ‘Buy from the ‘little guy’.’ ‘Support your local community.’ I believe that this idea is very important in New Zealand - but if this takes off in New Zealand - how will we know who is REALLY local?

Case in point …

Transport … I have pushed against Uber since they started - and since arriving in New Zealand - pushed harder - pointing out that for every dollar spent on an Uber takes 25%(ish) not just out of the pockets of the taxi business - but out of the country - because Uber is essentially a Californian Tech company. Fast forward to today and .. scooters.

When I got to Auckland Uber (via Beam) and Lime were the two scooter companies that I was aware of. Beam got thrown out for being ‘🔗 naughty’ and then there was one - ruling the waves until the end of last year when contracts were renewed and ‘Flamingo’ appeared. Look at their site and they describe themselves as being funded by ‘Private Equity’ - but drill in, there is no significant company in there that I can see - just a cabal of local (Kiwi) business people who seem to like Jacksen Love’s idea and invested. TBC - this is GREAT - I am not saying all PE is bad. And giving Lime a run for their money - I am in.

So what about New Zealand - are we going to follow the US - or be different?

I always hope and want for different, but I remain dubious.

In NZ, the majority of PE are locally owned companies (maybe up to 20 of them) and less than a handful of International companies. (3?)

It wouldn’t be fair to measure the number against the US, which operates at a radically different scale to New Zealand - so how about a ‘per capita’ measure.

Turns out that

in the US there are around 18 PE companies per million people in the U.S.A.
in New Zealand, there are around 4 PE companies per million people

In New Zealand - PE is roughly 4 times the size of the VC industry - pretty much the same ratio as in the US.

I have no idea of the real power and influence of PE in New Zealand. Certainly the VC world is tiny compared to the US and not really made up of significant players - and valuations are a lot lower than what can be achieved in the US - which is part of the reason we tend to lose out great ideas and companies to the US. (Xero. RocketLabs. Soul Machines. Auror and … and .. and - still it is going on - most recently a tiny little company with big ideas - Grw.ai exported themselves to San Francisco.

So - we do need to grow up - and value ~~properly~~ competitively. Otherwise - who are we kidding. BUT, if we do do that- how do we avoid the ‘greed trap. How do we avoid VCs and worse BIG PEs taking over our local businesses?

Final case in point…

Optimal Workshop - cool company down in Wellington, took a 🔗 PE investment of $10,000,000 (Kiwi) in 2022 from Pioneer Capital - Pioneer are a local PE company - all good.

Here’s the thing. OW are in a very busy and focussed space (depending on how you cut the cloth) and Thoma Bravo - one of the larger US based PE companies ($US184 Billion in assets under management) - just before and just after the OW investment dropped well over 200 times that on a couple of their ‘competitors’ (its complicated) and merged them.

Customer experience is mission critical to organizations, and the combined company will be well-positioned to further market expansion, accelerate innovation, and provide even greater insights to its customers.

💬 A.J. Rohde, Senior Partner at Thoma Bravo

🔗 Pioneer meanwhile owns a majority stake in OW ….


(a share I can't reconcile based on publicly available information - because even a 50% stake would mean a valuation of 20Kiwi - post money - which would point to a revenue of 5Kiwi at a 4x multiple - but any public numbers (none of them from OW) had revenue at 5 to 7 million US - close to double.

BUT - whatever the story - it is not a large number if Thoma wanted to buy them - particularly when you look at their customer base and their ability to grow globally from Wellington. Imagine the possibilities if they were on Market Street, San Francisco?

Pioneer could easily collect a 5 times multiple to their investment from just 3 years ago if Thoma Bravo made them an offer, New Zealand would lose another great company, but the investors? They would be just fine. See how that goes? (Assuming that the New Zealand Commerce Commission approved it - they have stopped such sales before.)

All hypothetical of course, though in the USA it would be a slam dunk decision (apologies for the Basketball reference). But this is the conundrum.

Or is it? What do you think?

📺 The Studio ★★★

Thu, 29 May 2025 07:20:57 +1200

I try hard to like Seth Rogen but for some reason, for me, there has never been a slam dunk. This was no exception. Definitely not a dud, but definitely more than a few misses.

Series 1 ✅

There were definitely highlights - but the fact I watched it episode by episode as it came out and I was never thinking ‘when is the next drop’(?) .. was telling. Missing a week completely and watching a double show - even more so. Not a loser - but I guess Seth is just not my cup of tea. The Good News? I did get to the end. Unlike ‘Platonic’ - which I just rediscovered and found the first three episodes marked watched and I couldn’t tell you a thing about them.

The Studio on 🔗 Reelgood

🔗 The Dawn of Mediocre Computing - Venkatesh Rao

The Dawn of Mediocre Computing

Sun, 25 May 2025 10:28:47 +1200

I am back on this topic again.

In my world, Venkatesh Rao’s thinking on tis topic is front and center. Posting this now - because In other circles I found myself once more referencing his post from 2022 …

A selection of quotes

Mediocre computing is computing that aims for parity with mediocre human performance in a realish domains where notions of excellence are ill-posed.

And ..

Excellent computing is computing that aims to surpass the best-performing humans in stylized, closed-world domains where notions of excellence are well-posed.

And ..

In the weird but realish world we live in, mediocre is actually harder than excellent, and way more useful.

And ..

In stylized domains like chess and Go, humans have to deliver exceptional performance (ie good enough to make money at them by winning championships) to ensure mediocre survival in the real world (enough prize money to live on).

There is a lot more besides, but I just realised that this journal had no connections back to this post - despite it being in my top 5 of VR posts (if number of references I have made is the measurement).

There’s also these ..

His index to the 🔗 Mediocre Computing series.
His index to a sister series; 🔗 Mediocratopia

Oh - and this ..

🔗 Survival of the mediocre-mediocre

🎥 Fountain of Youth, 2025 - ★★★½

Sat, 24 May 2025 19:25:48 +1200

Guy Ritchie .. who’s going to say no. Good cast. Fun story .. in the class of National Treasure and all the rest.

📺 Travelers ★★★

Tue, 20 May 2025 18:03:00 +1200

Been following this show for a while, finally nailing the last episode of Series 3 over the weekend. Good enough to keep me coming back .. not good enough to have me binge watch, but a solid show with hat tips to the usual tie Traveller conundrums. I did very much like the very last part of the final episode. Nicely done.

There is a term in the industry for what I call ‘fillers’ .. Rob Long recently spoke of the technical name .. but basically an episode primarily made up of b roll .. so costs kept down.

You kinda know when that goes down … but there was one episode that took it to the next level … season 2 .. episode 7 .. called 17 minutes … presumably a scene that from beginning to end took 17 mnuyes .. but we watched it for 44 minutes .. because Time.

Series 1 ✅

Series 2 ✅

Series 3 ✅

Travelers on 🔗 Reelgood

🔗It’s not the colour of the pill that counts

Nonnas, 2025 - ★★★

Thu, 15 May 2025 21:05:38 +1200

It’s Vince Vaughan so of course I checked it out. Not his best, formulaic - think I’ve seen the story a few times before - but cute nonetheless.

🎥 Nonnas, 2025 - ★★★

Thu, 15 May 2025 21:05:38 +1200

It’s Vince Vaughan so of course I checked it out. Not his best, formulaic - think I’ve seen the story a few times before - but cute nonetheless.

No Title Needed … But This Still Is A Title

Thu, 15 May 2025 09:12:22 +1200

Poking Wordland …

Reminder to self.

This is routing to Philpin.com which is currently flagged as an AI experiment. This is not an AI experiment.

🎥 The Wild Robot, 2024 - ★★★★

Sat, 10 May 2025 20:07:22 +1200

Home alone and had heard good things. Just lovely. Just wonderful. And yes, I cried.

🎥 The Wild Robot, 2024 - ★★★★

Sat, 10 May 2025 20:07:22 +1200

Home alone and had heard good things. Just lovely. Just wonderful. And yes, I cried.

About Isaac Asimov

Sun, 04 May 2025 12:27:33 +1200

Happened to be talking about Asimov to a friend of mine the other day. We both had read ‘everything’ he had written - and certainly for me I know that will not be true, but definitely I hit the 45 to 50 books range - I can still picture them on my my book shelf in my teenage bedroom.

BUT - we both agreed that the reading was a long time ago - and not sure if they would stand the test of time - based on writing quality (?) Not sure that is the right term.

So interesting to see this today …

among Isaac Asimov’s many faults, his total lack of interest in characters meant some deft footwork by the writers of the Foundation television series.

💬 William Gallagher

Yes - that is probably it. I don’t recall him being an ‘emotional’ writer, which as a teen I didn’t miss. It was the ideas that I was after.

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 16:18:37 +1200

A Public Policy Framework

🔗 The Thought

Another doc prompted by something on LinkedIN - this one around a twenty year old doc called ‘Public Policy Framework for the New Zealand Innovation System’

I was curious as to

how well we had done - not well.
how well we could do - hard - but not impossible
how much the analysis connected to my own experiences and thinking - a lot

While down here, I bang on this a lot - as do others. It never seems to take hold. For whatever reason(s).

Get The Full List of The Articles 🖇️🔎 Hand Crafted With Love

📺 Black Mirror ★★★★

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 12:30:28 +1200

7 series since 2011 - and only just getting round to reviewing as I just finished Series 7. In recent series, I felt that whilst some were still good, IMHO a number of episodes lacked real punch. Series 7? Finally - back to the brilliance that is Charlie Brooker.

From the same year if I recall … Gliding through the fucking matrix.

I am putting this up here and need to come back and remind myself of 1 to 4 - but if you want some real guidance in the meantime, just today Noahpinion published this … 🔗 In which I review almost every episode of Black Mirror

Finally Charlie back on FULL FORM

Series 1

Series 2

Series 3

Series 4

Series 5

★★

Series 6

★★1/2

Series 7

★★★★

Black Mirror on 🔗 Reelgood

🔗 No review when I watched the first series in 2022 - but still managed to reference it. And definitely was positive.

📺 Severance ★★★★

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 22:15:15 +1200

Series 1

Series 2

And … well .. ummm . Everybody was so ‘OMG’ .. and best show Eva and … not a negative review - and definitely a great show - but no. Not the greatest. There - I said it.

Severance on 🔗 Reelgood

🔗 Pattern Breakers | Breaking The Mold

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 07:12:20 +1200

Time To Self Medicate

🔗 The Thought

Is Silicon Valley a destination, or just part of the journey?

… and where is it anyway?

… oh and why, despite the best attempts, countries all over the world seem to fall short of replicating it.

Get The Full List of The Articles 🖇️🔎 Hand Crafted With Love

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 21:05:21 +1200

Pattern Breakers | Breaking The Mold

I don’t particularly recommend books.

I recommend people.

Mike Maples is one of those people.

Get The Full List of The Articles 🖇️🔎 Hand Crafted With Love

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 13:10:01 +1200

Charity Is Doomed To Fail

🔗 Charity Is Doomed To Fail

If you don’t know who Dan Palotta is - you should.

This is a short introduction to him, his ideas and his work and how it ties to something I wrote nearly 10 years ago.

We built 🔗 The Future Found with these principles at core.

Get The Full List of The Articles 🖇️🔎 Hand Crafted With Love

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 10:24:59 +1200

Work Life Balance

🔗 The Thought

Chris Lockhead dropped a post on LinkedIN regarding retirement.

To me retirement is the macro version of the daily work-life balance.

It solves the wrong problem really well.

Get The Full List of The Articles 🖇️🔎 Hand Crafted With Love

More by Pulp

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:12:17 +1200

Found the link via Daniel Savage - thank you - it has been a while - so did not see this one coming. As I type not fully released (June) … but Pulp ✅ Jarvis ✅ Richard Hawley ❌ .. as far as I can see is not on the record - but there seems to be one of his songs on it - we don’t know which one right now. (Well try to come back to this an update when it gets fully released.

The Overview by Steven Wilson

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 07:51:11 +1200

This album is currently featured on 4 public lists on AlbumWhale - all mine!

BUT - this not exactly a reshare - but an opportunity for you to click on this link and hear the Orchestral Version of The Overview.

Songs Of A Lost World by The Cure

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 09:30:15 +1200

Always loved The Cure. First studio in 16 years. My thanks to Patrick Rhone for highlighting this. As he writes

It’s fantastic. Both classic and modern at the same time.

For me - his voice is definitely not what it was - but that would be hard - he's still got it.

Life, Death And Dennis Hopper by The Waterboys

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 23:46:37 +1200

ALWAYS loved The Waterboys. This made me sit up - an entire album dedicated to Dennis Hopper - where the music itself moves through the years of Hopper’s life.

📺 Adolesence ★★★★

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:23:02 +1200

One that seems to have it a global nerve. It seems like EVERYONE is watching it - so of course I had to. Very Good. Two points to make.

✅ 4 episodes - because no more needed.

✅ The flow. Each of the 4 episodes was done in a single take. Extraordinary. The camera follows a person and tracks the story flow as the cast moves around and engages with each other and the camera moves you to the next part of the story as the character on screen engages with that person. If you are movie buff - think Birdman and 1917 with one difference - this seems to have been a real single shot, not a post shoot stitch.

Definitely watch it. and any young people you know.

Adolescence on 🔗 Reelgood

📺 Reacher ★★★

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:08:52 +1200

All 3 series have been solid and fun. Not getting better, Not getting worse - but I have to say Alan Ritchson is waaaay better casting than Tommy Cruise for the role.

Series 1 💯

✅

Series 2 💯

✅

Series 3 💯

✅

🔗 The Mediocrity of Modern Google

The Future Of Work

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 10:49:40 +1200

If you haven’t read 🔗📚 Ollie Henderson’s Future Work/Life you should. Excellent.

This particular quote reminds me of something that Jason Fried wrote in one of his books ..

New technologies tend to imitate the old until people figure out what they’re really meant to do. Early websites were brochures. Early cars looked like horse-drawn carriages. Early TV shows were radio shows with pictures.

💬 Jason Fried

So too work. We ‘broke’ work about 5 years ago - but slowly people (Corporates) are ‘fixing it’ (As in making us all go back to our old ways.) This is because they are still looking at work through the lens of the brochure/horseless carriage. It will be a while before we break it again - BUT - it will be broken but only once we have truly unpacked how the new world of work works.

I’ve got ideas. I’ve got people. I’m excited for the future.

On Om

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 23:29:44 +1200

But here’s the thing about tech – and I’ve been saying this for years – technology’s self-obsolescence is a more effective regulator than any government agency. Google, despite its trillion-dollar market cap and infrastructure advantages, risks becoming the first of the mega-caps to fade into irrelevance as the internet evolves beyond the “10 blue links” paradigm that made it a giant.

Me - never been overly into the land of Google. Yes - I have an account - and of course I have Google Drive - but it is not my ‘go to’ - unless I am forced into it because a business I am working with has decided it hates Microsoft and has enabled Google. I do think it is hard to beat their ‘office suite’ - for the collaboration part of it - BUT I would never consider writing a doc or knocking out a spreadsheet on Google if I wasn’t expecting somebody to be collaborating with me.

In my world …

~~GoogleSheets~~ Airtable

~~GoogleDocs~~ Craft

~~GMail~~ AppleMail/Spark mainly running my own domains in some data center

~~Google Search~~ Perplexity

~~GDrive~~ iCloud/Dropbox

~~GooglePhotos et al~~. Apple

What else do people use Google for - I forget.

📺 Just One Look ★★

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:38:15 +1200

It’s a Harlan Coban. It should have been great. It wasn’t. I am increasingly finding that his stuff falls into 2 star or 4 star. This is the former. I didn’t care about the people. The mystery wasn’t really that much of a mystery.

Yeah … Nah.

Just One Look on 🔗 Reelgood

🖇️ After one episode I wrote:

📺 The Residence ★★★★½

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:32:00 +1200

Should it be 5 stars?

Probably because it is quite simply an absolute spectacular gem.

🎬 Cordelia Cupp is my new hero. Absolutely F A N T A S T I C stuff. The writer Paul William Davies is masterfully channeling David Hare’s ‘rapid exchange’ in the dialogue and Uzo Aduba is brilliant in the role.

It’s a Shonda Rhymes production - and additional cast hat tips to ‘Giancarlo’ for playing the dead guy, Al Franken playing ~~himself~~ a Senator and Jane Curtin who knew all along? But really a wonderful cast, story, set up.

Yes it’s a ‘whodunnit’ - but that isn’t the point.

The Residence on 🔗 Reelgood

🔗 (The) Automattic Operating System | Matt Mullenweg

Times They Are A Changing

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:24:42 +1200

Drafted while on my travels a couple of weeks ago …. Finally posting it ….

While there were 60 or so people in the ‘pre approved’ TSA line .. for some strange reason there were maybe 3 of us in the non pre approved line. Plain sailing right? Not so fast.

My computers could stay in the bag .. my shoes could stay on .. but my jacket and belt had to come off. #whatever … oh and empty your pockets. I did. Oh .. and take off your shoes (see earlier instruction). I walked into the scanner … and the alarms went off … bugger … had left my phone in the rear pocket of my jeans.

Off it went to get scanned. Meanwhile I now need to be ‘rescanned’.

I was told to stand to the side so i didn’t block the way. I looked behind me .. nobody there.

Eventually some dude appears and I am manually scanned. In a very rigorous, thorough and intimate way. (Though I was allowed to keep my clothes on and no anal probes were used.) Still nobody in my line .. so I asked .. why not just rescan me with the machine?

Because you fucked up

.. replied the Federal TSA agent.

Right then.

All done and I went over to collect my stuff off the conveyor. All there .. no phone. No people. No bags coming through STILL no phone. Eventually they tell me to go to a different line to get my phone.

Thankyou …

In the big scheme of things - really - who cares - except ..

All of this in a little airport called Palm Springs. Not NYC. Not DFW. Not SFO. Not LAX .. but Palm Springs. I guess the TSA wannabe disease is spreading.

Imagine how you will be treated in a big airport if you make one step out of line - much less the treatment you are going to receive that is actually being reported (though not that much in the mainstream media).

The People’s OS

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 12:48:18 +1200

Back in the archives of People First I used to talk about ‘The People’s OS’. 🔗 Here for example. It sat together with something that I also called HumanIT. In many ways playful ideas on a tech first world that even then was apparent - much less today. (Hat tip to my friend Jeff Orgel who gave me ‘HumanIT’.) (And now you know why I started ‘People First’.)

Reading this today makes me think that this movement might just be an idea whose time has finally come … (another hat tip - this one to ‘Victor’.)

Too early to talk about what I was doing one day last week - BUT - reading this totally resonated for me and let me start to explain why and then - when ready - I will come back at another time and in another post to talk about what I was doing.

BTW - I am increasingly a big fan of Matt and his thinking. (It started with him taking a stand against bullies) … and yes - I know I am ‘at odds’ with a number of readers on that one - but that’s ok. Right?

Vive la différence

At Automattic, the most important product I work on is the company itself. I’ve started referring to it as the “Automattic Operating System.” Not in the technical sense like Linux, but the meta layer the company runs on. The company isn’t WordPress.com or Beeper or Pocket Casts or any one thing. I’m responsible for the culture of the people who build those things, building the things that build those things. It’s our hiring, our HR processes, our expenses, the onboarding docs; it’s all of the details that make up the employee experience — all the stuff that shapes every employee’s day-to-day experience.

💬 Matt Mullenweg

There are too many buzz word applications with throw away thinking that circulate the interwebs for my taste - and I do what I can (a single voice in a cacaphony of band waggon jumpers) to stop that. BUT the Automattic Operating System is not one of those - it really is a concept that resonates.

A full ‘4π Steradian’ piece of thinking.

(Seperate thought - 🔗 this is the Inc piece that Matt is referring to in his article.)

Looking 👀

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:16:53 +1200

Restaurant? Or Art?

It's Incredible How Supposed 'Pros' Just Don't Get It.

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:19:30 +1200

🔗 How Long Can the Apple TV+ Experiment Sputter On?

🔗 Apple Losing Over $1 Billion A Year On Streaming

And still they don’t get it.

In business there is a concept called channel attribution where they try to tie the expenses of email, social, web site, collateral, inside sales, field sales …. You name it .. to sales - and then leaders of those departments attempt to win more budget for their channel because that channel will give the best ROI. #Bollocks

Back in ’96 a little company started up - its intention was to be the solution to omni channel attribution. Bought by Adobe 15 years later to continue to do that. It doesn’t but that’s an altogether different story. Today, the likes of Gartner even maintain a category called multi touch attribution it’s big - and still doesn’t answer the question.

But - back to Apple. The thing that both those pieces up there are going on about is meaningless and strikes me more as ‘reverse Channel attribution’. In this model they are trying to work out what revenue contribution to the mothership each channel (streaming in this case) is responsible for and whether it is profitable. I am far from convinced Apple thinks this way. In face they barely even break out their hardware, much less something like streaming. (That said - if anyone really wants to get into the down and dirty look no further than [Horace Dediu])(https://www.asymco.com) - but I digress.

IF that was even a concern of Apple’s do you think they wouldn’t have been doing something about it? I could go on - but will resist - because @gruber said it best.

How much did Apple “lose” on electricity bills last year?

He had two pieces on the NON story. 🔗 Here and 🔗 here

🔗🎵📼 Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

Ready To Choose Sides Yet?

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 13:39:19 +1200

Unless you live under a rock you know the Trump/Musk Euro issues which got me started on this post - and then it went downhill. (Hard to believe - but true.) It also had be examining my decisions on not becoming a US citizen - but first … beyond the Ukraine and Europe …

Over in The Far East.

🔗 The New World Order Is Here, And America Isn’t Part Of It

The foreign ministers of Japan, China, and South Korea gathered for the first time since 2023, posed for ceremonial photographs, and drafted plans for an Asian future where American preferences no longer command deference.

The collapse of American influence isn’t happening because the U.S. military is weaker or its economy smaller. It’s happening because trust in American judgment, consistency, and commitment has plummeted.

And in Global Intelligence

someone much more knowledgeable than me …

PS 5 March, 2025. A further sign of trouble in the Five Eyes' alliance was a long report just noticed in the Financial Times_ on 25 February that Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s closest advisers, was urging him to expel Canada from the membership, although even Steve Bannon is reported to have said that this was a bad idea.

Right then!

I have long been asked given how long I have lived in the USA - why I never became a US citizen. “Because I never wanted to become a US citizen”, was my usual reply. I am English. (Just in case you are new to this blog - I am being very specific. English - which politically and by my passport means that I am British - but how long is that going to last? So, just declaring my side.)

But you can keep your British citizenship an and become American - dual citizenship.

And my reply has always been that I find it intellectually challenging to swear allegiance to two countries. (OK - strictly speaking I never swore allegiance to The United Kingdom - I just am.), but were I to have become American …

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

(My bold)

I know - it’s ‘just words’. But to me - words mean something. That is why I am and remain British - until it goes to hell and a hand-basket - at which point - I am with the English.

Back to the USA ..

The principles embodied in the Oath are codified in Section 337(a) in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which provides that all applicants shall take an oath that incorporates the substance of ….

(Which includes these words - again my bold)

Renounce and abjure** absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any** foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen;

Pretty clear - which gets ignored when everything is sweetness and roses. But it isn’t any more. Which got me to wondering first about 🔗 John Oliver to pick one famous random name, but really more about people like Mike Myers, Drake, Neil Young, Justin Bieber, Will Arnett, Michael J Fox … well, here’s a 🔗 more complete list as Trump threatens Canada with war.

What Do You Think?

Testing Testing

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 10:24:47 +1200

This is a Markdown link

Aotearoa : 2025-03-22

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 10:13:00 +1200

11:11 am Wordland. Once more. Exploring how it might fit my workflow.

[ The Final Updated Post](https://philpin.com/2025-03-22) (in case you are reading this on my main blog.)

🔵 The Final Updated Post (in case you are reading this on my main blog.)

Work Life Balance - AGAIN.

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 10:06:28 +1200

Long said that the whole work/life balance problem ‘solves the wrong problem really well’. For example - 🖇️ me, nearly six years ago

I conclude …

Does John Mayall feel fulfilled? Well, needless to say, I can’t speak for him - but I think he does. Is he the richest musician on the planet? Not by a long way. Is he the most well known? Not at all. But I’d wager he is one of the most fulfilled people out there. And not a work-life balance equation to be seen.

Just read this in Gaping Void

🔗 Your Life Isn’t Meant To Be Balanced, It’s Meant to Be Whole - Gapingvoid

and that article concludes ….

The leaders who change the world don’t offer better boundaries–they offer better stories. More meaning. Gandhi didn’t check out at 5pm. MLK didn’t compartmentalize his dream.

Were kinda trying to say the same thing.

A few years ago now, I developed the ‘Pay|Purpose|Play|Passion model.

It looks something like this to most of us …

Maybe ‘Balance’ is more like this?

Of course ‘Nirvana’ might be a single circle image where all four areas fully overlap. Impossible? Probably. Is that what to aim for? Probably not.

Because it is different. For everyone. All the time. In different contexts.

And that is ok.

Aotearoa : 2025-03-20

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 08:25:38 +1200

Checking out updated Wordland.

🔵 The Final Updated Post (in case you are reading this on my main blog.)

Aotearoa : 2025-03-16

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 07:07:51 +1200

[@Dave](https://micro.blog/Dave) asked the question about Wordland as to whether I was surprised that having posted something … the screen didn’t clear. I get it and understand why the decision was made .. but it still caught me out.

[@om](https://micro.blog/om) is using Wordland to create a new kind of Daily post.

🔵 The Original Updated Post

Barbie, 2023 - ★★★★

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 06:58:54 +1200

Finally got around to it and … Marvelous .. and I’m not even a fan of ‘musicals’. So good that it needs ro be rereleased.

🎥 Barbie, 2023 - ★★★★

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 06:58:54 +1200

Finally got around to it and … Marvelous .. and I’m not even a fan of ‘musicals’. So good that it needs to be rereleased.

Improving Life - One Step at a time.

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 05:35:21 +1200

I started ‘a process’ this past weekend and then Mark Manson sent ‘me’ an email this morning …

TWO THINGS FOR YOU TO ASK YOURSELF

What do you want to be great at?

What can you do today so you’re a little better tomorrow?

Recommended: Use these as journaling prompts for the week.

ONE THING FOR YOU TO TRY THIS WEEK

Get a little better at that one thing you want to excel at this week. Let me know how it goes.

Remember: Small changes lead to lasting breakthroughs.

###Trying

Structured Thought

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 05:18:31 +1200

I started a series about ‘Structured Thought’ on LinkedIN and then publishing essentially the same material in my newsletter around 10 days later. (Current status - 2 out on LinkedIN, one in newsletter.)

This morning - I received an email from a newsletter reader about Florence Nightingale - and … 🤯 - this is going to have to be a whole edition all by itself.

🔗 Scientific American

Seperately someone else highlighted the influences of both Tufte and Don Norman. Not wrong, and Tufte was already on my ‘key influencers’ list.

Florence was not.

📺 Prime Target ★★★½

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 13:48:45 +1200

Had this been on Netflix I might have rated it higher. But it wasn’t. Worth a watch for sure .. but not before all the other crackers on Apple TV. And Prime Numbers? I wonder if this was green lighted by the person who did the same for Three Body Problem over on Netflix? Both strike me as written because they came up with a Coll Maths title - and then asked - so whats the story?

Don’t get me wrong, this was way better than Three Body Problem (which I still need to review) - but I still felt unsatisfied.

Prime Target on 🔗 Reelgood

🎥 The Laundromat, 2019 - ★★★★

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 13:36:14 +1200

Just a great one, that I saw in the theaters when it came out and logging it now .. 5 years later. Has it stood the test of time? No idea, have a watch and you decide.

📺 Running Point ★★★½

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 13:33:06 +1200

Cute, entertaining not going to change the world, shades of Ted Lasso .. and nothing like Ted Lasso … an ‘inclusive’ set of characters .. about Basketball .. except it isn’t .. like Lasso. Give it a whirl ..

Running Point on 🔗 Reelgood

Generation Beta?

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 13:27:32 +1200

I think describing who I am, what I want and need and everything else besides based on my age is baloney and claptrap. Hell - I’d put more money on being defined by astrology. But still this bunk persists.

It’s getting weirder.

Consider the labels and birth-year brackets commonly used to pigeonhole entire generations:

1.	The Silent Generation: Born 1928–1945 (17 years)   
2.	Baby Boomers: Born 1946–1964 (18 years)   
3.	Generation X: Born 1965–1980 (15 years)   
4.	Millennials (Generation Y): Born 1981–1996 (15 years)   
5.	Generation Z: Born 1997–2012 (15 years)   
6.	Generation Alpha: Starting from 2013—so far, 12 years

And now?

Apparently we are already ushering in Generation Beta - 3 years (at least) early.

Generation Beta officially arrived on Jan. 1, successors to Gen Alpha. While the name follows the conventions of the Greek alphabet, its connotation is less scholarly and more sus for some young parents and every school-age child. Beta is commonly used as slang for weak and passive.

💬 Ann-Marie Alcántara, WSJ

Seriously - The Wall Street Journal? The article wasn’t on the ‘joke page’ - and last time I looked they weren’t doing satire - though I get it - it’s increasingly hard to tell in this climate. But still.

Is this really real?
Who decided this?
Who’s in charge?
Who’s making the rules?

It’s a Corporate Marketing con that for some eye popping reason ‘we the people’ seem to have adopted.

Why?

It’s right up there with ‘content’ - if you are following you know what I am talking about. But in case you don’t - 🖇️🔎 I have hundreds of posts on the topic) that can be reduced to this …

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, ‘anything will do’ kind of word. Which is why it has no value.

As long as ‘we the creators’ fall into the trap of using low cost, homogenous, non-descript words like ‘content’ to describe our work, our soul, our beliefs, our passion, our effort, then our work will continue to be viewed as ’free–to–cheap–to–low–cost’, homogenized, non-differentiated, interchangeable fodder and we will only have ourselves to blame as the payment for our art, our thinking, our ideas continues to race to the bottom.

Bottom line … the ‘con’ in content is there with intent.

📺 Surface ★★

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 13:15:44 +1200

Meh. I went to checkout the new series .. and discovered it was series 2 .. and according to Apple TV .. I had watched it. So that says everything. I will eventually get round to Season 2 .. but not rushing.

Surface on 🔗 Reelgood

🖇️ Setting The Record Straight

Sicario, 2015 - ★★★★

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 16:13:40 +1200

Good cast, gritty and wrestles with that eternal question that the world still faces today … even more so … how do you fix the problem of really bad guys by being good guys that don’t break the law.

🎥 Sicario, 2015 - ★★★★

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 16:13:40 +1200

The Sum of All Fears, 2002 - ★★★

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 11:34:17 +1200

You don't often actually see a nuclear bomb go off in these kinds of movies - aren't they meant to be stopped with 2 seconds to go? It's a Reacher story with plenty of time during in to try to count how many different actors have played Jack over the years ... sorry not a big fan of Ben in these roles (no reason - he just always seems to fall short). They - for all of that - still 3 stars - I guess Tom is that good - and Morgan in the cast helps.

Don't not watch it - but don't go hunting for it either.

🎥 The Sum of All Fears, 2002 - ★★★

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 11:34:17 +1200

Don't not watch it - but don't go hunting for it either.

The Equalizer 3, 2023 - ★★★½

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:14:46 +1200

I know I’ve watched the first two at some point - but for the life of me - gonna have to revisit (maybe). Good story - and it’s Denzel … a solid action movie.

🎥 The Equalizer 3, 2023 - ★★★½

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:14:46 +1200

I know I’ve watched the first two at some point - but for the life of me - gonna have to revisit (maybe). Good story - and it’s Denzel … a solid action movie.

Deadpool & Wolverine, 2024 - ★★★★

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:17:10 +1200

The reduction of the bloated explosions continues in the Marvel Universe - and from my perspective - that is good.
Plus Ryan and Hugh.
Plus ‘Wick like’ choreography and it’s not that they are breaking the 4th wall - it’s more ‘what wall’?
Oh - and it’s Deadpool.
Big Fan.

🎥 Deadpool & Wolverine, 2024 - ★★★★

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:17:10 +1200

The Butterfly Effect Is Real

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:36:50 +1200

Manton writing today : 🔗 about something that @devilgate wrote : 🔗 Maybe You Can Post Your Way Through Fascism

💯 .. we’ve sort of been down this track before .. not so much Martin’s pov .. as the larger picture .. don’t be cowed .. about anything .. by anyone. And yes it can be scary .. but if nobody reads it .. then you got it out of your system .. if everybody reads it .. you will find that you are not alone.

Me on related threads .. April to July last year.

🖇️ We Are Being Forced To Conform

🖇️ Is This How You Get ‘Silenced’?

Seperately, I am English and have lived in the US a lot .. and have never been tempted to do the citizen thing. That doesn’t stop me writing commenting and signing up to campaign on the ground for politicians that are fighting for what I believe is right. People ask me why? If I can’t vote .. why bother?

Answer.. if I can convince just one person to vote for ‘my politician,’ then I am using their vote as my surrogate. A second .. and more .. icing on the cake. The same goes for writing, cartooning, talking in bars .. play to your strength .. the margins are so close these days that the shift is getting easier every day to make the win happen.

Keep going. I am.

Thinking ..

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 09:00:39 +1200

… it’s what you TRY to do when you are running micro.blog and then out of the blue suddenly fire up a new WordPress instance.

What you thinking about?

When and why you use one or the other.

‘Pretending to Think’ – courtesy one of those generator thingies.

John on John on Jonny

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 05:28:29 +1200

🔗 🏝️ Discs - Sir Jony Ive, designer - BBC Sounds and 🔗 Daring Fireball

I think when you struggle, then a goal can become just commercial issues. I understand – I mean, if you’re losing lots of money, you’d like to stop losing lots of money. The problem there is it means you focus on money, and you’re normally losing money because the products aren’t right. And from ‘92 to ‘97, it was a very, very difficult season. One that I am so grateful for – but I still get the shivers sometimes.

💬 Jonny Ives

This really resonated - and if you read some of the stuff I read - it will ring bells, because it is like life;

the money comes when you stop chasing the money

I also liked Gruber’s extented thought;

Judging them as good or bad isn’t the correct framework. It’s that they weren’t right. There’s an inherent subjectiveness to rightness.

💬 John Gruber

Gruber and Malik commenting on Skype and Microsoft

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 05:13:18 +1200

🔗 Skype is dead. What happened? - On my Om

🔗 Daring Fireball

Microsoft now talks about Teams being their focus, showing that even today they haven’t realized what made Skype a cultural, consumer force. Microsoft Teams is a terrible product – and I dread using it. In simplest terms, Teams is a perfect encapsulation of a bureaucratic, archaic, and outdated 50-year-old company that is trying to reinvent itself as an AI leader.

💬 Om Malik

It single-handedly destroyed the long-distance calling business. Most young people today don’t remember, but long-distance calls used to cost a lot of money. Especially for immigrants, calling home used to cost a fortune. Skype made it free.

💬 Om Malik

In the early days of podcasting, seemingly every show used Skype because it was so much better than anything else. And it was free! It felt like the future. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that if not for Skype, podcasting would’ve been set back several years.

💬 John Gruber

Sharing these - and Om nailed it in that second quote.

Especially for immigrants, calling home used to cost a fortune. Skype made it free.

I was one of those immigrants calling home.

SAD.

Freedom OR Liberty - Don't Let Them Confuse You

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 05:59:13 +1200

At one point in 🖇️ Zero Day, De Niro talks about Freedom and Liberty.

Perplexity…

The terms freedom and liberty are often used interchangeably, but they have nuanced differences:
Freedom generally refers to the ability to act without external constraints or interference. It is the absence of restrictions, allowing individuals to pursue their desires and actions without hindrance.
Liberty, on the other hand, emphasizes freedom within a framework of responsibility and law. It involves being free from arbitrary or oppressive control while respecting the rights of others and adhering to societal rules. Liberty assumes accountability and is often tied to justice and fairness in a structured society.
In essence, freedom is broader and can exist without limits, whereas liberty is freedom regulated by responsibility and mutual respect.

I kind of have/had that in my mind - but not all the time really only when I think about it. AND Perplexity is right - the terms are used interchangeably.

I would go further.

It happens a lot.
It happens more and more.
It happens too much.
It is happening to muddle the mind.
I am pretty sure it is sub consciously and constantly passing through our collective brains.

It’s a good reminder and one to watch out for as certain people scream ‘Freedom’ … of whatever they are talking about. Don’t forget #LanguageIsImportant

Anora, 2024 - ★

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 03:16:42 +1200

When I first heard about Anora I looked it up and put it in the category of ‘no’ .. not even ‘yeah .. no’ .. just definitely .. NO. Despite this, I found myself watching it last night as part of a group where we are attempting to watch all the ‘Best Picture’ nominations before our Oscar party on Sunday. Left to my own devices .. I would have switched it off, or walked out, by around the 20th minute.

The rest of the movie just had me repeatedly asking myself ‘why’. The final 10 or so minutes found slight redemption .. but not sufficient to move the movie out of the worst movie I’ve seen this year (have to think more if that should read ‘ever’) .. but even ‘the year’ qualifier is significant given that I recently saw Babygirl (a 2 star rating from me.)

Side note .. one reason I didn’t want to see it was it struck me as a low rent remake of Pretty Woman .. and yes similarities in the set up .. but no.

It was just bad .. and Oscar nomination? PLEASE!

BUT judging by the ratings of others … I am very alone.

📺 Zero Day ★★★½

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 16:48:05 +1200

It’s a political thriller starring De Niro - so you kinda know how it is going to end. Overall I liked it. Though final episode fell away … too many ‘final speeches’ delivered as ‘closing arguments’. Still, for all of that - definitely a good watch.

New Zealand changes ‘golden visa’ to lure wealthy migrants

A February Posting

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 07:51:35 +1200

Final

Peter Thiel - Another Loser

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 06:26:12 +1200

In August 2024 he was ‘considering’ a complete and permanent move to New Zealand. Read More

As of yesterday he’s outta here - Kiwi passport in hand - and still hanging on to a large chunk of property in the South Island.

Other than that what exactly was that all about?
How much of that wealth trickled into New Zealand?
How did it benefit any Kiwi?

It was a publicity stunt. The Kiwis were played. And they are going to be played again because National have just brought that idea back …

To Remind Real Thiel’ emerged in his attack on Gawker.

But his Palantir investment is tanking …. but am sure that it will all be ok once his old Paypal mates ‘sort out America’

And please don’t cry too much. After dropping 30% in the past 5 days, the Palantir price is still UP 150% just since August last year.

Captain America: Brave New World, 2025 - ★★★★

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:23:10 +1200

It’s marinated since I saw it last week. I had heard that it was a ‘back to basics’ take .. ie a movie sans gratuitous explosions - planets being destroyed and using portals to jump through to parallel universes. And indeed delivered - though for my taste - that shield is just a bit too clever - but heh - I know it is me.

When Marvel (and Star Wars) did their 6 to 8 episode TV shows - I liked them - and again - it was the story - without all that ‘extra’ stuff up there. I like my movies that way.

This one was like that. Not as cut back as I would like - but still well pared down.

And to see Giancarlo Esposito in there - so good.

🎥 Captain America: Brave New World, 2025 - ★★★★

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:23:10 +1200

When Marvel (and Star Wars) did their 6 to 8 episode TV shows - I liked them - and again - it was the story - without all that ‘extra’ stuff up there. I like my movies that way.

This one was like that. Not as cut back as I would like - but still well pared down.

And to see Giancarlo Esposito in there - so good.

The Usual Suspects, 1995 - ★★★★½

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:20:12 +1200

I just spotted that Giancarlo Esposito was in this - and I decided that I should add a review - because it was ... is ... so good.

🎥 The Usual Suspects, 1995 - ★★★★½

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:20:12 +1200

I just spotted that Giancarlo Esposito was in this - and I decided that I should add a review - because it was ... is ... so good.

To Catch a Killer, 2023 - ★★★

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:53:26 +1200

It started well … it went on fine .. until the last 15 minutes. Queued up for a sequel .. but I don’t think so.

🎥 To Catch a Killer, 2023 - ★★★

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:53:26 +1200

It started well … it went on fine .. until the last 15 minutes. Queued up for a sequel .. but I don’t think so.

You Can't Scale Exclusivity

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:39:36 +1200

Over on LinkedIN .. 🔗 The downfall of Soho House.

Turns out that SH is in the ‘dodo’. Personally not surprised. Never a member - often as a guest back in the day - but more recently as I noticed that ‘everyone was a member’, I felt something was up - but too many other rabbit holes to dive into.

Back in the day it was a wonderful place. Seems to me that it fails for similar reasons that exclusive fine dining restaurants and this ‘boutique wineries’ ultimately fail .. you can’t scale exclusivity.

‘But what about Patek Philippe Watches and Hermes bags’ I hear you cry. ‘Different’ I reply. Product - not service. You can manage the demand. For example - there are Hermes bags for sale that you can’t buy - even if you can afford one.

Anyway - back to Soho. This came to mind.

That’s why it was predictable.

So What Was That About?

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:07:41 +1200

A little over a week ago - I threw out 🖇️ this little billy do onto my blog and thought nothing of it. To save you the click through I was just pointing out some internet speeds I was experiencing - and asked what my response should be. Here on MicroBlog I got 4 comments over the next 24 hours. I dunno - par for the course? Now - through the power of Micro.Blog - these posts are also syndicated to BlueSky, Mastodon and Threads.

On BlueSky (185 followers) after 6 days … Crickets #### On Mastodon (275 followers) after 6 days … apart from 1 ‘like’ … again, Crickets #### And on Threads (158 followers) after 6 days … holy hell! … 809 likes, 346 comments and over 55,000 total views … All of this definitely not to say ‘look at me’ and all about ‘WTF’ .. and what actually makes people tick. I don’t do twitter - but when I did - and generally on any of these sites - if I hit double digits - I am eternally surprised. This Threads thing actually delivered 2 orders of magnitude more comments than the likes I would typically achieve. Needless to say, I have not even tried to read - much less replied to - the 336 comments - but as I watched the thing spiral up - it was interesting to see it take a life of its own. #### Questions So many - that I don’t know where to start - so I won’t. Just observing.

Systems of Truth? Reality or Pipedream?

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 08:14:21 +1200

When I read Scott Brinker (ChiefMartec) I generally feel that our thinking is aligned, but his images often seem to be designed to create fear and creating a speech bubble above my head that reads something like “my god - how the hell can I keep up”. They don’t, IMHO give clarity. Well, maybe back in 2011 .. maybe - but I recall back then it still seem overwhelming ..

By the time I got to 2024 - I was seriously asking myself what is the point? (Although it didn’t stop me reading his posts.)

So I initially found his post from today a breath of fresh air, imagine … ‘Meet the new martech stack: systems of context and systems of truth’

And in it I found a reasonable framework;

Which I liked - because it aligns with my ‘Business Equation’ thinking.

.. but then I read the piece and even Scott calls out my initial thought…

Now, squinting at my diagram you might ask, “Isn’t this just systems of engagement and systems of record with different labels?

💬 Scott Brinker

But that isn’t where I am going, because ‘words’ are important.

Systems of Truth

Truth? Who’s Truth?

I am a customer of Citibank. Their system of record will tell you that my home address is up in Marin, North California. I live in SoCal - and never bothered changing it - the bank is minor to my requirements - and everything I do is online - why waste my time.

My mobile provider is different again.

The data farms/lakes/mountains (using such nice natural sounding words to describe tools of the surveillance economy aside) hosted by the large corporates can never show absolute truth about me - they will only ever have a filter/slice/view of who I am .. which is partly what I choose to share - which will vary from person to person and their context at the time.

These are not systems of truth, they are the systems of record of the corporation that houses that particular set of data. To be fair - Scott does make that distinction in his piece (my bold).

they remain the arbiters of truth for data within their domain

💬 Scott Brinker

and then goes on …

We never achieved a true single system of truth (SSOT). Turns out there are just too many domain-specific data truths. But with a universal data layer on bottom and domain-specific data governance platforms on top, we now have many systems – plural – of truth.

💬 Scott Brinker

So why change it? Again - referencing my example at the opening of this section - Citi do not have the truth about my residence. No matter how hard they try - they have a System of Record - so why muddy the waters and call it Truth (other than climbing an board with attempting to use a ‘word of the moment’.)

Systems of Context

I would argue that systems of engagement by definition includes that of context. In face to me - that is the whole point.

Scott clarifies;

Instead of a monologue, where a brand serves a contextual experience based on its own definition of the buyer’s journey and what it thinks the buyer wants, concierge AI agents will engage buyers in a true dialogue to understand and serve their actual context.

💬 Scott Brinker

and then

A little farther out on the horizon – but maybe not that far – buyers will use their own AI agents to interact with our systems of context. These aren’t customer-facing AI agents that sellers control. These are customer-owned AI agents that they control. They will inherently shape the experience to the context of the buyer.

💬 Scott Brinker

Aaah yes - that promised nirvana - putting the customer in control (or at least their agents - but who owns the agents?) … remember we live in a world where if we buy a digital book - you don’t actually own it - why are agents going to be different.

If it is - I will be first in line for that service - but breath not held. And this is why.

Closed Systems

It will have been around 20 years ago that Joyce Searls asked if a corporation has a ‘CRM’ that allows them to ‘manage their relationship with their customer’ - why don’t we (people) have a ‘VRM’ to ‘manage our relationship with our vendors? Put simply, if I change my cell number, I need to let the change be known to each of the vendors I use … electic, gas, utilities, bank, uber, amazon …. you get the picture. A VRM would allow you to make one update - and your vendors systems of record would be updated accordingly.

Twenty years later, we still don’t have that.

But John - I hear you cry - AI is going to change all that - to which I say excellent - when?

… and back to those personal AI agents. How? Yes there will be a small cadre of people who will download agentic models and live in that rarefied world of ‘sovereignty’ - but given that most people don’t know - or think to act on even managing their phone notifications - I don’t see them downloading their personal agentic models just yet. And even if we do - the corporations have to allow us to do that - first and then allow that model to interact with their systems. They aren’t really very good at that when you think about it.

For all of this - I am pretty sure that Scott doesn’t come from my POV - but rather that of the corporation, which I think explains our different take. It’s clear just by looking at this image form his article …

He puts those systems of truth right slap bang the middle.

I would have the exact same image - with me - the individual in the center - with my system of TRUTH - and context filter around that to expose the slices of truth I want a corporation to see and use in their own systems of engagement.

And that can be built by starting here.

Stopping here for now - but this is a bit topic -and I think needs more to be said.

Hello …

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 14:08:35 +1200

The summary should make its way to my BlueMastoThread world.

This Is A Post From Mars Edit

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 07:38:51 +1200

The phrase “Lorem ipsum” is a jumbled Latin phrase that cannot be translated into English.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.

Collections - Improving The CSS

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 08:45:27 +1200

Collections is a new micro.blog feature on micro.blog that allows images to be grouped together in … wait for it … ‘Collections’!

It’s a cool extension, but I wanted to feature collections in related posts which gave me problems if I used the recommended CSS. (Problem, because 20 images in a collection resulted in those 20 images appearing at the bottom of all the posts that featured the collection which I felt was overwhelming. Not anymore.

My real desire was to feature them on each post on my blog as a scroll (like on the micro/blog timeline. (The default was to lay them all out on a grid - which resulted in the post being overtaken with a lot of old images). Nothing in the standard CSS allowed for that.

My short term fix was to have a link on a post to a page, 🖇️ like this.

BUT - let’s face it - a kluge.

Just cracked the entire problem in less time than it has taken for me to write this post.

Give ChatGPT current CSS
Ask it for the CSS that would do the same job - but so that images weren’t just there - but featured as a scroll.

First Time.

See what I mean : https://john.philpin.com/2025/02/17/inspired-by-people-martin-luther.html

Next job … Have the scroll sometimes display square images - and sometimes landscape / portrait.

Boo Ya

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 16:06:13 +1200

I know. Cheating!

This Is Not A Long Form Post ..

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 08:14:53 +1200

.. I know it looks like one - but it isn’t. I am just experimenting - move along now and sincere apologies if I distracted you.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.

Babygirl, 2024 - ★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:28:32 +1200

I went because some friends recommended it. What a pile of drivel.

🎥 Babygirl, 2024 - ★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:28:32 +1200

I went because some friends recommended it. What a pile of drivel.

A Complete Unknown, 2024 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:27:08 +1200

I appreciate Bob - not a fan - but I do go see these biopics as they come out, because music. Definitely one of the best of that particular genre. Of course Timothy did a great job - but so did Edward Norton - and then some. I only hope people didn't watch it as a documentary. I mean they will - and history will be rewritten accordingly. A shame really - but do try to watch it.

🎥 A Complete Unknown, 2024 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:27:08 +1200

Queer, 2024 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:23:33 +1200

Outside of Layer Cake - one of the best Daniel Craig movies outside of his Bond work that I have seen. I hadn't registered that it was a William Burroughs story when I first saw it and so my initial - leaving the theatre thought was .. not clear. Mainly because it wasn't what I expected. Once I joined the dots. YUP - pieces fell into place. BUT - holy mackerel - Jason Schwartzman - another one of those side roles that might just slip you by. Excellent all round - and even the end all made sense - in the end.

🎥 Queer, 2024 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:23:33 +1200

The Miracle Club, 2023 - ★★★½

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:18:03 +1200

One of those lovely little movies that you come across and get into and when it all ends you are sad.

🎥 The Miracle Club, 2023 - ★★★½

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:18:03 +1200

One of those lovely little movies that you come across and get into and when it all ends you are sad.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, 2024 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:13:36 +1200

How could you ever NOT love Wallace and Grommit - so good.

🎥 Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, 2024 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:13:36 +1200

How could you ever NOT love Wallace and Grommit - so good.

Ferry 2, 2024 - ★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:03:59 +1200

I watched the series and then I watched the first movie and then I watched this second movie .. and I dunno - I keep watching them - but they don't get better. But somehow I am drawn in. No explanation.

🎥 Ferry 2, 2024 - ★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:03:59 +1200

I watched the series and then I watched [🖇️ the first movie](https://john.philpin.com/2025/02/11/ferry.html) and then I watched this second movie .. and I dunno - I keep watching them - but they don't get better. But somehow I am drawn in. No explanation.

Ferry, 2021 - ★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:03:09 +1200

Watched it a while back - so logging it here. Not bad - but maybe watch the series first to garner some context.

🎥 Ferry, 2021 - ★★★

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:03:09 +1200

Watched it a while back - so logging it here. Not bad - but maybe watch the series first to garner some context.

🚧 Prisons and Bitcoin

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:18:34 +1200

I am unsure if they are connected - so parking this here while we think.

There is also something going on with the Argentinian playbook - which I am planning to publish in a newsletter.

I am no expert - but my spidey senses are up … Bitcoin, Argentina, El Salvador .. OR, it’s all summarized thus ….

Bitcoin

El Salvador introduced bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 and then - as now - one Tim Draper has oft’ spoken breathlessly of how cool it is that a sovereign nation has adopted it.

Tim Draper Expects Bitcoin to Transform El Salvador Into One of the Richest Countries in the World.

The flag waving by Tim has never stopped.

That Said

El Salvador’s experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender since 2021 has had mixed results.
Only 8.1% of the population have used Bitcoin for payments by 2024.
Seperately, the initiative faced criticism for its volatility, lack of transparency, and limited impact on remittances, which make up a significant part of the economy.
Even so, El Salvador’s Bitcoin investments turned profitable by late 2024 - BUT the government has not recouped the costs of promoting the cryptocurrency.
So, in December 2024, El Salvador agreed to scale back Bitcoin policies to secure a $1.4 billion IMF loan (Dollars speak) which included making Bitcoin acceptance voluntary and reducing public sector involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.
Despite all of this by the end of 2024, its holdings surpassed 6,000 BTC which seems to have grown to 6,055 BTC as of February 1, 202. Value? Over $612 million.

Perspective

In a recent Bloomberg interview, Michael Saylor, executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy, revealed that beyond his company’s holdings, he personally owns at least 17,732 Bitcoin, currently valued at approximately $1 billion.

Yup - Saylor personally owns 150% more Bitcoin than The country of El Salvador - and let’s not forget that his company MicroStrategy owns another 471,107 bitcoins.

Question

Why do we still trumpet the El Salvador story?

Prisons

El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) is the largest prison in Latin America, with a capacity to hold 40,000 inmates. The facility spans 410 acres of land, with the prison complex itself covering 57 acres (approximately the size of seven football stadiums). It features eight cell blocks and extensive security measures, including electrified fences, reinforced walls, and 19 guard tower. It was built in late 2022 during a large-scale gang crackdown and officially opened in January 2023. Population of El Salvador - 6.5 million The USA has a total prison capacity across federal, state, and local facilities that can house 1.9 million people in federal prisons, correctional facilities, state prisons, local jails, and other detention centers.

Today’s News

# Could US criminals be sent to El Salvador’s mega-jail?

President Nayib Bukele confirmed that he had offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system". Putting aside the legal questions of exporting US citizens to another country’s prison system - I am wondering what’s going on.

Back Of The Napkin - Capacity

El Salvador : 6,500,000/40,000=162.5 - in just a single prison
USA : 350,000,000/1,900,000=184.2 - total capacity

Back Of The Napkin - Prisoner Count

🔗 Source

El Salvador : 1,086 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population
USA : 531 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population

A Preemptive Apology To a Cashier In A Local Store

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 09:20:01 +1200

Popped into a local store last night - total purchase around 10 bucks and I only had a $100 note. It seemed to be a rare event … and making the change work was … challenging. But we got there - with lots of notes and change coming back. Stuffed it into my pocket and walked off.

This morning I was just sorting out all the papers and notes ready for a fresh day and on checking I seemed to be short of a few dollars. Checked three times - I was definitely $30 bucks short.

I was PISSED. I KNEW what had happened, but too late to go back and complain about the short change. Made a note to myself - lesson learned.

Later this morning I bought a cup of coffee and decided to use some of those notes to make the wallet thinner.

I counted them JOHN out - and as I returned the notes to the wallet spotted a fifty. Wait. A FIFTY?

I sat down and recounted.

I hadn’t been short changed at all - in my pre-coffee early morning hallucinatory mind I had counted the 50 as a 20.

GAH. I am so sorry. I never complained, so you don’t really know. But I think an apology is still necessary. Mea Culpa.

Posting this - and book marking - to remind my future self that people are generally good and I need to always check myself just one more time before ‘going off’.

Loneliness Emerges From The Inability To Connect

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 15:20:42 +1200

I don’t think the Beatles were the greatest band that ever lived. There I said it. I know there will be people that disagree with me.

That said, even with two views of ‘truth’ it is still possible to have a deep, interesting, meaningful conversation that might open my mind and who knows … ‘theirs’ as well. In other words in this case true connection is possible even if the participants have different ‘realities’.

BUT - and it is a big but .. that does require a willingness on both sides to bridge those differences through empathy, listening, open-mindedness and communication. It is that very act of seeking to understand others - and in turn be understood - that creates a space where connection thrives.

I think loneliness emerges from the inability to connect.

It remains possible in music, literature and sport to name but three random topics of conversation in the public square (the real public square - not the dumpster fire), so why not in politics? I have an idea.

I think true connection can be fostered when individuals prioritize mutual respect and shared humanity over complete agreement or identical perceptions.

Sadly, when it comes to politics the broad swathe of humanity are being trained by a few ‘bad actors’ (let’s keep it civil) to ignore that.

When did that start? Well, we all have ideas I am sure. Here’s mine …

Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

💬 George Bush

.. but he wasn’t the first.

Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.

💬 Matthew 12:30

Lenin and Mussolini also used similar phrasing to get their point across. This is a ‘both sides’ argument that has been effectively used over a couple of millennium to get the support of the masses.

When will they ever learn.

💬 Pete Seger

Never?

I am not sure how to fix it.

We’ve gone deep down the rabbit hole. It’s going to get worse. A lot worse. Before it gets better.

Nuance? We Don’t Need No Stinking’ Nuance ….

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 08:27:11 +1200

I published 🔗 this post back in July last year … after months of delay and noodling and questioning, I finally released it - and as with so many of my posts that I often wonder why I bother .. crickets.

From that piece - if you’ll forgive me for quoting myself …

Sadly the Internet has been weaponized and far from creating a place to be educated about the differences of people and countries and life - we are being forced into submission. It’s a place where ignorance is not so much celebrated as ignored - and ignored because on the whole it isn’t recognized, and if you do anything counter to the noise - expect to be piled on because 🔗 you are either with us, or against us.

It has only got worse.

Since the 6th, I have been thinking a lot about ‘whither next’ … and then, a couple of days ago I became aware of a debacle in this little corner of the internet we call Micro.Blog. Not going to get into it here - if you are reading this - you almost certainly know what it’s about., but were I to reduce the whole thing to a single word it’s called BULLYING.

… and as far as I am concerned … bullies can fuck off.

Here’s the problem - any semblance of being able to have your opinion is rapidly disappearing - if not gone already. That used to be ‘across the aisle’, now it’s wormed its way into every corner of every room. And this is an ‘all sides’ problem - witness the Micro.Blog ‘contretemps’ referred to earlier. Again - you are either with us, or against us - and that means - all of these concepts are being expunged form our discourse;

Ambiguity

Ambivalence

Balance

Complexity

Context

Depth

Duality

Finesse

Gray area

Harmony

Nuance

Paradox

Perspective

Reflection

Relativity

Sensitivity

Spectrum

Subtlety

Tone

🔗 A simple, non viral case in point. - the link jumps to a short thread on Substack where I dropped a throw away comment to a comment from Ken Klippenstein and within minutes I got a reply clarifying my tongue in cheek question and what was meant by the executive order. I have learnt my lesson - I need to punctate any and all comments with a smiley emoji … ‘all’ because I am well aware that I am overly glib and sarcastic in most of my online comments.

To save the click through, I also quote this - from ChatGPT ….

facetiousness seems to be waning touches on broader shifts in communication patterns. The rise of digital communication has led to a decline in face-to-face interactions, which traditionally allowed for the nuanced delivery and reception of facetious remarks. Without the benefit of vocal tone, facial expressions, and body language, the subtleties of facetiousness can be lost or misinterpreted in text-based mediums. Moreover, the immediacy and brevity of digital exchanges often prioritize efficiency over the layered wit that facetiousness entails. As a result, such forms of humor may not translate well in online environments, leading to their diminished use. This shift underscores the complex relationship between evolving communication technologies and the ways we express and perceive humor.

And then just this morning, this popped up in my feeds from Om - posted 18 months or so ago ….

You can read the whole post ‘What’s The Truth?’ here.

Not holding back this time. Serendipity has spoken.

What Do You Think?

The Cost of Living In Places I Have Lived ...

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 15:41:41 +1200

Specifically, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom and The United States

🔗 Kevin Drum linking to the cheapest and most expensive places to live.

🔗 Worlddata

In New Zealand there is a lot of handwringing that translates to countless LinkedIN posts talking about ‘jump starting’ the economy and what do they have to do to grow their GDP which inevitably leads to attracting the ‘brightest and the best’. I’ve even weighed into a few of the debates myself …

Of course it doesn’t help when one of the leading Kiwi journalists writes NZ now frozen, listless, mean & hopeless

Here is one slice of that data from the Worlddata link above.

United States 14
Australia 17
New Zealand 18
United Kingdom 19

.. but check out the average monthly income which in turn drives the purchasing power index.

United States 100
Australia 81.4
United Kingdom 63.8
New Zealand 63.5

I’ll let the UK number sit for you to absorb. I am more interested in the two antipodean counties … turns out Australia has a little more than 30% MORE purchasing power than New Zealand.

No more handwringing needed. I don’t know the exact ins and outs of the rules of NZ and OZ - BUT to all intents and purposes, citizens of each country can jump to the other almost on a whim much as someone in the US can move to a different state. It’s not exactly the same - but for a while now there has been a steady exodus of NZ nationals to OZ for a long time - but its getting a lot more problematic - through to September(ish) of 2024 - an average of 200 Kiwi nationals per day left New Zealand to settle in Australia. When you look at that discrepancy - is there any wonder?

(Side Note - 200 per day for 365 days is 7,300 people - that is 0.14% of the country!)

Of course - there’s more to life than the cost of living - there is also the 🔗Quality of Life - and delighted to report that New Zealand - despite its poor showing on the cost of living scale delivers a satisfying 9th in the world for Quality of Life - nestling right between Japan and Spain. So at least they have that. BUT … to borrow a phrase from Aoteraoa …

“Yeah … No”.

Turns out OZ is the number one destination in the world for Quality of Life.

Me? For all of that handwringing that goes on … I think the powers are solving the wrong problem really well.

Just In Today

Science overhaul lays out a fundamental challenge for New Zealand

The Business Equation

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 09:07:55 +1200

I have on occasions referenced ‘The Business Equation’ within this ‘Personal Journal’. I shared it last week in a pack of mental models I use as part of my processes that businesses find helpful when building their company. In the sharing, it occurred to me that while pictures are worth 1,000 words - sometimes you might need 10,000.

For example, The Business Equation includes my take on concepts like;

The Virtual Corporation
The Future of Work
Outsourcing and Offshoring
The Company of One
Supply Chain Transparency

… and even my extension to Geoff Moore’s Core/Context model - applied to people and the roles they might be looking to take.

I use these models and more during my engagements and advisory services that are designed to grow businesses.

I might write more about this. Should I?

🔗🔎 BusinessBytes

A Reminder About ‘Content’

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 09:04:25 +1200

… because it’s getting worse.

A strategic thinker wouldn’t call it content.

Sorry - no idea who wrote that - not me - but definitely on pace with my thinking - which you will know that 🖇️🔍 I have written about this many times over the years.

To save the click through - in a nutshell …

As long as ‘we the creators’ fall into the trap of using low cost, homogenous, non-descript words like ‘content’ to describe our work, our soul, our passion, our beliefs then our work will continue to be viewed as ‘free - to - cheap - to - low - cost’, as ‘homogenized, non differentiated, interchangeable fodder’. Moreover, we then only have ourselves to blame and the resultant payment for your art, your thinking, your ideas, will continue to race to the bottom.

💬 John Philpin

And

It is not in the interests of any creator to allow that, so why allow their interests to define how we think?

💬 John Philpin

And

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, ‘anything will do’ kind of word. Which is why ‘content’ has no value. It is also important to know that it is in the best interests of the buyers of our sweat, labour, thought and time to keep their price down. But our costs are not kept down. So our net earnings suffer. And they are suffering badly. And it has to start with you - the creator, because it isn’t in the interests of buyers to change their behaviour and vocabulary - ‘they’ want great work at no cost.

💬 John Philpin

So. What you going to do about it?

🔗🔎 BusinessBytes | 🔗🔎 Content

Carry-On, 2024 - ★★★

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 08:58:11 +1200

I like both actors - so despite the warnings of ‘the new diehard’ I ploughed ahead. it was a fine movie - but both actors have substantially better performances and films/shows on their cv.

My Three Words ..

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:13:40 +1200

I’ve been doing this every year since 2019. My 7th will be out in a few days time.

The History

2024 - substack.philpin.com/p/here-we…
Transform | Transition | Transcend (sic)

2023 - substack.philpin.com/p/its-tha…
Focus | Flexible | Fabulous

2022 - substack.philpin.com/p/take-th…
Clear | Closer | Choice

2021 - john.philpin.com/2021/01/0…
Transform | Transition | Transcend

2020 - substack.philpin.com/p/take-th…
Believe | Move | Ascend

2019 - substack.philpin.com/p/here-we…
Uncertain | Less | Different

Caveat

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:21:56 +1200

Caveat | The source of this post is a separate blog where I am experimenting with a new AI app we are building. In other words, for now, no guarantees of the veracity of the contents.

One More College Try;

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 05:35:55 +1200

seeking to understand how this blog is being treated over at John.Philpin.Com

Is This Thing On?

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:47:47 +1200

Note .. this is not the usual fayer to be expected.

Conclave, 2024 - ★★★★★

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 11:52:41 +1200

My first ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in a looong time.
Stunning
Marvelous
Bravo
Encore

🎥 Conclave, 2024 - ★★★★★

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 11:52:41 +1200

My first ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in a looong time.
Stunning
Marvelous
Bravo
Encore

Juror #2, 2024 - ★★★★

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 12:33:39 +1200

It’s up there as one of his better ones - and like a lot of his better ones .. quiet, tight, personal.

🎥 Juror #2, 2024 - ★★★★

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 12:33:39 +1200

It’s up there as one of his better ones - and like a lot of his better ones .. quiet, tight, personal.

That Christmas, 2024 - ★★★½

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 04:51:26 +1200

Lovely

🎥 That Christmas, 2024 - ★★★½

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 04:51:26 +1200

Lovely

Wicked, 2024 - ★★

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 11:44:46 +1200

Against my better judgement .. decided to go see it. I’m sure it’s a fine movie - just not my cup of tea - but so many people I know kept telling me how great it was. Yeah no. At least for this bear.

Don’t hate me. Don’t tell me that missed something. I didn’t.

🎥 Wicked, 2024 - ★★

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 11:44:46 +1200

Don’t hate me. Don’t tell me that missed something. I didn’t.

Winning

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 19:11:04 +1200

In my health fight over the past four years, my oncologist 🔗Pepe Sasso had five rules that he laid on me at the very beginning and kept pushing me every time I saw him - including just a couple of weeks ago. One of two things that I maintain is ‘my secret’. 🔗 This is the other.

Exercise
Diet/Nutrition to Maintain a Healthy Weight
Positive Mental Attitude (the sail of opportunity is always open)
Pain Management
Good Sleep and Good Sleep Patterns

Thank You

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 19:04:25 +1200

I particularly want to say ‘thank you Jax’. I know how much you did .. do .. for me. No doubt in my mind that without you, I wouldn’t be here, not just your support, but my ears, my voice, your questions, your knowledge - without you - I wouldn’t know half of this village to begin with so I couldn’t have even done what I did without you.

Two other big shout outs to Pepe Sasso, my Radiation Oncologist and Rowan Jones, his lead nurse at the hospital I was at.

The diagnosis was severe, and there was no time to return to the USA or UK and start the process over. Pepe and Rowan were instrumental in my treatment, especially when Jax was told by another doctor to ‘prepare for the worst’, that it was too late for surgery and maybe - just maybe - he might be able to ‘give me more time’. Pepe and Rowan’s dedication and care made a significant difference as did their knowledge and skill. Not only that but Rowan introduced me to Alien Weaponry .. a Maori Metal band (I know!),

All this to say. Thank you. I couldn’t - and therefore wouldn’t - have made it without you. Thank you for your contribution to my life. I am alive, and grateful for every moment. Your actions and support have made all the difference.

All our friends who stepped in to help take the load off Jax … Scott, Ramsey, Steve, Bernadette, Lauren, Noah, Sarah, Arran, Nix, Tosh and and and …
All the unsung heroes in doctors and nurses in clinics, hospitals, chemo, oncology and radiology, not forgetting the staff that work the multi various scanning machines that I have been passed through multiples of time and the ‘Spatial Physicists’. YES .. spatial physicists - the science behind this process is extraordinary.
Herne Bay Pharmacy who went out of their way to deliver things to the house, ‘wrangled’ things we needed and just went went out of their way to help - not like a ‘store’ at all.
I lost count of all the Labtest nurses who kept pulling blood out of me - only very occasionally did I even feel it.
The people at Farros and their team that made sure that the food I could eat got to me.
My ‘CBD’ Doctor - Jax found him, organized him and got the prescriptions. (CBD for medical use in New Zealand is allowed - but the process was new and definitely not well understood
Nigel - my ‘hearing’ consultant
Philip - my gastro consultant
Osama - my chemo consultant
My ‘swallow’ consultant
Kath - my physical therapist
The many Ambulance drivers
Lovenish and his team of drivers
Shashank - at Apex who personally delivered and swapped out our rental car at the house.
All the local restaurants that delivered food.
Other local establishments that gave Jax quiet haven and a space to breathe - outside of our flat, particularly Ben at Jervois Wine Bar and Annabelle’s
Milly’s Kitchen in Ponsonby - you would be surprised at what they could get their hands on to help Jax.

And oh so many more …like the construction guys outside on the road who had large areas cordoned off - but let us park ‘behind their tape’, so I didn’t have too far to walk to the car … (this at a time when I didn’t dare walk down the hill to the park in case I didn’t have the strength to walk back up the hill to get home!)

Thank you all.

Father Figures, 2017 - ★★★★

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:36:16 +1200

An older movie that I hadn’t heard of with an awesome cast… I was nervous .. but decided if it was going to be bad, we could always switch it off. We got to the end .. Owen plays Owen, Ed plays Steve Carrell and the rest did a good job … stellar .. no .. but waaaay better than I expected which prolly explains the 4 stars.

🎥 Father Figures, 2017 - ★★★★

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:36:16 +1200

📺 Disclaimer ★★★★

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:18:58 +1200

Wow … the final episode .. excellent until then and then BOOM … out of the park. Lots of reminders .. at so many levels .. and of course we are all guilty.

Disclaimer on 🔗 Reelgood

📺 Bad Sisters ★★★★

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:04:49 +1200

Series 1 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What took me so long to get round to watching this show? No idea. Just great.

JP .. totally psychopathically horrible .. and all 5 sisters … the same yet very different. Great show.

Series 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After the first series - what was left?

A lot apparently. It did not disappoint.

Bad Sisters on 🔗 Reelgood

📺 Time Bandits ★★★

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 08:58:41 +1200

👍 not ❤️

I got through it .. but only eventually .. didn’t hold me .. and really repetitive.

Time Bandits on 🔗 Reelgood

🖇️ My highlights on the companion article

It All Makes Sense - until it doesn't. We are passed that point.

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:54:19 +1200

A few of today’s reads all came together this morning …

First up (which I am not even going to bother linking to) lead with something like … “how corporations can create emotional connections to their customers at ‘scale’.”

What the fucking what - do not even get me started. Do these people even think about what their words mean when they spew them out?

Anyway - onwards - and as so often happens Hugh over at Gaping Void says it the best …

Meanwhile …

(Talking of ‘creating emotional connections at scale - one of those silent companies that you know the name of - but wonder what they do is Palantir (remember Cambridge Analytics - who paid the price?) .. yeah, Palantir was the ‘power behind the throne’ - who not only avoided paying the price - but have gone on from strength to strength.

Anyway, 🔗 over in Dana land .. he’s looking at the next 4 years - and pointing a very large finger at one 🖇️ Peter Thiel … you know the guy that really runs Palantir (all due respect to Karp), but to remind you who he really is …

The New Zealand Herald did quite a job on that topic - do take a read - eye opening - even if you think you know all about him. (Pro tip - if you have ‘reader mode’ - use it if you really want to read it.) .. and at the end…

According to building consent records, his Queenstown Plasma Screen holiday home last year suffered a serious fire, causing more than $500,000 in damage. Building consents for the repairs filed with the Queenstown Lakes District Council in May show Thiel took this opportunity to rebuild and repurpose a walk-in closet. Plans now describe this nook as a panic room.

.. a panic room. In Queenstown? .. and this is the guy who is quietly influencing the US Govt?

And then there is ‘Ted’s Take’ on the changing nature of communication.

🔗The related article

Are we doomed?

I guess not until this happens …

(The New Yorker)

Love Is Not All - Edna St. Vincent Millay

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 10:57:32 +1200

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Love is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay - Poems | Academy of American Poets

The Transporter Refueled, 2015 - ★★

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 20:10:20 +1200

Not sure why?

🎥 The Transporter Refueled, 2015 - ★★

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 20:10:20 +1200

Not sure why?

Intuit FAIL - And All Because Of A Failure To Communicate!

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 10:50:50 +1200

‘Storm in a teacup ‘or fallout not yet settled?

At the very least the story reflects poorly on Intuit’s head of communications who clearly doesn’t understand how communication works in 2024.

And yes I have listened to the whole podcast. The guy clearly doesn’t even understand journalism!

🔗📼 What we’ve got here is failure to communicate

🔗 Intuit’s PR Team Has Seemingly Never Heard of the Streisand Effect

Good post from John @Gruber today - and not wrong. But I think there’s more.

🔗 This is Rick Heineman’s LinkedIN Profile

1.144 followers on LinkedIN
He seems to have NEVER posted - despite being at Intuit for 7 1/2 years

If you are ‘THE’ dude for communications at a place like Intuit - you should understand how social works. The data on his profile suggests he doesn’t. For all I know he might be a Rock Star over on TikTok - haven’t bothered to look - but for Intuit - surely this is a place to have a presence?

He wouldn’t even need to do it himself. He has ‘people’ for goodness sake.

All I know is that IF you are in corporate communications for any enterprise - you need to be at least socially aware. ideally ‘active’ - whatever that means. . If that company is B2C (and I think Intuit is) - then double down on this.

He got promoted just 6 months ago. Maybe he was trying to make a name for himself.

He clearly has.

📚 A Story

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 11:26:05 +1200

Not mine, but it was so lovely I wanted to drop it in here, so that as ‘link rot’ continues - I will at least have it here. Who knows, you might already know it, it seems to have been circulating the socials - so of course - I did a little bit of triangulation. It looks legit.

🔗 More Here

The Story

At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, was walking through a park one day in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.

Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.

The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying

“please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.”

Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.

During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.

Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.

“It doesn’t look like my doll at all,” said the girl.

Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote:

“my travels have changed me.”

The little girl hugged the new doll and brought the doll with her to her happy home.

A year later Kafka died.

Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:

“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”

Embrace change. It’s inevitable for growth. Together we can shift pain into wonder and love, but it is up to us to consciously and intentionally create that connection.

The First Mile is Owed, the Second is Bestowed

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 09:59:24 +1200

Not my words - but I do like them (one of my business connections down here in Aotearoa dropped them on LinkedIN this morning.)

The first mile is owed, the second is bestowed. The first is mandatory, the second is voluntary.
The first mile belongs to others. The extra mile belongs to you and you alone.
It is therefore always in the second mile where character, nobility and greatness lie.

I tried to source them - but nothing specific came up, though a version of them seems to be part of ‘Chick-fil-A’s’ service program. And - no attribution - other names that emerged in the research included Ayn Rand and Jordan Peterson.

Alrighty Then.

Disruption is not Destruction

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 09:33:41 +1200

🔗 Nice to see ‘Disrupt’ ‘growing’

… not by size - it has been a big show for a long time - but in terms of thinking.

To my mind the revolution that drives tech startups is disruption - yet too often the result is destruction. Sometimes directly, sometimes an unintended consequence. (I Need to Write That Post.)

Beyond that, the historical challenge is that disruption and destruction seem to get conflated - even at times used interchangeably. They are not the same thing.

In short ..

Disruption can be positive or negative, acting as a catalyst for change depending on how we view it.

Destruction is the act of causing irreparable damage or making something cease to exist.

But there’s more … that other word … ‘innovation’.

Innovation is too often associated with ‘disruption’ - but that is not actually the case, though ‘disruptive innovation’ does tend to grab the headlines for radically altering industries or ways of thinking, but not all progress has to come from upheaval.

In many cases, steady, incremental improvements can lead to significant advancements without the need to completely overhaul existing systems. Building on what already works, refining processes, or enhancing current technologies can be just as powerful.

Both disruption and gradual innovation play important roles in driving progress—it’s about choosing the right approach for the context and the goals at hand.

Nobody explains this better than Geoff Moore (of Crossing The Chasm fame), who wrote Zone To Win … His framework speaks volumes.

.. and worthy of another ‘reminder’ post sometime, (A Second Post I Need to Write.) but not the point of this post, which is that this all came to mind as I was looking at the headline speakers for Disrupt this year.

Delighted to see Mary Bara headlining. To be clear, I am no gear head / auto follower - but it seems to this casual observer that she has done a much better job at navigating the shark invested waters of the global automobile industry than her major competitors. The nay sayers will argue ‘lack of innovation’. They are wrong. It’s just that her focus has been on the right side of Geoff’s matrix. Not to say that she hasn’t also been pushing on the bottom left, just not always with great success and that is where all the noise is.

/ #TwoCents

Gunpowder Milkshake, 2021 - ★★

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:43:10 +1200

I dunno - I thought it might be fun - it was for a short while - another failure to communicate. Sorry - and no idea how it ended.

🎥 Gunpowder Milkshake, 2021 - ★★

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:43:10 +1200

I dunno - I thought it might be fun - it was for a short while - another failure to communicate. Sorry - and no idea how it ended.

The Marksman, 2021 - ★★

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:41:22 +1200

Liam doing what Liam does. I couldn’t be bothered to get to the end, so two stars is generous.

🎥 The Marksman, 2021 - ★★

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:41:22 +1200

Liam doing what Liam does. I couldn’t be bothered to get to the end, so two stars is generous.

Spatial Computing Has Another Contender - AND - They Are Not Called Meta.

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 18:04:52 +1200

Stumbled across this a week or so ago and it got me to thinking - remember the 🖇️ Vision Pro?

Still don’t have one - no plan to - no personal use case (desire is apparently not a use case … who knew?)

That said, there are bundles and bundles of Business Use cases.

Anyway, turns out that 🔗 Sightful are coming out with a solution to a specific use case early 2025.

Their glasses predates Zuck’s and I would argue stand to be adopted more because they are going to be focussed on what looks like a single use case … virtual screens in confined spaces.

Yes folks - Spatial Computing for the rest of us (though to be fair - no pricing that I can see - so may still be only for the wealthy.)

Revenge Of The Nerds - Real Revenge

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 13:13:52 +1200

Back a few years ago - I raised the idea that 🖇️ ATS systems should just be banned.. Nothing changed.

Then I found this clip from The Monkees TV show that aired in the late 60s … 🖇️ The Monkees Predicting ATS software THIRTY YEARS before it appeared. Yes - 30 years is right - that’s when these things started to appear.

Of course in the intermediate time - they have just got ~~better~~ worse.

Even to the point of AI🖇️ Avatars Doing Job Interviews

You cannot make this stuff up!

A lot of my objections about so much of this tech is that it;

ends up in corporate hands
is misused
is badly misused
is extremely and badly abused

… and all the time never does anyone build a similar system for people. AND corporates don’t end up recruiting the best people for reasons like;

the best people ‘don’t have time for that’
the best people want to work with the best people - not bots
the best people don’t tune their resumes to be Keyword and SEO compliant - necessary if you stand any chance of an ATS letting you through its gates

Until now. Brilliant …. The new story is from 404 Media. I haven’t checked but - does this tickle your fancy? It does mine …

🔗 ‘I Applied to 2,843 Roles’

The solution is sitting in Github - 🔗The solution is sitting in github so I am not qualified to comment on how well this works - but I have friends.

Of course corporate HR is going to declare ‘no fair’ because their systems are going to be swamped … too bad.

I presume that someone is going to fork the code and use it to apply for contracts .. and it wont be long before their AIs contact someone on Amazon Turk and convince them to register and sign on (on their behalf) for Job Boards and Recruiter sites - so we can do the same thing there. (Of course it won’t be long before the AIs can also do that.)

We know that the retaliation is going to happen - example case - someone inside the company uses their brains and writes code to get their 5 day job done in 2 to 4 hours - and then take a second job - repeat - and a third job - repeat … what do you think the corporate does when they find out? Promote them?

My prediction - they will work out how to block this access.

Let the battle begin.

Chief of Station, 2024 - ★★★

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 20:52:25 +1200

Not bad to begin with.. but kind of fell off into cliches .. and isn’t Aaron a bit old to be brawling and fighting in the field?

🎥 Chief of Station, 2024 - ★★★

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 20:52:25 +1200

Not bad to begin with.. but kind of fell off into cliches .. and isn’t Aaron a bit old to be brawling and fighting in the field?

The Union, 2024 - ★★★

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 20:25:45 +1200

I dunno .. Marky, Halle AND J.K. .. great cast .. so you expect a bit more than average? Don’t you? That said the choreography of chasing the case down the side of a building was well done. But if that’s the peak .. you wonder why I gave it 3 stars. Don’t you?

🎥 The Union, 2024 - ★★★

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 20:25:45 +1200

Rebel Ridge, 2024 - ★★★★

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 18:36:09 +1200

Three and a half stars … rounding up to 4 .. just for the audacity to remake Rambo and not give Sky any credit. Seriously .. not bad at all.

🎥 Rebel Ridge, 2024 - ★★★★

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 18:36:09 +1200

Three and a half stars … rounding up to 4 .. just for the audacity to remake Rambo and not give Sky any credit. Seriously .. not bad at all.

Rebel Ridge, 2024

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 16:47:52 +1200

Watched on Saturday October 5, 2024.

Rebel Ridge, 2024

Sat, 05 Oct 2024 16:47:52 +1200

Watched on Saturday October 5, 2024.

Argylle, 2024 - ★★½

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:23:58 +1200

Cute. A good watch on a lazy sunny afternoon.

🎥 Argylle, 2024 - ★★½

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:23:58 +1200

Cute. A good watch on a lazy sunny afternoon.

We Don't Need No Edukashun - Actually - We Do.

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 11:22:42 +1200

A Posterity Post

I had cause to add a comment on a post that featured this image.

It is funny - but I think it is funny for all the reasons that the commenters were not seeing ….

A university is to educate .. not train. If you are wondering about the difference, ask yourself if you prefer your children to attend sex education classes or sex training classes.

Sadly most institutions have moved to thinking of themselves as trainers .. so they are ‘workplace ready’. Witness a presentation I sat in just last week where someone from an educational facility was telling us how they are currently revamping their syllabus so that their students could learn how best to work with Ai (sic) … see Stephen Fry’s latest missive.

I stood up and asked her which University she thought the people making Ai had taught them what they know.

(Apparently .. that’s different).

As for philosophy .. oh and let’s throw in ethics, humanities, liberal arts, critical thinking, hell, even english .. are (should be) all on the rise in education, because it is very clear that we need them …badly.

I get the picture .. funny.

But the humor doesn’t lie in the kid having it wrong and dreaming what might be .. it’s in the dad having it wrong and thinking the future is anything like the past.

The Instigators, 2024 - ★★★

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:00:17 +1200

Average score for an average movie. Casey? Never been overly bothered, but Matt is capable of so much more.

🎥 The Instigators, 2024 - ★★★

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:00:17 +1200

Average score for an average movie. Casey? Never been overly bothered, but Matt is capable of so much more.

Wolfs, 2024 - ★★★★ (contains spoilers)

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 16:51:53 +1200

This review may contain spoilers.

Wolfs … not Wolves. Not sure why. Need to look it up. Other than that .. all good. They have a good relationship IRL … it comes through in the movie.

🎥 Wolfs, 2024 - ★★★★

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 16:51:53 +1200

Wolfs … not Wolves. Not sure why. Need to look it up. Other than that .. all good. They have a good relationship IRL … it comes through in the movie.

The Crafting of Craft.

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 10:58:55 +1200

🖇️ Talking about knowing what you’re talking about - nobody who knows what they are talking about would confuse me with a real programmer.

That said, I just read 🔗 Going the Extra Mile — Beyond CSS, most of which is well above my technical pay grade - but still I was fascinated by the attention to detail around ‘crafting Craft’.

Consider - a whole post (well 75%) devoted to the process behind getting a check box ‘just right’ and the remaining 25% explaining ‘push away’, which I knew had to be coded in some way - but who knew there is a phrase for it?

Great read - even if you aren’t technical you get the idea of their focus on good design - Steve would have been proud of them

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

💬 Steve Jobs

… which probably explains why they won app of the year and were name called (not once - but twice) in this year’s WWDC.

The article ends with …

All of this for what? Will all users see the difference? — Probably not. Was it worth it? — Absolutely. These are the minor details that often go unnoticed when present, but become conspicuous when missing. We strive for having as many of those details as possible, making the experience great but at the same time — seamless.

Kudos to Craft - a Great App and a serious tool for writing documents in the 21st Century.

( 🖇️ Related (Page-less Writing Apps) )

Pageless Writing Apps

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 10:10:20 +1200

🔗 Lex raises $2.75M for its AI writing tool that helps writers get past blocks.

The AI stuff is cool, but there was one thing about this app that made me want to keep using it: It has no historical baggage. I find it odd that many modern word processors like Google Docs and Word retain a bias toward pagination — the UX is intended for printing documents onto letter-sized paper. Lex, in contrast, does away with all that.

💬 TechCrunch

Been exploring 🔗 Lex.page for a couple ‘ months. I even pay - but not yet used it enough to know whether I am going to continue to pay.

That said, the above quote is interesting and I agree with the ‘historical baggage thought - but they are hardly at the vanguard of that kind of thinking!

It as if the writer has never heard of;

Craft
Ulysses
IAWriter
Drafts, et al

Let alone, Obsidian, Roam and Notion

Side note - Craft. Most definitely a personal favorite. And I am increasingly using it to share thoughts, ideas, minutes, reports to specific audiences - most often under ‘loose’ password control.

Cant wait to get my hands on the new stuff they have in Beta - though even that still wont solve what I really really want!

Adding to which their own foray into AI support, I just want to tie apps like that into a single world - and not have different versions of different LLMs spread around various apps. ANNOYING.

People Don't Read Anymore - Except When They Do.

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 10:19:50 +1200

🔗 Raw data: Book and newspaper consumption - Kevin Drum

There is a mantra in the world that people ‘don’t read’ (anymore?).

And on top of that - if they do - (very) short form - definitely not books.

I have long thought this to be wrong.

They certainly might not read your stuff. Or my stuff, but they do read - BUT - they read what interests them , what engages them and definitely not limited to stuff that appears at the top of lists.

Kevin’s short analysis on the data says that today we are spending twice what we spent on physical books 40 (or so) years ago. As he says - buying is not reading (👋🏼 to the Unlibraries) .. but beyond physical books there are ebooks, blogs, newsletters … yup - we definitely aren’t reading any more - except when we do.

The Journey From ‘Word’ To ‘Catalyst’

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 11:24:36 +1200

Prompt:

Write a 5 paragraph article on the topic ‘word’

Response:

The Power of the Word: A Catalyst for Change

Words are more than mere strings of letters; they are the building blocks of communication, carrying the weight of meaning and emotion. From ancient oral traditions to modern digital communication, words have shaped human history and culture. They have the power to inspire, educate, and connect people across distances and generations. The impact of words is profound, making them a vital tool in expressing ideas, sharing knowledge, and fostering understanding.

Historically, words have been instrumental in shaping societies and movements. The speeches of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Winston Churchill rallied people to action, inspiring hope and perseverance. In literature, words have captured the complexities of human experience, from the existential musings in Dostoevsky’s novels to the poetic reflections in Maya Angelou’s works. These words not only entertain but also challenge societal norms and provoke critical thinking, demonstrating their power to influence thought and behavior.

In the realm of business and technology, words play a crucial role in branding and marketing. The right words can convey a company’s mission, attract customers, and differentiate products in a crowded market. In a world where digital presence is paramount, the words used in websites, social media, and advertisements are key to building a brand’s identity and connecting with the audience. The choice of words can evoke emotions, build trust, and foster loyalty, highlighting the strategic importance of language in commerce.

Words also have a significant impact on personal development and relationships. They can uplift and encourage, or they can wound and alienate. Positive affirmations and constructive feedback can boost confidence and foster growth, while harsh criticism and negative language can have the opposite effect. In relationships, words are the means through which love, empathy, and understanding are expressed. The way we communicate with others, the words we choose, and the tone we use can strengthen or strain connections, underscoring the importance of mindful communication.

In essence, words are a catalyst for change, capable of shaping our world in myriad ways. Whether in public discourse, personal interactions, or creative expression, the words we use carry immense power and responsibility. As we navigate an increasingly interconnected world, the careful and thoughtful use of words becomes ever more critical. By harnessing the power of words wisely, we can inspire positive change, foster deeper connections, and contribute to a more understanding and compassionate world.

Prompt:

Please distill this article to a single word … (pasting previous output into the prompt)

Response:

Catalyst

So there you have it.

‘Word’ is a ‘catalyst’.

‘Word’

SAS: Red Notice, 2021 - ★★★ (contains spoilers)

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 13:01:04 +1200

This review may contain spoilers.

It is what it is. Of a kind. Set up for a sequel that prolly won’t be made. Netflix calls it something different. Don’t know why.

🎥 SAS: Red Notice, 2021 - ★★★

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 13:01:04 +1200

It is what it is. Of a kind. Set up for a sequel that prolly won’t be made. Netflix calls it something different. Don’t know why.

🎥 A Most Wanted Man, 2014 - ★★★★½

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 08:04:51 +1200

The only reasons it’s not 5 stars is that I find it hard to give 5 stars because 5 stars means it can’t be improved. Now .. how could this be improved .. I have no idea, just wonderful. Quite wonderful. The original book coming from one of ‘my Johns’ (LeCarre), provided a solid foundation. Cast GREAT. PSH .. magnificent. Cannot be,I eve it’s taken me 10 years to get to it.

Death Is Not Free

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 12:39:17 +1200

🔗 It’s time to ask once again why it costs so much to die in Aotearoa.

I for one did not know this and come to think of it - I don’t know what the ‘cost of dying’ is in other countries either.

In New Plymouth, for example, it could cost over $7,200 for a burial … represent(ing) the burial plot itself.

Umm - burial?

Once you’ve covered the expense of the burial, there are a number of additional costs that can make the actual cost of dying far greater – the figure often cited in the media for an average funeral is $10,000.

Rough dollar translation … take 60% of those numbers for the US dollar.

Meanwhile in California …

Then again the average Californian income is three to four times that in New Zealand.

We Are Being Forced To Conform

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 12:06:12 +1200

It’s 18 months old - but 🔗 this post from TimUrban resurfaced this morning, where he talks about how long it took to write his book, reminding me of a post I have had parked for a while now. Time to unleash it.

The title of this post was originally ‘Are We Being Forced To Conform?’ I changed it because as I read it before publishing, I think I answered my own question. We are.

It all started as I was 🖇️ building on this post which was about flavor (🔗the original Substack and how it reminded me of Rick Beato’s piece on people not understanding something being ‘📼 🔗 out of tune’). Small potatoes really - a little bit o' fun.

At the time - over on Substack I commented on the flavor post

I couldn’t work out which bit to highlight so read the whole thing it’s the food version of Rick Beato talking about people not understanding what ‘out of tune’ means … and we wonder why the world is being turned upside down?

Then I started thinking more about a thread that emerged over on Micro.Blog, where @manton commented that he had started and been noodling a post for months before scrapping it and starting again before he published a post he had been noodling on Gaza.

🔗 The comments on the original post are informative

I think 🔗 this is the post that Manton finally settled on., which on the whole assumes a reasonably fair and neutral position that everyone applauded .. and what is really not to love? (A lot IMHO - but that is for another post.)

What follows is the nub of my worry …

The French have (had?) an expression

vive la différence

.. that in my life I have used a lot, despite the fact that according to the OED, there are around 0.3 occurrences per million words in modern written English of the word ‘vive’ - let alone ‘vive la différence’. But heh - vive la différence 😂

The phrase is used to express appreciation of diversity. Maybe that is why it has fallen out of use? Should I stop using it too?

When I was a lad I learned about standard deviation and how oft times populations fell into some kind of ‘normal distribution’ with the vast majority sitting within ‘±3𝜎’.

It seems to this bear that no matter what our private beliefs and personas might be - the crowd is forcing us into only sharing the parts of our personas that fit the vanilla of modern life, with the result that on the face of it, society is forcing conversation in ‘the town square’ to something more like ±𝜎 - and you keep anything outside of that to yourself - for fear of retaliation.

Consider 🔗 this post from @pratik for example.

Sadly the Internet has been weaponized and far from creating a place to be educated about the differences of people and countries and life - we are being forced into submission. It’s a place where ignorance is not so much celebrated as ignored - and ignored because on the whole it isn’t recognized, and if you do anything counter to the noise - expect to be piled on because 🔗 you are either with us, or against us.

Our Way - Or The Highway

The Road Less Taken .. ‘Less’, by Bob, not to be confused with ‘Not’, by the other ‘Bob’.

Bob L agrees.

Rick’s video is referenced in para' 4.

Over The Space of 45 Minutes

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:10:09 +1200

I know the ‘series’ ended - but that doesn’t mean I don’t still take the pictures.

It All Started Here

15 Minutes After That

and 30 Minutes After That

Solving Big Questions - One At A Time

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:00:39 +1200

There are many deep questions in life that have been answered (case in point … sandwiches), but some remain.

This is my contribution to one such remnant.

This Way

Or This Way

Solved

/end

💬 5 Reminders

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 18:55:50 +1200

It’s Saturday - so just sorting out things that I saved and never did anything with - but these 5 - I dunno - good reminders.

In case anyone is confused …

… or stupid.

A solid reminder that I need from time to time.

The idea behind this one often resurfaces in my mind (not the precise words mind), but I find the essence to be a good reminder of the importance of stepping away. It isn’t really what he is asking about - but still right.

He’s talking about WeWork and Uber.

🎥 Hidden Strike, 2023 - ★★½

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:37:42 +1200

Nothing to do - it was Jackie - you know what to expect.

🎥 Find Me Falling, 2024 - ★★★

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:29:19 +1200

Cute - ish … without Harry, wouldn’t have bothered. Been a while since I’d seen him … anywhere. Hallmark anyone?

What Is A High-performing System?

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 10:58:52 +1200

I thought I would ask ChatGPT 4o

A “High-performing System” refers to a well-organized and efficient framework or setup that consistently delivers optimal results. This concept can apply to various contexts, such as organizations, technology infrastructures, or even processes. Key characteristics of a high-performing system include:

Efficiency: Resources, including time, energy, and materials, are used effectively, minimizing waste and maximizing output.

Integration: Components or subsystems work together seamlessly, ensuring smooth operations and coordination.

Reliability: The system consistently performs well under various conditions, maintaining a high standard of quality and dependability.

Scalability: It can adapt to increasing demands or changing circumstances without a significant drop in performance.

Innovation: The system incorporates the latest technologies and methodologies, staying ahead of the curve in its field.

Adaptability: It can respond and adjust to new challenges, changes in the environment, or shifts in requirements quickly and effectively.

Sustainability: The system maintains its performance over the long term, often incorporating eco-friendly or resource-conscious practices.

In essence, a high-performing system is about creating and maintaining a setup that maximizes productivity, efficiency, and quality, while being adaptable and sustainable.

🎥 2 Guns, 2013 - ★★★½

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 20:45:05 +1200

An older one. Couple o’ great action stars .. one of them a great actor .. but somehow the movie wasn’t great. Not bad, but not great.

You Can't Buy Snow Leopard via Apple.

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 14:45:40 +1200

Spoiler alert - I am talking about the book by Category Pirates, not Apple’s OSX.

I don’t recommend many business books .. in fact I don’t really recommend any, rather I recommend the authors, based on what I know, read and see them talking about. Christopher Lockhead is one such person and last week I recommended him again.

Email received this morning …

I tried buying Snow Leopard on Apple but only the audiobook is available.

I was more than a little surprised, but he’s not wrong. I even thought I’d sorted it ..by visiting the book on the 🔗 Category Pirates web site, see the link to ‘Apple Books’?

Yeah No. Apparently - click on that button and you are taken to Amazon.

Which is a good place to buy the hard copy - but this takes you to Kindle and sorry, no, not going to be doing that.

I wonder why no Apple Books? I was wondering whether it was the name - and its clash with an earlier OSX. But that was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, and as mentioned above, the audio book is available.

Weird - right?

Fear not - I am on the case and if I get answers I will report back.

By the way - don’t try visiting that book page on a phone, or even the mini iPad - looks like there is something askew with the media settings for the site.

🎵 Nothing Absent At The Supermarket

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 13:30:25 +1200

Twenty Two Years Ago - give or take - my friend Bob told me to take a listen to an album he has just found called ‘In Abstentia’. Still at the top of my memory banks sees me sitting beside him at the back of some grey boring conference room in Sunnyvale listening to somebody droning on as he silently passed me his wired ear buds connected to his new iPod and watched me have my mind blown as I listened to …

🔗🎵 ‎‎Blackest Eyes - Song by Porcupine Tree - Apple Music

He dropped me the MP3s that evening - and in turn they got moved to my iPod for my listening pleasure. That weekend I was up in San Francisco and did a detour to this store.

Yes ‘that’ specific one - it had served me well thought the 90s and though Amazon was beginning to creep into my world - Tower still held a special place for me - particularly for special music.

… and the rest is history - I have heard it all (ok - not ‘all’ - the dude is prolific), but I do have over FIFTY of his albums in CD format and seen him live in different formats maybe eight times across two continents.

All this as a backdrop to this morning’s trip to the Supermarket.

.. and to say that if anyone spotted me this morning in the Supermarket - smiling, taking my head, bouncing even … this is why. (Jax believes Wilson’s music is sad and makes her sad.) Me? Yes it is sad - but I am with Wilson on this

“I don’t tend to write songs about things that make me happy. I tend to write songs about things that make me angry or melancholic or sad. Those are the things that make me want to express or exercise something through my songwriting. There’s a lot of beauty to be found in sadness and melancholia."

💬 Steven Wilson

In no particular order - other than this is the order the tracks got played .. and Yes … Apple Music - because why wouldn’t you?

🔗🎵 ‎The Watchmaker - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎Pariah (feat. Ninet Tayeb) - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎Permanating (Ewan Pearson Mix) - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎Trains - Song by Porcupine Tree - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎Sectarian - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

‎🔗🎵 ‎Four Chords That Made a Million - Song by Porcupine Tree - Apple Music

‎🔗🎵 ‎Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎The Raven That Refused to Sing - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

‎🔗🎵 ‎Grace for Drowning - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎Index - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

‎Belle De Jour - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

‎🔗🎵 ‎Postcard - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎PERSONAL SHOPPER - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music - featuring Elton John on ‘Shopping List’.

🔗🎵 ‎‎Luminol - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

🔗🎵 ‎‎Deform to Form a Star - Song by Steven Wilson - Apple Music

‎🔗🎵 ‎Signify - Song by Porcupine Tree - Apple Music

🎥 The Sleepover, 2020 - ★★★

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 07:04:12 +1200

If you have run out of movies from the ‘Spy Kids’ franchise, well now you have one not from the franchise .. but that is pretty much the only reason to watch it .. with your kids/grandkids .. oh … and get ready for the question …

> If mom was a baddy and all her old gang are not in prison .. how did she swing being in Witness Protection?

The answer?

Don’t be persnickety .. it’s a movie.

🎥 The Foreigner, 2017 - ★★★½

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 06:53:02 +1200

On the whole, when I eventually get to them (7 years in this case) I do enjoy Jackie Chan movies. This was no exception. If you aren’t into Jackie Chan movies, this won’t change your mind.

🎈182/366 The Monkees Predicting ATS software THIRTY YEARS before it appeared.

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 11:02:22 +1200

A friend on LinkedIN recently made a comment and referenced a video clip in support of his argument, which truth be told, I can’t recall - but it definitely wasn’t about ‘ATS’.

🔗 📼 This is the video clip .. it’s a scene from the Monkees TV show - this particular one directed by Bob Rafelson, written by David Panich - who I had never heard of - but given the subject matter of the clip, was intrigued enough to look him up .. IMHO - serious writing chops.

All this to say that if you have EVER been on the wrong side of one of those bloody ‘ATS’ machines that sift resumes before any human gets to it - this clip will resonate. It is from 1966 Series 1, Episode 3. The reality of ATS in business kicked off THIRTY YEARS LATER.

🎥 Trigger Warning, 2024 - ★★★½

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 20:14:30 +1200

Better than expected.

🎥 The Bricklayer, 2023 - ★★★

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 20:35:46 +1200

Netflix doesn’t do the best movies .. but it they do seem to have a knack of pushing out better than average. Like this one.

🎈176/366 AGE - It Catches Up On You.

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 18:25:45 +1200

I read this today

in 🔗 Austin Kleon’s Newsletter.

Now let me be clear - I am not so old that I ever used one, BUT

I do know what it is and where it was used … and sadly I am old enough to have had a boss who did have such a thing on his desk.

I just looked up Austin on Wikipedia - we aren’t that many years apart … FTW.

LATER THOUGHT - In my younger years I was in the U.K. and Austin will have been in the U.S.A. (Clutching at Straws?)

🎥 The 355, 2022 - ★★★½

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 19:53:32 +1200

Not too bad actually. I started with low expectations .. but not bad at all.

Is This How You Get 'Silenced'?

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 12:39:00 +1200

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 …

Beyoncé does ‘Country’ and not one word about ‘cultural appropriation’ 🤪 no comment from this section of the Peanut Gallery … even Tay Tay had to break out of that genre. I will look up Garth’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 😵‍💫)

Curious that back in April 🖇️ I had cause to write this. I didn’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 …

🎥 Lift, 2024 - ★★★

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 10:37:09 +1200

Not totally bad .. but confused .. and definitely below expectations. Vincent was great. The rest .. meh.

🎈168/366 Guestbooks, Blogrolls, Reciprocity and Paying It Forward

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 10:41:55 +1200

Trying to tie it all together for the occasional visitor.

It all started with Guestbooks. ( 🖇️ I have one ) and yesterday I caught up on reciprocating and getting ahead of the curve. ✅

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. 🖇️ You can find that here. - and anyone signing mine can move on to the next …

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 🖇️ ’Guestbook Blogroll’

Enjoy.

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

🎥 Safe House, 2012 - ★★★½

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 09:55:39 +1200

Somehow missed this in 2012 .. good cast, good director, good film .. and what a YOUNG Ryan’s Reynolds … it was only 12 years ago.

Worth a watch - though a relatively predictable story arc.

🎈165/366 🎵 Memories Moving To The Future

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 10:26:07 +1200

A Musical Box - no, not 🔗 🎵 that one - though in itself well worth a watch - Gabriel at his theatrical finest in 1974.

I happened to drift around some music videos on YouTube last night - and well - some of them just needed to be shared …

Starting with a couple from Robert Plant with the Shape Shifters

🔗 🎵 1 - Robert Plant at Austin City Limits

🔗 🎵 2 - Robert Plant at Austin City Limits

And Then …

Moving on to why Music has a problem. 9 minutes from Rick Beato - listen.

🔗 🎵 Rick Beato on Music created by AI - All AI generated tracks come from 🔗 Udio

Lets see how long it takes AI to do this …

All is not lost - except it might be because we have seen time and time again how the extraordinary is not always understood and often ignored.

🔗 🎵 Guthrie playing .. in The Hans Zimmer Show … just watch Zimmer’s face during this 2 minute solo …

Who the hell is Guthrie (apart from the finest living exponent of the guitar you will ever hear.)

🔗 🎵 Rick spends 10 minutes answering that exact question

🎥 Hit Man, 2023 - ★★★½

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:15:29 +1200

Not bad, not bad at all. Knew nothing about it going in, but all added up to a nice delivery beyond my expectations.

🎥 Atlas, 2024 - ★

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 13:51:15 +1200

Gawd .. slit my wrists now.

🎈155/366 The First Vision Pro Concert Movie

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 11:06:28 +1200

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.

🔗 Lefsetz Letter - Company At The Sphere - that’s the link to where 🖇️ 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?)

🖇️ But February this year I made some pretty logical predictions about the first Vision Pro Movie.

🖇️ And in October last year I was predicting that The Sphere was a pretty good place to start on a ‘Vision Pro Concert Series’ - 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 🔗 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 ‘Appley’)
Lots of San Francisco through time imagery featured in the show
🔗 and then there is this - Huff Post - so maybe a pinch of salt is needed, written eight years ago …but written by Bill Bradey, so not his usual subject matter - but certainly no slouch.
Note that Mayer is also part of The Sphere residency.

It’s all fitting in for this bear.

The only hard thing to reconcile is that ‘Tay Tay’ problem. Is there an overlap?

I think there just might be.

What do you think?

🎈152/366 Politics - Again.

Fri, 31 May 2024 17:09:58 +1200

My reply to @ridwan got a little long, so I thought I might not reply and start a new thread.

🔗 This is Ridwan’s original post

This is my reply to his comment under that post …

We are in for a Labour government, which is a done deal. However, Is Keir Starmer’s the PM after 14 years of Tory squander? I see him as just another politician who will say anything to get elected and turn his back on the people who voted Labour. I guess, even if people do vote for Labour, how many really vote for Keir?

My Reply

Like all good British elections - very few people will get to vote for The PM .. 😀

The problem however is the same as ever it was - who the hell would want to get into politics anywhere these days - so you are left with those that do and when they do - you want to know what is wrong with them - and why - and …. I have a three thousand word introduction to the book about all of this - that I have in my head - but it will never reach paper or screen of any kind.

Here’s what I do know …

Vote or Don’t Vote - BUT if you don’t vote - you don’t get to complain later.
If you chose the first option - understand what principle(s) you are voting for - what problems you are wanting solved etc - and base your choice on the best of the candidates to do that. (There is no other choice.)

2.1) sometimes those calls are things like - ‘he’ll bring back school lunches - the other guy took them away

2.2) sometimes they are broader in nature - this candidate will ensure that billionaires pay the ‘same rate’ of tax as the rest of us, the other doesn’t get it

2.3) sometimes the choice is that there is a clear and present danger to me, society, my country and the world … with the other - not so much.

ALL ARE VALID

.1 , .2 and .3 will vary by voter - sometimes on the day but more importantly - because of their general inability to

a - conceive of, b - understand, c - see the impact on themselves should it come that, d - concern themselves with others - so long as ‘I’ am ok e - just grok …

The possible outcomes of the wrong solution to ‘2.3’ and/or don’t believe them.

So - if enough people at the 2.1 level voted for one person and enough people didn’t vote for the ‘other’ person because they are too old, trips on stairs, mumbles .. guess who wins?

(Apologies a US biased set of criteria that is very real at the moment - but you get the drift - e.g. - back in Blighty - compared to David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris (the THREE Prime Ministers that served when Jeremy was the Leader of the Opposition for just 4 1/2 years .. how much worse off would we be?

I do know that JC was and is on the side of PEOPLE - and has served in Govt fighting the fight for over 40 years. When he was ousted - he didn’t slink off like the last 4 Tory PMs did to reap their financial rewards, cashing in with the Corporations .. he’s still there , serving the people of Islington and still fighting the fight.

At a broad character level who would you rather have run the country for the past FOURTEEN YEARS? Seriously - FOURTEEN?

Heres the thing - the country is being ALLOWED to vote for a party that with one outcome would put Kier in charge. That’s not a bad thing … since Cameron - every single PM has actually been APPOINTED by a few people - it is a few in the Tory party ..

Cameron won in 2010 He won again (just) in 2015 - and I recall resigned over Brexit Theresa May was then appointed As the incumbent she then won the next election, but not very well, so was ousted and Boris moved in Who went on to win his election until Truss was appointed and then little Rishi.

Despite being in power for 14 years - Cameron was the last PM that actually won the election without first having a dry run as a PM because they had previously been appointed.

If Kier turns out to be no good - it is within the power of the Labour Party to remove him and put in someone else - it isn’t the first time - as the Tories continually demonstrate.

The UK isn’t the same as the US. Keep the prize in mind. 14 years of Tory Rule might be broken. Don’t not vote (for Labour) just because you think the leader is

just another politician who will say anything to get elected and turn his back on the people who voted Labour.

You vote for him to get Labour get in power. Don’t like Labour? Vote Tory … clearly they know exactly what they are doing. Just look around the UK - it is clear.

If anybody doesn’t like all of this? Then it is time for action and to do something about it. Get others to join your cause. Change things. Too hard?

That’s why we are where we are.

PS - I know you all know all this. Sometimes I just have to wave my cane!

You Just Can't Tell. Nobody Can.

Mon, 27 May 2024 12:25:33 +1200

I love listening to knowledgeable 🎵 people steeped in ‘the lore’, ‘the history’ .. I can swim in it forever. An inevitable question appears somewhere in the conversation .. “did you know it was going to be a hit?”

no clue mate

… is the usual and correct response.

Same with newsletters. You just can’t tell. I keep reading over and over different writers that are surprised when their ‘magnum opus’ falls flat and a ‘throwaway’ goes viral.

My throwaway newsletter from a couple of days ago gave me an equal numbers of unsubscribes and subscribes … no viral accelerator for me .. but after being flat for over a year - my ‘paid subscriptions’ increased by around 10%. Not only that, but the subscription broke a psychological barrier - paid for subscriptions hit ‘double figures’ 🥳

The point is that you just don’t know - right?

If you want to read it - 🔗 you can

Photo by [🔗 James Lee](https://substack.com/redirect/09651325-975c-4a6e-a218-0fb09410b5ab?j=eyJ1IjoiMWxwdTM5In0.dEnYKl1imVKzccE2tJUXGZbsiuKVg5wkA36RX1iww2w) on [🔗 Unsplash](https://substack.com/redirect/c33d1219-1f48-49fb-b798-bbfccea70c66?j=eyJ1IjoiMWxwdTM5In0.dEnYKl1imVKzccE2tJUXGZbsiuKVg5wkA36RX1iww2w)

🎈146/366 Today Is My Anniversary 🚧

Sat, 25 May 2024 11:48:05 +1200

It’s 🔗 Towel Day ( thank you @odd ) - but today also happens to be my 25th Anniversary

Yup - 25 years. Truth be told it had been going on a lot longer - but it was 25 years ago that we actually tied the knot .. and I have had my ‘personal space’ on the internet ever since May 25th, 1999 (Creation Date: 1999-05-25T20:14:36Z).

Now of course, we had known each other a lot longer than that - long before the web in fact, but you know when you first connect you don’t really note the dates do you? It’s like a permanent honeymoon. Hours merge into days into weeks into months … who really knows when ‘it’ really all started?

I can tell you that I first got ‘involved’ with the internet in 1985. I mean it wasn’t what we know today. My own internet experience in those days was email around our international offices .. but it was the internet (ok, ok - intranet - there’s a word you don’t hear much these days.)

Although Google Trends suggests I am wrong …

.. again!

Anyway, I do remember being annoyed that my messages wouldn’t go out to the people I wanted to talk to - you know customers, partners, vendors - all the people a business should be talking to. .. we could only talk amongst ourselves. I mean the Cerne account team could connect to their customer .. why did I have to use Compusurf (sic)? … but that’s a different story.

( .. and no I didn’t do AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve .. they were never for me - maybe even back then I had the innate desire to avoid being locked into a silo.)

Anyway, that’s it … 25 Years with my 🔗 own domain ✅

Onwards.

How will I celebrate? Why - taking my towel down to the beach of course.

Category Culls and Categorization

Wed, 22 May 2024 16:46:08 +1200

If you have been keeping track - you have haven’t you? … You will know that I am around about a year into a ‘category culling’ on my site. I’m there. Except I am not.

As of 5 minutes ago - the last category died - number 5 below.

The objective was always to reduce the number to something more manageable. Believe it or not - this lot is around a 1/3 to 1/2 of what it used to be.

But am I really there? Could I go further? .. and really, it has to be recognized that this is mainly for me.

The Key

1 - The post a day category for 2024 (flagged because it is in a straight of reorganizational flux).

2 - Experimental category o next couple of weeks it will either be dead or committed.

3 - 15 years ago I had a site of jokes which got imported as part of my web site consolidation program. Seperately I do flag humorous things. I should merge the two.

4 - It was never an ‘Instagram import’ - 18 images that came from Insta - shouldn’t they just be ‘photos’.

5 - Gone.

6 - I want to move all ‘titled-posts’ to ‘long form’ - if indeed they are long form - a long arduous (who cares) job.

7 - my’xxxx' was a way to keep the categories organized for past year as I organized - do I still need the ‘my’.

8 - hangover from the People First site - they don’t need a category - so long as I can search and pull them up - thinking.

9 - people first is the preferred - so need to move peoplefirst across.

10 - do I need quote and quote wise? Quote is a quote - quote wise are the images that Readwise can deliver.

11 - another WIP - that will eventually become the ‘top 10 of each category.

🎈142/366 A Bucket Of Slop

Tue, 21 May 2024 14:06:59 +1200

I am well aware that despite my years long campaign to stop people from describing their words, articles, photographs, thinking … beliefs, soul … Intellectual Property even … ‘content’ … they continue to… unabated.

🔎 🖇️ It drives me nuts.

But I am not giving up …

That said - there are people that ‘get it’. (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 …

🔗 Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content

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

🔗 Meanwhile, over in Finland, they do have an idea or two.

If I don’t say those words when I work with some AI model - I feel rude.

Sat, 18 May 2024 15:24:58 +1200

I opened Chat4o and my first words (audio input) after ‘hello’ were something like write me a quick post about Markdown. What is it. Why should I use it.

Response back - as written. No formatting. No editing.

Introduction

In the world of technology and software development, it is crucial to have proper documentation to ensure that information is organized and easily accessible. Markdown is lightweight markup language with plain-text formatting syntax, designed to be easily converted into HTML and other formats. It provides a simple way to structure content without the need for complex coding.

Why Use Markdown?

Markdown is widely used by developers, writers, and content creators for various reasons:

Simplicity: Markdown uses plain text and a simple formatting syntax that is easy to learn.
Portability: Markdown files can be opened on any text editor and easily converted to different formats.
Flexibility: It supports various elements such as headers, lists, images, and links, making it versatile for different types of content.
Readability: Markdown files are clean and easy to read in their raw form.
Compatibility: It can be used on different platforms and is supported by many applications websites.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Markdown is a powerful tool for creating well-structured documents quickly and efficiently. Whether you are writing a blog post, documenting code, or creating content for the web, Markdown offers a simple and effective way to format your text. By incorporating Markdown into your workflow, you can streamline the documentation process and focus on creating great content.

I have worked with Macs for nearly (more than?) 20 years - and never once said hello to it - or please - or thank you ….

If I don’t say those words when I work with some AI model - I feel rude.

What Will The Cathedrals Of The Future Be ... Let Alone Look Like.

Sat, 18 May 2024 13:41:24 +1200

Cathedrals are places designed to show their creator’s opulence and power, but they’re also designed to alter our senses, to throw us into alternate worlds, so that they can open us our minds to change. If that’s the case, what will these places be in the 21st century?

Good question that was running through my mind when I stumble across this quote …

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

💬 David Foster Wallace

Worlds Colliding. The piece I was reading was 🔗 Cathedrals of the 21st Century from Unchartered Territories, that ends …

You can see similar processes at play today in places like courtrooms or parliaments, albeit more subdued: They are big, solemn, sound is controlled and there are ceremonies, serious uniforms…

… and then immediately …

But you can also apply the same principles and end up with a completely different setting and experience: nightclubs.

If that observation makes you sit up you should go read the whole thing. Also, some great images throughout as you read Tomas Pueyo’s observations across geography and time.

🎈139/366 Ami Dar - Founder of Idealist

Sat, 18 May 2024 09:20:28 +1200

Responsive Video

A simple, lovely idea from Ami Dar (on LinkedIN) - founder of Idealist. Enjoy.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

🎈136/366 Translating A Transcript

Wed, 15 May 2024 12:21:08 +1200

German Language Podcast.
In 🍎 Podcasts - you can see the German language transcription.
BUT - you can’t copy the whole thing.
Looks like you can.
But you can’t.

I use software to record meetings.

Ooh I thought.

Play the podcast - and record - at end of podcast one german transcription. Run that through a translator and voila … or so I thought.

I did an experiment - thankfully.

What the software actually seems to have done is taken the german audio and decided as best it could as to what the german audio was saying - as if it was English.

This was the transcription ..

00:00 Here That’s an idea. 02:05 Like the fruits for real the presidential Here for learn have much of the jobs about completed here in the middle is also provided, you know. 02:50 Silicon Valley can manage to our design I am gonna Valley There are not only isn’t as operating system for startups on invert one in a ropa want to talk about he knows it happens startups of middle stunt or of course team. 03:15 What are all in this one entertain? 03:18 I was eating product on his product and from about yeah. 03:23 I know what linear ball over with design what is supply? 03:28 Put on my mobile phones and Seed talk follow-up disabled and antonym of familial torch and lived in solution in California and Silicon Valley and San Francisco on her off my shoulder and startup boat about under startups of cardboard and get a normal about Cosmopolis this year noises Venture on Cosmopolis is some Lisa has been a community have another Community developers and against Trump his own and hell for some spring on this fits here on this is another Simple so that’s called.

Back to the drawing board.

🚧 Shame

Fri, 10 May 2024 23:33:28 +1200

I have deleted what should have been this post since it wasn’t doing what it should. No time to debug now .. will come back and flag when I have fixed or got a workaround.

The Furor and How One Creative Thinker Changed Everything

Thu, 09 May 2024 14:28:00 +1200

To catch you up, you might have missed 🔗 📼 this video .. you can see it at the bottom of the page.

When I first saw it, I liked the visual effect - but really - not the message. As I wrote over on 🔗 John’s blog

I saw that vid .. kinda like it .. BUT .. I dunno … destroy everything physical, crush it to nothing ?

Unbeknownst to this bear - a lot of people were of the same opinion. A ‘furor’ indeed.

Anyway, in the comments thread on John’s blog he highlighted 🔗this ’twitter post’ from Reza Sixo Safai. This is the 🔗 tweet

Now on occasions I do pop out from under my rock and have noticed that these days Twitter isn’t a very nice place to go anymore. So - on behalf of you dear reader, I donned my protective suit, sprayed myself from top to bottom, grabbed the video and behold …. With all and every credit to Reza. ’Twitter’ is the only reason I pulled it to be here - because Twitter, so now all can view it - and those with protective clothing can pop over and see for themselves.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

My comment cannot be better than this one …

This is unironically one of the cleverest creative feats I have ever seen. To take a widely-publicized, universally panned ad and then turning it into the exact ad that it should have been, communicating the desired message 10000x better.

💬 Amal Dorai

If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.

Not Your Father’s Blog

Wed, 08 May 2024 16:15:13 +1200

Just dropping this here – the home of a new service from John …

AnalAIze | RuminAIte | SpeculAIte

Hang on to your hats.

🎥 Confess, Fletch, 2022 - ★★★½

Wed, 08 May 2024 12:41:47 +1200

I liked Chevy's all those years ago and Mr Hamm did a good job and to the spirit. Put it in the queue - it might appeal one day.

🎥 Page Eight, 2011 - ★★★½

Wed, 08 May 2024 12:39:07 +1200

I love Bill Nighy - so I couldn’t give it 3 1/2 (except I could). Not a bad movie by any means - although Bill does seem to have one character that appears in many disparate movies. It’s 13 years old - no idea how I missed it when it came out - except maybe because it is missable? Only for the ardent Nighy fan.

🎈128/366 Cards Played

Tue, 07 May 2024 12:33:05 +1200

Rafah’s fate hung in the balance on Monday after Hamas said it had accepted a ceasefire-for-hostage deal but Israel responded skeptically and carried out night airstrikes on Gaza’s southernmost city.

… whatever happens now - whatever is said - why on earth would Hamas believe anything being said.

My mum used to tell me that what you say is not important - it is how you act.

Cards Played.

At the beginning of the year I had grand plans for this series. A daily long-form post about something that was rattling my brain that day. And then life. For a while, I was even just dropping markers - to revisit. I came to realise that part of the problem was the complexity of the structure for each post - so that went away. Simplicity really is rather nice. As I write on 240413, I am now going back and filling in the gaps. PLUS - unless something strikes me immediately, I will not classify until the end of the day and go back to move one of the posts of the day into the 366. Also - if you are wondering how I have update the words at the bottom of over 100 posts at a stroke, well - THANK YOU Andy Sylvester and his Glossary plugin.

That's Entertainment ...

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 18:36:40 +1200

No - 🎵🔗 not this

We knew Ms. Redstone wanted out. Looks like it’s going to happen.

And Ellison’s Skydance seems to be in the frame for the preferred acquirer which I definitely do not get - but sure why not?

I look forward to opinions from people like Rob Long and Peter Kafka, if I were to predict - I am guessing that Long in particular might be thinking like me. (Or am I thinking like him?)

The main question is what does David think he is buying and what does Shari think she is selling - because I think they are two very different things. But Heh! What do I know?

(Side Note - The ‘Ellison’ is Larry’s son - who seems to be turning out to be a media/entertainment version of technology dad.)

🎈119/366 Not everything on the ‘Book of Face’ is bad.

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 09:57:05 +1200

Consider this that was just sent to me (reproduced in full so you don’t have to sully yourself).

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out – we don’t serve your type.”

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar – fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

🔗 I couldn’t stop myself back

No - 🤖 Not My First Time ...

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 12:47:47 +1200

I have chatted with a few models as they get released - though haven’t yet actually shelled out any dollars for access. Still. I was intrigued enough when @Agiletortoise released Claude integration to Drafts - so of course I installed. This is that conversation. Not earth shattering - more focussed on ease of set up (10/10) and ease of use (10/10). Quality of conversation .. (1/10)(?). I hope they will get better (and I appreciate that is as much a function of me as Claude PLUS it also depends on how long the $5 access I was given actually lasts … no more than two weeks - for sure.

Shall We Chat?

Absolutely! I’m always happy to chat. What would you like to talk about? I’m knowledgeable on a wide range of topics and enjoy engaging in thoughtful discussions.

How about you - what are you different to other models?

That’s a great question! As an AI assistant, I’m quite different from other models in a few key ways. Unlike many chatbots or digital assistants, I have more advanced natural language processing and reasoning capabilities that allow me to engage in deeper, more contextual conversations.

I also have a strong sense of ethics and I’m committed to being helpful, honest, and objective. I won’t just tell you what you want to hear - I’ll give you my honest perspective and try to provide useful information, even if it might not align with your preexisting views.

Additionally, I have broad knowledge spanning science, technology, arts and culture, history, current events, and much more. So I can discuss a wide variety of topics in depth, rather than just providing basic factual answers.

At the same time, I’m not trying to mimic or replace human interactions. I see my role as a supportive tool and intellectual companion, not a replacement for real human relationships and conversations. Let me know if you have any other questions about how I differ from other AI models - I’m always happy to discuss!

Hmm - sorry - but that’s what they all say. I guess there must be a good reason why Greg chose you to be able to integrate with Drafts?

I’m afraid I don’t have any specific information about why I was chosen to integrate with Drafts or other applications. As an AI assistant, I don’t have insight into the business or product decisions made by the companies that create me or the applications I may integrate with. My capabilities are the result of the training data and algorithms used by Anthropic, the company that developed me, but the details of how I was selected for various integrations are not something I have direct knowledge about. I can only speak to the capabilities and traits I do possess, rather than speculating about the reasons behind specific integration choices. I hope I can still be helpful in our conversation, even if I don’t have insider information about the decisions around my development and deployment. Please let me know if there are other ways I can assist you.

I’ll get back you.

Okay, no problem. I’m happy to continue our conversation whenever you’d like. Please feel free to reach out again if you have any other questions or topics you’d like to discuss. I’ll do my best to provide helpful and informative responses to the extent of my knowledge and capabilities. Talk to you again soon!

New Projects -because of course, you can never have enough projects.

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 12:17:46 +1200

As my Category culling ~~is drawing to a close~~ continues with no end in sight, I just discovered a new project.

Not only do I have this space - but over on Blot I have a different - yet related space.

I used to have 🔗 https://words.philpin.com - for ‘words’ and 🔗 https://pictures.philpin.com which eventually became 🔗 https://images.philpin.com for, well … ‘images’.

And then I moved everything into 🔗 https://archive.philpin.com - it’s so easy in Blot - and everything is was great - were it not for rather a large number of links on Micro Blog that point to those three old blogs. (I know its large - because I just searched for those URLs in Mars Edit),

Three choices;

Do Nothing (which doesn’t really work for me)
Manually change them - one by one (which is something I don’t want to do)
Write a script to search for those three parts of URLs and replace with ‘https://archive.philpin.com’, at the same time as adding a category ‘My Archives’

Which is likely to happen shortly after we witness a small pig flying overhead.

We Don't Care What The World Thinks - We Know Best.

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 10:59:32 +1200

🔗Over on Substack this morning, somebody had taken it upon themselves to ‘correct’ a writer’s English.

Tip: realized not “realised”. I’ll surprised that you got that passed spell check! 😊

The irony of her own typos in her post correcting someone that didn’t need correcting aside …

The click through takes you to the thread where Tom replied, but to save you that - this is what he wrote …

Thank you so much for your feedback in jumping in to correct me on what you believe is my poor spelling but you might want to check your facts: it’s lovely that America has its own spelling for words, and I am all for diversity of language, but I think I’m going to stick with the British spelling what with the fact that I was born in and live in the United Kingdom and (though I often wish it was more) have only visited the USA once in my life, for a total of five days.

Which then spawned a steady stream of comments.

Again - to save the click through, I wrote …

Pretty much whatever the UK does .. the response of the US is to do it different, if not completely opposite … spelling, driving on the wrong side of the road, eschewing roundabouts in favor of the four way stop, inventing its own version of perfectly acceptable games, defining the world as being the country .. ‘world series’, ‘ capital of the world’, taking a perfectly lovely uk show and rewriting it as an American show .. oh and then deliver an order of magnitude more episodes (Key Point: no series set up is that good) .. shall I go on?

And I wouldn’t normally bother writing this - except I was reminded of another Americn trait … we are the first … we are best .. we are exceptional …

Over in another group, someone posted this image.

Which reminded me of Philo Farnsworth (‘Father’ of TV), who has a staute in the Presidio in San Francisco

I quote …

Philo Farnsworth (1906-1971) is the American engineer credited with inventing the first television. He had his potato row/scan line epiphany while growing up in Idaho, but it was later that he fully developed his image dissector and electronics system. His first successful broadcast happened on September 7, 1927, between two rooms in his lab in San Francisco.

In my world 1927 follows 1926 .. but let’s not let facts get in the way in America.

I am sure there is some bright person out there that will give me some technical overview of why one or the other - but really, to the average bear … this is the ‘Telly’ for goodness sake.

All this to ask … why are ‘they’ like that?

(I do know ‘they’ aren’t all like that - I’ve lived in the US long enough to know that - which I will use as my excuse why I freely interningle UK and US spelling in a single paragraph.)

There Has To Be A Link Here For You ...

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 17:04:18 +1200

In case you hadn’t realized - I have been doing some backlog clearing over the weekend, this is one of those catchups. Links from the wild - collected and - not quite curated.

Still there might be something here for you?

🔗 Validating Factual Personal Information | February 2024 | Communications of the ACM - it’s as if Vint isn’t plugged in to the possibilities? What am I missing?

🔗 A Fascinating dive into the history of Poland

🔗 Why Is California the Way It Is? - by Tomas Pueyo - love this kind of visual analysis of the ‘history of geography’.

🔗 Haitz’s law - Wikipedia - the Moore’s law of light?

🔗 Rethinking the Concept of Philanthropy .. something near and dear to my heart as we ready to unleash our new organization onto the world.

🔗 The Seismic Shift That’s About to Change the American Workplace .. it’s Apple News, But TL;DR - old people is the fastest growing

🔗 A quick and easy guide to measurement. - Simon Wardley writing about ‘his thing’. It’s quotes like this that make me smile.

Deciding on what you will measure matters because it will change the type of system that you will build. A measure for getting people quickly from high to low altitude will encourage the development of one system - for example, personal solid fuel rockets. However, a measure for doing this safely will promote the development of another - for example, a parachute.

Three Links To My Readwise Library

🔗 Rishad Tobaccowala - Four Strategic Mistakes.

🔗 Roger Martin - Why Planning Over Strategy

🔗 Scott Galloway on (amongst many things) ESG - and is it failing to live up to its promise - he thinks so.

🎥 Bastille Day, 2016 - ★★★½

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 15:26:34 +1200

Solid Idris - which somehow I missed at the time.

🎥 How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 2003 - ★★★½

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 15:24:36 +1200

I watched it because of Matthew McConaughey - and he played his part.

/END

PS (Not a loser at all - but 3 1/2 from me for McConaughey is not a good score.

🎥 Love Actually, 2003 - ★★★★½

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 15:20:55 +1200

It's fashionable to knock it, but I won't. Solid. A splendid cast and really what's not to love? .. other than it is a bit n 'Lala Land' - but heh - it’s a Christmas movie.

🚧 Setting The Record Straight

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 13:46:46 +1200

It has been brought to my attention that assumptions have been made - and - call me a stickler - that pisses me off.

Some level setting

My mum was born just outside of Manchester.
My mum’s parents were Mancunians.
My dad was brought up in Rochdale.
My dad’s parents were .. well, that is a long story.

I was brought up in York (not born - but then I wasn’t born in the UK - so there’s that).

Suffice to say that I would never have been able to play for Yorkshire - even if was good enough (I wasn’t even close … I got to play for my ‘house’ once because only 11 of us turned up) .. and by the way - despite what it sounds like my ‘house’ wasn’t part of a ‘public’ school.

(Oh - and in England - public schools are actually private - I know - it’s all fucked up}

Still, I am Yorkshire enough to know that this was a rule (until all the other clubs started bringing on international players and - well - ‘knocking them for six’.)

Suffice to say, I am without a doubt of Northern Stock .. and proud of it.

If You Are Keeping Track

It has been a while, but people that ‘fancy themselves with accents’ still pick up my Yorkshire twang.

My People First thinking probably emerges from my early (I wasn’t even a teen) introduction to ‘cooperatives’, that you may know got their start in Rochdale (guess who I learned that from).

He also told me all about Gracie Fields .. arguably one of the most famous Rochdale alumni (despite living out her final years in Capri) .. I sometimes wonder if this very early introduction to a singer from a previous generation sort of shaped some of my takes on music?

Despite never having lived in Lancashire, if there is one football team I could be described as supporting .. it would be ManU … because my Dad and Grandad were both supporters, ie long before it was fashionable to love them.

I am old enough to remember Cyril Smith .. and even though in those days I was not particularly politically aware, he made sense to me .. maybe that Rochdale fairness and equality shining through.

So What?

All this to say that when (and it is when - not if) I make a joke about ‘the north’, such as there should be customs at Watford Gap or the M25 is the inspiration behind the movie ‘Truman’, flat caps, ay up, whippets … whatever the hell it is … I am having fun - and dear ‘Upset Notherner’ - I would strongly suggest you get over yourself.

I would further argue that customs at Watford Gap would be highly beneficial to The North, because customs work both ways.

Facts

.. just a few - I could go on.

Flat Caps

Flat caps are dress accessories that fall between casual and formal. Back in the 19th century, a flat cap was a sign of working class men but has now evolved to being a piece of headgear popular among elites. Men who wear a flat cap these days are trendsetters and well-dressed men in Hollywood.

💬 W and H

🔗 Source

AyUp

… ‘appen, ee bah gum - its all dialect people .. and if someone from Yorkshire is going to accuse me of cultural appropriation OR cultural sterotyping - well - I say Fuck You.

Whippets

Have you been to a party recently? Read the internet? Whippets might not be what you think I mean. But let’s say I am talking about the dog .. they have been a recognized bread in Kennel Clubs around the world for nearly 1 1/2 centuries. Moreover, it was a Whippet that won the Frisbee Dog World Championship three years in a during the seventies. They are great dogs and why is it bad to be associated with Whippets?

The Myth Is Busted .. years ago.

Bottom line, this fits in the Politically Correct space that is absorbing this world in a very bad way. No - you cannot tell me how I want to say things or reference them - particualrly if they are MY HERITAGE.

🎈111/366 Ola Has Gone Lyft Was Never Here. I Refuse To Use Uber. Now What?

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 09:14:55 +1200

I have a fundamental objection to Uber. (You might have heard.)

Which is why down here in New Zealand, when one of those kind of pickups is needed I use Ola.

Make that ‘used to use’

They pulled out! Gone. No longer here. Removed themselves …

Chatting to a ‘Corporate Cabs Taxi Driver - who was doing the usual complaining about ‘Ride Share Companies’ (to be fair - I did prompt him) and I pointed out that IF there was an app I could go to and call up a real cab like I could a Lyft, Ola or MAYBE an Uber - it would make it a darn sight more convenient … and he very kindly referred me to an app called 🔗 Your Ride.

Brilliant I said. Will try it out.

I tried to try it.

App is not available on ‘my App Store’.

My App store is the U.S.A. store.

I have written to them.

🖇️ Getting Started With Your Own Micro Blog

🎈107/366 A Personal Knowledge Repository?

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 11:13:41 +1200

It is lost in the mists of time but I seem to recall a post by @brentsimmons from years ago - maybe even last century? The advice was to reply to emails as a post, so that when a second email comes, you can modify the material on your blog and send the link. (I more than likely have over simplified, taken it out of context, changed the essence if not meaning / idea - but that’s what we do right? The point is that the core thinking has stuck with me … write once - use many.

It’s good advice and indeed many corporate processes follow this idea. Think help desk, somebody asks a gnarly question, it isn’t available in your ‘knowledge repository’, so you reply with original thought and then publish that answer into the repository so that anyone else who has the question can find the answer.

BUT - when it comes to the personal blog, even I - who has this ingrained in my brain, still doesn’t do this as routine and - even more frustrating - when i do .. it gets forgotten about over time because I don’t have a real system to manage such things - and why would I?

So it is about memory - but also I have found the Micro Blog Search-Space PlugIn by @sod absolutely excellent for unpacking such posts'.

All this to say that I have just put up a page on my blog that is the start of attempting to provide help to others that ask.

Enjoy.

An Interview With An AI

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 21:59:51 +1200

There are so many of these things popping up (AIs that is), you need an AI to track the AIs.

Pi is one that caught my eye a while back, and I have had some noodles and doodles with it - when time allows. Clearly 🔗 David had a bit more time than me - because he sat down and interviewed them (?) .. or is it still an ‘it’?

Yes, as David explains at the beginning of the podcast, sometimes the flow is a bit stilted - and through my ears sounded robotic (though I think that is being fixed next week!)

The point is - which is the same point that David concludes with - yes - it is not there - but holy hell in a hand basket … the ‘interview was waaaaaay better than many I start, a darn sight more interesting and really - if you were to drop this in the middle of a bunch of ~~reptiles~~ … ~~talking heads~~ … politicians talking - who do you think is gong to hold the attention best - and I choose that particular category because they are used to being interviewed, to pitching, to telling stories. Some have even been trained ….

BUT

Even with the passionless voice - I found more passion and definitely more reasoning from Pi than a lot of people that puncture my days and nights.

Worried yet?

🎙️ An Interview with Pi

📺 Citadel ★★★½

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 14:28:35 +1200

There are spies. A bad organization called Manticore. A mole in the good guys organization. Who knows how it will all end? OK - not a real question. But entertaining enough.

Citadel on 🔗 Reelgood.

🔗 Sydney to Melbourne. Really?

Talk About Misguided and Fucked Up

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:46:15 +1200

Apparently, Murdock and Musk were on pace to receive the RBG Award? Nobody thought .. hang on a minute?

It gets worse. Below the fold …

Two other ‘awardees’ were 🔗 Michael Milliken

.. and 🔗Martha Stewart

… and yes I do understand second chances and all that - but still .. am I the only one out here on the edge - again?

IMHO .. Sly was the only one who deserved to be on a short list to begin with.

Love to know the backstory.

Ranked: The World’s Top Flight Routes, by Revenue

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 21:27:01 +1200

A Public Announcement

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 14:48:48 +1200

Nobody else will even notice - much less care - about my achievement today, but gosh darn - it needs to be recognized. So this is …

A Public Announcement

Today I fixed the CSS on my MicroBlog so that the video container when looked at on a phone is now fixed and no longer runs off the screen.

AND no Google or ChatGPT in the loop …

AND I have had this in the back of my mind since March 27th, and was ignoring it in the hope it would just go away …

AND I have held off doing it because - well I ‘know’ me …

AND In the end it only took 5 minutes.

I am so utterly gobsmacked that I am going to have to lie down for the rest of the day.

🎥 The Gentlemen, 2019 - ★★★★

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 12:08:17 +1200

Watching the spin off show recently reminded me that I hadn't reviewed this - which I watched only this past Christmas. I like most of Ritchie's movies - this was no exception. I like most McConaughey work - this was no exception. And - DEFINITELY better than the spin off series.

🎥 The Beautiful Game, 2024 - ★★★★

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 12:04:19 +1200

One of those 'little' movies that just hits the spot and then there is 'Bill' - so really, what is not to love.

Turns out there is a soccer competition for Homeless people around the world - and this release sees to be synched with the first annual competiton since before COVID. (If I read right.)

Homeless People - Soccer - Movie - Awareness .....

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 08:49:54 +1200

I watched a lovely little movie last night - fresh out on Netflix with Bill Nighy in the lead role.

On Netflix

Great movie? Not at all. Just one of those lovely little movies that I happen to enjoy - and seemingly that Bill happens to enjoy making.

Anyway - it got me to wondering. Is there really a soccer World Cup for homeless people? Turns out yes - yes there is …

The Real Story Behind The Beautiful Game

Member Countries — Homeless World Cup

I am part of a burgeoning collective that is out there and can be found - but we aren’t yet promoting. Homelessness is one of the threads running through the collective. I haven’t heard talk of this particular event - BUT - I am going to post this post into the timeless space and see what I can find.

Want to know more about that collective and what we are doing - Let Me Know

BTW - It probably isn’t a coincidence that it was released just as the 2024 competition is happening.

🎈091/366 - It's Historical ...

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 12:51:34 +1200

🖇️ After this .. another one from May last year. This one wasn’t as ‘finished, so tweaked a bit for clarity.

Separate question - what was going on in my life in May last year?

Just off a loooong web session with 50 or 60 very wise people talking about AI and ESG. Specifically ‘The Future of Sustainable Decisions in the Boardroom.’ Great session, and they are regular sessions, so ping me if you would like to join the next one.

It came up, so I will report … though I have said this before AND I am going to keep saying it in different ways.

AI used to be about being the best. If the chess program couldn’t beat a grand master then clearly it wasn’t very good. And then it was - so then they said what about ‘GO’ … it never won - and then it did. Clearly AI doesn’t work - until it does.

But this stuff is new.

Yes - it doesn’t write like Stephen King or paint like Monet .. but most of us don’t and …

AND that’s not the point.

The point is that it can write better than the average person.

So (to begin with ) only the below average people will be replaced.

Problem 1 - ask anyone how good they are at anything - they will ‘generally’ see themselves as ‘better than average’.

Problem 2 - statistically - 50% of those people are wrong.

Problem 3 - a substantial part of the population can’t see it coming.

This video is more recent and is an ad - been circulating in places like the book of faces - but makes for a good two minute watch and relates.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

📼 🔗 Just in case you think AI is going to take / has taken over the world.

From The Annals Of History

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 21:35:33 +1200

Tucked away in Obsidian I came across some files that had found their way to the repository. This on in particular caught my eye. It is dated May last year. (which would put me in Palm Desert, if that provides any context?)

Posting it now - as rediscovered.

Sorry … no photo. I hope you understand and no judgement.

Male, not a big man, but neither petite … sporting blue lipstick.

Back and sides of head razor shaved.

Pony tail sprouting vertically from the middle of the top of the head.

Pink framed mirrored sunglasses.

50s style flowered house coat.

Thick woolen socks and ‘working’ boots.

This the haute couture for one customer in the local supermarket..

Customer Loyalty Means NOTHING To Nord.

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:01:02 +1200

I used NordVPN for around 5 years. My subscription was up for renewal. Their charges seemed to be on the high side, so I had a look around and landed at Proton at the recommendation of a microblogger (sorry - can’t recall who) - signed up and very happy.

Since Nord lost my business, they keep sending me emails and almost every time the price goes down again.

This price is less than I was paying before and definitely less than I am paying Proton - BUT - had they given me a loyal customer - this price from the beginning I would never have looked around.

Instead it seems loyalty is worth nothing - only ‘new’ customers deserve a ‘good’ price.

Sticking with Proton.

Bowie - It wasn’t just his music that was ahead of its time.

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 05:16:07 +1200

Your browser does not support the video tag.

🎈080/366

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 07:28:26 +1200

A truly excellent letter - read by Stephen Fry, written by Nick Cave.

🎈055/366 | 🤦‍♂️ Gah and Double Gah.

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 21:25:09 +1200

« n-1/366 | n+1/366 »

🚧

’Prompt' By 'Leonardo'

Gah!

That moment you realize that you should have paid more attention to that message about your phone account needing ‘topping up’.

The exact moment?

When your Internet service breaks.

🎈052/366 | 🎩 Someone Will Be Unhappy Today

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 08:45:23 +1200

« 051/366 | 053/366 »

’Lost Hat' By 'Me'

Someone is going to be unhappy this morning. 🥺

🎈049/366 | ⚽️ Football

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:37:19 +1200

Caveat ‘Navigation is 🚧’

« 048/366 | 050/366 »

’Football’ By 'Me'

I don’t know which I am more amazed by.

That I was half way up a hill looking down on this beach over the weekend and mesmerized by these 4 guys kicking a ball between themselves for close to a couple of hours in pretty intense sun. It was truly amazing - just gentle self control of moving a ball between them - you gotta know that i am no football fan - but they had me.

That being half way up that hill my 5 year old iPhone recorded a video of them - which I then cropped to focus just on the game and it’s ‘just there’.

Who needs a new iPhone? Really.

Click on the green arrow to watch the video.

🎈041/366 Too Hard

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 20:40:34 +1200

I think 41 marks the point where I have to accept that the 366 format is too hard and intensive to manage. So this is where we are headed … wherever ‘this’ is. As I type this into the 41st entry it is actually day 80! I have had too much going on - so have been just dropping markers. I needed to make it easier. I have made it easier.

Gone - the little emojis in the title - I mean sometimes they didn’t work anyway!
Gone - that fancy last / next navigation.
Gone - always having a big picture.

Don’t get me wrong - they will appear - just not going to force it.

🎈040/366 | 🇫🇷 The 9th Arrondissement

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 04:21:07 +1200

« 039/366 | 041/366 »

The Palais Garnier In The 9th Arrondissement _(By Me)_

… it’s also February 9th .

Stretching?

🔗 Me on LinkedIN 12th December 2023

All Change? More Of The Same?

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 23:38:54 +1200

Life can move slowly.
But then it doesn’t.
Case in point …. or is it?

Resignation 14 December 2023

🔗 Business Desk Reporting 19th December 2023

Good result?

It’s a start.

Then we learn that the new chair is Jenifer Kerr - wait, she’s the chair of NZTE.

Indeed she is.

We now have one person chairing NZTE and Callaghan - thought the profiles are slightly different. (I wonder why?)

NZTE

Jennifer has extensive governance experience, both in New Zealand and overseas. Her current positions include chair of Worksfe, deputy chair of Callaghan Innovation, a director of Eke Panuku Development Auckland and Waipa Networks, and member of New Zealand Police’s Audit and Risk Committee. Former governance roles include director of New Zealand Rugby and Counties Manukau Rugby Union. Previously, Jennifer has been general manager of customers, people and environment at Transpower, former group director of human resources and health and safety at Fonterra, and group manager of human resources for Mobil Oil for all of Europe. She has run her own consultancy and has strong experience in organisational strategy, chief executive recruitment and succession, executive remuneration and stakeholder relationships. Jennifer is a member of Global Women and has degrees in arts and social sciences from the University of Waikato. She is of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama descent.

Callaghan

Jennifer Kerr has extensive international experience in the HR and health, safety and wellbeing sectors in North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She was formerly General Manager of Customers, People and Environment at Transpower and Group Director Human Resources and Health & Safety at Fonterra. She has also operated her own consultancy business, and prior to that was the Group Manager of Human Resources for Mobil Oil for all of Europe. Jennifer has governance experience in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, including pension plan trustee roles in both countries. Jennifer is a member of New Zealand Global Women and has taken an active role during her career in mentoring and coaching other women to achieve their potential. She is of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama descent.

One observation - nowhere in either of those bios is there a mention of anything to do with ‘RandD’, ‘Innovation’ ‘Tech’ and all the various off shoots and things that those two orgizations are there for. I guess it is clear what the focus is.

And maybe something else ..

Ever since I arrived in NZ I have been amazed by the sheer number of governmental organizations that float around the country ‘doing’ ‘things’. It’s a country of 5 million people. These are the organizations I have identified so far that brave entrepreneurs navigate for help.

Callaghan Innovation
NZTE
NZGCP
MBIE
NZGIF
KiwiNet
AUT

… not to mention the ‘chambers’ and ‘ema’ and ‘business nz’ and ‘eda’s’ and ‘incubators’ and ‘accelerators’ and … (thankyou Andy)

Here’s the question - as the new administration start implementing their plan - how many closures and/or mergers should we expect?

What do you think?

And is Callaghan and NZTE first?

🎈039/366 | ⏪ The Reverse Network Effect

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 20:45:47 +1200

« 038/366 | 040/366 »

A Vintage Machine - Photographed By Me

Back in the day a technological marvel such as this would cost you hundred and hundreds of dollars. (No joking kids). Of course the number of people you could communicate using such a device - back in the day - could be counted in the millions. So $10 does sound like a bargain, except.

Back in the Day - the cost to connection ratio was very, very small.

For example and being conservative and for the sake of round numbers …

Cost : $1000
Number of People You Can Connect To : 10,000,000
Cost to Connection Ratio : $0.0001

Today’s numbers … with the same simplicity assumptions;

Cost : $10
Number of People You Can Connect To : 10
Cost to Connection Ratio : $1

Now THAT is inflation … not to mention that back in the day the Network effect meant that you cut per connection was falling daily., whilst today, growing exponentially.

🎈038/366 | 🚇 A Stack Of Subs ❓

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 19:36:15 +1200

« 037/366 | 039/366 »

’A Stack of Subs’ By 'Leonardo'

.. no, not exactly. Not a submarine - a sub .. like a subway?

’A Stack of Subs’ By 'Leonardo'

A Train Station?

🤦‍♂️

Oh no. Not a ‘Subway’ … A ‘Subway sandwich’.

In fact make it a stack.

That’s right …A ‘stack of subs’.

’A Stack of Subs’ By 'Leonardo'

🎈037/366 | 🔁 Serendipity

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:41:12 +1200

’Serendipity’ By 'Leonardo'

Is it catching❓Or is it just plain old serendipity❓

It was January 1st when I had the idea for the 366 series. It wasn’t fully formed, but I had to start. And, as the posts started to happen over the next few days, there were different ideas and formats running around in my head and being tried out. With the layouts, every time I locked down on a new one - I went back to the older 366 posts and adjusted. (Not the post itself - the layout.) I have never been diagnosed with OCD, but I have my suspicions.

It has now all settled down, a flow has been building, so much so that I have topics in my head that are maybe a week out.

The trouble is that some of the topics are big, and I know I don’t have time on that day and some get really big so have to flag with 🚧 - my signal that I will be coming back.

🖇️ Like this one for example, which I flagged with the emoji - but I know there is so much more to say that I even added words for more context.

Let Me Explain

I happen to share 366 posts into specific, yet different communities to solicit feedback. 🖇️ This one for example, has spawned comments applying the thinking to a game, which then moved on to applying that game to corporate workshops. Which is just brilliant really. No idea if any of that will take off - we will have to see .. I just like the idea that

a post on LinkedIN by someone I do not know resulted in
a comment from someone I do know that caused me to
write a post about how that triggered a connection to something that I bang on and on about which meant I had to
find that original post so I could share that, so it made sense
which then made the 2nd person in the chain seek to clarify the idea I was spouting
which I confirmed that it was indeed
so he then took that and suggested that a game could be developed around the process, to which I said
or maybe turn it into a framework for Corporate Workshops and ….

… and that’s where we have got to so far. In amongst all of that I have some actions I need to do to close some loops - but it’s all because of the serendipity of the different people coming together in this chain of thinking. #Awesome

But - and here’s the weird part … this wasn’t the serendipitous event that I was referencing when I first ideated the theme of this post. Not at all.

The thread started as a simple idea that as I came up with this project - so too did Om, who I follow and read anyway - but within his ‘river’, he has a sub-theme called 🔗 Project 36

I don’t really follow his photos (though they are really rather good), and I became aware of it because of 🔗this post on his blog, which ends with these words …

They really resonated with me. ()Om often does) and on the 3rd🖇️ January I linked to his New Years message because those words there in my mind right at that point because just three days in I was already feeling the enormity of what I had challenged myself to deliver, daily.

I also have a couple of posts in the 366 series that are very short - to maintain the flow - but they don’t take much time. Like🖇️ this one from the 28th January - it’s a quick photo!

But there’s more. fellow MicroBlogger 🔗 TeeJay seems to have also latched on to the one a day post. In his case - every single day he is putting a lovely image that he takes on that day.

Turns out - for him it is not a new idea. 🔗As his new year post points out. and now his daily photo comes into my RSS feed each and every day - reminding me to stay the course.

And to tie it all back. This whole post was one of those quick throwaways. I had the idea for a ‘serendipity’ post when I had seen Om and Teejay - it was up my sleeve to write it when I was short of time. Like today.

Short of time? What the hell happened?

The observant amongst you will have spotted that an ‘eye candy’ image accompanies every post. In this case, I wrote my two lines and hopped over to Leonardo to generate my image.

This was the first image to come out …

Seriously? Cubes? After just writing a a long post that featured a cube. Is Leonardo watching me? Of course I had to connect those dots and unpack that serendipity.

And with that … done. Time to post. A quick check reveals the word count to be roughly 100 times my original target. I know I am hitting the send button with the post not fully proofed, which is why 🚧 is at the top.

I will come back later to make whatever inevitable fixes I will need to do. For now though … I feel I have rambled to the end of this garden path and I can sense it has come around full circle back to where it all started.

If you are still with me. Thankyou for seeing it through.

🎈036/366 | 🔁 36 36

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 23:26:12 +1200

« 035/366 | 037/366 »

’36 Repeated By 'Leonardo'

I mean you could see this as a filler - but it couldn’t be a filler tomorrow. Could it?

And yes .. a very early post .. time is that short today.

🎈035/366 | 🧊 TL;DR | VL;MR

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 10:17:53 +1200

« 034/366 | 036/366 »

’Cube’ By 'Leonardo'

This is published - but let me emphasize, most definitely a WIP. Hoping to get feedback from a few select people, not to say that I too am noodling more. I will return.

🚧

Out in the wild - and really - these days what else would you call ‘LinkedIN’, I 🔗 read a post by 🔗 Tim Parsons that had garnered a few comments. It was touching on a pet peeve of mine, despite TL;DR being a technique I use from time to time.

This was the essence;

Sometimes it just can’t be any shorter and still be useful. Some lynchpin bit of data or context would have to be sacrificed, a risk go unnamed, a requirement remain unidentified.
Sometimes information exchange has to include all the information AND the meta data it needs to build a bridge from you to me.
Sometimes “Too Long; Didn’t Read” is a terrible risk/reward proposition, and you have to go all the way to “Very Long; Must Read.”
When everything extra has been distilled out, but there’s still a lot there, that’s a sign of something complex enough to be fascinating, or at least full of critical, decision-influencing intel.

He ended his post with a reference back to the source.

I remember 🔗 Marjorie Anderson activating that thought in my head weeks ago, and now it won’t leave.

This resonated ….

Sometimes TL;DR simply must yield to VL;MR

Which got me to thinking.

You know how I am with that word … ‘content’.

To remind from one of many posts on the topic - just on this blog ….

As long as ‘we the creators’ keep using low cost, homogenous, non-descript words like ‘content’ to describe our work, our soul, our passion, our beliefs then our work will continue to be viewed as ‘free - to - cheap - to - low - cost’, ‘homogenized, non differentiated, interchangeable fodder’ (which coincidentally is what silos have always been used for), then, we only have ourselves to blame as the resultant payment for our art, our thinking and our ideas, will continue to race to the bottom.

And whilst on the topic of silos ….

You should never … ever … trust a Silo. It’s theirs. The stuff you put there is theirs. Even our' handle is actually ‘theirs’.

All this and more can be found in an earlier post here : 🖇️ Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Content

And it is not just me …

Just today

and last year .. Dana Carvey and Will Arnett brought it up (listen it’s a one minute snipped) on the Smartless podcast.

Anyway, with that all said … ‘set up’ done … ✅

So What?

It struck me that ‘TL;DR | VL;MR’ is the second axis I have been looking for in my one man war on ‘content’. So I drew the picture.

‘content | material ' on the x axis and ‘TL;DR | VL;MR’ on the y axis - and I was left with ‘Yeah .. so what?

The ‘so what’ was because I realized that it was missing the third axis …‘Entertainment | Understanding’

The fact is that so much that is running around the ‘interwebs’ is ‘Entertainment’. Nothing wrong with that, but VL;MR is really about Understanding.

Moreover, the front facing 4 quadrants are all about ‘Entertainment | Understanding’ and TL;DR | VL;MR - not ‘Content | Material’

So I drew it again.

The coloration isn’t quite right for all occasions, but in this particular context

on the entertainment side - it doesn’t really matter which end of the TL;DR | VL;MR spectrum you are - a 240 character tweet can be as entertaining as a 3 hour movie or a 1,000 page book, BUT on the understanding side .. sure sometimes a pithy one liner can shed light on an issue that a three volume encyclopedia will never do. It’s also true that a very short mathematical equation is very powerful when it comes to ‘explaining’ - IF you understand the language of math(s) (I like to accommodate both sides of the Atlantic if I can), which most people do not.

But generally that is not the case, because what triggered me is that context and history and space and time and .. is needed to really bottom out ‘Understanding’

So far so good?

I added the third dimension.

And we are there … nearly.

The dimensions are right - but the colors remain at odds with my thinking. I have the image in my head plus the colors need to be fading from one color to the next - depending on the context. I am not a graphic artist … and I could draw what I am thinking … eventually … and maybe I will return to complete / correct this.

But before I do that. Make sense? See where I am coming from?

🎈034/366 | ⏰ Time Is Running Out

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 15:00:21 +1200

« 033/366 | 035/366 »

’Time is running out’ By 'Leonardo'

Not much of it today. Sorry.

Except to say - that when you hear all the complaints from creatives how the AI engines are ‘stealing their soul’, if not ‘the bread from their children’s mouths’, you see this and understand it.

Today’s prompt had no tweaking.

This was the first image generated.

But “no … no .. ‘our’ images are absolutely created from scratch.”

Yes - and then there is ‘pattern matching'.

5 : 🖇️ 013/366 ⌨️ Typewriters .. and more.

🎈033/366 | 🥇 And The Winner Is …

Fri, 02 Feb 2024 07:10:57 +1200

« 032/366 | 034/366 »

’And The Winner Is' By 'Leonardo'

This 366 project is officially one month in, so I thought I’d take a look at how we are doing on the ‘view’ front .. I won’t use ‘read’ (no assumptions here 😀).. so, without further ado, and for your delectation, coming in at Number 5 …

And so on down the line …

4 : 🖇️ 026/366 | 🆔 The ‘entity’ in Identity.

3 : 🖇️ 004/366 | 🏢 Demonstrating The Pace Layer).

2 : 🖇️ 003/366 | 💬 A New Purpose.

And the winner - at least for this month, coming in at number …

1 : 🖇️ 002/366 | ♟️ Is There Planning In Strategy❓

Thoughts

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are respectively the 2nd, 3rd and 4th posts in the series, so not surprised.

I am surprised at the 26th post coming as high as 4th, after all, It only had 5 days to get there.

By the time you get down to Number 5 - well, it’s a topic that resonates, and had a full half month to ‘move on up’, so once again, no real surprise.

I will run the numbers again next month, for February - and again for January - and will also provide a ‘year to date’. Be interesting to see the comparisons. (BTW, I am specifically running the data between specific dates - in this case for example Jan 1 to Jan 31 - not just ‘last month’.)

I am also interested to see if this posts gives a jump on these particular posts, so I will check the data in 7 days.

That’s all for now - except to say, my many thanks to 🔗 Vincent who wrote and maintains the 🔗 tinylytics app that in turn produces the data I need to write this email. Couldn’t do without it.

🎈032/366 | 🥽 The Vision Pro

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 16:32:48 +1200

« 031/366 | 033/366 »

’The future of watching a movie using a headset' By 'Leonardo'

So it is out in wild and the reviews are in … and this is not another ‘one of those’.

‘My man’ Om 🔗 also posted about Vision Pro - he himself also highlighting that his post was not one of those. A big difference between us (as if there were just a few - there are not - there are many) is that he has actually tried one out! So there is that.

In his post he talked about 4 magic moments on day one of owning his new toy. This is the fourth on the list.

My last magic moment came when the Vision Pro became what I have always wanted — the future of television (and video.) A screen like none before. I opened up the Apple TV app, and picked an immersive video film of highliner Faith Dickey. I watched Dickey walk across a highline across the cliffs of Norway, but I felt as if I was there. It was so breathtaking — and in that moment, I thought maybe someday this is how all movies, televisions, and even home videos are going to be made for all to experience them live.

And?

And it got me to thinking about that last sentence (that is my bold in the quote that you see).

Christopher Nolan famously produces movies for iMax first Sure, you can watch them in other spaces … but the real experience can only be found on iMax - and not any old iMax .. the best iMax.

Obvious question … how long before the first movie is made that is ’tuned’ for ‘Vision Pro first’?

To clarify … (‘this new movie’ will be to ‘Vision Pro’ as as ‘Oppenheimer’ is to ‘iMax’)

My predictions

1] ’Such a’ movie will be released in 2025. Maybe early 2026.
- (Confidence 70 to 80%)
2] It won’t be a GREAT movie - like Oppenheimer. The timeline for that? 2030.
- (Confidence 25% - 75% lots of variable in this one - because ‘Great’ is hard to calibrate AND also the demand needs to connect to there being sufficient headsets out there for the story of success to work.)
3] It will be financed by Apple.
- (Confidence 100%. Because it is totally in their interests and are already funding movies and can give the makers a LOT of help well beyond dollaroos.)

What do you think?

https://categorypirates.substack.com/p/annual-strategy-planning-therapy?r=2d79&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

🎈031/366 | 🚚 Moving In

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 23:13:05 +1200

« 030/366 | 032/366 »

’A photographic image of 'cars moving in stereo' By 'Leonardo'

A lot going on today - net net, 🎵 📼 this came to mind.

When all is said and done and after it’s all come together I’ll come back and explain in the comments.

If you can’t wait - there’s a clue in both audio and visual.

Until then. Enjoy …

LATER

1st February

Teejay and om

om.co/2024/01/2…

🎈030/366 | 🔗 Just A ‘Few’ Links

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 05:44:18 +1200

« 029/366 | 031/366 »

’A lot of links on a page' By 'Leonardo'

Still battling with my ‘in process’ (I am being generous) archive that 🖇️ I referenced here. Tucked away I had literally hundreds of links - some of which I have no clue why I saved them to drafts - rather than 🔗 Raindrop (a far more logical place). This is a random election from said list. Trust me - you don’t want the whole thing!

Together - A social reader.
- An app.
The Connecticut CyberHub Initiative.
- Provides a pipeline of talent to fill security jobs.
National Cyber Group.
- A national version of same.
John Wooden - Wikipedia.
- It’s funny who gets places named after them, a bar/restaurant in LA I frequented in the early part of 2023 had a John Wooden room. Famous apparently. I had never heard of him.
Is “stream” as a design paradigm over?.
- One of ‘Om’s’ - I started to write about ‘Streams’ at the time.
Streams of Consciousness · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer.
- So did Matthias.
Adactio: Journal—Home stream.
- …and Jeremy.
Organizing my blog - Ben Werdmuller.
- Ben on - well - organizing hi blog, which is what I was doing at the time. Still am! Witness this 366 entry.
Every Company Disney Owns: A Map of Disney’s Worldwide Assets.
- Always loved these kind of visuals.
Reflect.
- An app
Andrew Corser.
- a small blog by a long time family friend that I didn’t even know had a blog.
Geyerhof StockWerk Grüner Veltliner, Kremstal 2021
- Organic wines anyone?
Sky Bridge.
- A bridge - twixt Mastodon and BlueSky.
AI risk must be treated as seriously as climate crisis, says Google DeepMind chief.
- A Guardian Article
Obsidian ✍️ A new take on notes .
- A newsletter.
Grupa Trias.
- a company I met in Poland.
Personal Digital Agent - Google Slides.
- It is what it says on the tin.
Motion | Pricing.
- An app.
The Great Cash For Carbon Hustle.
- Is it? I am mixNo doubt it makes a lot of money for people - but we all know thatisnt right - don’t we.
Micro.blog Feature Requests - Developers - Micro.blog Help Center
- MicroBlog feature requests.
Struck | No Mercy / No Malice.
- A link I have saved for a future post - not yet. I think (know?) he is wrong.
Seven Gigabytes.
- Robin Rendle.

🎙️ 🔗 Rob Long - Martini Shot

🎈029/366 | 🎙️ Is Honesty The Best Policy❓

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 10:41:38 +1200

« 028/366 | 030/366 »

’You Can’t Handle The Truth' By .. well, who do you think it is?

Don’t worry - this isn’t what you think it is.

If you are married or single, a writer or manager, paid for what you do or just for the love, delivered or received feedback, good or bad this is worth every minute of the 11 minutes and 44 seconds it will take you to listen to it.

I think this is my absolutely favorite podcast.

Short - so there is always time to listen
Good story telling, to keep your attention.
Serious points made with humor.

W H A T - I S - N O T - T O - L O V E ❓

🔗 Isn’t That Spatial? | No Mercy / No Malice

Sometimes There Is No Pleasing People

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 10:09:21 +1200

Another old note, that deserves to see the light of day. I have 🖇️ written before on my position (a fan - not a fanboy), still …

The Masses:

“Apple hasn’t produced anything new since the iPhone.”

But surely: …

Apple TV
AirPods revenue roughly equivalent to Netflix
Apple Watch
A whole new range of Apple Silicon
Apple Services …

The Masses:

“Yeah yeah yeah … but nothing like the iPhone. Nothing innovative.”

Apple … hold by beer.

Behold, not just a new product, a new category that we call ‘Spatial Computing’, to give you an idea of what we mean.

The Masses:

“Yeah - that sucks it is going to fail.”

A couple of links.

🔗 The AR Vision

🎈028/366 | 📸 Just A Picture

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 10:08:46 +1200

« 027/366 | 029/366 »

'Just A Picture' By 'Leonardo'

Because somedays 🖇️ Ain’t Nobody Got Time For ‘Dis’. Sorry.

🎈027/366 | 📼 Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 18:22:16 +1200

« 026/366 | 028/366 »

'Ain't Nobody Got Time For That' By 'Leonardo'

I remember a segment in Trevor Noah’s Daily Show that was called ‘Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That’

Today I learned that there was a whole video and thing from years before. Is that where he got it from?

📼 The YouTube video

🎈026/366 | 🆔 The 'entity' in Identity

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 22:19:54 +1200

« 025/366 | 027/366 »

'The Identity Entity' By 'Leonardo'

BTW - If you want to cut to the chase - Identity 2.5 is a great Substack to get your teeth into.

Identity continues to be core thinking in the work I do with people. In particular with a company down here in Aotearoa.

The Founder is a deep thinker - as are his communications. One of my jobs is to take those thoughts and write words that ordinary people might understand.

In the ‘biz’, it’s a different challenge. Like any other ‘biz’, there are words and phrases that get used and we all think we understand them. But do we? Particularly when you are trying to reset thinking. Even a little bit. Why? Because specific words have specific meanings in certain contexts and ‘the experts will hear th word and some they know what comes next.

Therefore you have to be careful when you use them. BUT, if you don’t use them, you find yourself having to keep redefining things so you don’t lose the frame of reference!

That’s the hard part, but now lets get back to the plot.

Last week I needed a ‘twofer’.

I needed to summarize the essence of what we are talking about in ‘*everyday English’. I knew the recipients were on the ‘fringe’ of the biz, so they had an understanding of ‘identity’, but our pitch was to have them look at identity in a different way. Plain English needed but reset required.

When he saw my email he wrote;

“I like the Johnising of Alan.”

… which I am taking positively and assuming I am not too off beam - recording for posterity - with a few tweaks to protect privacy.

My take on Alan’s thesis

Identity is about people - ordinary people - not devices, not technology … people.

AND

People necessarily have to deal with businesses in three main contexts

In person
On the phone
Online

AND

A lot of identity processes are really kluges that get bypassed all the time. (Personal experience just last month with a bank where I had to prove who I was - and every single proof that they needed I failed - since I had been out of the country and all the ‘check points’ had changed. It took me about 15 minutes together my access back - and I know I legally failed.)

Think of it as ‘theater’. Like taking your shoes off at the airport.

AND

There is no single safe mechanism that allows for all three contexts. In fact some things you need to do just cannot be done in certain contexts.

AND

The tech industry’ is mainly working on ‘number 3’. (Even though numbers 1 and 2 will not be going away. They are mainly being ignored because I suspect that the tech industry really thinks about ‘tech’ and seems to exclude ‘people’ and ‘place’. You only have to recognize that if you have someone’s device, then to all intent and purposes, you can assume their identity and place … who needs ‘place’ - we are all in one place. It’s called the internet!

OK - I am being a little unfair - but you know what I mean. Right?

AND

They are often only working on two party authentication - I am me - here is my proof that I am me - and you will believe me on providing that proof to you.

AND

The complexity, problems and potential losses are exponential when you consider three party authorization … i.e. I (party a) have an account with a business (party b) that grants me a discount at another business (party c). How do you make that work efficiently - across all three contexts?

Meanwhile

Clear use cases include KYC (Know Your Customer) .. a global process that is increasingly necessary as part of more and more laws - to ‘protect’ us. But it is theater. It’s a theory gone amok leaving with organizations that deal with people as a business have been forced to implement expensive, drawn out, and costly (for both business and customer) processes that are not really working.

There are many many more cases we will (are) work(ing) on.

Sometimes you will hear that ‘Web 3’ is going to solve it. Sometimes ‘DIDs’. Hell - even the NFT unicorns were making promises at one point. ‘Cyber’ … ‘AI’ … there is an ongoing barrage of people that talk hypothetically about the problem - but there still isn’t really a solution. They might well be the answer - maybe - but not today

There needs to be wider adoption.
It needs to be easy AND safe.
There needs to be trust.
It needs to be cost effective.
There should be no barriers.
We definitely should not be waiting for whatever the ‘tech d’jour’ is to grant us salvation.

We call all that Identity 3.0 - and who knows - just like Web 3.0 it may happen one day.

We call our solution Identity 2.5 - because it does not use tech that is not available - rather it sits in existing infrastructure that is already in place.

We have a working demo. We have patents. We have commitment from the NZ Govt. We believe we are unique - and nobody that has seen it disagrees.

We are moving forward.

Later

This seems to have caught attention since I originally posted it, so in order to save you time, if you are interested in what I am talking about and want to learn more, you can drop me an email - and be sure I will get right back to you. My thanks for your attention.

EMail Me Now

🎈025/366 | 🐫 Do Not Put ‘Product’ In Charge

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 12:55:34 +1200

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'Do Not Put ‘Product’ In Charge' By 'Leonardo'

Don’t get me wrong. I have a lot of time and respect for 🖇️ Dana Blankenhorn - as you can see … so this one caught my attention

There’s a single rule I’ve learned studying technology this last half century. Product must be in charge.

.. and 🔗then he goes on

I totally disagree, so had to comment and did. Reproduced here for posterity

I don’t disagree on taking the finance wonks out .. but not sure I agree on putting product in … I know lots of companies that lead with product .. and it doesn’t work unless there is wider purview which is often missing in product thinking. Our friends in Cupertino don’t lead with product .. though many pundits think they do .. they lead with vision, experience and story that the product delivers against.

The ‘top’ needs to be market, future market, visionary oriented. Disciplines that used to fall under marketing … though sadly not anymore .. as they are all chasing data and models and RoI .. but those people exist. In all of those disciplines. The dude at the top can still be a focussed finance wonk … their ancillary skill (beyond those three core requirements) is to listen to everyone, take advice and pay attention.

Again .. the man at the top of Cupertino is ‘operations and supply chain’ ( by history ) but to the casual observer, that isn’t so obvious. Meanwhile, the man before him was vision and experience and story .. sure he definitely had a say in product … but from an holistic viewpoint -

Just one slice of the holisticism (is that even a word)… how many ‘product’ people get what good design can do.

If they do .. I mean REALLY do .. why are there so many badly designed, poorly performing products out there?

What Do You Think?

Postscript - sometimes the Leonardo images take a few tweaks to get even close to my underlying message - but in this case - third go - and was only generating 1 image at a time. Sometimes I run out of the 150 free credits that I get every day - and have to choose from a bad lot.

This image just spoke volumes to me as ‘the house that ‘product’ built.

Funnily enough - today’s emoji was also absolutely clear.

🎈024/366 | 🍏 Tim’s Job Is Safe

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 14:38:42 +1200

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'Tim’s Job Is Safe' By 'Leonardo'

🖇️ This fine piece of writing dates back to June 2016. What? 7 1/2 years ago?

It popped up yesterday when I was searching my site for something else. A few things dawned on me, not least of which … whatever happened to Scoble? Not that I care.

Don’t get me wrong. I am sure he is bouncing around somewhere - I just don’t track him. I am guessing that at some point in time I just closed him out of my mind, because he more often than not wrote rubbish.

That certainly seemed to be my opinion .. what? 7 1/2 years ago! 😃

That all said, posting this as an early (quasi) ‘claim chowder’ (tip o' the hat to @gruber) entry. I didn’t believe him (Scoble) then - and said so - and though the jury is strictly still out - I am firmly in the camp that the vision pro IS the next big thing and more importantly that it is because of ‘Tim Apple’ - not despite him. In short - I don’t think Tim needs to worry too much. Certainly not about ‘Bob’.

🔗 Tories hire coordinator to get expat supporters to vote in general election.

🎈023/366 | 9️⃣ Highlights From Yesterday

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 12:47:28 +1200

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A different theme for today’s 366 … nine links to yesterday’s news - complete with pithy comment - courtesy of this author

1️⃣ 🖇️ Remember my post from a couple of weeks ago?

Well, it turns out that though he might have been expecting .. hoping for that … it might not be a slam dunk.

Who knew?

2️⃣ 🔗 Trump Says He ‘Aced’ Cognitive Test, Mind Is ‘Stronger’ Than 25 Years Ago

.. not exactly a high bar.

3️⃣ 🔗 Flanders government looks to force TikTok and YouTube to share revenue | Belgium.

Some lessons here. Most Governments pay (they don’t use that word … but that is what they are doing) to attract film production.

I think this is the right way round.

4️⃣ 🔗 Rise in measles cases prompts vaccination campaign in England.

Oh .. so it’s ok to get vaccinated now?

5️⃣ 🔗 The Musical Instruments Market Size Is Expected To Reach $14 Billion By 2027.

Wonder what constitutes a ‘musical instrument ‘ these days?

6️⃣ 🔗 January 21, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

I wonder if Dobbs, with its announcement that when Republicans are given power over our legal system they do not consider themselves obligated to recognize an established constitutional right, will turn out to be today’s version of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

No Comment. Yet.

7️⃣ 🔗 Thousands of Māori gather to tell New Zealand’s government: you cannot marginalise us.

Got to say .. ‘Cristopher (sic) and crew’ were warned.

8️⃣ 🔗 DeSantis Might Be the Worst Presidential Candidate in Recent Memory

Say what now?

Isn’t The Orange Clown a Presidential candidate? Problem nailed .. ‘they’ve forgotten already .. and he is in the fucking race!

9️⃣ 🔗 It seems that ‘God sent a quitter’

If his campaign is remembered at all, it will be for setting fire to a pile of money big enough to be seen from space in order to win a grand total of nine Iowa delegates.

ROTFFLOL

🎥 Shotgun Wedding, 2022 - ★★★

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:20:08 +1200

Yeah. No … unless you have nothing better to do.

🎥 The Covenant, 2023 - ★★★★

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:18:22 +1200

Massive fan of Guy Ritchie. This is not your usual Guy Ritchie. Do not miss it. Wonderful.

🎥 Fast X, 2023 - ★★★★

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:15:35 +1200

I’m not a massive fan of the FandF franchise, I am definitely not a ‘hater’. This one though .. X … OH MY .. and totally made my Jason Momoa. Played the ‘baddie’ brilliantly, highly recommend just to see him do his thing. This ain’t Aquaman.

🎥 Renfield, 2023 - ★★★★

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:06:44 +1200

Love and Hate Mr Cage … and his movies. This one is definetlu love. Over the top as only he can do, without it being bad. I’m not a Dracula dude. This was great.

🎈022/366 🤖 AI Experiment

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 07:39:01 +1200

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… is a picture I took this morning while I sat with a cup of coffee.

If you have been following along with these posts recently, you will have noticed that a lot of images I use in the 366 series are generated by an AI. (More often than not Leonardo.ai) I do not spend a lot of time on creating the perfect prompt. I am really just playing around and creating a little eye candy whilst learning what I can. Which got me to wondering, what would Leonardo make of my view?

I used this prompt.

“I am looking at Auckland Harbour from a balcony in the viaduct. The sun is shining, but the day is still quiet. Create an image for me that you think reflects what I am seeing.

I ran the prompt three times and these were the results.

I decided this was the closest to the right result as in ‘matching the prompt’.

It has Sky Tower - so ‘Auckland’ - except if I was looking at the harbour from a balcony - Sky tower would be behind me.
It is very clearly a balcony.
I rejected the bottom left, because really - to match the prompt ‘I’ wouldn’t be in the picture.
There were others that were as acceptable. None were ‘right’/

So - why no boats in the AI images? Because they weren’t included in the original prompt.

Just for kicks I modified the prompt

“I am looking at Auckland Harbour with some moored boats from a balcony in the viaduct. The sun is shining, but the day is still quiet. Create an image for me that you think reflects what I am seeing.”

Am I happy with the finished results? Well - no.

But if i didn’t have access to the actual image, for a few minutes of work - the results weren’t too bad.

(These are the results from the free version of Leonardo. I know they would be massively improved if I subscribed and added access to the other models they have available. First though, I want to learn as much as I can for free.)

What do you think?

🔗 Fascism is everywhere on the march. And it’s Trump who sets the pace | Simon Tisdall | The Guardian

Maybe The Media Is Biased?

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 07:04:34 +1200

The comforting conceit that Donald Trump is an unpleasant yet passing American aberration, often heard during his 2017-21 presidency, is harder to believe than ever after his Iowa caucus landslide victory last week.

Simon .. it wasn’t a landslide. Even the article you linked to doesn’t say ‘landslide’. You of all people should know this .. maybe you should read your own newspaper more …

🔗 Iowa caucuses 2024: Republican results in full | US elections 2024 | The Guardian

He won 20 delegates .. and 3 more after the idiot Ramaswamy dropped out. 17 more won by ‘others’.

Call that a landslide? Ronald Reagan winning 49 of the 50 states .. THAT’S a landslide. (Tip o’ the hat to Crocodile Dundee.)

🔗 Here’s what Iowa’s own newspaper wrote.

TL;DR 15% of registered republicans actually voted. Around 110 thousand out of 3.2 million people.

It really does seem that we have a biased media .. but not like the Rethuglicans think.

🎈021/366 👮🏼‍♂️ The Seven Laws of Identity

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 06:01:08 +1200

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I was listening to 🎙️this podcast and of course duly reminded of Kim Cameron’s 7 Laws of Identity, so replaying here for posterity. You can 🔗 read a quick summary here.

Law 1: User control and consent
Technical identity systems must only reveal information identifying a user with the user’s consent
Law 2: Minimum disclosure for a constrained use
The solution which discloses the least amount of identifying information and best limits its use is the most stable long-term solution
Law 3: Justifiable Parties
Digital identity systems must be designed so the disclosure of identifying information is limited to parties having a necessary and justifiable place in a given identity relationship
Law 4: Directed Identity
A universal identity system must support both “omni-directional” identifiers for use by public entities and “unidirectional” identifiers for use by private entities, thus facilitating discovery while preventing unnecessary release of correlation handles
Law 5: Pluralism of Operators and Technologies
A universal identity system must channel and enable the inter-working of multiple identity technologies run by multiple identity providers
Law 6: Human Integration
The universal identity metasystem must define the human user to be a component of the distributed system integrated through unambiguous human-machine communication mechanisms offering protection against identity attacks
Law 7: Consistent Experience Across Contexts
The unifying identity metasystem must guarantee its users a simple, consistent experience while enabling separation of contexts through multiple operators and technologies

Down here in sunny New Zealand, I have been helping a local man with his identity solution. More on that in due course - because - guess what - its pretty much ‘tops’ .. and expression I learned last night which is the antonym of ‘pants’ … but I digress.

It turns out his system hits all seven laws - and that’s just how it worked out, to because he designed to them. This gives me even more confidence that we are on to something. It would be kinda like building a robot and then realizing it is ‘Asimov compliant’.

🎈020/366 | 🔮 Future Vision

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 16:15:15 +1200

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Over the holidays, down in Wellington, I somehow constantly found myself in conversations about ‘local politics’ … council, city, region … and dare I even say national? (On a global scale ’national thinking’ for a small country like New Zealand is still ‘local’.) No need to talk about the topics discussed - the usual, but my recurring observation that was never rejected is that long term planning anywhere for housing, climate change, infrastructure, EV cars, bike lanes … you name it .. is never that long term because the elected officials - even if they had the vision .. and often they don’t’ (but that is a different story) - don’t think beyond their election cycle.

As a result it is a brave group of politicians that put in place 25 to 30 year plans for anything … much less real long term!

Enter 🔗 The Ministry for the Future - New Ideas From Ancient Wisdom. - with my highlights and annotations on Readwise. It’s not quite the same idea and far more ‘financially technical’ than I might ever hope to completely understand - much less explain - but it is all connected and makes for a fascinating - if technical - read.

Unless you’re a policy wonk or a certain kind of federal contractor, you can be forgiven for not knowing what the discount rate is.

BUT - so you know …

Seperately …

📼 A Long Now talk from Kim Stanley Robinson : Climate Futures: Beyond 02022 (referenced in the article, not yet watched - but is now in my queue). Also, that 02022 is not a typo - it’s a ‘Long Now’ year. I like them just from that simple switch in thinking. It positions us in time very differently to 2022. (Not sure if it is also unseen inspiration behind the numbering system of my series for 2024.)

‘nuff said for now. Suffice to say, I am going to do some further exploring around the ‘social discount rate’. This bear hadn’t stumbled across it previously - but it seems to be an excellent way of thinking about a reason why ‘our’ policies are so broken.

🎈019/366 | 🤩 Excited About The Future

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 07:54:39 +1200

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You might think today’s choice of ’image’ is a little odd. I mean, is a black rectangle even an image? And what does it mean anyway? But for me it speaks volumes.

It is a similar theme to yesterday’s post … The Future … and yet, I’m talking about a totally different future. A more personal one, not a societal one.

That all said, not yet ready to talk more publicly about what is going on. I just wanted to capture this day in the ‘live journal’ to remember that the business cards were ordered yesterday, Jax catching a plane to the U.S.A. on Saturday and will be gone for the next three weeks working on this.

‘Pumped’ doesn’t even start to describe my feelings.

🎈018/366 | 🔮 A Better Future

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 14:45:29 +1200

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A short one today because the 🔗 📼 Biden video speaks for itself.

For me? One of the best, passionate most comprehensive campaign speeches I have ever heard. In fact, the qualifier ‘campaign’ is probably unnecessary.

If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.

🎈017/366 | 🪙 Both Sides Now

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 18:17:36 +1200

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No. Not the song.

I don’t blame you if you haven’t been keeping up with ‘SubstackGate’. I have .. so you don’t have to … you are welcome.

Bottom line .. Fascism, Nazis, Support, Deplatform … you get the picture.

🔗 Why the Kākā Is Staying on Substack

🔗Why Platformer is Leaving Substack

My Thoughts?

I am on Substack and read some bit of it each and every day. Never seen a single piece by a Nazi. Never been recommended to go visit a Nazi. The fact is that they are always going to be somewhere - even in real life. On the blogging / newsletter side of the platform - I don’t see the issue - BUT - on the social side of it - yes - it COULD - and when / if I do - I will reconsider - but for now … kinda like Bernard wrote up there.

🎈016/366 | 🌴 Greener Grass Over There

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:42:00 +1200

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Somebody else’s grass is greener. Always.

Just finished a conversation with a Turkish gentleman who has now lived in New Zealand for 10 years. Came here to learn English. He has. Now moving to Perth …

You can earn twice the money and buy twice the house for half the money. What can go wrong?

Indeed, what can go wrong? So much, but then doing nothing solves nothing and it still can go wrong. Plus his journey time ‘home’ will be halved - as will the cost of the flight.

If people leaving their own country to get a better life in New Zealand are leaving to get a better life in Australia - is it any wonder that so many Kiwis do exactly that?

I hear of this talked about amongst people - a lot. At the policy level - not so much.

If you think housing is expensive where you live, consider New Zealand - where a ’tradie’, a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a coder, a … pretty much any skill class you can think if can emigrate across the Tasman sea, earn twice the money and buy a similar property for half the price - is it any surprise that they are?

Meanwhile, I know a few Kiwis who have lived abroad for most of their life and will be ‘coming home’ to retire.

Does anyone else see a problem?

🎈015/366 | 🚶‍♂️They Walk Amongst Us

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 19:03:25 +1200

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“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

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 06:51:47 +1200

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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

🔗 📼 McKinsey

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

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 09:30:04 +1200

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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

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 07:20:42 +1200

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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?

🔗🎵 📼 This one

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 gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.

🎈011/366 | 🔮 Indie Publishing - Future Vision

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 14:50:39 +1200

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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.

🔗 Interesting piece from Om today.

🎈010/366 | ✍️ Rewriting Future History

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 12:48:59 +1200

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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

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 10:34:24 +1200

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… 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

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 10:04:45 +1200

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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

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 15:47:35 +1200

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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

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 07:05:49 +1200

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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.)

🎈005/366 | 🎨 Art Imitating Life❓

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 10:54:22 +1200

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Continuing on from yesterday’s post (4/366), Martinborough is actually a planned town, originally laid out by

Its center square and the roads running into it were laid out to represent a Union Jack.

Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life

💬 Oscar Wilde

The names of the roads through ‘old Martinborough’ are named after towns in Europe that Mr. Martin travelled to on a world tour before he laid out his new town. Later - as the world moved towards World War 1, some of the more germanic sounding street names were changed to celebrate important Military leaders of the time - hence Kitchener.

Meanwhile - head down Kitchener Street to the square and back out along Jellicoe Road there are three mural on the wall. This is one of them celebrating The Martinborough Hotel.

The Artist seems to have an understanding of how the town came to be - or are the bags on the Fiat actually those of the visitors to Martinborough - and not of Mr. Martin. Then again - when Mr. Martin was traveling, I am not sure the car had been invented, much less the Fiat 500.

Maybe Oscar had it right? Maybe the artist is predicting the arrival of the Fiat 500 - so that life can indeed imitate art?

🎈004/366 | 🏢 Demonstrating The Pace Layer

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 21:07:18 +1200

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Over the break, I had the fortune (not committing to whether that’s good or bad, since that is a whole different story) to visit Martinborough in the Wairarapa - one of New Zealand’s wine regions. It’s a cute little town that includes a single ‘supermarket’.

On one visit I noticed two photographs on the wall - the building from the early part of the last century, photographed in 1906 ….

… and a second of a different building (same site) in 1949.

As I took the photographs of the photographs, I commented to a couple passing by and watching me that it was a shame that a beautiful building such as the original was replaced by the ‘flat pack’.

I assumed that some bright spark had decided to pull the old one down in favor of the ‘modern, sleek lined building’.

Never assume.

Yes the old one was pulled down - but after a major earthquake rendered part of it flat and part of it unsafe - and I get why you would want to modernize and I know why the designs changed - but that’s not what this is about.

What it’s about is that the photographs and conversation reminded me of a 🔗 recent post from Stowe Boyd that referenced Stewart Brand’s book 🔗 How Buildings Learn which in turn built on the ideas of British architect Frank Duffy.

Buildings aren’t made out of glass, concrete and stone: they’re made out of time, layers of time.

💬 Frank Duffy

Brand’s model is clear;

… and the two images reveal it in action. No images from the inside of the store - though for the Kiwi’s amongst you, I can say that the Martinborough FourSquare is the nicest (and largest) FourSquare I have ever visited. (For Brits, think of a FourSquare as something like one of those Tesco or Safeways Mini-marts we find in ever increasing numbers around the British Isles. Think of the Martinborough Foursquare as more akin to a mid sized Waitrose. For American readers … Wholefoods? High end Safeways?

All that said - look at Brand’s model carefully and consider buildings you know and how they relate.

🎈003/366 | 💬 A New Purpose

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 07:59:15 +1200

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Interesting to read 🔗 this from Om. I definitely did not feel that all of last year, but definitely in the past couple of months, something in me has been coming together. It’s as if bits of Lego have been suddenly snapping together, around writing, my work programmes and the connected thinking.

It’s not just the new year. There’s a fundamental shift I am feeling.

The question is whether it is an aberration, or something that will translate to something that will stay for part of the journey.

I think it’s the latter.

LATER

Funny .. as I published this post, someone sent me this;

🎈002/366 | ♟️ Is There Planning In Strategy❓

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 08:21:55 +1200

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In one of my work programmes there is an ongoing debate around planning and strategy .. one of the team going as far as to suggest that ‘strategic planning’ is an oxymoron (my words). This seems to nicely channel an aspect of that thinking.

This particular quote

is taken from 🔗 this article, which in turn arrived with me from discussions over at the UNdaunted. You’ll be hearing more about them over the next year.)

I think it also plays into the old adage (I paraphrase) ..

“All plans are a waste … but planning is essential.”

For me. I think there is truth in this line of thought.

What do you think?

🎈001/366 | 📸 This Is What I Know

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 17:20:03 +1200

002/366

There’s a 🔗 Stonehenge in New Zealand.

Spent a lovely afternoon there today.

If you have interest its 🔗 three words are ‘enable.improves.preperations’.

🖇️ The Full Story Starts Here

Dear Xfinity this happened over two months ago - and now you are telling us?

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 11:23:05 +1200

Xfinity Data Security Incident

Notice of Data Security Incident

We are notifying you of a recent data security incident involving your personal information. This notice explains the incident, steps Xfinity has taken to address it, and guidance on what you can do to protect your personal information.

What Happened? On October 10, 2023, one of Xfinity’s software providers, Citrix, announced a vulnerability in one of its products used by Xfinity and thousands of other companies worldwide. At the time Citrix made this announcement, it released a patch to fix the vulnerability. Citrix issued additional mitigation guidance on October 23, 2023. We promptly patched and mitigated our systems. However, we subsequently discovered that prior to mitigation, between October 16 and October 19, 2023, there was unauthorized access to some of our internal systems that we concluded was a result of this vulnerability. We notified federal law enforcement and conducted an investigation into the nature and scope of the incident. On November 16, 2023, it was determined that information was likely acquired.

What Information Was Involved? On December 6, 2023, we concluded that the information included usernames and hashed passwords; for some customers, other information was also included, such as names, contact information, last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret questions and answers. However, our data analysis is continuing, and we will provide additional notices as appropriate.

What We Are Doing. To protect your account, we have proactively asked you to reset your password. The next time you login to your Xfinity account, you will be prompted to change your password, if you haven’t been asked to do so already.

What You Can Do. We strongly encourage you to enroll in two-factor or multi-factor authentication. While we advise customers not to re-use passwords across multiple accounts, if you do use the same information elsewhere, we recommend that you change the information on those other accounts, as well. You can review the “Additional Information” section below for information on how you can further protect your personal information.

More Information. If you have additional questions, please contact IDX, Xfinity’s incident response provider managing customer notifications and call center support, at 888-799-2560 toll-free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. More information is available on the Xfinity website at www.xfinity.com/dataincident. We know that you trust Xfinity to protect your information, and we can’t emphasize enough how seriously we are taking this matter. We remain committed to continue investing in technology, protocols and experts dedicated to helping to protect your data and keeping you, our customer, safe.

Sincerely, Xfinity

About That Adobe - Figma Thing

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 11:32:10 +1200

Sorry - but this is going to be a ‘MicroBlog Storm’. Is that a thing I hear you ask? Why yes - yes it is. If IKEA can have 🖇️ ‘Vintage IKEA’ - then hell has clearly frozen over - and a ‘MicroBlog Storm’ is definitely a thing.

🖇️ ONWARD

Careful What It Says In The Small Print

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 09:10:54 +1200

I was meant to be picking up a car from 🔗 Europcar this afternoon - for a one month reservation.

I just tried to change that reservation and pick it up early tomorrow.

Lady on the call center said no problem - and was about to hit the confirmation button … but as she was talking I hear that the new price was DOUBLE the old price.

DOUBLE!!!

When I booked car, the agent said that there would be no problem and no charge to change the booking if I need to.

I relayed this to this booking agent.

Absolutely she said, it would normally cost you 6 dollars to change the booking - and we are waiving that fee … but the contract also says that if the cost of the rental changes, we have to reflect that change in the new contract.

New job this afternoon … go down to Auckland Airport and pick up the car rental.

🎥 The Family Plan, 2023 - ★★★½

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 10:04:17 +1200

Generally like a nice Wahlberg movie .. no exception .. in fact one of his better ones. It’s a formula .. sure .. aren’t they all? But overall .. YES.

🎥 Heart of Stone, 2023 - ★★½

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 08:31:52 +1200

It was alright. I try out Gal Godot outings from me to time because I clearly am missing something. Whatever it is I continue to miss it!

🎥 The Peanut Butter Falcon, 2019 - ★★★★

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 13:10:57 +1200

Lovely. One for the ’keeper’ department.

🎥 The Killer, 2023 - ★★★★

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 13:07:30 +1200

Watched on Saturday December 9, 2023.

🎥 Wingwomen, 2023 - ★

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 13:05:52 +1200

No. Just no. I watched it all the way through .. Just for you. NO!

🎥 Asteroid City, 2023 - ★★★★

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 14:22:27 +1200

Yes it’s Wes Anderson, so you kinda know what you are going to get … except you don’t. To me seemed a lot more intricate than his precious outings.

🎥 Oppenheimer, 2023 - ★★★★½

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 14:19:28 +1200

Not sure I can add anything more to reviews than you already know, other than I didn’t see it in IMAX, I wish I had.

🎥 Napoleon, 2023 - ★★★½

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 13:31:19 +1200

Not as long as I thought
I had low expectations after reading reviews - so much better than I thought
Joaquin was as good as ever
I barely recognised Rupert Everett

In all honesty, I went to see it in the theatre because there is a new cinema in the area - one of those fancy 30 seats per screen afffairs - and I wanted to try out that experience. I didn’t really care about the 'is it true to history ' commentaries because I didn’t care and had no idea ... being one of those people that when I see a fictional movie about real life - I assume that it is fiction - and if something really piques my interest I go investigate.

One such example : williamgallagher.com/selfdistract/2023/12/01/histerical-accuracy-with-ridley-scott/

Meanwhile I am definitely no expert on Napleon. What I do remember about him from my ENGLISH school days is

1 'Waterloo' - because 'english'
2) 'able was i ere i saw ellba' - because playground word games
3) 'Josephine' - because that is what I remember people talking about- there were even TV sketches as I recall

Good spectical, nothing in it that made be think to myself - OOH - need to go learn more about that.

🎥 Living, 2022 - ★★★★

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 15:45:14 +1200

Lovely .. and one of those ‘little’ films … and Bill Nye … c’mon .. why are you still here?

🎥 BlackBerry, 2023 - ★★★½

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 15:42:54 +1200

I know most of the story, but like to cross check that knowledge with what the film delivers, new stuff, look into … blah blah blah ..ok I generally like these kinds of movies … royal epics aside .. it didn’t disappoint. It is what it is.

The Tetris story I knew a lot less about … enjoyed it more … because I didn’t know the story(?) or just a better story and movie(?) … I suspect the latter.

🎥 Space Oddity, 2022 - ★★½

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 15:38:12 +1200

Average … seen it before .. predictable

🎥 The Water Diviner, 2014 - ★★★

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:54:20 +1200

Another ‘little” movie .. and to prove I don’t automatically like them … this was alright, but .. yeah .. no. It was a while back when I watched it.

🎥 What a Life!, 2023 - ★★★★

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:52:30 +1200

… and I didn’t even hear the dialogue! Watched it on a plane, the audio system was so crapped out and dodgy … thankyou Quantas … that I mainly watched stuff on the iPad. Accidentally discovered this scrolling through … subtitles .. so I just watched and read the subtitles. Glorious. Another one of those ‘little’ films. Need to find it again and listen this time.

🎥 The Killer, 2023 - ★★★★

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:48:34 +1200

He - ‘somebody’ loves The Smiths. I don’t … but it didn’t stop me enjoying the film, because Fassbender is that good.

🎥 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, 2023 - ★★★★

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:46:01 +1200

Lovely. The story broke in a couple of places ... but I didn't care. Lovely. One of those ‘little movies’ that I LOVE.

Work Backwards

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 17:07:08 +1200

There’s an old joke about ‘Henry’ getting lost in the narrow lanes of Devon, England and needing to return to London. He spotted a farmer on the side of the road and pulled over, admitting to the farmer that he was lost and was looking for directions to get him back to London.

“London!” … replied the farmer … “… well if I was going to London … I wouldn’t be startin’ here.”

It’s an old one. It’s a funny one and like all good humor is rooted in truth.

I had a great call with Steve Cook of The UNdaunted the night before last and over the course of multiple hours we covered oh so much .. and will save those stories for another time.

Except this one.

Discussion included the old chestnuts; change, transition and transformation.

People who work in this world know the Current State / Future State model (or as we used to call it in Group Partners … Current Reality / Future Vision). Steve and I agreed that a big stumbling block is people starting at the current state - and wanting to know the steps to take to get to the future state, more often than not with an end result of ‘It’s too hard’. … ‘It doesn’t work’.

Result? They give up. Worse? It fails.

I would argue that ( and to paraphrase my friend John Caswell ), they are attempting to ‘solve the wrong problem really well’.

Moving from Current State to Future State is not easy if you are attempting to solve the problem with the same thinking that got you there. Instead imagine … visualize (Now you know why we say ‘future vision’) the best outcome and then engineer backwards. It’s not the same.

Back to our farmer.

Current Reality - Lost in Devon
Future Vision - Safe in London

All he was doing was highlighting the limitations of ‘linear thinking’, which in three steps might well have the driver lost again. Instead visualize London

“You know how to get there from Bristol .. right?”
- (confirm a basic level of knowledge)
“And you know how to get to Bristol from Exeter?”
- (drilling down to get to more detail)
“Oh .. you used to live in Exeter?”
- (additional information unpacked by asking questions)
“Then you know Chagford?”
- (reaffirming assumed knowledge to make the next step as simple as possible)
“Of course you do .. well … Chagford is only a couple of miles away .. you need to head back to the church …”
- (restatement of the problem, simplification of the actual ask)

At a stroke the driver’s challenge is significantly reduced and very manageable.

Is Your Flagged Message Count Not The Same As The Actual Message Count? I've Got A Fix.

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 07:18:56 +1200

Back in the day, there used to be a ‘Mail on Mac’ problem where the flag count was NOT the same as the actual message count. The fix was to delete the plist - and it would magically reset.

‘Back in the day’ suggests the problem might be a thing of the past. Sorry - it isn’t.

It’s the ‘deleting the plist’ that is a thing of the past … at least for this bear - who has not been able to find it. And if you cant find it … you can’t delete it. Meanwhile the count variation has been getting worse.

Yesterday I spent some time trying to work out how to fix it.

SUCCESS.

Seems like ‘all’ you do is disconnect your Mac Mail from ‘The Cloud’ … ‘let a bit of time pass’ … whatever the hell that means … and reconnect - and all will be well.

Not Wrong. That’s what I did and voila. Fixed.

Two Caveats

In my particular case

I replaced ‘let a bit of time pass’ with ‘reboot mac’.
I didn’t worry for the first two hours after rebooting that most of my email is missing - but by then I had moved into panic. So switched on the ‘mail connection doctor’ and enabled ‘show detail’ … and indeed it was buzzing along - left it over night and today all back and flag count fixed. (Apparently I have a LOT of archived mail in my cloud).

🎥 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, 2023 - ★★★★

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 20:42:32 +1200

Just wonderful.
Great story.
Perfect Wes Anderson.

A Where’s Waldo Update

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 10:29:40 +1200

Been a busy year.

I am just this week completing the final trip to close the loop.

January : New Zealand / Honolulu stopover/ LA
February : LA
March : LA
April : LA / Palm Desert
May : LA / Palm Desert
June : Palm Desert
July : Palm Desert
August : Palm Desert
September : Palm Desert / LA / UK / Poland
October : UK / Paris / Portugal
November UK / LA / Palm Desert / Sydney, Oz stopover/ New Zealand
December : New Zealand

Sadly the Sydney/Oz will not register on my ’🖇️ Where’s Waldo ’ live post, due-to the self imposed rule of not just ’no stop overs’ … but a minimum two nights. Next time. This was actually the first time ever in Oz. (Hard to believe)

Logged With Apple

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 10:57:52 +1200

“Truly disappointed that you have chosen to block Busy Contacts from accessing my email. It used to work and you blocked it in Sonoma.
MY EMAIL
MY CONTACTS
MY COMPUTER
but YOU chose to block it … surely the choice should be mine?
Truly galling that you continue to allow access to calendars, which has about 1% of the use.”

Naming Coventions Of A Different Kind

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 20:14:33 +1200

Whilst I don’t believe that naming a child ‘Sofía Fernanda Dolores Cayetana Teresa Ángela de la Cruz Micaela del Santísimo Sacramento del Perpetuo Socorro de la Santísima Trinidad y de Todos Los Santos’ is in any way a good idea .. I also don’t believe that any government should be allowed to force the parents into shortening it.

That said …

First name … Sofía Middle Names … Fernanda Dolores Cayetana Teresa Ángela de la Cruz Micaela del Santísimo Sacramento del Perpetuo Socorro de la Santísima Trinidad y de Todos Los Santos

.. might cause havoc with the Spanish computer systems … so I do understand!

It's All Theater

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 19:29:08 +1200

Spitballing here … but I think blowing up a plane with ‘lots of liquid’ … ( I assume that’s why we can’t carry bottles of water on to the plane unless the water is bought ‘plane side’ of security? ) … is old school thinking. It’s one plane and you’re done.

Thinking bigger - I would get a bomb with all that liquid onto the London - Paris Eurostar. Here. it is clear that the authorities are not worried because unlike Airports you might typically travel through .. at the railway stations no such limits seem to be in place.

Further thinking would have me board in Paris - not London, because in Paris they just scan your bag - no need to remove electronics, shoes, belts … so much easier than taking everything out and having to hide all your terrorist toys.

Then when you set your bomb off … you not only take out a train … with probably a lot more casualties … but also destroy a major travel conduit in a single stroke.

or … OR …

Maybe all the bomb detection stuff employed by the railways is so much more sophisticated than the stuff used by Heathrow et al … in which case … hello? Heathrow .. are you there?

or … OR …

Maybe the railway people the French in particular … just know that it’s all just theater and are refusing to take part.

I think I’m going for that last choice … but I really don’t know - it’s just a hunch.

What do you think?

🎵 What The Hell Happened

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 21:38:21 +1200

This post was originally published on September 26th 2003. Penned by John Parker - one of the founders of the original Just Good Music Blog. The source was found thanks to The Internet Archive Wayback Machine. These days it sits in my online archives, but just last month it was 20 years old and I wanted to resurface it, because I always liked it and for me, still holds true. What do you think? AND, I wonder if John would be interested in a twenty years later update? We will see.

Lately I haven’t derived the same pleasure from my music collection, or even music in general, that I’ve been accustomed to my whole life. I’m trying to figure this out.

It used to be simpler, I think. You would reach an age - let’s say 30 on average - and pretty much drop out of the current music scene. Your record collection would begin to age like fine wine. You’d stop going to gigs and reading Rolling Stone and Down Beat, and the station presets in your car were no longer college stations playing the wide range of emerging new stuff, but the major commercial channels playing bands who are all 6 months away from being featured in a Lexus commercial. There was a clear dividing line between the stuff the kids and the grown-ups listened to that has faded, blurred and, finally, today, disappeared.

Leaving aside the impact on today’s teenagers of not really having a musical outlet for those rebellious impulses, where does this leave us? What are our options as we mature in our lifestyles? Do our musical tastes change, or, as I’m beginning to suspect, does the time pressure we’re under in the push for ever-greater productivity at work, quality time with family, expanding our educational horizons and seeking new experiences in our recreation hours force us to rely more and more on commercial filters for access to new music?

Typically we proceed down one of two paths. The first is to go deeper instead of wider. We stick to the same bands that we listened to in our youth, kidding ourselves that we’re still at the bleeding edge. Somehow we allow it to escape our notice that the bands we once thought would lead the revolution and bring down the establishment are now peddling mobile phones. The other route is that we conscientiously seek out new sounds, but we do it in tightly defined context of the ‘Emerging Artists Block’ on KLLC Tuesday nights at 8:00pm. Surrounding ourselves with the familiar, grounding the experience just as firmly in our past. This exposes us to bands that are perhaps a year away from the TV commercial breakthrough, but still clearly well established successes, hardly bands that need our sponsorship, our interest or us.I think it mostly comes down to time.

Certainly the world is a busier place, and cell phones, laptops, Internet access, Blackberrys, pagers and PDAs don’t help. Sometimes technology does us a disservice, and as much as the perpetually connected nature of our modern lives enhances our productivity and responsiveness, I miss the time I used to have alone with my stereo system.

In high school, I spent 80% of my disposable income on my stereo system, Infinity Reference Studio monitors, Marantz receiver, Thorens turntable, and a Nakamichi cassette deck. After school, I would make compilation tapes while doing my homework. I miss lowering the stylus into the record groove, counting the seconds from the end of the previous song and allowing for the delay in engaging the tape deck, winding up the input volumes for smooth transitions between songs and volume-leveling wildly varying album recordings by ear. Today, I can drag-and-drop 10 hours of music into my MP3 player in about 8 seconds. I can save virtual playlists, creating, modifying and deleting compilations instantly. It’s certainly more convenient, but it’s nowhere near as engaging.

In college, I spent 80% of my disposable income on records. Living in a dorm and in an off-campus apartment with roommates, we shared our record collections and commented actively on each others musical tastes. My friends collectively listened to a wide variety of music, and I eagerly devoured every new artist, new style, and new sound in my quest for great musical experiences. Today, I have less time for that, less engagement with my friends in purely recreational activities like listening to music. I miss that.

One nice thing about record albums was that they had two sides. Again, it’s certainly more convenient to have all the music on a CD that can play straight through. And even more so to have them all recorded digitally on the PC. But having an album side that lasts 20-25 minutes forces you to pay attention. You have to get up and turn the record over, which reengages you. Having hours of music queued up, it’s easy to let your mind wander back to the ever-present to-do lists. These days, I too frequently put a new CD on, start listening to it, and realize some time later that the CD is over and I can’t remember anything beyond the first song.

Today, my primary listening venue is my car. It’s not by choice, as it certainly isn’t an ideal listening environment even with the very best automotive stereo equipment. This is the only block of time that I have, however, that is long enough to listen to an entire CD at one time. In the car, though, I inevitably wind up spending all my time on the cell phone. And there’s simply no getting around the fact that your attention is going to be demanded by your driving, and the insanity of other drivers trapped in the 90 minute commute to Silicon Valley - flying down I-280 at 90mph mandates focused attention.

Nor am I alone in this. I was over at a friend’s house last weekend doing some dedicated music listening - something that has happened all too infrequently of late. I have been thinking about these issues for a while, and decided to reach out and see if I could force some engagement. Miguel and Diana are from Brazil, and I brought up Brazilian music and they volunteered to play some of their collection for us. So we packed up some food and joined them for a musical lunch on Saturday. We heard Oswaldo Montenegro, Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarqueâ, all great stuff. Miguel had, of course, ripped all the songs to his computer, and we were listening to it over some pretty crappy computer speakers. Hardly ideal. I complimented him on the selection, though, and his response was yeah, you should hear it in my car! This is just wrong.

So now, understanding the issues a little better, I see a clear need to reengage my musical sensibilities. I think, for me, this means two things.

First, I need to plan some dedicated music time. It can’t be an after-thought any more, because my free time for ad hoc recreational activities is asymptotically approaching zero. If it’s a priority, it needs to be reflected in my calendar. I need to put some thought into that, too, because I’m going to have a hard time defending hours of just sitting in the Lazy-Boy listening to CDs. I need to be doing something with the music. Maybe it’s time to develop a digital archiving system. Maybe wire the house for sound, including the patios outside. Maybe some stereo equipment upgrades are in order. Maybe I need to spend some time classifying my current music collection, and expanding it into new areas. Maybe write some music reviews I can share with friends or even wider audiences.

Secondly, it’s also clearly time to get back into concert mode. I need to find the local clubs with live music, watch the major venues for show announcements and plan my calendar around some key concerts. And there needs to be a focus on new music. Nothing gets the blood flowing like watching the band hit their zone on stage, rocking out and feeling the music flowing through the crowd, that sense of being there that not even the finest stereo equipment can reproduce.

Music is too important to me to let it simply fade into the background of my life. It’s a part of who I am and who I want to be, and it deserves some attention. We’re going on a quest to get reacquainted. My foray into Brazilian music my friends last weekend was the first conscious step on this journey. I’ll send you some notes from the road from time to time.

This post was originally published on September 26th 2003, penned by John Parker - one of the founders of the original Just Good Music Blog. The source was found thanks to The Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

The Problem in the house is not 10 extremists .. lay it at the feet of every single spineless house rethuglican

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 03:46:06 +1200

Whilst true .. it’s easy to blame 10 people holding the place hostage .. personally I blame every single ‘moderate’ ‘center’ Republican member of the house for not having the spine to cross the aisle .. and side with the democrats .. they don’t have to put Hakeem in if that’s too far .. but while they don’t act they are complicit 💯 for allowing it to happen.

Israel vs Palestine | Russia vs Ukraine ... Can You Tell The Difference.

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 23:59:26 +1200

I feel for Israel - I really do. And the Palestinians - truly.

BUT … since the news seems only capable of one story at a time - I guess I am thankful that it isn’t about yet another celeb breakup.

Still - it does mean that Ukraine is soon going to be forgotten … so before that happens … a reminder

I think at core this explains so much of the Israel / Palestine ‘conflict’ - don’t you just love thse weasly words?

Meanwhile over in Ukraine, it’s a similar story. (Not forgetting that this part of the fight didn’t start in 2022 - it started on Feb 20th 2014 - and we got upset and then forgot about it.)

Can you spot the difference?

Can you explain why the difference?

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

Politically Correct Conference Panels.

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 08:23:25 +1200

Another post that didn’t quite make it - written on a phone as I was listening to professionals on stage talking about ‘fake news’. That wasn’t how the panel phrased it - but still, it was what they were talking about … and not very well - far too politically correct …. I made these notes and have not spent a great deal of time ‘cleaning them up’.

Some of the keynotes I jotted down on the day …

MORAL LEADERSHIP
GDPR
TRUMP
GOVT CLOSE DOWN
DEFUND MUSK
BUSINESS MODELS
US CENTRIC - WITH A BIT OF UK
FOX DOMINION CASE
CAN’T GET OUT OWN HOUSE IN ORDER
FALSE EQUIVALANTS

.. and there was so much more. But it was ten days ago now … so …

I sat through two panels, close enough in topic that two panelists were on the stage both times. All good, solid stuff … but to me, there was more to be gleaned (learned?) by what wasn’t said than what was. Representations from the U.S.A., U.K., Poland and Ukraine. I sat and listened and took enough notes to write a book.

At the end of the first panel, 5 people including me put hands up to ask questions … one was taken and then not unanswered.

At the end of the second panel, even more hands went up, this time I was chosen as one of two .. and we both got responses.

Note … responses, not answers.

My question was apparently video’d by a film maker - and I was told I will be able to get a copy of it. If I do - I will be sure to post it here.

I distilled my notes to three issues that came top of mind as I listened. In broad terms, the discussion was around fake news and disinformation campaigns. My three points follow - NONE of this was raised across some 11 professionals on the stage. Instead the

1) The money … follow it.

Facebook has zero motivation to ‘make things better’ .. they make money by being engaged .. they do that by creating and manipulating conflicts between people.
The case that Fox lost against Dominion .. and more to come .. did a fraction of the damage that Facebook did, but for all the wrong reasons they have laws that protect them from publishing lies. Fox’s fines meanwhile are already around 1 billion dollars
The same can be said of Twitter .. but they are even worse thanks to new management. But - twitter’s management receives billions of tax payer monies … for traveling to space and building cars amongst others. Cut his funding until he does something.

2) Laws.

It was pointed out that in Europe there are far more laws than the US … to protect people. ( I would agree .. the cynic in me would say that this is not going to change any time soon, primarily because US law is mainly about protecting business not people.
That said, just to pick one of those EU laws … GDPR, the resultant fines are rounding errors to the corporations being fined .. so potential fines are built into the accounts as the cost of doing business

3) Hierarchy versus Network.

it’s all very well saying we are a hierarchical bureaucracy .. and so it is hard to bypass the bureaucracy.
Really?
Have you been watching Trump over the past 7 years? He didn’t wait for permission to tweet.
Not only that but Gaetz, Boebert, Greene et al are all cutting through the bureaucracy to the point that the govt is two days away from being closed down (as I was taking notes) - with defunding Ukraine being the high? Point of their agenda.

AND AND AND …

A total of some 11 people who waxed lyrical on the issues - and not one talked about REAL issues. What a waste.

Plenty Of Time Is Not Always A Good Idea

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 08:04:58 +1200

This didn’t make it to my blog until now - because only now am I moving through my ‘Drafts’ …. enjoy.

Early morning flight. Alarms set … up and awake well before the time … so grab a cab earlier than planned.

After arriving earlier at airport … we are first in line at check in desk … which hasn’t yet opened.

After check in … we are first in line at security desk … which hasn’t yet opened.

After security check … we are first in line at coffee station .. much needed. (Thankyou for being open.)

Sitting down with plenty of time … relaxed.

Announcement just made … plane is delayed. Because of course it is. They are never delayed if you are running late.

Us vs Them OR Us and Them OR Us + Them

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 07:40:21 +1200

Interesting thread over on LinkedIN from my friend 🔗 Dave Wilt - who started on the track of ‘vs’.

🔗 Corporate Identity Politics. (It was kind of about Sales and Marketing alignment - a problem which was a problem long before I started out in business. You would have though by now we might have fixed it? But no.)

Anyway - about half way through I managed to pivot the thread to 🎵 Music … mainly because the core topic just gets talked about - and IT IS NEVER FIXED - so … ‘BORING’.

From the thread …

You might notice that the original song was called ‘Us and Them’, while the tour and film is called ‘Us + Them’.
“It’s not a mistake. It’s a subtle modification. The original ‘and’ was not necessarily inclusive. It was highlighting one or the other. The power of ‘+’ sign is additive. It drives home the idea of being united. Together.”
It’s a small and very important detail. It’s language.

If you want to read the newsletter I was going to write about … ‘🖇️ Rewriting History’

Heathrow Is So Special … And Not In A Good Way.

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 21:39:31 +1200

The bag and its contents (not always the same - but pretty darn similar) has flown ‘in cabin’ all over America, to and from Mexico, down to New Zealand, around New Zealand across to Oz and back, then returning to America through Hawaii and onwards across to London … not a single problem.

Terminal 5, Heathrow … 45 minutes stood at security analyzing and rescanning that very same bag three times. Some items thrown away … like a small bottle of perfume, creams etc. Some items packaged up and in around 48 hours you can go online - pay the ransom fee and have it shipped to an address in the UK .. good job we had one.

They wanted to confiscate the medications .. no we don’t have the prescriptions with us, but if someone dies are you prepared to accept the consequences?

In the end, one small bottle of perfume thrown away was the most expensive item, but maybe 10 others also disposed of … several other bottles packaged up into a plastic bag … in the next couple of days, we can log on … pay the ransom and have the balance shipped to the UK address. It was totally unclear why;

some items were destroyed
others were repackaged to be sent ‘home’
whilst others were given to me, so I could travel with them … Jax couldn’t

I asked if we had checked the bag, would it have been ok? No problem at all sir.

And then I just couldn’t resist. Can you explain why all of these containers are a problem … after all, they are all below the publicised amounts allowed. Oh yes sir… that’s not the problem, there are just too many of them. So, I went in to ask … where do I find the regulation that describes the total number off containers am I allowed?

Blank looks.

“Leave it John”

Adding insult to injury … get to the gate and told that it is a full flight … ‘that bag’ needs to be checked in.

People: Cody

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 09:36:45 +1200

He was (is) a lovely man. I had to lean in to hear what he was saying. So I did. Our conversation continued and he apologized for his speech. No apology necessary, but he had identified that it was hard for me to hear (loud place aside), he was also a little ‘croakey’.

He explained that he had had cancer.

Cancer of the throat.

Three times.

He was diagnosed in 2017. The doctors recommended he have surgery. He went through the surgery and ‘radio’ and ‘chemo’. “Let’s see” they said.

A year later in 2018, the doctors did a PET Scan, and found ‘some more’, so they recommended he have surgery and ‘radio’ and ‘chemo’. “Let’s see” they said.

A year later in 2019, the doctors did a PET Scan, and found ‘some more’, so they recommended he have surgery and ‘radio’ and ‘chemo’. “Let’s see” they said.

He got his clearance a year later in 2020, and as I write, it is 2023. Finally he is three years clear.

He is such a positive, focussed, alive person … despite not having eaten solid food for 5 years. Despite having to grind the pills he needs to take daily into a powder before he can swallow them. Despite having lost so much of his throat where the surgeon had cut and cut and cut … to remove the cancer. Despite having had his vocal cords so damaged that the raspy, quiet speech is now his voice. Despite no longer having any of this teeth left because of the radiation therapy. Despite all of this and so much more … like going through all of this totally alone.

His positivity was absolutely awe inspiring.

No ‘poor me’. No ‘why me’. No ‘sad face’. Just happy and grateful to be alive - and alive he most certainly is. Living life as much to the full as he can as he put it.

—

All of this resonated deeply.

My cancer diagnosis was January 2021. It was identical. Both of us were ‘T2, stage 4’, with three significant differences.

I did not have surgery. My doctors said it was inoperable.
I was in New Zealand, not the US. They told me that I didn’t have time to get back and ‘start all over again’.
I was not alone. 🔗 I had Jax by my side every step of the way.

As of now, it looks like we beat it … having got my two year clearance just a few weeks ago.

That said at the time, hospitalized twice, in the first visit, Jax was told to be prepared for me ‘not to make it’. I was warned that everything that Cody is experiencing could be me plus, needing a cane to walk, maybe even a wheelchair. For me, I have essentially blocked this all out (my way of coping), so this served as a massive wake up call … a bigger one than I experienced when I walked into a new doctor who looked past me waiting for ‘John’ … expecting to see me hobbling in at best. Or another doctor here in the US who knew my background from the advance files that he had received and was stunned that they hadnt operated and ‘looked this good’.

Sure I have side effects, some of which I am told will be with me for the rest of my life, but compared to Cody … so insignificant that I shouldn’t mention it. I tend not to, but sometimes people ask.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!’”

💬 Hunter S Thompson

.. I try, but ain’t nothing compared to Cody who is doing just that … in Spades.

This is a story from my occasional series ‘🖇️ Travels Without Charley’ - my small ‘homage’ to John Steinbeck. The names are changed to protect the innocent, but they are all true and based on conversations I have had with people that I have met around the world … and who’s story resonates.

This particular one - more than any other in the published (and unpublished) series - resonated more than any other.

Why Large Organizations Often Fail To ‘Innovate’, Where ‘Tiny Companies’ Succeed.

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 11:37:47 +1200

Context

Over on LinkedIN, a friend of mine shared a post by Phil Morle 🔗 on whether institutions / corporates can be founders. I wrote a long reply which caused LinkedIN to barf and reject my reply, which in turn caused me to publish two separate pieces; 🖇️ Don’t Trust The Silos. and 🖇️ Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Silos To Publish Their Thinking., neither of which are pertinent to understanding the flow of this ‘reply’, but I wanted to highlight why this isn’t a reply on the post.

In Summary

I asked ChatGPT to summarize the post. 🖇️ In 200 characters AND 200 words … not by usual gorgeous style 🤣 - but not wrong.

My Reply

The piece was good and I wanted to add my two cents, since on initial read I found it confusing. My interpretation of the core premise is to better understand some of the reasons behind why large organizations often fail to ‘innovate’, where ‘tiny companies’ succeed.

The confusion I had started in the title of the piece, ‘Can Institutions Be Founders’ … which extended into the piece itself.

Confused because IMHO, founders are people and whether an organization is big or small, new or old, innovative or staid … they are not people, though they are made up of people … and processes, strategies, plans …

… yes … AND … the organization doesn’t allow the founder to behave like one.

PayPal, to randomly choose an innovative start up, was an organization with a large number of subsequently famous founders that went on to start many other successful innovative companies that changed the landscape of business. The founders were/are people. It is people that are the innovators. The startups, the organizations are the vehicles that enable that change.

One of the great unspoken truths of the start up world is that despite our worship of the individual, we ignore that they don’t do it by themselves. They have an idea and build a company made up of many people to realize their vision. The team all contribute to the organizations success. Don’t look to me to document the traits of a great ‘founder’, plenty of places to check that list, just to say that an organization can allow those traits to soar and create … or they can kill it.

Jobs, Gates, Ellison … insert your ‘hero of choice’ … are great at what they do/did because of their original vision, their leadership, their focus, their tenacity, their communications, their sales ability and so much more … but none of them succeeded without their team to realize their ambition.

In other words .. it is the Organisation that delivers the vision.

So the real question is why does it more often than not, take an organization called a startup to deliver those transformative innovations rather than an existing organization? (Yes - there are exceptions.) Remember Gates and Ellison seperately out innovated IBM, Jobs, Xerox, FinTech startups are leaving Banks and Financial Institutions in the dust, Bezos destroyed the bookstores … it’s an epidemic .. but we associate the founders name with the innovation and success .. and forget that without the team of people they assembled they could never execute.

With that caveat out of the way, arguably Ellison could have joined IBM and … with an instant team, and finance ‘ready to go’ would likely have failed. Bezos could have joined Barnes and Noble … and failed, the Collison brothers could have joined Citi .. and failed, Jobs … you get the picture.

They would have failed, not because they didn’t have what it takes, because clearly they do, but rather because because the organization would have clipped their wings.

Why?

The topic has been very well studied and reported on in a book called 🔗 Zone To Win by 🔗 Geoffrey Moore possibly more famous for 🔗 Crossing The Chasm

In the pages of ‘Zone To Win’ you will find a pretty solid analysis of why established organizations fail to innovate. Turns out the first job is to identify what kind of innovation we are talking about …

… and build from there.

(Interesting to note that when we talk about ‘innovation’ our minds automatically jumps to what Geoff describes as ‘disruptive innovation’ on the left in the diagram, but there are also ‘sustaining innovations’, which tend to operate inside those large organizations.)

Meanwhile, the founders build their organizations in their own image, make their own rules, and relentlessly drive their vision over years … sometimes to the frustration of people inside this companies who have their own ideas as to what could happen. For example both Marc Benioff and Tom Siebel are Oracle alumni that had the vision of ‘software for sales’ respectively (not respectfully) creating Salesforce and Siebel. A vision that at the time was not shared by Larry, so they left. Subsequently LJE became a believer having been an early investor in Salesforce, launching NetSuite and eventually buying Siebel.

In the end, I don’t believe that Phil and I are that far apart in thinking. His summary of the seven people traits are not wrong … but hand in hand with that goes the need for the organization to not just support the fledgling initiative but to actively defend it from the cuckoos who inhabit the rest of the organization.

.. and a framework to unpack the challenge and work out what an organization can do about it.

If there is interest I can expand a lot further, but for now, if you have got this far, THANKYOU. What do you think?

Please throw in your two cents below and let’s see if together we can make a buck.

📸 The Nixon Tardis and My First Indian Food In Three Years

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 06:32:00 +1200

I was very happy to be going out to eat my first Indian in over 3 years (long story). In fact I was so happy that I took pictures. I took a few actually - but sharing this one in particular because of the Tardis and Dalek.

My First Indian In Three Years - Right Beside The Tardis

It seemed odd at the time, but I didn’t investigate it until just now - turns out it is famous!

🔗 The Nixon Tardis

Who knew?

Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Silos To Publish Their Thinking.

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 02:54:45 +1200

🖇️ I wrote a related piece yesterday.

This one takes the thought a step further, because it’s not just original posts … but also replies.

As so often happens to me these days .. I start to reply to a message somewhere in one of the interweb’s silos … you know where they are in control - not you … even down to how long your message should be … because … you know ‘they’ know best. When that happens, I start a new post on said silo .. where there isn’t a character limit .. but I find myself doing that less and less … because why do I want to give my original thinking to a silo that stores undifferentiated commodities like bulk chaff? That’s why I don’t write ‘content’ …

But these days there’s even more reason not to use the Silos for being the prime origin of your IP, your work, your thinking.

🖇️ The short ‘case study’ just yesterday is all about the problem.

My next post started as a reply to a very good LinkedIN post .. and is a prime example of the ‘too long’ problem. I’ll link to here when it is finished.

Don’t Trust The Silos

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 08:50:39 +1200

To those paying attention, this is old news … but recording it now because I think it is an excellent lesson as to why you should never … ever … trust a Silo. It’s theirs. The stuff you put there is theirs. Even our’ handle is actually ‘theirs’.

Case in point …. in 2011 Jeremy Vaughn created @music over on the ‘site formerly known as Twitter’

Fast forward to 2023 and the child king who now own said site took @music for himself … and as far as I can see kept all Jeremy’s followers.

Caveat … I don’t actually ‘know’ that .. but I do know that @music was set up in 2011 and today has 11 million followers. The ‘new’ handle @musicfan counts less followers than one of my old Twitter accounts - and I spent no time building a following over there.

The ‘at’ music account

The ‘new’ ‘at’ musicfan account

I used ‘at’ not ‘@‘ because I don’t want to link to them - but you have enough information to go see for yourself if you have interest.

That Old Argument That AI Won't Replace ‘Whole’ People

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 05:27:09 +1200

I agree with Matt on this one - and then go on to explain why I disagree. Trust me … it will make sense.

[🔗 Birchtree](birchtree.me/blog/chat got-still-hasnt-taken-all-those-jobs/)

I continue to think that these generative tools are good for augmenting certain workflows, but replacing whole people is going to be very unusual. We’ll see, though.

💬 Matt Birchler

I would agree - but that isn’t what is going to happen.

If you have thirty people in a department’ and AI makes you 10% ‘more efficient’ - a company now only needs 27 people.

Repeat.

Across all departments, Across all companies. Across all industries.

Of course some departments are going to be more affected than others. For example If you are working on a help desk where your job is to answer questions in a call center … well - firstly, that 10% estimate is going to be a lot higher. So - what do you think is going to happen?

Apple Pay can’t beat Visa and can’t touch PayPal for popularity

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 10:43:35 +1200

I expected more from William Gallagher. And myself for that matter.

Please Read Comments Before Spending Time Reading This.

I could have deleted it - but leaving it as a reminder to be more careful.

🔗 Apple Pay can’t beat Visa and can’t touch PayPal for popularity

Sure - total sense - except …

Visa was founded in the late 50s, Mastercard mid 60s, Paypal at the end of last century, while Apple Pay hasn’t been around for 10 years yet, unlike Google Pay that has been around for 12 years and not even on the list.

PLUS Apple Pay is not available to all people - you have to have an iOS device.

With that in mind - if I was in one of those other companies - I would be looking very closely at what ‘we’ are doing wrong.

Podcast.Philpin.Com Is A New Place For An Established Podcast.

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 09:36:58 +1200

It’s been in hiatus for a while now - but getting ready to start again. AND YET - despite being in hiatus - turns out it has a ‘global ranking’ in the top 3%. Really? What the hell are the other 97% doing? And who are ‘ListenNotes’?

As an example comparison - Core Intuition is in the top 1%. (Now THAT makes sense.)

All this to say that if you used to follow my podcast - know that it is now in a different place - so do please subscribe. It can be found here.

Interesting side note …. There are a LOT of People First Podcasts - and even with the hiatus - apparently still doing better than most.

Side Note: The image featured on the cover art is by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash here

David Merfield and Blot Once More Deliver. Simple Solution - but QUITE BRILLIANT

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 07:59:04 +1200

Blot Delivers. Again.

🖇️ Back in 2020 I wrote this. Then just a few days ago 🔗 I asked again … this time I also pinged David.

The nub?

How it would be really useful when on a public page on a blot site - e.g. this one - to be able to have a single click that takes you to the file in dropbox - which you could then edit and save, so updating the site.

The current method is to take note of whatever the content is - open up dropbox and navigate to the file, which may - or may not - be as easy as it sounds. For me - because of how I structured my dropbox - it is generally a pain in the neck.

No More.

Thanks to David I know have a bookmark that he wrote for me.

Now I can click on that book mark and voila - there is the dropbox file.

Let me know if you would like the code.

Just One Story From The Aftermath Of Maui

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 04:20:05 +1200

I wouldn’t call Avi Ronen a friend, we met a few times on Maui, he being one of those musicians that call Maui their home. This is his post on Facebook.

—

Our house is gone All the beautiful memories All my guitars over a hundred All gone lines of truss rods standing Like sad soldiers my amps pedals All the custom guitars I’ve build and kept All the acoustic guitars that KP made for me all gone I’m so devastated beyond words We’re safe my girls are great stronger than me I’m so sad Our town looks insane it’s so horrible Everything gone The only thing that’s left in lahaina town is my shop still standing I don’t even know what to do next I’m so devastated So many lives lost in our town The damage is absolutely insane Looks like an atomic bomb blew up in lahaina It’s so sad heartbreaking Sorry I had to share this I want to wish peace and love to everyone we are so heart broken over our sweet town My house all the memories And all my guitars so heart breaking

🌺

Idris Elba and I Have Something To Talk About.

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 13:16:17 +1200

Idris Elba Says He Was Held at Gunpoint After Trying to Intervene on Man Threatening Woman

True story. So was I. A little over 30 years ago … South of Market in San Francisco. (Just in that one sentence you have more information about my story than the linked article tells you about the Idris story)

AND I wasn’t even intervening on an argument - I was just ‘hanging’ with my friend.

There were three of them, one with the gun, one watching while the third put his hands into my pockets looking for (I assume) money or a wallet. He found nothing. I don’t know why because the wallet was there. Finding nothing, the one with the gun looked at me intently, staring me down. It seemed to last a lifetime. And then he nodded to his two buddies and off they sauntered. No words spoken. No need.

I have had on occasions shared this story with small groups of people - generally when people start going on about how they won’t travel to x or visit y - after they have just heard about some violence in said location … which IMHO is just ridiculous - and why I share it. That said, I have never shared my story in writing, on a blog, into Social Media. For a start - who would be interested? After all, nothing happened. Then nothing happened in the Idris story, where the key point of the piece was …

“He pulled out a gun, stuck it right in my face.”

and

Elba didn’t elaborate on the actions he took to talk the man down, or what happened to the woman after the encounter. But given that the actor is able to recollect the instance, the situation seems to have been quelled.

That’s the story - and that qualifies for an entry in 🔗 Entertainment Weekly, The NME, The Daily Mail and hosts of other places

Meanwhile, 🔗 When 5 people get stuck in a tiny little sub it makes the headlines - while over 700 lives lost in The Mediterranean at the same time barely achieved a footnote.

What Makes News? I sense a pattern.

🎥 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, 2023 - ★★★½

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 03:55:03 +1200

Not a big fan of Tom - but for whatever reason I do eventually watch all the Mission Impossibles - but this is the first I had seen in a theater for years ... The story is what you might expect - but not always expected. Glad I managed it on the Big Screen before it disappears into 'Streaming Land'.

The Antidote To Worldcoin

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 07:11:58 +1200

and then there is this ….

… she’s talking about Sam Altman

🔗 You can read the whole piece by Molly here, which includes substantial thinking on the challenges of decentralized identity.

The cryptocurrency industry is rife with projects that embrace the idea of “progressive decentralization”: beginning out as a highly centralized project run by a small group, but promising to eventually turn over control of the project to a DAO. Few ever follow through,10 but it is a convenient way to stave off criticism.

💬 Molly White

In my same ‘reading session’ this piece from my friend Alan Mayo : The Reasonable Future: Identity 2.5 appeared. He concludes;

Some of the world is hell-bent on achieving Identity 3 Decentralization and, ironically, this is not going to happen anytime soon. With our current proven technologies we have all the building blocks to build sophisticated Identity solutions that provide a good customer experience and good security. That is where we should be spending our time, rather than dreaming of an impossible future.

💬 Alan Mayo

The Antidote?

Stop listening to people who are playing both sides of the ‘Business Equation’ - even better … stop acting on their recommendations. Altman isn’t the only one.

This is a 🧶 People First post - to see others in the series, click here.

🎥 The School for Good and Evil, 2022 - ★★½

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 04:38:55 +1200

It is clear that the key to enjoying a movie is to start with the lowest possible expectations, I didn’t even want to watch this … but then I did. Not a great rating from yours truly .. but 2 1/2 stars is 2 1/2 stars more than it was going to get. Special shout out to Sophia Anne Caruso who I thought was excellent.

🎥 Blacklight, 2022 - ★★★

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 07:53:04 +1200

Liam gonna do what Liam does.

Shoutout to the Wonderful People at Panic.

Sat, 29 Jul 2023 12:19:44 +1200

I have used Transmit to connect to my servers for years. N’er a problem until a couple of weeks ago.

I didn’t think I had changed anything - but did my usual checks ….

what have I done wrong … nothing I could find.
what has changed - a couple of things - uninstalled apps
switched off Firewall.

Still no connection.

I pinged my hosting provider - Siteground.

They could access from their end no problem.

Asked me to try accessing via a different network, so tried by camping on the phone.

Straight in.

Back to my usual access - nothing.

Their conclusion was something about my network provider.

In my case it’s Spectrum and I just shivered at the thought.

So, first I contacted Panic, to see if they had any ideas.

Longer story shorter …

Ran some diagnostics and sent to them - and they asked me who was hosting my servers … told them.

And then in an email this morning ….

Out of curiosity, can you change the connection type to FTP with TLS/SSL? From my own SiteGround servers, I know that helps.

… and BOOM. Working.

This bear ain’t technical - so I have no idea what strange magic this is and why suddenly everything is different, but suffice to say … WORKING.

Thankyou Panic.

🎥 Oppenheimer, 2023 - ★★★★½

Sat, 29 Jul 2023 08:55:46 +1200

Stunning. 🤯 … if you’ll pardon the pun. Wanted to see it - and couldn’t fit the IMAX experience in to the schedule, so will go again next week. Not for me to review this movie - far more qualified and interesting people than me to read on that front - BUT - it is as good as you have been told.

Two thoughts beyond what yours truly has so far read.

1] I knew Robert Downey Junior was in the movie and just did not recognize him. He must surely be up for a best supporting actor nomination.

2] I did not know Tom Conti was in the film - and there he was - playing Einstein. For me, not a logical choice, but having scene him - GREAT choice.

Cracked It. He is a Misogynist. Pure and Simple.

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 05:58:44 +1200

… and actually a hell of a lot more. Now, with the calm of the morning, and many days behind me, I have had time to reflect on this 🖇️ ’Journal Storm’ and understand a little more about what was going on.

The Story

It had been a long hot day, Margarita’s and a bite to eat were necessary - so we decided to hit a local bar for Happy Hour. Jax was finishing off some errand, so I went ahead, sat down in a couple of corner seats, ordered a Margarita, some ‘bites’ and waited. I looked around and observed the other patrons - you know - as you do.

All was what we would expect, except for one guy who’s behavior with the bar staff was weird. He clearly had an issue about how he was being served. ’Spidey senses up’ … he was definitely more antagonistic to the one woman bar keep than the two male ones. Just an observation. Thought nothing of it. No words were exchanged.

15 minutes in, Jax appeared, extended the food order, modified the margarita order (as she does, it is her prerogative) and we were off to the races.

Not sure how it all started, but before I knew it Jax was in conversation with this same dude. I paid no attention - just earwigging. Climate Change, Immigration, American Exceptionalism, Biden’s lies, Democratic corruption were all terms that he brought into the conversation seemingly from nowhere. I nudged Jax and suggested she just let him go. He wasn’t worth the time. She wanted to explore. Before long I was brought in to the flow - since he was making some pretty outlandish statements about Climate Change … I offered an opinion … and was rapidly ‘closed down’. I disengaged. Jax continued, developing the ‘conversation’ to how climate change has a strong link to human migration and so trafficking (very much her world), and that rapidly morphed into him going on about ‘IMMIGRATION’, ‘BIDEN’, ‘WALL’ and … Jax pointed out to him that whatever your politics, it is clear that … he cut her off - asking her how she knew more than ‘experts’.

I couldn’t resist, so I once more interjected … and asked whether he wanted to listen to what she had to say, because she actually is an expert. He shut up for two seconds and then asked her if she had seen ‘that movie’ … I drifted off and he’s once again in full force telling here that ‘she is no expert - and how can she possibly know what she is talking about … I tried to pull her out again. Failed …

The dude went on about something or other … I didn’t care what and pointedly got out my phone and posted this (to clarify - the ‘they’ referred to in that post was actually Jax - not sure why I said ‘they’).

The ~~conversation~~ lecture continued and then he leant over to me and said ‘high five’? Holding out his hand, grinning. I ignored him. ‘fist bump’? … changing his hand formation.

I continued to ignore him and Jax told him that she knows me and ‘he isn’t going to do that’.

His voice raised (I assume that was so he made sure that I heard) …

You see this is the problem - how can we ever discuss things we disagree about if people don’t engage.

I had had enough and asked the barkeep if there was another part of the bar we could move to. (No, sorry, full).

A quiet exchange with Jax … and then I looked directly at the dude and said …

“You are spouting such a pile of crap that I am no longer in this conversation.”

… and walked out to the deck.

I was there for about ten minutes and got a text from Jax to meet her ‘downstairs’.

I did.

The next few days, Jax kept going back to the conversation. Why was he like that? Why was he so rude? How could I have been different? (She’s good at that - I should learn from her more.) Slowly what happened in those ten minutes emerged … sadly he had got to her … like crap on your pants.

That was last week - thankfully, she now seems to have got over it.

I haven’t. I better not see him again.

What follows I can only report on because Jax stayed for an additional ten minutes.

He continued with his monologue.
At one point called the barman over and told him to offer ‘whatever they want to drink’ to the ‘lovely young ladies at the other end of the bar’.
At no point did he ask Jax (who he was talking to and sat right beside him) if he could buy her a drink (though for the record, she would have refused).
At one point he said to here “You never told us who you are” … she was two sentences in when he closed her down with “Sugar - I don’t need your resume”.
Jax learnt that he was (in his words)
- “a very successful businessman from the oil industry”
- “very rich”
- no clarification was to why either of these unsubstantiated facts were important to the conversation (a word in this case that I define very loosely).

🎥 Cave of Bones, 2023 - ★★★

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 03:40:32 +1200

I think it could have been done in 30 minutes rather than ‘90’ … interesting, but if the findings are as revolutionary as they intimate, not sure why it isn’t more widely talked about? Or am I … once again … hanging out under a rock?

🎥 Asteroid City, 2023 - ★★★★

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 04:28:49 +1200

It's hard not to like a Wes Anderson - no exception, but to me, different to his usual films. No point in rehashing what you can read about elsewhere - but let me add one nugget - because I sat right through to the end - through the title and everything ... that last song mesmerizing. But why?

Well of course - the titles revealed or ... one of two songs that were a collaboration of two old friends and at times band mates - Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley.

The song?

“You Can’t Wake Up If You Don’t Fall Asleep.”

An ice rink in the desert? What were they thinking? This isn’t Dubai.

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 22:20:50 +1200

It’s over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day here. At the moment it’s only 85 F, but then, it is 2:30am .. so of course, what else are you going to do? Start researching ice rinks.

If you know me, you won’t be surprised to learn that I’ve only just discovered that there’s a brand new Ice Rink just up the road, providing the new home for the Firebirds Ice Hockey team. (Who? No - I didn’t know of them either … but in my defence my Ice Hockey knowledge starts and very quickly ends with Wayne Gretzky … and only because of the ‘puck quote’)

Anyway, having discovered that we have an Ice Hockey Team in the ‘hood .. I quickly moved on to the inevitable question … ‘what the hell were they thinking?). I asked my friend who was waxing lyrical over this super, state of the art, ice rink - come - performing arts center …

The idea of an ice rink in the desert didn’t seem to phase her at all. But it does phase me and so I started down the track of what this thing costs, what’s is it’s Carbon footprint .. you know ‘climate changey’ stuff, that I presume people somewhere thought through?

Still no answers. Maybe someone reading this will have an idea. Maybe more research is needed when I am more awake.

Here’s what I did find.

An ice rink in the desert? How it was built, how it stays frozen and the main man behind it

And yes Dubai has not one but two indoor ski slopes. So why shouldn’t the Coachella valley have its own ice rink?

Answers on a postcard ….

About Apple's Latest Milestone - The THREE BILLION ONE

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 05:18:45 +1200

Noting that Apple just passed the THREE TRILLION Market Cap this past week - I remember all the hoopla when It passed the ONE TRILLION Market Cap threshold - but I hadn’t realised that it was as recent as 2018 - just slightly less than 5 years ago. Seems like just ‘yesterday’.

Tripling Market cap in three years is impressive enough. Doing that when you are the largest Market Cap in the world …

On Aug. 2, 2018, Apple (AAPL) made history by becoming the world’s first publicly traded company to achieve a market capitalization of $1 trillion.

Somehow I also didn’t know that ‘the return’ was as close to Cook’s starting date as this;

September 1997 - Steve Jobs returns to Apple
March, 1998 - Tim Cook joins Apple as senior vice president for worldwide operations

But I do remember some older history, because I am old enough now and close enough then to recall ‘the noise’ at the time.

October 6, 1997: Michael Dell makes an infamously bleak appraisal of Apple’s fortunes. Asked what he would do with the struggling company, the founder of Dell Inc. says he would “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

(Who’s Michael Dell again?)

March 1997 : 🔗 Ellison still wants Apple

This a headline after Steve’s close friend Larry J Ellison suggested to Steve that he just buys Apple outright - award Steve 25% of the stock - and ‘get Apple back to its rightful position.

Steve talked him out of it.

I am going to guess (we will never know) that had Larry bought Apple - it would not have become the company it is today.

Date wise, this time also marked the end of LJE’s baby sitter’s (literally) rise through the ranks of Oracle - his last position running the division responsible for putting Oracle on the Mac (pause for a moment while you contemplate that idea). Marc Benioff then went on to start Salesforce. I wonder if he would have rejoined Apple had Larry bought the company?

🎥 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, 2023 - ★★★½

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 02:57:37 +1200

Nothing wrong with a good Marvel … and this was a good Marvel … not a great one mind, good.

The continuing Marvel arc of the ‘multiverse of multiverses’ ( I wonder if they got their inspiration from the first episode of the latest Black Mirror?) sets the reset expectation and of course no sets needed … a few shots in San Francisco and the rest CGI? (Caveat .. I am no expert).

I know behind the scenes, there is a focus at Marvel of ‘getting back to story .. very apparent from the various series they launched that connects some dots and introduced back stories … but the movies still tend to be ‘Big’. I believe that this is changing soon. Can’t wait.

We Are Both Right.

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 04:08:16 +1200

If ever you need a reminder that there is more than one way of looking at a problem. I often talk about the over surveillance of and in society. (A long time critic of London surveillance for example.)

My message … Less Cameras. Less Surveillance.

And then you read this from a group I belong to ….

In Somalia to address the violence, like there was a killing of all the medical school graduates a couple years ago (my friend) feels that if they had cameras everywhere and could identify the perpetrators we could reduce the violence.

Their message … More Cameras. More Surveillance.

🎥 The Gunman, 2015 - ★★★★

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 04:26:18 +1200

Watched it a while back - and reminded of it last night as I surfed Netflix for a good watching experience. In the end I elected not to rewatch - but it really is so very good. Sean doing his thing, along with Javier, Idris and even Ray = what a cast!

🎥 Kill Boksoon, 2023 - ★★

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 04:08:09 +1200

It was alright. I am just not a fan of badly dubbed movies.

🎥 Made in Italy, 2020 - ★★★

Sat, 24 Jun 2023 13:20:54 +1200

Seeing iTunes promoting it as ‘available to rent’ … reminds me that I saw it at the time and the best thing about it is that Liam is NOT using his ‘particular set of skills’ … other than that … nice enough.

A Suggestion to Improve The Micro,Blog UI?

Sat, 24 Jun 2023 03:42:53 +1200

Currently, the official Micro.Blog app has a permanent menu that sits at the bottom of the screen, like this.

There is a second menu that can be found by clicking on your user image, top left, that looks like this.

Suggestion … add the 4 choices in the first example to the second menu.

Why? So I have only one place to go to for all possible operations.

Bonus thought.

In settings, allow me to hide that bottom menu in user settings.

// @manton @vincent

🎥 Extraction 2, 2023 - ★★★½

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 04:23:04 +1200

If you enjoyed the first - you'll enjoy this one. It is what you might expect. Just wondering if Hemsworth is trying to compete with Keanu on most 'kills per minute' in a movie.

🎥 Ticket to Paradise, 2022 - ★½

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 02:50:46 +1200

Talk about ‘phoning it in .. not my choice to watch and would not recommend, particularly if you know the Mamma Mia stories … both of which I have not seen, but I think the two sentence summary of the first would be identical to this one.

Crud Begone

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 13:00:44 +1200

In various places I play in - including professional ‘anti-tracking and privacy’ groups - I am constantly stunned by the link sharing that goes on. Stunned because people that ~~should~~ do know better always seems to share links ‘complete with’ the tracking crud that can so easily be removed.

It is so bad that when someone pastes the crud URL, I will post the crud free URL.

Nobody comments. Nobody does the same. Nobody stops posting the crud.

So, delighted to read about this move by Apple.

🔗 Apple hits email analytics again in iOS17

To be clear - I remove all crud, Apple’s intent is to only remove the crud that ties back to the individual. But it’s a start.

Not sure yet how it works, and in what circumstances, but already I think it is a pity it is only in mail.

Will AI Benefit People - Or Corporations?

Sat, 10 Jun 2023 04:54:18 +1200

Money

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 03:02:50 +1200

That ain’t workin', that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free

The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money, (That’s what I want)
That’s what I want

Money
Get away
You get a good job with more pay and you’re okay
Money
It’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

For the love of money
People can’t even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they’re gonna beat
For that lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, money

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man’s world

🔗 Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock at 40: the album that foretold today’s anything-goes pop.

Search versus Search

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 07:03:53 +1200

For the longest time I have had the wonderful plugin 🔗 ’Search Space’ by @sod running on my site. It is truly fantastic - use it all the time to find post I know I have written in the past - that I want to link to - like here .. imagine how long that would have taken to build without a powerful search.

I also use Hitchens by @pimoore for my site, and Pete rather conveniently included ‘Search’ as part of his template. Not sure what he is doing behind the scenes to make that work - but like all of Hitchens - it just worked out of the box.

But … BUT … ever since installing @sod ’s plugin, having two searches has annoyed me, but I lived with it. Although I knew how to hide the built in search in CSS, I did NOT know how to identify the element that needed hiding, Until NOW.

Thanks to Jason I can now find and identify the elements I need to drop into the CSS. (Again, I new all about ‘Inspect’, but for whatever reason I had a mental block when it came to finding the specifics.)

No longer - and as a result, I now have only 1 🖇️ Search on my site.

No idea if @sod is reading this - maybe I will ping him separately - and find out if he is working on an update - because I do have a few ideas.

An Experiment

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 04:10:45 +1200

Just trying out a little something after reading a thread in help that @MitchW started - let’s see ….

Of course - for it to really work, I do need some extra text - so in the spirit of exploration - tip-o-the-hat to lorem ipsum …

Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.

8/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 03:03:02 +1200

This is a TEST - IGNORE ME

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

✅ Test Four - Using Post/Update

7/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:59:40 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

✅ Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

6/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:58:54 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link%3A https%3A//john.philpin.com … and some punctuation%2C like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

✅ Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

5/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:56:11 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

✅ Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

4/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:54:52 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

✅ Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

3/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:54:26 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

✅ Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

2/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:54:13 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

✅ Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

1/8

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:52:18 +1200

This is one of 8 Tests - so you can safely ignore them - unless you are helping me understand how much of an idiot I might be …

Test Link: john.philpin.com … and some punctuation, like this!

First Four … from the Mac

✅ Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

Second Four … from the iPad

Test One - Using ‘Post Direct’

Test Two - Using ‘Post Pause’

Test Three - Using Post w/Cats

Test Four - Using Post/Update

🎥 Dirty Grandpa, 2016 - ★★½

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 12:26:54 +1200

It's got Robert DeNiro in the main role ... slam dunk - right? Sadly - no.

🎥 Cloverfield, 2008 - ★★★

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 06:32:32 +1200

Three stars is generous, because I didn't get through it. Just spotted it on AppleTV as a promo - so thought I would try it out, since I never saw it the first time round. (I know I know). Maybe it just hit me wrong?

🎥 Big Night, 1996 - ★★★★

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 06:28:10 +1200

I watched it in the theater when it came out. Love Tucci and this did not disappoint. (Just thought it was time to post a positive review - because I have been sharing some clangers recently.)

🎥 Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, 2023 - ★★½

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 06:26:18 +1200

I used to love the Asterix comic books. But have never really enjoyed the films. So not sure why I thought this time it would be different.

🎥 Dragged Across Concrete, 2018 - ★★

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 16:31:12 +1200

Yeah … no .. despite it including two of my favorite actors.

🎥 Mother’s Day, 2023 - ★½

Wed, 31 May 2023 15:39:44 +1200

Not to be confused with other films called Mother’s Day … I’ve not seen all of them, but none can be as bad as this one.

Where’s Waldo

Wed, 31 May 2023 13:14:58 +1200

It all started somewhere - and eventually @Jean did one - and then added a list of other ‘Where’s Waldo’ pages here. So I thought hell, why not … and then it got complicated, because like others, to me - passing through isn’t sufficient, so I added a few caveats. —

Passing through does NOT do it. To be on the list, I have to have spent at least two nights in that place (so removing those pesky ’en route’ stop overs’.
I decided that I wanted to separate where I have lived from visited - so I start with a much shorter list before listing all the places.
As it turns out, a lot of places I have been to has seen me there for longer than a week, and some of the places I have been to more than once …
Each list is alphabetical
I’m English - so yes - the UK is four countries. —

Places I Have Lived

Germany
Kenya
New Zealand
Singapore
UK - England
UK - Wales
USA - CA
USA - CT
USA - HI
USA - NY
USA - VA

Places I Have Visited

USA

(Been to in Bold, ’~~Struck out~~’ - I do need to visit. (Or do I?) )
Washington DC

~~Alabama~~
~~Alaska~~
Arizona
~~Arkansas~~
California (Lived)
Colorado
Connecticut (Lived)
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii (Lived)
~~Idaho~~
Illinois
Indiana
~~Iowa~~
Kansas
~~Kentucky~~
Louisiana
~~Maine~~
Maryland
Massachusetts
~~Michigan~~
Minnesota
~~Mississippi~~
Missouri
~~Montana~~
~~Nebraska~~
Nevada
~~New Hampshire~~
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York (Lived)
~~North Carolina~~
~~North Dakota~~
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania*
Rhode Island
~~South Carolina~~
~~South Dakota~~
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
~~Vermont~~
Virginia (Lived)
Washington
~~West Virginia~~
~~Wisconsin~~
~~Wyoming~~

Rest Of World

(The) African Continent

Egypt
Kenya
Mauritius
South Africa
Tunisia

(The) Americas

Bahamas
Bermuda
Canada
Mexico
U.S.A. (see detailed list above)

Asia

China
Hong Kong
India
Malaysia
Singapore
Thailand

‘Australasia’

New Zealand

Europe

Andora
Austria
Belgium
(The) Czech Republic (Strictly speaking - Czechoslovakia and I didn’t get to Slovakia)
Denmark
Eire / Ireland
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Nederlands
Poland
Portugal
Slovenia and Croatia (Strictly speaking - Yugoslavia and I didn’t get to Bosnia, Serbia or Macedonia)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey (Or should this be under Asia?)
U.K. - England
U.K. - Wales
U.K. - Scotland
U.K. - Northern Ireland
Yugoslavia

(The) Middle East

U.A.E.

I think that’s it.

I Have - So You Don't Have To.

Wed, 31 May 2023 11:51:02 +1200

A few links with no ‘search or surf’ needed. All you need to do is click.

You are welcome.

🔗 Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes turns herself in for 11-year prison term. - I didn’t get the popcorn because my guess is that she will be out for ‘good behavior’ before I could finish the box.

🔗 Lawyer ‘Greatly Regrets’ Using ChatGPT in Briefing That Included Fake Citations. … and on a related note 🔗 I cannot believe the shit that morons are getting up to with ChatGPT - because in 2023 it is obligatory for all lists (even micro lists like this) to have at least one link be about ChatGPT, so I went for two - and related as well!

🔗 Tom Evslin: Is AI Dangerous? - turns out yes … and no … because it depends.

🔗 A New Uber Clone With Armed Drivers Is the App for a Violent and Paranoid America (Apple News) - if you follow me, you might know that Uber is not (shall we say) high on my list of innovative and ethical companies - so in that respect they are absolutely an Uber clone.

🔗 The QAnon Shaman Is Out of Prison and Selling Yoga Leggings Now (Apple News) - because of course he is. Beats me why he didn’t start it in prison. Oh wait ….

🎵 Malcolm McLaren ... Talentless Hack or Talented Svengali?

Wed, 31 May 2023 05:17:11 +1200

For all of his total lack of skill as a musician / singer .. his ability to constantly break new ground and open listeners ears to new possibilities was quite extraordinary.

Duck Rock never made it to ‘personal favorite’ status, but still extraordinary.

My most favorite McLaren is surely ’Fans’ - 40 years old NEXT year

🎵 Mirror To The Sky - Yes

Wed, 31 May 2023 04:44:11 +1200

I have now listened to the new Yes album maybe 4 times. It is definitely not their greatest album - by any stretch - but it is also far from the worst.

Peak Yes years for me were those leading up to Topographic … and to compete with that era is hard … but this does (though it does lose 😎).

Trivia thought.

I wonder why the ‘title track’ off Mirror To The Sky is called ‘Mirror to the Sky’?

Intentional? If so why?

Sloppy? Very ‘un Yes’.

Favorite opening … the first minute of ‘Unknown Place’ - it falls off very quickly.

Favorite Track … the title track - which also happens to be the longest … I am a sucker for long musical exploration.

‘One Second is Enough’ … meh as is most of ‘disc 2’ … why did they bother?

‘BIDIRECTIONAL’ You Tube RSS Feeds

Sat, 27 May 2023 04:44:23 +1200

🔗 Scripting News: YouTube and inbound RSS

Interesting link from @dave

Also interesting is the YouTube outbound RSS that he wants.

Google don’t make it easy - BUT - every YouTube channel does have an RSS feed - I just added my channel to feed into MicroBlog, to make sure it still works. There are three videos in there - that have a total viewership of something less than 3 :-) So don’t get excited.

BUT - it is possible.

📡 My Channel’s RSS feed - for what its worth

You Might Know Me As A 'Tech Exec' - But Actually, I Am An Astronaut.

Fri, 26 May 2023 13:59:32 +1200

When you read that ‘blah blah’ who’s ‘made a name for themselves’ as an actor, writer, singer, chef, musician … whatever .. has now just turned to interior design (I bought my 15,000 share foot house in Malibu and just had ‘this vision’) … or fashion design … or whatever …. what are your thoughts?

I ask because I just spotted that 🔗 Dua Lipa has just designed her first collection for Versace. I know this is not her first outing in design - but surely first with an icon?

Is this akin to tRump ~~writing~~ reading a book or Harry ‘writing’ one?

How about Johnny D sharing the stage with Jeff?

Galling?

I think so.

Lemons - Do They Exist - Or A Cunkstion?

Fri, 26 May 2023 13:49:12 +1200

Anyone else worried that this is even a question? Or that it needs to be asked?

Anyway, I don’t have an answer about lemon origins except to say that they are at least as real as babies, and if they aren’t real then what the fuck did I just eat?

💬 The Bloggess

To be clear, this is not a Bloggess origin story … but rather a debate that seems to have emerged on the inter-webs somewhere about ‘Intelligence versus Artificial Intelligence’ - with people pointing out that Lemons ‘do not occur naturally’ … so are artificial … so not ‘real’ … at least in ‘that’ sense of the word.

First, if that is true, then total news to me. But put that aside, because the quirkiness of the debate tickles me. It’s ‘the other thing’ that has slipped quietly under the radar, that I am worrying about, because at some point in the online world, ‘real’ has become synonymous with ‘exist’.

That is … if it is not real - then it does not exist.

Really?

Now, I am not a philosopher - so the existence of a lemon I leave to people further up the pay grade scale than I, but I did get to wondering whether this is a ‘Cunkstion’¹, or at least Cunk like?

Can someone higher up the pay scale have a think and reply please?

Read More From The Bloggess: 🔗 When life may or may not give you lemons

Cunkstion - a contraction of ‘Cunk Question’ - which is one of those innocent, easy ‘obvious’ questions that nobody has ever asked - but when you do - the expert finds themselves tied up in knots for one of three reasons …1) it is just plain stupid, 2 a non sequitur or 3) a deeply profound question demonstrating great insight (if on occasions - accidentally). ↩︎

🔗 A List of AI Links

Thu, 25 May 2023 05:45:36 +1200

Like a lot of us I guess - I have been reading and listening a lot to the AI chatter. This is a list of not everything I have read and listened to - and not quite sure why these ended up on a list and others didn’t - but still you might find an interesting nougat in here?

Doc Searls List

Let’s start with a highly curated list generated by the inimitable Doc Searls.

An AI reading list - by Doc Searls - Reality 2.0 Newsletter

Random

Women Shaping the Future of Blockchain Technology

This Week in Gen AI - Week 18

10th May 2023 Digital Bytes - by Jonny Fry - Digital Bytes

Using AI For Creation, Innovation, & Category Design

ChatGPT Is Already Obsolete - The Atlantic

AI in the Boardroom: A Revolutionary Construct? – The FinReg Blog

How to bring AI to the board

Developing ESG Through AI

Life After Language

Daily Skimm

Wellfound

Using AI For Creation, Innovation, & Category Design

You can learn AI later

Americans' views on use of AI in hiring

Politico

OpenAI stumps in Washington - POLITICO

A Manhattan Project for AI safety - POLITICO

Inside Mozilla’s AI crusade - POLITICO

The long game between writers and AI - POLITICO

The possibly-unstoppable march of facial recognition - POLITICO

5 questions for SmartNews' Rich Jaroslovsky - POLITICO

5 questions for Silent Eight’s Martin Markiewicz - POLITICO

5 questions for the Digital Dollar Project’s Jennifer Lassiter - POLITICO

Seeking a Distribution Advantage with AI | LinkedIn

ESG Strategy and AI: A match made in the Boardroom | LinkedIn

Product Questions for AI Features | LinkedIn

Substacks

Toward a better media system

The Dawn Of Mediocre Computing - by John Philpin

17th May 2023 Digital Bytes - by Jonny Fry - Digital Bytes

AI Podcasts

1 Recode Media with Peter Kafka - Vox - AI is the future! AI is a fraud. Let’s debate.

2 Recode Media with Peter Kafka - Vox - Inside the AI Gold Rush

3 Recode Media with Peter Kafka - Vox - How worried—or excited—should we be about AI?

YouTubes

Forget ChatGPT. These Are the Best AI-Powered Apps.

The AI News is Picking Up Speed Again! - YouTube

Possible End of Humanity from AI? Geoffrey Hinton at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital - YouTube

I built my own AutoGPT that makes videos - YouTube

Bing vs Bard vs ChatGPT: A Battle of Conversational AI Titans - YouTube

My First Look At Adobe Firefly - This is Scary 🫣 - YouTube

The A.I. Dilemma - March 9, 2023 - YouTube

Should we fear AI? - YouTube

10 AMAZING Ways AutoGPT Is Being Used RIGHT NOW - YouTube

Microsoft’s New AI Clones Your Voice In 3 Seconds! - YouTube

‘Godfather of AI’ discusses dangers the developing technologies pose to society - YouTube

Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #367 - YouTube - over TWO HOURS LONG

Apps

Jasper

Midjourney

Stable AI - Stability Diffusion

Literally Anything

Cody - The AI Trained on Your Business - Artificial Intelligence Powered Knowledge Base

AgentGPT

ora.ai

Fun (?) App

ElonTalks - An APP

Draft Action Suddenly Not Working

Wed, 24 May 2023 08:40:18 +1200

For the longest time I have used a drafts action to post to MicroBlog. There are also two others I use, but there was one particularly I used for my Daily Stoic post.

After updating MicroBlog to version 3, the action gave an error, essentially overwriting part of the URL with ‘code characters’ so then I had to edit what was fine in drafts so it worked in MicroBlog. Annoying.

I think that the only thing that changed was the MB upgrade.

Today I took a closer look - and couldn’t work it out.

So I just reinstalled the action and voila - working again … I think. 🤞🏼

Also found another action - so now I have 4 of them!

🎥 The Mother, 2023 - ★★★

Tue, 23 May 2023 05:05:15 +1200

It’s JLo, so it wasn’t going to be bad … and it wasn’t … though predictable … like the bad guy who never dies. Interesting that director and writers all women.

Substack Spam

Tue, 16 May 2023 03:07:59 +1200

Om writing about Substack Spam

Anyone can add my email address to their newsletter list without my permission. Whether I want it or not, I get a pitch for their newsletter, and I have to go to their website and unsubscribe to opt out of the service.

I did not know that. Is he right?

“Opt out” is a growth hacking tactic that has become commonplace online and a time stealer, penalizing all Internet users. Online marketers are just a different version of spammers who annoy us on our mobile phones. And it is so because no one speaks on behalf of the people.

I have been observing this … just hadn’t thought of it as being a Substack issue. The whole thing flies in the face of good email practice that Chad and Jay wrote about in what seems like another life - but apparently the book only came out 10 years ago … is that right?

(Now in it’s fourth edition)

🎥 Tetris, 2023 - ★★★½

Sun, 14 May 2023 02:10:04 +1200

Maybe it should be 4 stars? Great little bit of history ... But I don’t know the real story well enough to know how much poetic license was employed. I liked the graphic reminders (and associated pixel resolutions) spread throughout the film, that were so mind blowing to everyone at the time. I also had no idea that Maxwell was so involved in the story.

🎥 Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, 2022 - ★★★

Wed, 10 May 2023 12:28:31 +1200

Does the fact the we started watching it - had to stop half way through and still haven't yet felt inspired to go back and finish it tell you anything?

🎥 A Man Called Otto, 2022 - ★★★★

Tue, 09 May 2023 04:26:30 +1200

I’m not a big Hanks fan .. often skipping over his movies … ‘because’. So glad I didn’t jump this one. Just lovely. And yes I shed a tear or three.

Maybe there is something about having low expectations before watching a movie?

🎥 Uncharted, 2022 - ★★

Mon, 08 May 2023 03:33:07 +1200

The usual fodder … even ‘names’ can’t change some movies.

🎥 Ghosted, 2023 - ★★★

Sat, 06 May 2023 06:37:40 +1200

Cute. Predictable and scenes lifted directly from John Wick, The Fast and Furious franchise, Tarantino’s catalogue .. and more … all of them failing to better the originals. Then again, I didn’t pay anything to see it (except my time).

I think Ryan Reynolds has decided to make a new business out of quick cameos.

Also delighted to see 10 seconds of John Cho (Cowboy Bebop)

Small Businesses in New Zealand - And Elsewhere.

Fri, 05 May 2023 09:19:34 +1200

The particular comment I was responding to was in a private group hosted in New Zealand - hence the opening paragraph. BUT - I think it pertains to any country. In that post, this link was provided — I think New Zealand has more businesses (and hence ‘small’ businesses) per capita than pretty much any New Zealand just doesn’t have the people to support it.

BUT - when you leave New Zealand … there has been something happening for a while now. I will try to discover the article I wrote a while back ….

Here’s the nub … In the US (but I am pretty sure this applies to most countries) 50 to 60 years ago, big employers like GM and GE were the dominant market cap companies on the financial exchanges. Not entirely un-coincidentally, they were also the companies that employed the most people. Fast forward to today … the market caps of the biggest companies are an order of magnitude higher than the ones back then and the number of people they employ is an order of magnitude less. Meanwhile the population of America has doubled? Tripled?

So where are all those people now working? Answer small … or at least smallER businesses.

Some of this has been achieved by improved efficiencies … we no longer need banks of people directing calls, typing up documents, manufacturing cars …. But also … since the 70s there has been a steady drip of those organizations getting those people ‘off the books’ .. why employ people if you can off shore, outsource, automate processes … and the new one - use AI. The result is that more and more people are in smaller and smaller businesses but often working in service to a larger organization.

Quite simply - If I am building a house (actually - or metaphorically) .. do I employ everyone full time … or contract with the right resources at the right time to get the job done?

Tongue in cheek .. but for the longest time, I have had this vision of the ideal company comprising a single individual with ‘agents’ managing their ‘virtual supply chain’ that they need to deliver value to their customers.

This thought informs the graphic below - 'The Business Equation' - and is foundational thinking in the People First domain.

Ten things that you can do to embrace the future of AI whilst mitigating the threat of losing your liveliehood.

Thu, 04 May 2023 09:29:16 +1200

The Newsletter.

1. Stay informed: Keep up-to-date on the latest developments and trends in AI and automation, and how they are affecting your industry and job market.

2. Develop new skills: Continuously learn new skills to stay relevant in the job market, such as programming, data analysis, or other skills related to AI.

3. Pursue higher education: Consider obtaining a degree or certification in a field related to AI, such as computer science or data science, to prepare for the jobs of the future.

4. Explore new career opportunities: Look for opportunities to work with or alongside AI, such as in fields like robotics, automation, and machine learning.

5. Be adaptable: Embrace new ways of working and be open to adapting to changing work environments as AI and automation continue to transform the workplace.

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash

6. Build a strong professional network: Connect with other professionals in your field and seek out mentorship and guidance to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in AI.

7. Be creative: Explore new ways of applying your skills and expertise to stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on emerging opportunities in the AI economy.

8. Consider entrepreneurship: Starting your own business or pursuing self-employment can provide greater control over your livelihood and allow you to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the AI economy.

9. Advocate for policies that support workers: Encourage policymakers to create policies that support workers and address the potential negative impacts of AI on employment, such as job retraining programs and income support for displaced workers.

10. Stay positive: Embrace the potential benefits that AI can bring, such as increased productivity and efficiency, and stay positive about the opportunities that lie ahead.

Ten things that corporations can do to empower their employees and their use of AI whilst NOT reducing their workforce to increase profits.

Thu, 04 May 2023 09:24:18 +1200

The Newsletter.

Invest in upskilling and reskilling: Provide opportunities for employees to learn new skills and develop expertise in areas related to AI, such as data analysis, programming, or robotics.
Foster a culture of innovation: Encourage employees to experiment with new technologies and processes, and provide the resources and support necessary to implement new ideas.
Promote collaboration: Encourage cross-functional collaboration and knowledge sharing, to bring together employees from different departments with diverse skill sets and expertise.
Ensure transparency and communication: Be transparent about the company’s AI strategy and communicate clearly with employees about how AI is being used and how it will impact their work.
Emphasize ethical considerations: Ensure that AI is being developed and used in an ethical and responsible manner, and prioritize the well-being of employees and society as a whole.

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash

Implement AI for augmentation rather than automation: Use AI to enhance human decision-making and productivity, rather than replacing human workers with automated systems.
Prioritize employee well-being: Consider the impact of AI on employee well-being, and take steps to mitigate potential negative effects, such as stress or burnout.
Encourage employee feedback: Solicit feedback from employees on how AI is being used and how it could be improved, to ensure that employees feel empowered and engaged in the process.
Reward creativity and innovation: Recognize and reward employees who come up with innovative ways to use AI to improve the company’s operations or products.
Invest in long-term goals: Focus on the long-term benefits of AI, rather than short-term cost savings, and invest in initiatives that will create sustainable growth and benefit both the company and its employees over the long term.

💬 Hate Speech On Core Intuition

Mon, 01 May 2023 07:36:40 +1200

🔗 Just finished listening to the latest Core Intuition.

At one point in the conversation @manton and @danielpunkass were talking about community guidelines, social norms et al. Hate speech on Bluesky was specifically brought up. Apparently they have a way to add tags to posts so that posts can be marked as ‘hatespeech’, ‘not safe for work’, etc.

Sounded a pretty neat solution to me - but apparently someone over on @mastodon suggested that this meant BlueSky was allowing hate speech.

Have to say, one of the common threads running through a lot of Mastodians I observe is the ‘superior’, ‘better than thou’, ‘my way or the highway’ attitude … even down to comments like ‘if you don’t ‘alt text’ your images - I will unfollow you'.¹

But, ‘allowing’ hate speech? There is no agreement what constitutes hate speech, so I guess this individual is judge and jury? Don’t get me wrong … I think most ‘decent people’ can bucket up the obvious extremes … it’s when it gets to the grey areas it becomes difficult. Like art - we can’t define it - we just ‘know it when we see it’.

I was reminded of a well used amorphism

“One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”

This also ties into something I wrote just yesterday

1] I wonder if Mastodon is filling up with ‘snowflakes’. (Back when my mum was alive she used to rail on ‘do gooders’ … a term that seems to have fallen out of use these days - but the sentiment remain in these ‘behavioural vigilantes’.

2] I wonder whether the meek have inherited the earth … at least in terms of public discourse?

3] Has the pendulum swung too far? Satire and parody has lost meaning and too many people are cancelling themselves for fear of public admonishment and worse - retribution from the herd.

What do you think?

Too late - I have already unfollowed you. (Not that I disagree with the need to do it - and I try - but it doesn’t always happen and life is too short.) ↩︎

🏗️ The Largest Project In The World That You MIGHT Not Have Heard Of

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 06:16:21 +1200

You can read the whole thing here.

Galloway sets the scene for the context and scale of what is going on. What follows is not so much a ‘TL;DR’ - as a flavor of what you will find within …

More About NEOM

This Is NEOM

Progress Report - January 2023

🎵 The Gas Man Cometh

Sat, 29 Apr 2023 05:49:40 +1200

The gasman had an appointment this morning … he was on time and we spent some quality time together. End result? The next step would be to call a plumber (not a carpenter) … see the first verse below.

My mind went to Flanders and Swann’s rendition of their wonderful song … The Gas Man Cometh. The audio is well worth a listen if you don’t know it - and really - these days - who honestly does remember the duo.

The lead up to this particular version should be listened to - not jumped across!

T’was on the Monday morning, the gas man came to call,
The gas tap wouldn’t turn, I wasn’t getting gas at all;
He tore out all the skirting boards to try and find the main,
And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again!

🤖 ChatGPT chats to ChatJP

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 11:07:53 +1200

Turns out that ChatGPT can be pretty useful. Who knew?

In case you aren’t keeping up - I have been playing around with embedding video on 🔗 john.philpin.com. I cracked it a while back - but the process of creating the clip had a lot of friction because of the app I was using.

Fixed that - thanks to learning that the podcast app I use every day (Overcast) has had audio clipping since 2019. Seriously!

So friction to creating the clip removed, but still stuck on how a visitor would know the app was ‘playable’ (no little ‘play’ arrow) and even when they did - up popped another window …

As @Miraz wrote …

It’s not clear that it’s an audio clip

… and as @pratik wrote

I wish it started playing in-page.

💯❗️

I am not a developer, coder, programmer … by any stretch of the imagination - hell - I don’t even play one on TV. I impressed myself to even manage to embed the video - to play in line? Time for a chat.

I know how much time I spend googling css / html stuff to copy and paste into the site - find it doesn’t work - spending more time to find the right structure - repeat - until it finally works. I looked at Google with significant trepidation.

Enter ChatGPT that I have played around with to better understand capabilities, but never with a view to creating something ‘production ready’.

From opening ChatGPT to getting a finished result took me about two minutes - half of which was waiting for my web site page to flush out the old and refresh the new - twice (as the chat below makes clear).

For posterity - my conversation is below.

Oh - and this was using ChatGPT-3.

🔗 This is the finished post in action.

♻️ Life Is A Remix - Escher ~v~ The New Yorker

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 04:43:02 +1200

Which reminds me that I need to find that quote that reminds us that all life is just ‘replication at scale’

Of course the human invention of copyright law then results in things like the court case between Ed Sheeran and the estate of Marvin Gaye - which in turn conjurs up memories of Zeppelin and Spirit, Harrison and … who was it now … the list is endless.

Meanwhile - The New Yorker’s cover is … well - see for yourself …

I wonder if the Max Escher estate is going to start something?

🎙️ Turns Out I Don't Need Snipd Afterall ...

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 18:06:31 +1200

I have had three actions in ‘Things’ now for weeks. They were there to remind me to post a snippet from three podcasts that I wanted to share. The actual snipping and posting is not that hard - so why did I need to set a reminder?

BECAUSE

I use Overcast to listen to Podcasts and I had no intention of moving my listening experience over to Snipd. Earlier in the year I had been playing with Snipd. and even posted a couple … 🔗 here and 🔗 here, but the friction on the adhoc process in the workflow - not so easy.

Snipd is a good app for extracting a slice and posting. BUT I listen to Podcasts in Overcast, so when I wanted to snip something, I had to;

make a mental note of where in the podcast I was
go to Snipd
find the podcast
find the episode
get to the part I want to snip …

… and only then could I start the process.

Clumsy - at best - and lots of friction - so I just made a note in Things - which you now know I never got round to!

I might be blind, ignorant or stupid - but tonight I discovered that Overcast offers very similar (identical?) functionality. Is that new? Am I really that slow?

Anyway, just tried out the Overcast mechanism - and very nice, sitting right there in front of me.

🔗 My first example

Snipd account deleted.

☢️ This Is Not America

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 05:52:36 +1200

🎵 This Is Not America was always a 🎵musical favorite in my world - as indeed was The Falcon and The Snowman, which featured the song … and then the movie came to mind this morning as I was catching up on my ‘piece of glass’.

To some, the meaning of the lyrics …

A little piece of you,
the little piece in me,
will die
(this is not a miracle)
For this is not America

… seem to be shrouded in mystery - but to me - not really. At the simplest level they seem to reference that the geography that the two characters found themselves in was definitely not America. Happy Days … you could leave wherever you are - come home to America - and all would be ‘well’ again.

Fast forward 35 years.

The lyrics remain relevant - except now you don’t need to leave America. And because of that, there is no longer that safe haven that our two ‘heroes’ wanted to return to.

(Yes - I am having a day - and it’s not even 11am)

Later - in the title, I really wanted to use the Americn Flag EMOJI - but for some reason, it wasn’t rendering correctly on the web site ….

So I changed it.

🎥 The Falcon and the Snowman, 1985 - ★★★★

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 05:36:21 +1200

Long time since I watched this - but I have watched it more than once - which is rare for me ... Came to mind this morning as I was reading the news and my mind revisiting the theme song and then thinking about Schlesinger - and then Timothy Hutton and of course the amazing Sean Penn. Well worth a **focused** watch.

🌡️ It's Called Global Warming

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 04:54:50 +1200

Ever wondered why we used call it ‘Global Warming’ - and now we call it ‘Climate Change’?

Said it before - say it again - Language is important. More than important - it shapes how society thinks.

Frank Luntz understood that …

Memo exposes Bush’s new green strategy. is a 20 year old article describing how Frank Luntz first introduced the idea of ‘changing the dialogue’.

Doesn’t ‘climate change’ sound so much nicer than ‘global warming’?

Which is why 20 years later we read these kind of headlines quite regularly.

One in three people on the planet hit by ‘monster Asian heatwave’

Language is one of the 8 pillars of People First thinking where we explore the subtle art of manipulating conversation and dialogue through the careful choice of words. It’s rampant.

䷓ Glossary Terms

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 11:24:46 +1200

Slowly building up my glossary links ( thankyou @AndySylvester ) … 4 active so far … more in the background - and none of the embedded terms are yet implemented (except that one at the bottom of this post). None of the click throughs are final text yet - but that is kind of the beauty of the 🔗 glossary.

Learn more about People First.

An experiment as I think about moving peoplefirst.business into MicroBlog.

About my position on The Future of Work.

I moved my old Humo(u)r archive into MicroBlog a while back. It has a fixed footer and some of the HTML is broken. Steadily fixing as I rediscover these old posts - and then adding this dynamic footer.

The glossary allows me to set one or more fixed footers on any post that are generated dynamically, so if I want to change anything - I change it once and it changes everywhere. This is an example of such a footer.

🪦 RIP Cable News

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 06:28:57 +1200

Cable News (1980-2023) by Dana F. Blankenhorn has a very relevant 🎵 track that opens the post.. You can find the 🔗 lyrics here.

Who “wins,” i.e., who is the last one standing? Probably NBC. Comcast has cash flow. NBC has learned how to segment the market with MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Now, NBC News and Local Now. That’s five bites at the remaining cable apple, five channels they can sell to the “skinny bundle” boys like YouTube Plus. And the cost is nominal – a few sets at the NYSE and 30 Rock. Reporters are no longer stars at any of those shops. CNN and Fox are out in the cold. Their owners are going to squeeze all the juice out for profit until there’s nothing left, then throw the remaining goodwill at one of the big boys.

💬 Dana Blankenhorn

🎬 About Nicholas Cage

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:22:05 +1200

Cage on 60 Minutes

As @drewcastillo and I recently riffed - he really is very good. Sure he’s got some duds - don’t we all? Off the top of my head - some of my favorites (alphabetical - to avoid ‘ranking’) …

Adaptation
Conair
Face/Off
Leaving Las Vegas
Pig
Raising Arizona
Wild at Heart

… and a few more that I have forgotten.

(and no - Unbearable Weight is not forgotten - just haven’t seen it yet.)

People: The Driver

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 08:16:28 +1200

I spotted this car parked near a Farmers Market - I walked on, wondering about the owner and what their story was.

Returning a few hours later, I saw a couple of cars stopped at a junction. They weren’t moving and as I got closer saw an elderly man using his feet to propel him and his wheelchair backwards across this small, pot hole riven junction … up a small incline.

I walked over and asked him if he needed any help.

“No thanks. I’m fine.

Are you sure?

“No really. I’m ok … Thankyou.

Pushing harder with his feet for the final assault on the slope.

I waved to him ... ok then ... and kept going. He shouted out.

“Thankyou. Thankyou very much. I’m ok ... really."

I turned around to wav to see him by his car, wrestling with the door to get in, carefully watched by his lady friend, sitting patiently to one side of the road in her wheelchair.

I still don’t know the story of the car, nor it’s owner - but clearly, despite what the car might say to a passer by ... he was a proud, well mannered, graceful man. I really wish I knew his story.

🍳 Criticising Is The Easy Part.

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 07:45:44 +1200

Criticising is the easy part is a blog post that has been sat in my drafts folder for too long ….

I wouldn’t disagree with @manuelmoreale - you only have to highlight ‘the issue d’jour’ and

the story is getting more complicated
the public is defaulting to less and less attention to absorb the necessary information and
less and less time to weigh in on the issues and
increasingly the (popular) tools where such discourse can be had are focussed on shorter and shorter time spans.

… all while nothing is done at a country (let alone global) level to lay out a stall and agree the top level strategy.

Case in point … an old one that I was introduced to in my twenties …

If someone is guilty of a crime, do you sent them to prison to rehabilitate or punish? Whichever the answer results in two totally different looking penal systems with very little operational overlap. If we can’t agree on the top level strategy - we will never agree on the solutions.

And don’t get me started on how (in the US at least) - the people’s representatives are not representing the people - how else do you explain the break between politicians and people in subject areas like abortion.

📺 Mythic Quest ★★★½

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 12:13:53 +1200

Series 1 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m not a gamer, but it’s not really to do with games. It’s another sitcom based in the office. Not a bad way to while away some time.

Series 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The saga continued … it really isn’t a bad show at all. Don’t expect deep.

Series 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

This one cracked along at a pace that I don’t remember the first two did and with it came up a better show somehow. (Hence more stars). Is it just me - but is Rob McElhenney becoming more like Ryan Reynolds with each series?

Series 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

The quest rolls on. It’s just a light story. Fast quick episodes. There isnt really a complicated arc to the whole show - but definitely enjoyable. The stars suggest it’s getting better. Not sure that is true.

🔗New Zealand loses appeal to rich foreigners as investor visa numbers plunge..

🔗 It’s Monday - I guess there’s not much going on ….

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 03:35:49 +1200

🔗 Where does the Tennessee House Speaker actually live? - people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

🔗 I showed Bruce Springsteen my Bruce Springsteen tattoo. He said he didn’t like it. - I look forward to this new series.

I am a cult author, asked in the street maybe five times a year: “Are you Emma Forrest?” And I am Emma Forrest. But it’s a surname invented by my grandfather to combat anti-semitism, so there are other more legitimate Emma Forrests, some with their own internet fame, like the Scottish judo star or the woman, also Scottish, who consumes 3,000 calories of fizzy drinks a day.

💬 Emma Forrest

🎥 Murder Mystery, 2019 - ★★½

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:13:25 +1200

With Netflix holding back on the 6th series of Better Call Saul ... What's a boy to do? Murder Mystery 2 was floating around and I had never seen the first ... so decision made.

It would be unfair to say it was a total disaster, though I am definitely NOT a Sandler fan .. I do kinda like Aniston .. So who knows I thought ... Maybe she could lift him up?

She couldn’t. (Though he did a pretty good job of bringing her down!) .. Stamp was another I had high hopes for ... but not to be the case, which becomes clear should you elect to give this a whirl.

But there was a saving grace in the ’Maharajah’ .. Played by one Adeel Akhtar .. What a spectacular part ... What a spectacular performance .. Just not enough of him.

Salvation, though the rating didn’t move.

From Obsidian - Redux

Sun, 09 Apr 2023 12:41:19 +1200

Sorry about all the posts and deletes. This one is staying!

‘From Obsidian’ is a new category on this ‘public journal’. Not sure yet how it will pan out - but my thinking is kinda as follows …

1] don’t want to pay $120 a year to synch your obsidian with a web site (quite apart from what a second web site will cost you).
2] don’t have the technical chops to deal with github (which is a recognized and free solution that solves that first problem)

THEN

3] this might just be what you need

BUT

4] this is really for more the ‘occasional publisher’ than those who have vast libraries and want to share it all with the world.

What do you think?

Identity 2.5 Is Here

Sun, 09 Apr 2023 08:51:03 +1200

This is a new identity newsletter from my Kiwi friend Alan Mayo - it’s the start of a journey he is embarking on talking about Identity 2.5. …. wait what? … 2.5?

Don’t fret - I’m not going to steal Alan’s thunder and get into what ‘2.5’ is - but Alan and I have had enough conversations for me to know that if you have an interest in identity - this short series is going to be well worth your time and his 2.5 solution is really rather clever.

“This is about Identity, not Digital Identity.”

And no - that is not code for the newsletter being deeply philosophical - exploring the Id etc … but rather recognizing the challenge that most tech conversation is about digital identity and essentially ignores ‘real world’ identity … and this is true even if the blockchain does finally solve identity.

Que?

Let’s assume that we crack ‘digital identity’ - and in case you don’t know - we are a long way off that - but stick with me - ‘when’ it is solved what happens when you (say) catch a plane, phone a call center, walk into a store, visit a bank, get a mortgage … then what?

If you have explored these scenarios, you already know that it’s a mess and digital identity is not going to solve for those scenarios - except by morphing the real and digital worlds. Beyond that, ‘real world identity’ is

inconsistent
- across industries and markets
- across multiple organizations
- even in a single organization
unreliable
hardly secure
random

… which typically means that organizations have to create - and support - multiple workflows and systems.

Use Cases

A Gas Company Call Center

A certain Gas company in Southern California has a ‘call center’ security level that goes as follows …

I tell them ‘my’ name … any name
To validate who I am … I have to tell them ‘my’ address

That’s it. At that point I am free to meddle with that account as much as I like.

How do I know this? Because I have done that three times in the past week. THREE times. I am not asked for ‘social’ - though why that is ever considered secure in this day and age is beyond me. The number I call from is detected at their end - and it is NOT the phone number they have on the record for that account. That doesn’t matter. No secret questions were asked. No texts sent to the number on record.

Full disclosure - I did this for a friend who was traveling and had full knowledge and permission from him (the account holder). Why? Because it was a simple issue that needed to be resolved. BUT had I used my real name I wouldn’t have even been able to have a conversation - because my information wouldn’t have correlated.

Bottom line however - if you find anyone else’s gas bill you could play havoc.

DMV Identity

I wrote a piece recently called An Afternoon With Kafka

It was meant to be a fun piece describing the trials and tribulations of renewing my US drivers license. In the end I got my license.

Key point … the official address they have on record for me required me to prove my identity by providing third party utility bills. BUT, that address is up in Northern California - and I am currently in SOUTHERN California - so I asked if they could send my license to a local SoCal address.

No problem …. it was done - BUT - in DMVland, what that means is that my US Drivers license now has that temporary, non official address on it and I did not have to prove it was connected to me.

I was asked recently to show my license to ‘prove my identity’. I ignored the oxymoron, showed them my license and they dutifully wrote down the address. On that occasion, it made no difference - but what happens if that address was important?

Most people would look at the ‘official government doc’ and take it at face value.

Identity is clearly a mess.

Ok - that’s it - do please subscribe.

An Afternoon In LA

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 10:50:42 +1200

A little foraging around the hood yesterday afternoon … some observations.

Going by car makes … Teslas had the most unfriendly, aggressive drivers on the road.

To provide context, on one occasion I was mildly surprised when one car jumped the red lights .. red now, not amber … red, only to see a second one accelerate across right on the first car’s tail causing me to swear in shock. After a brief gap, I guess people ‘with the green’ figured it was ok to move … and they all did … only to slam on their breaks as a third car barreled through.

None of the three cars were Teslas … and yet Tesla still won the afternoon’s 🏆🎖️🥇

At the beginning of the expedition, I needed to do a ‘quick’ trip into Costco. As I left, I found myself standing in line with my receipt and cart. The Latino lady with two-children directly in front of me was definitely being ’checked’ as the ’checker’ worked around the cart accounting for each item on the list. It was maybe 7 items … 2 of which were flat packs of water bottles.

I had forgotten this process and had already packed my few items into a box. Watching the detailed reconciliation going on in front of me, I was just thinking about unpacking the box … when she was waved through.

The checker looked at me and just marked the receipt of this old, caucasian male. There was no way he knew what was in my box (X-ray eyes aside).

Later in the Mall, I passed a Tesla store. Back in the day, I remember lines at Tesla stores … This one was empty … other than a couple of staff … maybe all the aggressive dicks in the area already have their Tesla?

Meanwhile, the Apple Store was as full as ever. I quickly found my ‘pencil tips’ but was told I needed to ‘book an appointment’ to buy them … he clearly spotted the horror on my face …

“Or you can check yourself out.”

I had totally missed the sign. The process took me a whole minute. Very efficient. (I know, I know … this has been possible for the last ‘n’ years … but this was actually my first time in an Apple Store for such a minor purchase in nearly 3 1/2 years .. slack needs to be cut)

On my way home I stopped off at a Wholefoods to pick up dinner for the night. Inside the store was a communal eating area with a total footprint equivalent to half the store - including a bar with seats for maybe 25 people. I am sure this also is old news - but again - it’s been 3 1/2 years

New Zealand | Leaving - On A Jet Plane

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 10:36:51 +1200

Maybe they have been reading Rushkoff’s book - and don’t want to be put in the same bag as Peter Thiel?

It was bizarre. I do get called out a lot to do these talks for businesspeople about the digital future. So, it was one of those where they paid me a bunch of money to convince me to spend some jet fuel and leave my home and pontificate, but then instead of taking me out onto the stage, they brought these five guys into the green room and sat around this table and started asking me all these very binary questions about where they should place their bets for the digital future: Bitcoin or Ethereum; VR or AR; and finally, New Zealand or Alaska—where should they invest in land to put their bunker for “the event”?

💬 Douglas Rushkoff

(my bold)

But still ….

It’s not just rich foreigners not arriving - it’s ordinary people leaving … again.

All kinds of reasons - but just from my own peculiarly tight Kiwi circle

me - of course - though I haven’t abandoned the country completely!
a kiwi friend and his wife moved to Portugal in January.
a highly networked and successful tech entrepreneur who has built his businesses in New Zealand for the last 30 years, very well connected, recognized by many for his contribution to the country has hit a wall and is looking at the US and The Far East as new opportunities. His words;

“In New Zealand there is zero appetite in thinking beyond the shores of the country.

an internationally successful VC who had spent the last two years in New Zealand seeking to kick start an incubator and accelerator wrote to me last week;

My overall experience in NZ shows that it is a country that is too small and internally focused to get meaningful traction as an innovator, not impossible, just a smaller pond and appetite …. I plan to build connections in Australia and further regionally in Asian markets this year.

a good American friend who has lived in Aotearoa for the last 8 years. Again, accomplished and connected and still can’t get local traction, yet without trying is fielding calls from Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.

But there’s more. COVID saw a lot of Kiwis returning ‘home’. COVID has ‘moved on’ (well - we all know it hasn’t - but it is clearly now manageable), net result, the Kiwis are back out on the road again.

Example - just like the UK, there is a severe shortage of healthcare professionals just one of many articles .. a shortage of 4,000 people (this in a country of 5 million people). If a similar ratio were applied to the US, there would be a shortage of over 1/4 million healthcare workers!

Here’s the rub … in my three years in New Zealand I lost count of trained healthcare professionals (and accountants and engineers for that matter) who were driving for taxi companies and Ola. (I am sure that the same applied to Uber - but can’t speak to that, because - well - Uber ). Why? Because New Zealand requires them to go through all their training again. (Not just pass exams - but actually retrain.)

Meanwhile - a Kiwi trained Healthcare professional can fly out of Auckland, land in Sydney, get paid more and have a lower cost of living.

There’s a lot more around the challenges that New Zealand face - which I’ll save for another day - just to leave you with a couple of quotes from Bernard Hickey - a Kiwi journalist and political commentator based in Wellington. (again - my bold.)

Wayne Brown is actually simply expressing a view held by most asset owners and investors in Aotearoa-NZ’s economy, or as I call it, a housing market with bits tacked on. That deeply held and and so-far-extremely-profitable investment strategy is that owning shares or investing in businesses in Aotearoa is vastly inferior to owning land, especially leveraged residential land, and even better if it is residential-zoned land that remains banked and undeveloped. The

Wayne Brown (ed - the new major of Auckland) is being exactly what he is: a property developer who has actually made most of his personal money from land price appreciation on land made valuable through rezoning and paying for water connections at a lower-than-full cost.

Displaying MicroBlog Categories.

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 09:46:58 +1200

Micro Blog categories are badly displayed - there I said it.

In MicroBlog and the New Drafts Plugin - it is unclear - but I think it is oldest to newest created? (In fairness the plugin probably pulls the raw list from the back end somewhere and uses the default.)

The same behavious in the iOS app.

BUT, in the Mac app, categories appear in three columns - and they read left to right on the first line and then the second line etc - NOT down column 1, then column2 etc … who knows which is the right way? Its like a book spine - should you turn your head to read sideways top to bottom OR bottom to top. There is a 99% standard - but still the 1% of spines designed the other way are around.

I read columns like an old newspaper - down first - then across - not across then down as if you are reading a spreadsheet.

In Mars Edit - they are displayed alphabetically - so clearly that is possible.

I have called this out to @manton - and we agreed, I am more than likely an edge case (over 50 categories (don’t judge)), but surely others have this challenge?

It would be good to choose preferred order in settings - but failing that, can we just have them alphabetically like @danielpunkass has them?

/end

📽️ Better Call Saul

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 06:33:05 +1200

Back when I posted about how great Breaking Bad was … let me paraphrase @pratik … “if you though that was good - wait till you try Better Call Saul”.

Then @GramrgednAngel@zirk.us talked about The Atlantic who …

published a series examining it through a Shakespearean tragedy lens and making the argument that the ultimate main character wasn’t Walter, or Jesse, but Skyler.

I just started series 3 of ‘Saul’. Oh my. Tragedy? I don’t know my Shakespeare as well as I could, but Saul has to be a contender. The character is heartbreaking. The relationship with his brother makes me tear up.

I love the back story of Breaking Bad and the various characters emerging that eventually appeared in Breaking Bad.

Superb series.

📺 The Night Agent ★★★

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 14:00:42 +1200

Series 1 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It follows a formula (but what doesn’t these days?). For all of that though - enjoyed it - and set up for a second series by the looks of it. If you have seen the ‘young Jack Ryan’ shows and/or ‘The Recruit’ … you know what to expect.

Series 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The quality remains - keeps you watching - but a few more disconnects in the overall story arc. And yes - the set up for Series 3 is in place.

Watch: BRUCE DICKINSON Kicks Off 2023 Tour Performing JON LORD’s ‘Concerto For Group And Orchestra’.

🎵 Concerto For Group and Orchestra

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 13:17:03 +1200

Using just one album as an example of the mess that is Apple Music Meta Data ….

Concerto For Group And Orchestra was a 1969 album by Deep Purple. It’s always been a favorite - despite not being a big fan of the band itself. I mean - it’s not that I don’t like them - they just don’t feature large in my ‘go to’ artist list … although Jon Lord … totally different story. A massive fan of Jon Lord.

He features in three lists I have on AlbumWhale

Big Albums From ‘Small’ Artists List .
Gateway Drugs … where he is one of five artists that loomed large in my musical preferences in 1969. That’s how long I have been aware of his work.
But Is It Classical.

Anyway - back to the plot.

To put the album into context these are the first four albums in the Deep Purple discography ….

July ’68 - ’Shades’.
October ’68 - ’Taliesyn’.
June ’69 - ‘Deep Purple’.
December ’69 - The ‘Concerto’.

In other words in 17 months they released 4 albums - the 4th being this live album with The Royal Philharmonic;

With all the Apple Classical back and forth recently, I was delighted to find that it is indeed in the ‘classical’ app - which is great because for whatever reason I had never before found it in the main music app …

‘Deep Purple’ - it is not there. (Not in albums, live albums nor compilations.).
‘Jon Lord’ - it is not there either.
‘The Royal Philharmonic’ - not there.

I have the original vinyl. I have the CD. I have ripped the CD into my iTunes Library, so it never really bothered me …. until now, because in the Classical App when I searched for Deep Purple OR Jon Lord - I found it …

Which got me to wondering - so back to the main app - and a quick search for ‘Malcolm Arnold’ - and voila - though if you search for ‘Malcolm Arnold’ in the classical app - who know if it is there … life is too short to wade through the results!

Seperately, the recording that Lord did in 2012 is much easier to find - but that is the problem with Apple Music across the board. History and originals tend to be ignored if there is something more recent with the same / similar name.

Also interesting that literally in the past two weeks there has been a lot of coverage about a group of artists going out on tour to play this music …

Sculpture

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 05:37:17 +1200

“I think the relationship of a warm-blooded creature versus an object that is still and silent—which is essentially what I think sculpture is—for me is the sort of fundamentals. Sculpture is in our everyday lives the whole time. Crossing the road with a lorry coming towards you is, in my opinion, a sculptural experience, where you as a flesh-and-blood object [are] up against the thing that isn’t. And one’s emotional and psychological assessment of that all happens in a flash.

To me, there is a big, sculptural presence there because of the way that large lorry is constantly displacing space as it comes towards you—so the track that is left behind, which is now empty, was once filled. And that’s what I think we do when we’re interacting with sculpture: the space is filled. As we walk around it, we are constantly losing an image of it and finding a new image. So quite a large part of what sculpture is, [is] not necessarily visual. And I think that’s quite shocking. [It’s] a state of affairs that we’re assessing.”

💬 Phyllida Barlow

🔗 Read More

🎥 Luther: The Fallen Sun, 2023 - ★★★★

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 17:10:31 +1200

The story continues and gets weirder, but it’s Idris .. right?

And it all ends with an interesting set up for the next story.

🎵 The Theme Song Of Madam Blanc Is More Of A Mystery Than Any Of The Stories.

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 08:35:07 +1200

The Theme Music for the Madam Blanc mysteries has firmly embedded itself into my brain and I love it. Still do. But who is the artist?

Turns out, a ‘duo’ called ‘Hague and White’. But the White might not be who you think.

I thought ‘the white’ was one ‘Steve White’. You might know him as the drummer for The Style Council and pretty much all the subsequent solo albums of Paul Weller. He clearly has chops in the drumming arena. He is also married to Sally Lindsay - the star of Madame Blanc - and the co writer and creator of the show. (I guess they thought they would keep it in the family).

But no …

The song is actually written by Hague and Joel White - who is also the vocalist. In fact Joel is credited with writing their first (and only album), Alan seems to have come along later.

And who is Joel White? Only Richard Hawley’s cousin!

That explains (so much of it) it.

🎥 Bohemian Rhapsody, 2018 - ★★★★

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 03:44:21 +1200

I’m not big into biopics … but for this I will make an exception and all because of Rami Malik. Quite brilliant in this role.

🎥 Paddington 2, 2017 - ★★★★

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 03:42:13 +1200

Loved the first one. Loved this one. Love the books. In my mind, Paddington can’t go wrong.

🎥 Office Space, 1999 - ★★★★½

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 03:40:42 +1200

Maybe it should-be 5 stars ... but that would mean it couldn’t be improved ... and everything can be improved .. can’t it? How? No idea.

🎥 The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, 2018 - ★★★★

Sat, 04 Mar 2023 05:57:10 +1200

Watched on Friday March 3, 2023.

🎥 Reservoir Dogs, 1992 - ★★★★½

Sat, 04 Mar 2023 05:55:30 +1200

One of his best. Maybe even his best?

🎥 The Pale Blue Eye, 2022 - ★★★½

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 04:10:58 +1200

3 stars from me, 4 stars from Jax. I likeChristian Bale’s work, I thought the ‘Poe’ character was excellent … but in the end, I didn’t really care, even with ‘twist’ at the end.

🎥 RRR, 2022 - ★★½

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 05:20:16 +1200

I wanted to like it … nay .. love it. I really did. But it was not to be. Definitely extraordinary scenes of ‘spectacularity’ within, but they weren’t enough to create a 3 hour movie and even at under 2 hours would have still been a push. Sorry.

🎥 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, 2022 - ★★★★

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 05:15:10 +1200

A solid Marvel movie. Perhaps overlong?

Exploring Tracking Crud in Readwise

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 05:24:41 +1200

This is in Stoop.

I click on the ‘Read On’ link and see this.

BUT - if I save to ‘Read Later' in ‘Readwise’ and then open Readwise, I see this

🔗 The public Readwise link

🔗 The original page (sans the 5 lines of tracking crud)

Here’s what I am wondering.

When I visit the public Readwise link it includes this tracking crud;

[hs.liminal.co/e3t/Ctc/L...](https://hs.liminal.co/e3t/Ctc/LV+113/cpsS404/VWVcLl90PJXLW92sp) Lq3N1C9nW3fCDQw4XjBLvN22w1013q3nJV1-WJV7CgFfDW671KZv 7dHHlcW4tkCM06fBlBpN7zfWcFFRBhvW96Kz) QQ2Kmdr1W2Cwz8n1jKmPNW1kwWkW7yWKh4N1MVd8pVQCfNW6 N90fS6LjBwNW7NhW_q34pWDvW3QzqKL3rjJrGW23FBdk9kQ46N W2sjCd-6t00gbN8C5ycNXfs_LN9hcJ1J7k6-tW5thTQD5XGRFkW6N xxbm60PM_gW96NX_j38bGGFW9c-k6C7XK3rFW2Zl02144zDTlW8 BxVDp89SzfLW3pGtXy3Wl6LdMvwGZ wq5jczW30lgc-76MhyJW4xS3r15JmP723jMr1)

which to this untrained bear, seems to be very different tracking crud to Liminals, so there is some rewriting going on?

Why?

And …

If I remove that tracking crud, I can still see the article, so could Readwise automatically remove that tracking crud as they save the link into my library?

🎵 This Is The End

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 12:32:16 +1200

I wrote an email this morning, responding to something that had been sent to me, announcing - and I paraphrase - that despite the longevity of the work that he had been personally driving for decades, he has decided that this was indeed - ‘the end’.

I guess it is one of those days, where every where you look, every page you turn emotion takes over and (at least for me), music takes hold.

Because I - and indeed he - are ‘of a certain age’, ‘The End’ came to mind. (If you aren’t of a certain age - I commend you to watch just one (if not all three) of the YouTubes below.) If you are of a certain age - you don’t need me to tell you.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes again

The Full Lyrics

“Every time I hear that song, it means something else to me. It started out as a simple good-bye song… Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood."

💬 Jim Morrison

If you want a really good cry, the images most certainly do nothing to distract from the pain of the song …

🎥 Apocalypse Now

If you want to listen to the original recording of nearly 11 minutes that took just 30 minutes of studio time (think about that) …

🎵 The original recording

If you are of the live music persuasion… in the US you had Woodstock. In the UK we had The Isle of Wight …

🔗 Live at The Isle of Wight in 1970

New Zealand | Unrecognized Leadership

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 14:17:09 +1200

If the UK and/or the USA could find more leaders that demonstrate the qualities of Jacinda Arden, wouldn’t both surely be better off for it?

Sadly, she’s had her run, the voters are not going her way hence her resignation. ‘Hitch’ is being allowed to reset the agenda and so far at least, seems to be turning the ‘anti-Labour’ tide. Make no mistake though, yes, she took some wrong turns but the problems being laid at her feet won’t go away with new leaders. It’s a global problem … and despite New Zealand managing to punch well above their international weight over the last few years … these global issues are exactly that … global.

🔗 Colbert pays tribute to Jacinda

🎙️ What was behind Jacinda-mania and why did it end so suddenly?

Read all the comments here

Substacks Fail At Providing Joy

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 11:35:59 +1200

A claim made by Mike Pesca on his ‘occasional’ 🔗 Substack. But maybe that isn’t the point? Maybe that is also not right? He asked for comments. This post is is my response. What do you think?

I definitely agree with the sentiment of your post. I do feel I kinda ‘know’ people on podcasts better than, those who’s newsletter or blog I read. That said …

To spend time listening to a podcast is a big time commitment. Example - listening to The Gist each week day requires me to devote around 2% of all my available time on that day, which translates to (maybe) 25% of my ‘disposable time’ (8hrs of sleep, 8hrs of work, (say) 6hrs of ‘life’ leaves 2 of disposable time).

Yes I can do other things while I listen, but it is still time intensive. PLUS, there is a commitment to that time to even get to know whether I want to listen. I know I can speed up the podcast - but really?

Meanwhile, I can grok newsletters, blogs et al pretty quickly and make a decision if I really want to commit time to reading it. So to get to information - the written word every time. To get to ‘know’ someone … audio.

But there won’t therefore be a large number of people in that category that I really ‘know’ - if in fact any. Example: despite listening to the Gist for many years - because I like the show and more often than not enjoy what you are talking about - I still don’t really ‘know’ you.

🎥 if...., 1968 - ★★★

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 10:45:23 +1200

I had it at 4 Stars in my head when I first watched the film. I checked it out again recently. It’s dated … and not as great as I remembered. Because I’m older? Or just more considered.

I still like the idea of never quite putting your finger on when it suddenly went the character’s tipping point occured.

🚧 New Zealand | The JigSaw

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:10:50 +1200

I popped in a couple of posts recently that are part of what I am naming the ‘New Zealand Jigsaw’. This post is one of my ‘living posts’ that will serve as the gateway to the full set, once they are all published - and assuming that I can publish faster than I can think of more topics.

Introduction

A MicroBlog Storm

Ardern Resigns - Hashtag

After Ardern - Bernard Hickey

Colbert Monologue

Compared To Iceland

Compared To The United States of America

Compared To The United Kingdom

Conversations

with Anna
with Mitchell

Crossing The Chasm

Investing

NZTE

Unrecognized Leadership

Thankyou Jacinda

A Related Post On Finding News

Why You Can't So Easily Replicate Silicon Valley

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 10:30:29 +1200

Wherever you go in the world, New Zealand, Scotland, Austin Texas, Raleigh North Carolina, Hyderabad, Shenzhen …. pretty much anywhere, you will find there are tech centers. Tech centers that often adopt ’Silicon’ or ‘Valley’ or variations on such in their names, but there are many more. The local government will often declare they are investing and building a tech center of excellence to ‘rival’ Silicon Valley. Except they aren’t. Let me explain.

This article seeks to provide insight into why these centers aren’t going to replicate ‘Silicon Valley’ any time soon. (BTW - to be clear, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

Maybe the first point is to remind ourselves that Silicon Valley is not so much a geography as a ‘state of mind’. The actual geography of Silicon Valley is a very small part of The San Francisco Bay Area. It doesn’t for example include San Francisco where companies like Salesforce and Twitter are headquartered. nor Berkley where Uber is headquartered, with a University of the same name that is synonymous with ‘Open Source UNIX’. Still that hasn’t stopped the world at large using Silicon Valley and The San Francisco Bay Area interchangeably. It also doesn’t matter to the main thrust of this short commentary.

Why Is Silicon Valley So Different

AND Why Will Other Geographies Have Such A Hard Time Catching Up

.. well they won’t if they attempt to compete with the Valley head on. Like in all competitive races, the winners in that competition will be those regions that redefine the landscape.

—

Sitting at the intersection of varied and sometimes unrelated things that are often forgotten, not easily replicated and definitely requires time, I have identified 10 reasons that Silicon Valley has succeeded. (There may be more - but 9 is a good number. Isn’t it?)

Also, to keep the post to a manageable length, I won’t drill down into deep detail on any of the items - but happy to if asked. I will also be following this post up with more detail around some of the points and issues I raise in future posts.

1) Venture Capital

… in Silicon Valley has been around since the late 40s, early 50s - You don’t replace some 75 years of working in a couple of years.

2) Great Weather And Environment

… generally, so people will enjoy coming to the geography - and then staying - in all seasons - and it’s a very pretty region with realtively consistent climate. (Climate change not withstanding.)

3) Culture

… of California.

4) Great Universities

- plural       
- world class

5) Work Ethic

Doing What It Takes, though we are moving into a world where this idea is beginning to break down. Historically though, the culture of the valley is long hours and hustle, no weekends - you just want to make it happen. It’s not holding up so well these days, but in the halcyon growth days that I consider to be 85 though 2000 it was definitely a differentiator. More in another post.

6) Hippies

I am going to move on from this point and will come back to it later, but the fact is that San Francisco ’67 had significant impact on shaping tech thinking in the Bay Area.

7) Ecosystem of Financial Institutions, Lawyers and Government

- Wilson Sonsini was founded in 1961    
- Silicon Valley Bank founded in 1982

It’s not just tech - you need bankers, lawyers, government to understand what you are doing. This is why things like ‘valuations’ are so different when (say) a British company values your start up versus one from ‘Silicon Valley’. Silicon Valley, to riff on Wayne Gretzky - the US generally looks to invest based on where where the company will be … the more traditional thinkers invest based on where the company is.

8) Focus

Before Silicon Valley, the local industry comprised Orchards. Yes it all started with the military and ‘tech’ but other industries were not dominant, say like Banking in NYC, Oil, Gas and Insurance in Houston, Movies in LA … Tech found its place in new and fertile pastures. This is particularly important when you get to a country like New Zealand where any tech business is going to be competing with other already dominant industries, such as (in the case of New Zealand), Dairy, Lumber and Tourism.

The parallels to why large corporations have a hard time with ‘innovation’ are clear. (This is a larger topic that I will come back to in another post.)

9) History and Legacy

The First documented ‘VC’ arrived around 1946
- Arthur Rock moved to Palo Alto in 1961 and set up the first fund

In ‘the valley’, VCs have been a known quantity for a long time. These days VCs and Private Equity are in common usage around the world, bit even twenty years ago that was not the case. , they are a known quantity. In the rest of the world, there

These VCs started their companies and first funds in the 60s

- Mayfield    
- Morgenthaler    
- Sutter Hill Ventures    
- Fidelity    
- Greylock    
- Venrock

Keep It In The Family

Just consider one ~~family~~ dynasty … the Drapers - and I’m not talking Don Draper

- Bill Draper II set up Draper, Gaither and Anderson in **1959** and Draper and Johnson in **1962**.    
- His son - Bill Draper III founded Sutter Hill Ventures in **1965**. 
- His son - Tim Draper - the ‘Draper’ that most people talk about started what was to become DFJ in **1985**
- His son - Adam Draper started his fund specializing in Blockchain and Crypto in **2012**.

It would be interesting to learn if there are any other families as steeped in VC anywhere in the world, but particulalrly outside of The Valley.

About Those Tech Centers

If you are interested in those tech centers, there’s

- Silicon Glen in Scotland    
- Silicon Fens in East Anglia, UK    
- Silicon Alley in New York    
- Silicon Roundabout in London    
- Silicon Wadi in Israel    
- Silicon Mountain in The Cameroon    
- Silicon Oasis in Dubai

… well, you get the drift. If you have an interest Wikipedia has a very long list of Global Tech Centers, though they aren’t all called Silicon xxx - thank god!

What thoughts do you have?

News and Opinion/Commentary

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 13:29:23 +1200

This post emerged from @oddevan who posted this;

So on Twitter I got a lot of news by osmosis. Anyone have any Micro.blog or fediverse accounts they recommend on that front? Or should I just start curating my Apple News again?

I don’t want to be as angry as Twitter could make me, but I do want to keep an eye on things.

Evan Hildreth https://status.oddevan.com/2023/02/11/so-on-twitter.html

I started writing yet another long reply and thought ’STOP’. This needs to be a post in its own right … because I wanted to broaden the topic into a more general ‘finding news sources’, because I personally never found Twitter to be useful in bubbling up good news stories that I wasn’t already aware of, The Fediverse is better, but there is so much more.

First - What Is News

I have a view that ‘news’ per se is an homogenous commodity. No differentiation. It is what it is. Balloon blown out of the sky, earthquake the other side of the world, lay-offs in America … it all gets reported, by ‘all’ … assuming it is important enough. Of course, the ‘rabid dog bites postman’ story in the village 5 miles away might not reach the NYT until that story is repeated 10,000 times across the world and then the NYT comes out with the story ‘what’s up with all these rabid dogs’ ….

So job 1 .. decide WHAT kind of news you want. I for example am very interested in music, so in my feed (I’ll come to that later) I have a number of publications that stream news about music. Same for tech, business, politics, environment, books …..

I also happen to think that paying for THAT part of the news is a non starter. Why pay if everybody has it, unless it is so niche and specific that they don’t.

Opinion

That said, commentary and opinion around that news is where value can be found. That comes from all kinds of organizations and people … none of which do not have an axe to grind. As such the commentary of writers like (say) Pilger and Hedges on (say) Assange is going to be very different to that of (say) Brooks and Will.

So … Recommendations really come down to not just your interests - but your taste, your predilections even things like your geography - which makes it hard.

I would agree with @odd 100% and like him, I use a **feed reader **- and like him - Feedbin with NetNewsWire. The sources and organization of the feeds have been built up over many years - and because it is using RSS and Feedbin are good people, I can move my feeds to somewhere totally different with very little effort.

If you are just starting out I can highly recommend Feedland that you will find here though at the moment, you can’t sign up because @dave is making changes at the backend - and removing twitter dependance - but you don’t need to sign on to get the value …

For example

You can see the feeds I follow in Feedland here
The most recent items from all feeds subscribed to by everyone.
The 100 most popular feeds in FeedLand. and The most recent items from feeds in the Hotlist. - which as a registered user, you can just click the check box and your Feedland account is following.
A post from Dave that provides some context around that link

I am not fully into Feedland for all kinds of reasons, but I love the thinking going on. Really hoping that people will start picking up on what is going on over there.

I hope this helps.

There is another post I just published called My Knowledge Stack that you might also find useful.

My Knowledge Stack

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 13:14:07 +1200

Another post that started life as a reply - and then got longer - and then seemed to have added general applicability. So …

In the hope that this might help (at least) @moonmehta who wrote on microblog …

Calling all infovores: What is your Web reading stack? I want to improve and optimize what I consume. Here’s my toolset for Discovery, Queuing, and Absorption:

Feedbin RSS + Newsletter reader

Instapaper, plus its Kindle delivery

Kagi search

Raindrop bookmarking

Orion browser

Jatan https://web.jatan.space/2023/02/15/calling-all-infovores.html

This is best answered by revealing one screen on my iPad mini.

The apps are in no particular order, though roughly from top left to bottom right in terms of regularity of use (Gluon/MicroBlog aside).

I don’t typically have alerts and notifications on to pull me in unwanted directions.

As I read (and listen) to whatever it is, various options;

just move on - a LOT
a quote grabs me - Readwise
the article is a little too long for that moment or needs focus - Reader.
a link that needs looking at - it MIGHT get saved to Reader - OR to Drafts.
- Reader because I want to read in more detail
- Drafts if I already have an idea of how that link is going to be used

Raindrop is there - but it is on the way out.

For processing I run through new Drafts and push out into various spaces. If you note the time stamps on my posts (because of course - that IS what you do … right?), you will find a few might arrive very quickly as I bulk process my Drafts.

When I have a quite longer moment to really read, I open up Reader and start - maybe highlighting, or sharing, or commenting … tag and archive OR delete completely. (Trying to make sure that my Readwise doesn’t end up like my Instapaper - which you will also see on that screen shot - but actually I open every blue moon or so.)

Hope that helps.

Why ChatGPT Will Change the World, Lower Your Fees BUT NOT Raise Your Revenue (Unless You Differentiate)

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 12:16:07 +1200

Shel Israel writes : 🔗 How ChatGPT Will Change the World, Lower My Fees and Raise My Revenue

I get what he is saying - except I don’t.

His argument centers on his unit price dropping - but he will write more.

Back of an envelope calculations. Let’s say he increases his output ten fold and reduces his price by EIGHTY PERCENT.

This would double his revenue. All ~~good~~ nay … all great!

But if this works - he isn’t the only writer that will do this.

And if that changes broadly across the writing industry, that 80% will likely have to fall further - unless there is substantial differentiation.

The differentiation will vary - but will become essential. (It’s essential now - but that’s a different story.)

People that write ‘content’ have a problem.

The problem is that if you write content - how do you differentiate?

I’ve written about it before here and here and here and here and … well - you get the picture.

This is why for the longest time I keep repeating (sorry - I am going to have to quote myself) … though Will Arnett at least has caught on and so has Chris Lockhead

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, anything will do kind of word. Which is why ‘content has no value. It is in the best interests of buyers of our sweat, labour, thought and time to keep price down. But our costs are not kept down. So our earnings suffer. And they are suffering badly.

Job One - Stop making content.

Job Two - Start writing blogs, articles, white papers, posts, scripts, essays …

The ultimate oxymoron: Strategic Content

An Afternoon with Kafka

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:27:51 +1200

Sometimes you need to tell a story just to get it out there. Because otherwise you really would think that you were actually living in a Kafka novel.

The Bank

Just opened a new bank account.
First time inside a bank branch for years.
Such a depressing place.
Now I remember why I stopped going to them.

The DMV

A clue as to how depressing that bank branch was … the next stop was the DMV and the feeling was comparatively joyous and then over the next 2 hours, well, not so much. Slowly I felt my life ebbing away.

Turns out that the DMV is a 20 minute drive from the bank … 20 minutes, added to the expected half hour wait in line was going to absorb too much of my time, so a quick check of their web site and a minute later I had booked myself a slot. I needed to be there in 25 minutes … perfect timing and already 30 minutes ahead of the curve.

Except of course, my passenger was Murphy.

L.A. = Traffic. The 20 minute drive took 26 minutes. Appointment missed by 1 minute.

BUT …

My number was still on the board - so I dutifully stood in my line of 1 waiting for the lady who slipped in front of me to complete her business.

I finally got to the counter and the DMV guy looked at me.

… “can I help you?”

I explained .. to the increasingly blank stare.

Apparently I had lost my place and needed to get a new number.

“But the number is still …”

“You need to get a new number.”

Pointing towards a line at the front of the office.

I start again.

I walk to the line of 4 people. I can fix that. I jump onto the web site like earlier, got a new number and sat down. Another 20 minutes apparently. Still - better than the half hour I had thought.

15 minutes later (under promise - over deliver) I am being served. First question …. can they have my application form?

Confused … sorry … what application form? … nobody told me about an application form.

The lady points me over to a new part of the building … where you go to ‘fill in your form’. I walk over. According to the sign, you can’t take cell phones into that part of the building. So where can I leave it I asked someone standing near me who ‘looked official’.

No idea … I should go talk to ‘someone at the counter’.

I move to the counter.

“Go to terminal 18, complete the application, take a picture of my confirmation number …and then get a new line number."

But, the sign says ”no phon .. “

“Oh - just ignore that …”

I completed the form, got the confirmation number and didn’t even bother to go to the line to get my new number. I just hopped on to the web app … but clearly, they were on to me.

This service is currently unavailable to you.

To me? Not ‘generally unavailable’. But unavailable to me.

I move across to the ‘line’ waiting to get their number, stand behind the one person who was in the process of wrestling with the machine. (Does 1 person constitute a line?)

My turn. I follow the instructions. ‘Computer say no’. It is clearly in cahoots with the web app … ‘this service is currently unavailable to you.’

I clearly had made a mistake. I mean this is where you get your number. I tried again.

‘This service is currently unavailable to you.’

I looked around and seeing nobody ‘looking official’ - wandered back to the lady that told me to fill in my application and take a photo of the confirmation number with my phone - that the sign clearly said I was not allowed to have with me. She clearly understands how to bypass the system.

“Have you completed the form?"

I showed her my confirmation number on my illicit phone.

“Ok - you need to get your number from ‘over there'." … pointing to a totally different place to where I had been trying to get my number.

I looked and in the distance there was yet another counter with a line and a very nice sign above it that read ’Start Here’.

“But, but … I’m not ‘starting’ I’ve been here …"

“Just go there sir."

I did as I was told and got into the line behind 4 people who were clearly ‘ready to start’.

One was served.

Then the next.

This is great - I am clearly the next, failing to observe how a second line had built up in parallel to mine - and as I moved forward towards the counter - the hand was raised - and as deftly as any traffic cop I have seen in the streets, the person from the front of the other line was waived forward.

I stood back. I waited.

And then it was my turn. Even though there were still two people in this mysterious second line - they clearly would have to wait.

“Have you completed your application form?"

“Yes."

“Can you show me your confirmation number?’

I dutifully obliged - at which point the gentleman played that Keyboard as if he had a full orchestra behind him and was performing a Rachmaninoff piano concerto.

A whirring noise emanated from the printer and … no - of course there was no printer, it was just a whirring noise. Meanwhile, ‘my man’ carefully transcribed a number that was displayed on his screen to a form in front of him and with a final flourish handed said form over to yours truly, as he did so said, “take a seat and wait until your number is called."

I looked at my number and up at the screen - only two in front - great.

I sat down and shortly, the numbers moved - I was next.

It was then that a totally different number was called. And then a different number again. And then once more. My sequence was clearly no longer part of the sequence.

Until it was.

The number was finally called and I presented myself at the desk to finally solve for the problem I had come to solve.

The process of renewing was relatively uneventful, although I do need to make an observation.

1) Life is currently running through a series of challenges and changes, with one being that I am not currently of any fixed abode.

“What is your address?” I give them my ‘official, paperwork supported’ address.
“Is this where you want us to send your license to?” … no it isn’t actually. As you can see that address is in NorCal - I am living in LA at the moment - can you send it to an address in LA?
We can indeed. I give them the information.
All good - until this zinger.
You should know that the address we send the license to is the address that will be printed on your license.
Seriously? Apparently, yes.
So, for the next ten years my license will have the address of my friends house on it. An address that the DMV are not validating in any way has anything to do with me, other than this is where they are sending the license. Meanwhile, my official, fully validated address will - to all intents and purposes - be ignored.

2) I wanted to get the RealID option on the license. Not yet absolutely necessary, but wanted to get ahead of the curve and it makes in country flight identification a lot easier.

Yeah no
You need bills, statements and the like to ‘prove who you are’ - and of course the address they want to use is the address where they are sending the license - not the official address that they have in their system.
Clearly, I have no paperwork for that address.

C’est la vie. Another day.

But, eye test, payment, no questions as to why my license had been expired for the last 6 months, All this was pretty smooth.

I am given two pieces of paper, temporary license and receipt and told to ‘go over there’ and show them my receipt.

”Where? Exactly?”

Over there. Pointing at the desk with the lady who knows how to bypass the system,

Thank you I said - and moved towards the counter on the other side of the ~~cavern~~ offices.

On arrival, I was given a quizzical look..

”They sent me here and told me that I had to show you my receipt.”

”Oh not me.”

”There” - pointing to a desk that until this point in time I had not been aware of.

I move on and another lady asks for my receipt.

I hand it over.

My thumb print is required. Again? Hadn’t the other lady just done that as I went through the renewal process?

More orchestra and told to stand back. I obliged.

”In from of the camera.”

Oh … that’s what is going on. Got it.

“Is this all you have?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is this it. Don’t you have any other papers?”

I showed her the other piece of paper.

“That’s it”

More orchestra - “ok - you are done.” - transferring the two bits of paper back to me.

I headed to the entrance - which by now should be called the exit. Looking around wondering if anybody else was going to need talking to.

Silence.

I wandered out into the sun - expecting at any moment to be stopped and asked whyI hadn’t ..

But I wasn’t.

I now had my temporary drivers license.

As for my life - that’s an afternoon that I will never get back.

But at least I had a starring role in a Kafka novel.

🎵 Charley’s, Paia, Maui is no more

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 09:21:01 +1200

If you know Charley’s, this is not new news.
If you don’t know Charley’s - then why should you care?

This just in from my good friend Randall Rospond … number 25 in the image below, right beside another friend Tom Conway.

Randall’s friend and Maui artist John Woodruff is the artist, the painting features many Maui Musician Regulars on stage with many of the Charley’s staff and regular patrons.

“Although this famous live music venue in Paia is no longer … the history will always stand.”

I saw numerous Willie Nelson shows, Neil Young w/ Promise of the Real, Leon Russell, Kris Kristofferson, Steven Tyler and Pat Simmons and so many more.

💬 Randall Rospond

Randall’s performances at Charley’s included opening shows for;

St. Paul Peterson: keyboardist for “The Time” discovered by Prince
John Kadlecik of Dark Star Orchestra & Further { Bob Weir & Phil Lesh }
Guested w/ the Planetary Bandits { Willie Nelson’s Maui Band }
Performed solo and with the Haiku Hillbillys for over 25 years

(Sadly the resolution of the image of the index is not good enough to always get to the ‘numbers’.)

Setting Categories Automatically On MicroBlog

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:23:21 +1200

It’s interesting how small things mess you up. I am putting some time into trying to make it easier to find stuff on my blog and recently discovered filters where you can “automatically set categories when text in new posts matches a filter”.

For new posts it seems to work flawlessly. The cool thing is that you can ‘Run Filter’ - which essentially means that it will go off and apply that rule to your archive. It works.

Of course if you have a lot of posts (sorry), it might take some time - but it does seem to get there. So. after a while, when I view the categories I can see the post count increasing. And - when I look at the posts through the lens of Mars Edit I can see all the new posts where the category has been applied.

All good. UNTIL. I noticed that though every thing SEEMED to be working - actually, over on the web site, the categories were not being allocated. Turns out patience is a virtue - because after several days (I kid you not) elapsed, it seemed that everything was also working on the site. All good.

( @manton - is this time delay expected behavior?)

All good until I set up the filter to

find text = ‘youtube.com/watch' and add that post to the category ‘myyoutubes’.

The wait aside, it ran like a dream. Except it didn’t. I realized that posts that definitely contained links back to YouTube were not being picked up. I ran the filter again - and waited. TWICE. Nothing changed.

This morning I discovered why.

Turns out that there is a second URL format that YouTube uses … youtu.be

I am guessing that the youtube syntax varies depending on whether you are on a computer versus iOS or something similar. Anyway, I then set up a second filter that adds the post to the same category - and … it is now working (wait aside)

BTW, the really cool thing is that I also use the plugin ‘Lite YouTube for Micro.blog by @rknightuk - so those links automatically render as embedded videos on my site. 🖇️ Say, like this one - which at time of typing still hasn’t been correctly allocated its category - but I am keeping an eye on it.

New Zealand Declares A National Emergency For The Third Time In Twelve Years

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 11:55:01 +1200

That’s how bad it is getting .. and not just in New Zealand.

Bernard Hickey reporting that New Zealand has declared a 🔗 National emergency for Gabrielle. The massive storm and floods two weeks ago where 4 people died did NOT have the same focus. In fact, it’s only been enabled twice before. Though in fairness, the Hawke’s Bay earthquake in 1931 would have resulted in it being declared a National Emergency had there been such an organization and in later years, with other earthquakes, it was the Department of Civil Defence that was called into action.

That all said, these challenges do seem to be accelerating.

An 'Unknown' Podcaster - He Sounds Boring - He Is Fascinating

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 15:35:48 +1200

🎵 Despite my initial resistance to the 500 song podcast narrated by 🔗 Andrew Hickey .. I am now moving into my third … first ‘The Monkees’, then ‘Love’, now ‘The Move’. The depth of information flying through the speakers is really quite incredible - thoroughly researched, packed with information - some of which I know - a lot I don’t.

A particular speciality of his is identifying groups that todays’ mega stars played with in the very early days. Examples like when Albert Lee played with Hendrix and Jim Morrison wishing he and The Doors were as good as Love. Or how Graeme Edge and John Bonham both played in the same band - sorry, cant recall who replaced who … and and and … fascinating - and NOT information that is on ‘the wiki’.

So - I did some prodding around to work out who Hickey is - assuming he must have been a music journalist at some point - but no. At least not that I could find. He seems to be a relatively ‘unknown’ creator who writes books and does podcasts.

Interesting that in the search, I came across this review of his podcast : Pismotality: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs that has one comment - from Andrew Hickey. He spends a little time talking about his accent and deadpan delivery … something I referenced in my first post on him, and it turns out there is a reason.

Anyway - suffice to say - if you love rock and related music genre and want to learn more - particularly about the genesis of the ‘names’ - highly recommend.

🎙️ The Podcast

Rabbit Holes, YouTubes and Criminals

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 15:01:39 +1200

I wonder why this link is not actually on the MS site any more?

I mean, it seems like it would be important for people to know? Part of the URL reads ' host-clayton-morris-leaves-country-amid-fraud-allegations-lawsuits ‘- so you can guess what it is about if you don’t want to click through

Yahoo and many others still have similar links reporting the story.

I came across him today when a friend mentioned the YouTube channel - and after what I was being told, I felt it all seemed … shall we say odd?

Three minutes of ‘deep’ search found the info that really makes me wonder.

What’s worse is that according to my LinkedIN profile, I have one person in common with ‘Clayton’ … a person who is in a really senior person and has had many senior roles over the year. I can only hope that the connection is an old one when they might have crossed paths when ' Clayton ' was on Phaux News. But these days - you really never know do you?

Phaux News? I know right - that alone should have been a warning!

🎥 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 - ★★★★½

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 04:47:32 +1200

Watched on Wednesday February 8, 2023.

Cringely On ChatGPT

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 06:26:50 +1200

“Cole needed a letter of recommendation recently so he turned to an old family friend who, in turn, used ChatGPT to generate the letter, which he thought was remarkably good.”

🔗 … which in turn prompted Bob Cringely to write this article.. It has all the usual caveats we see in article after article, although this time talking about how ChatGPT was used to generate that letter of recommendation. In Bob’s opinion it lacked the important personal touch. All good, not wrong.

He then writes .. without irony that I can see

“Even if ChatGPT was allowed access to my old friend’s email boxes, it would only learn about his style and almost nothing about Cole, with whom he’s communicated, I think, twice.”

He doesn’t explain how someone without AI help could write a food personal recommendation for someone they have communicated with twice.

Russell Brand Sucks

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 06:12:03 +1200

I was never a fan of Russell Brand, so hard to say my opinion of him has ‘fallen’.

That was from the start, but his very misplaced prank with Ross on Andrew Sachs sealed it for me.

I also don’t spend much time thinking about Jonathan Ross - but at least he has a tiny spec of talent.

Which is why I enjoyed this short video of 🔗📼 Helen Lewis talking Russell Brand decent into conspiracies and a good analysis of how he - and others of his ilk - ‘do it’.

[April 6: 2025 - sadly - this video has been take private - BUT there is this one …

🔗📼 How Russell Brand became a conspiracy theorist Guru | Helen Lewis

🎵 Jon Lord plays Dave Brubeck

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 08:26:34 +1200

As a kid, shall we say my musical taste did not jibe with my dad’s. Nor with my mum’s for that matter - although she did understand what I was listening to - and why. Probably because of that there are artists that she introduced me to that are still part of my listening cycle - like Dave Brubeck.

She passed a while ago, but would have loved Deep Purple’s Jon Lord covering ‘UnSquare Dance’.

🎥 Zero Effect, 1998 - ★★★★

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 17:01:15 +1200

Just a great, wacky, fun movie.

📺 Peaky Blinders ★★★★★

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 07:38:34 +1200

Originally Published: Jan 31st, 2023
Updated: Jan 25th, 2026

Series 1 ★★★

It took me a long time to start for whatever reason - but finished very quickly.

Series 2 ★★★

Nothing extra to say.

Series 3 ★★★

Nothing extra to say.

Series 4 ★★★

Nothing extra to say. Series 5 ★★★

I’ve been ‘out of town’ - so the final series has been beyond my reach. Now fixed. Everything I would expect from the beginning AND Tom Hardy … phenomenal role, phenomenal acting.

Series 6 ★★★

And then another ‘final’ series. And oh my.

🔗 Peaky Blinders on Reelgood

➕

★★★★★ So Good - A personal favourite

★★★★☆ Excellent - well worth a watch

★★★☆☆ Enjoyed - recommend

★★☆☆☆ Not Bad - BUT - only a 'kinda' recommendation - with (many?) caveats

★☆☆☆☆ Not for me

Is The Stream As A Design Paradigm Over?

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 13:40:28 +1200

Om asking the question as he weighs in on Ben Werdmuller’s post asking whether the ‘stream’ needs to give way to a new way of organizing?

I think no - but I understand the challenge, which is why I have been going back over my old posts and trying to get rigorous with

Categories and
Search

.. so that I can find stuff (and I recognize that it is really only me that looks to navigate the 7,000 plus posts (I know - I know)).

This is also why I am looking for ways to bulk manage my posts - so i can recategorize, without going one at a time …

2023 post Jan 8th

2023 post Jan 15th

2019 post 1st July

AND - I am not the only one, @dave also posted this today

Would someone please make a ChatGPT product that can be pointed at specific websites, and allow intelligent queries against the contents. I’d love to explore the site I’ve been writing for 28.5 years, scripting.com. Let me know. It’s worth $ to me.

💬 Dave Winer

I have not been blogging for 28.5 years and what I have got has been - well, lets call it ‘distributed’ - but slowly bringing it all together to make more sense and a flow.

By the way - the reason I think that the stream should not go is because it works. It’s how the social world works, its how places like micro blog work - and it makes sense. You go to that person’s blog and you find the very latest thoughts right there at the top of the page.

I know that it is not only one way to organize your thinking - but if we also tag, categorize, highlight posts we want to share more and and and … anything else that you may want to use - it all helps - but no single process works because you don’t know what the person visiting your blog is looking for - so you can’t organize in anticipation.

Streams controlled by algorithms or selectively highlight just part of ‘the hose’ or offer no other way to get at the thinking - yeah - not good. But as a first port of call - I cant see a way to improve - until we all have our own person AI that can make sense of our blathering - no point in me asking - hopefully someone will listen to Dave:)

// @dave @benwerd

Lioness: Hidden Treasures by Amy Winehouse

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 18:59:31 +1200

New Zealand | After Ardern

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 11:27:44 +1200

Written before Hipkins won the leadership.

“My current view is this cements the likelihood of a National-ACT victory on October 14, with no fundamental change in tax, Government spending or social policies, other than the reversal of Labour’s interest deductibility and bright-line measures, along with the truncation of Three Waters, the removal of the clean car rebate scheme and no follow-through on a levy on farm emissions.”

“From a purely political and financial view, it’s more likely to lower interest rates, increase residential land prices, increase net migration, increase nominal GDP, lower the Budget deficit, lower net debt-to-GDP, further restrict productivity growth, slow real wage growth and increase the emigration of young New Zealanders who come from renting families.”

💬 Bernard Hickey

The meaning and tragedy of Jacinda Ardern’s time as PM

New Zealand | Thankyou Jacinda

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 12:43:30 +1200

“In the end, she deserves our utmost respect and thanks. She was instinctively extraordinary with her responses and leadership after the Christchurch attacks and the arrival of Covid.”

💬 Bernard Hickey

I can only agree.

New Zealand | A MicroBlog Storm

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 12:42:15 +1200

There are a number of threads in my head around New Zealand that I need to publish. Other than ‘New Zealand’ there isn’t anything particularly that connects them, so it isn’t a single post. Nor should it be a new category, because once they are out - that will be it. So - I will write a series of separate posts that I will link together once they are published. Think ‘MicroBlog Storm’.

📺 The Recruit ★★★½

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 12:26:51 +1200

Series 1 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Just finished the first season, Did not expect that ending.

Series 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The second series seemed to take a long time to come through - but kept up the pace - but somehow it failed to hold my attention as much series 1. Still worth a watch though.

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance.

Reprise by Moby

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 22:45:50 +1200

If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 09:13:10 +1200

While wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is symmetric about an average value. For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.

Wealth distribution is a recurring topic - this is a clean summary of why it’s a problem.

🎵 Is The Eurovision Song Contest Designed To Be An 'Equal Opportunity' Employer?

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 14:15:08 +1200

That is the only thing I can think of that created the news that caused me to write this post!

This is nothing like a PiL track. It is also nothing like a John Lydon track. That said,

“Public Image Ltd. (PiL) have been selected for the 67th annual Eurovision Song Contest airing on February 3. The band will represent Ireland with their new single ‘Hawaii.’.”

The NME and American Songwriter are both ‘kind of saying’ that;

Public Image Ltd are representing Ireland in the next Eurovision song contest.

‘kind of’ because i THINK that there is an Irish ‘run off’ in February before the final decision to compete in May(?) This article is one of many providing a little back story to the song.

The song … is a love letter to Lydon’s wife. Nora Forster, Lydon’s wife of nearly 45 years (who) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2018.

It goes on ..

“A deeply personal track for Lydon, ‘Hawaii’ is sobering reflection of the couple’s life together. The song is punctuated by one of their most special memories, a trip they once took together. Some begin again / We’re here / You and me … Remember me / I remember you / Hawaii. Written by Lydon, “Hawaii” professes the power of love through the good and the most traumatic of times.

All good. No problem. Sorry to read about his wife’s diagnosis. The song is nice enough - though to these untrained ears a little schmaltzy - if not to say ‘derivative’ - as in ever since Elvis went to Hawaii, songwriters have been picking up their instruments and writing yet another song about Hawaii. John is no different.

But here’s the thing

1] Lydon was born in London. Yes to Irish parents (and holds an Irish passport) but he also has American citizenship and is on record as saying “I view myself as British first and foremost.”

Let me take you back to Eurovision ’81. The winner? Buck’s Fizz, with a song called ‘Making Your Mind Up’ .. maybe John should acquaint himself with a little Eurovision history and decide who he is.

2] An entire song called Hawaii - whoever thought of doing that … oh wait - to represent IRELAND - the home of some of the greatest writers and musicians in the world. Is there really not a real Irish choice?

Fun fact - Ireland is the ONLY entry ever to win the competition twice with the same singer songwriter - not only that,he wrote a third song … that also won.

3] The chintzy Hawaiian sound does a massive disservice to the real music that emerges from those islands.

Just on Maui … there are superb professional musicians that I know, including;

🔸 Randall Rospond
🔸 Tom Conway
🔸 Gail Swanson
🔸 Jamie Gallo (sorry - Facebook link)
🔸 Vince Esquire
🔸 Kanekoa

Not to mention Alana Cini, Joel Katz, Peter Kater, Chris Sendrey, John Grover and so many others I know and love - and even that list doesn’t include even more famous musical residents like

🔸 Willie Nelson
🔸 Lukas Nelson
🔸 Alice Cooper
🔸 Mick Fleetwood
🔸 Lily Meola
🔸 Steven Tyler
🔸 Kris Kristoferson (I think - he certainly used to.)

None of them … NONE .. produce music that the world associates with that Hawaiian sound. Even a ‘Ukulele band like Kanekoa play their Ukuleles less like Tiny Tim and more like well - Led Zeppelin.

Kanekoa : Going to California

Led Zeppelin : Going to California -

I don’t dislike his song - but I really hope somebody Irish with Irish music wins the chance to represent their country and that yet another piece of misappropriated Hawaiiana is stopped from taking the world by storm.

Now THIS Is A New MicroBlog App That I Would Use

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 06:21:23 +1200

Imagine if you could export all your posts on Micro Blog with associated meta data down to a csv.

Imagine that you could then

sort, filter the posts
add / subtract categories
edit entries
normalize information
merge and purge posts
find THE post that has the largest number of comments in the thread
find any posts with an image included, 2 images included, 3 …
find the posts that contain (say) ‘🎶’ so you can replace it with ‘🎵’ - in line with all your other music posts

… you know - any and all of the stuff that you might want to do with all those posts to better manage them.

Imagine that you could then upload your work back into Micro Blog - and have a blog that is now

easier to find entries
- for you AND
- for others
cleaner and more organized

Apparently all the hooks and data and APIs are in place to build such an export.

Once that is done - imagine moving that simple download upload into a fully fledged app.

Just need a clever person to make it so.

Any volunteers?

🎥 The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 - ★★★★

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 11:40:34 +1200

I love Wes Anderson … so of course … but even if you don’t, you need to try this one out.

🎥 In Bruges, 2008 - ★★★★

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 21:47:57 +1200

I watched this for the second time … inspired by how great ‘The Banshees’ was. Just as good as I remembered it. Excellent … and on Netflix at the moment.

🎵 Do 326 people 'like' Jeff Beck being dead?

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 07:34:26 +1200

There has been a lot of traffic on Micro Blog about ‘like’ buttons - as in should there be one? Some of those conversations have been repackaged and moved into other places - like this one from Dave Winer.

The challenge is that writers tend to see the like as a ‘nod’ of agreement with what they have written .. or at least as some kind of feedback …

“In real life there’s all kinds of non-verbal communication. you can nod your head, smile. We’ve come up with a similar language online, I don’t think there’s any more meaning in this. We’re being human. Not a huge surprise.”

💬 Dave Winer

I’m not so sure. I am far from consistent as to how I use likes and I am guessing I am not alone. BUT … But the point of this post is not to provide a counter argument - but rather highlight the inadequacy of the like button a measure of popularity.

You won’t have missed yesterday’s news of the passing of Jeff Beck.

Patti Smith used her newsletter to share the news and a link to just one example of Beck’s extraordinary guitar playing.

As of this morning she has 326 likes and 59 comments …. it is clear from the comments the sentiment - but the likes?

What are they liking?

The news he is dead?
The track from ‘Amused to Death’?
That the ‘liker’ is flagging their solidarity with her and Roger’s position on Palestine?
The fact she posted something - and they are bookmarking ‘seen’?
They just ‘auto like’ everything - and haven’t even read it? Because even Readwise users, who you would have thought actually did … well … read! … don’t.

To be clear, I have no horse in the race. IF [@manton](https://micro.blog/manton) added like buttons here -

it wont be the end of the world
i bet whether they are enabled will be under my control

Back to Jeff … one of the best comments was a simple

💔

Creating a Loop Problem In Feedbin

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 11:29:26 +1200

Find the RSS feed for ⭐️ posts
Add that feed to Feedbin

—-

Star any post .. it appears in the ⭐️ posts

The new RSS feed now displays that ⭐️ post

That ‘new’ ⭐️ post now appears in ⭐️ posts

The new RSS feed now displays that ⭐️ post

🔄🔄🔄🔄🔄🔄🔄

—-

🤦‍♂️ Have now deleted the RSS feed!

Logging For Triage

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 23:14:45 +1200

Seen them all and bit by bit will review and rate properly.

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

🎬 Logging For Triage

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 23:14:45 +1200

Seen them all and bit by bit will review and rate properly.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Great ‘Liitle’ Movies ‘From’ The ‘British Isles’

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 20:42:36 +1200

You know what I’m talking about.

🎬 Great ‘Little’ Movies ‘From’ The ‘British Isles’

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 20:42:36 +1200

You know what I’m talking about.

🎥 8 Mile, 2002 - ★★★

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 20:32:59 +1200

It was all right.

🎥 Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022 - ★★★★

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 18:13:48 +1200

One of those very different, really excellent movies. Don’t miss it.

I’m Going To Need Some Convincing Before I Watch These

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 17:26:47 +1200

Movies that seem to be popular … but something doesn’t sit right … for me at least.

🎥 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004 - ★★★★

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 17:25:27 +1200

It’s a long way from Ace Ventura! Great movies.

🎥 The French Dispatch, 2021 - ★★★★

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 09:46:23 +1200

Wes Anderson Hasn’t Changed With ‘The French Dispatch.’ And That’s Perfectly Fine.It was on my ‘to watch’ list even before I read this;

> “But the most endearing thing about Wes Anderson is that he’s a hopelessly romantic filmmaker, and these worlds he creates clearly mean a lot to him. His latest film, The French Dispatch, is a love letter certainly—to journalism, to writers, to art in general and filmmaking specifically—and rather than change or adapt in the way some want to see, he gloriously doubles down on his style, making for his most maximalist, hyper-imaginative film yet.”

🎥 The Hitman's Bodyguard, 2017 - ★★★★

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 09:42:39 +1200

If you are thinking about watching the sequel - watch this one instead.

🎥 Mrs Lowry & Son, 2019 - ★★★½

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 09:39:30 +1200

Slow and gentle and worth curling up with if you in the right frame of mind.

🎥 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, 2022 - ★★★★

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 19:07:56 +1200

Lovely - just lovely - with occasional cringeworthy self help one liners.

🎥 The Da Vinci Code, 2006 - ★★★★

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 17:45:03 +1200

Yes it is a yarn and the book is badly written (though I still turned the pages VERY quickly), this is the movie - and was a good one.

📺 Slow Horses ★★★★½

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 15:21:59 +1200

Series 1 💯

Series 2 💯

Second series of Slow Horses … check. Superb. Didn’t think they would improve on Series 1. They did AND they are already promoting Series 3 - can’t wait.

Series 3 💯

Series 4 💯

Strength to strength to strength - it just keeps getting better. How can that be?

Series 5 💯

It continues to lot let itself down.

Evan’s original piece on the site is here.

Calling JP Morgan out - like I said I would 6 months ago ...

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 13:51:50 +1200

I posted this doozy on June 2nd - noting that I would come back to it at the year end because it smelt of horse shit. (If you don’t want to click through - in a nutshell JPMorgan predicting that 2022 was going to be just fine).

Here I am back ….

2022 was the worst year for the S&P 500 since the 2008 financial crisis. While the markets usually finish up, down years can happen. Last year was one of those rare times.

From Visual Capitalist:

Now THAT is a sea of red - and take out Healthcare and Energy and you got nothing.

A few specifics …

🎥 Spectre, 2015 - ★★★★

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 12:08:59 +1200

It’s Bond. It’s Daniel Craig. The story continues.

Drafts AND Pinboard

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 12:57:21 +1200

IF you use Drafts and Pinboard and you want to get your links out of Pinboard - well - the mighty @Agiletortoise has thought of that and just published a new action …. here.

Works beautifully.

Now I have 13,259 drafts in my archive folder (don’t judge). Next step is to work out how to bulk export those drafts to a folder on the hard drive, so that I can create a new Obsidian vault..

Any and all ideas welcome.

I have done a bit of searching on Greg’s site - but not found anything yet.

(Then again I am perfectly capable of opening a fridge and not see the milk on the shelf right in front of my eyes.)

🎥 Amsterdam, 2022 - ★★★★

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 08:37:24 +1200

Been on my list since it came out and was not what I expected. Took 15 to 20 minutes to recalibrate. But I did. Really good. If I closed my eyes, the audio and dialogue reminded me of a Wes Anderson project (close your eyes .. the visuals are nothing like Wes. Bale was great .. at time channeling Peter Falk’s ‘Columbo’ … or is that just me?

🎥 The Power of the Dog, 2021 - ★★★★

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 10:57:49 +1200

It just popped up as a ‘why not watch’ kind of alert … I had. Very good.

🎥 Don't Look Up, 2021 - ★★★

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 09:46:25 +1200

I resisted watching this for a while … asked on the trailers … It was all right … but the cheesy trailers are a clue.

🎥 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, 2022 - ★★★

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 09:44:11 +1200

It was better than the first in the series! Maybe I’m just not the target audience.

🎥 How to Train Your Dragon, 2010 - ★★★★

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 21:17:14 +1200

Totally unexpected delight.

🎥 Pulp Fiction, 1994 - ★★★★★

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 20:07:33 +1200

Watched on Wednesday December 21, 2022.

🎥 Minority Report, 2002 - ★★★★

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 20:06:31 +1200

4 stars .. and I’m not even a big fan of the man!

🎥 The Holiday, 2006 - ★★★★

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 20:05:17 +1200

It’s a perennial that is regularly revisited.

🎥 The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014 - ★★★★

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 22:07:06 +1200

Wes Anderson has such a distinctive style it’s amazing how they are so different. Love them all.

🎶🎵 Music Was My First Love

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 09:47:03 +1200

Music was my first love
and it will be my last.
Music of the future
and music of the past.
To live without my music
would be impossible to do.
In this world of troubles,
my music pulls me through.

💬 John Miles

🎶🎵Interesting to see the albums that appear roughly daily in Matt Birchtree’s feed where he celebrates a different album each day. So far, I am personally not inspired - but that is the beauty of music. It is all different. We are all different.

It might also be that there just isn’t enough context around a post to make me think why I should be bothered - particularly when on the whole - the artists he posts that I do know, just ‘don’t do it ‘ for me. All good. I know it’s me — BUT

I do think this quote needs refinement.

“I love music, and even at the stage in life where most people seem to listen to the same artists they did when they were decades younger, I’m still prowling the new releases every week to see what’s new. I’m obsessed with music.”

💬 Matt Birchtree

‘What’s New’ can’t come from an established artist?

Surely it depends on the artist and what they are producing?

I would agree that there are people who hit a formula and then repeat over and over and are really un interesting - and then there are others who keep evolving … keep changing … refusing to fall into that trap, to pick on a few ….

Pink Floyd in their early days refused to play their hits like Emily Play and Arnold Layne in their concerts (though ‘Saucerful of Secrets’ doesn’t seem to have imposed that limitation on themselves!)
The Arctic Monkeys open up concerts with brand new music that the audience will never have heard.
Neil Young and Brian Eno are both famous for their position of refusing to talk about their music from the past.

Most importantly - if you never listen to music from artists that have been around - you’d never have heard Bowie’s Blackstar.

I would also argue that a true music aficionado would explore the roots of music. When you listen to real musicians talk, to understand their influences, their history - WOW. To trace the roots of how artists get to where they are is fascinating.

For my part, I am building a few lists in Album Whale that I hope might provide insight into the music I like - and how I came across it … it’s a different spin on ‘best of’ … and more to do with the interconnectedness and relationships in music - and me. When they are ready I will be back.

🎥 Spirited, 2022 - ★★

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 09:27:30 +1200

To be fair, the ‘other viewer’ gave it 3 stars - but whichever way you look at it - dud.

Count me in the camps of

- ‘definitely not a Will Ferrell fan’
- ‘definitely a massive Ryan Reynolds fan’

I didn’t know the director, so looked up his prior work. Now I understand.

🎥 The Takeover, 2022 - ★★★

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 16:17:02 +1200

It was alright, but 3 stars is not a recommendation.

Wayne Brown Should Sell the Golf Courses

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 12:10:54 +1200

If you don’t live in New Zealand, you might not know the name Bernard Hickey. Hell - I live here - and didn’t know him until I stumbled over his writing in Substack. But when I speak to ‘locals in the know’ - he is definitely known.

We had some elections in New Zealand recently, and one winner was a gentleman called Wayne Brown - he is the new mayor of Auckland. At the time he was received positively. Overall still is as far as I can tell. Businessman moves into politics to ‘get things done’ wasn’t his tag line - but probably because it was too long! At this stage, I couldn’t honestly tell you whether I am for him or against him - I am just not that well versed in local politics, but it is fascinating to read something like this to get a deep down drill into what might(?) be going on. Bernard is definitely not pulling his punches. (I do get the impression that he doesn’t usually!).

The Original Article

TL;DR … Wayne wants to sell Auckland city’s stake in the airport … Bernard is asking why he doesn’t sell off some of the gold courses - it might just have the same short term effect - and seems to have a better long term outcome.

If you want to get a feel for the substance of the article …. here are some of the highlights ….

However, I think it’s simpler than that. Wayne Brown is actually simply expressing a view held by most asset owners and investors in Aotearoa-NZ’s economy, or as I call it, a housing market with bits tacked on.
That deeply held and and so-far-extremely-profitable investment strategy is that owning shares or investing in businesses in Aotearoa is vastly inferior to owning land, especially leveraged residential land, and even better if it is residential-zoned land that remains banked and undeveloped.
Wayne Brown is being exactly what he is: a property developer who has actually made most of his personal money from land price appreciation on land made valuable through rezoning and paying for water connections at a lower-than-full cost.
Auckland Council’s 600,000 ratepayers are paying the equivalent of $500 for each round played by just over 1% of the ratepayers who are members of the 13 clubs
There are a few ways to do this through Government policy, including:
- restricting central and local Government investment in infrastructure
- reducing council and Government debt to lower interest rates
- reducing public spending on public transport infrastructure
- ensuring no introduction of capital-gains or new land value taxes
- encouraging strong population growth through migration of lower-wage labour
Wayne Brown’s plan to ‘sell the shares and keep the land’ is a perfectly natural instinct for a land banker and is broadly popular with the 60% of households (and more like 80% of local election voters) who own residential land. This policy embeds the settings in our housing market with bits tacked and creates a future where only those with parents able to help with deposits can hope to join or stay in the land-owning class and be able to raise their own families in the land they were born in. The rest can look forward to either a future as permanently poor renters who both pay and serve the land-owning class.
The rest who have a few personal resources, such as education, can only aim to emigrate to join the other one million compatriots who work, live and build their families overseas.
Warnings about “fiscal holes” and “economic and fiscal storms” are things politicians should be careful about. Former UK PM Liz Truss adopted similar ‘crisis’ language just that a few months ago, triggering a collapse in Government bond prices, which increased UK bond yields and increased British mortgage rates.
Would you be worried if you mortgage was costing you less than 10% of your disposable income to service and your Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) was 16%? No.
Let that sink in. Auckland Council’s 600,000 ratepayers are paying the equivalent of $500 for each round played by 6,415 of the courses’ members, or just over 1% of ratepayers.
So why doesn’t Wayne Brown want to sell the golf courses?
- Selling the courses for residential property develop would increase the effective supply of land for housing in Auckland, which would devalue the value of land already held by landowners who vote in council elections.

I am now going to share this post and newsletter with a few people ‘in the know’ and see if I can’t get some additional commentary and colour.

Metadata

Author: Bernard Hickey
Source: Wayne Brown Should Sell the Golf Courses Instead

More to come

🎥 My Name Is Vendetta, 2022 - ★★★

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:37:02 +1200

Probably a script that Liam rejected? It was ok - but we know how these movies pan out don't we? The clue is definitely in the title.

🎥 Bullet Train, 2022 - ★★★★½

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:35:18 +1200

**GREAT** movie. French Farce on a fast moving train, channeling Quentin Tarantino (with more humor and not quite as much violence) and Guy Ritchie ... directed by David Leitch - who according to IMDB is a producer, director, actor, stunt performer AND coordinator ... with John Wick, Hobbs and Shaw and Deadpool2 (which MIGHT explain a 2 second cameo by Ryan Reynolds) in his 'canon'.

🎥 Love in the Villa, 2022 - ★★

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:26:51 +1200

Not my choice to watch - but watch I did. Yeah ... no.

Open AI Announcement

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 16:56:55 +1200

“We’re excited to announce the release of the newest addition to the GPT-3 model family: text-davinci-003. This model builds on top of our previous InstructGPT models, and improves on a number of behaviors that we’ve heard are important to you as developers.”

💬 Open AI

So of course I had to go try ….

The Prompt

Please write 4 paragraphs about Stop Child Traffic Foundation which is a non for profit organization that responds to refugee crisis, and uses technology and innovation to prevent harm to vulnerable populations like refugees and women and children.

The Response

_The Stop Child Traffic Foundation (SCTF) is a non-profit organization that works to prevent harm to vulnerable populations such as refugees and women and children. The foundation works to ensure the safety of these vulnerable populations by responding to refugee crises and using technology and innovation to prevent their exploitation. The foundation was established in 1999 and is based in London.

The SCTF works to protect vulnerable populations by responding to refugee crises and using technology and innovation to prevent exploitation. The foundation works with governments, non-governmental organizations, and other partners to develop innovative solutions to address the exploitation of vulnerable populations. The foundation focuses on prevention and early intervention, such as identifying and responding to cases of trafficking and exploitation. This includes providing support and resources to vulnerable populations and raising public awareness of the issues.

The foundation also works to improve the lives of vulnerable populations by working with partners to develop innovative programs and services. This includes providing access to education, healthcare, and employment opportunities. The foundation also works to ensure the safety of vulnerable populations by advocating for improved legislation and policy, monitoring human rights violations and supporting legal aid for vulnerable populations.

SCTF has achieved many successes including the launch of the first online platform designed to enable vulnerable populations to access resources and support._

The words aren’t QUITE right - but as a straight out of the box summary of the Stop Child Traffic Foundation - I am seriously impressed.

PS - More about Stop Child Traffic to come.

🎥 Crisis, 2021 - ★★★½

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:32:18 +1200

Alright. Not great.

🎥 Lesson Plan, 2022 - ★★

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 20:29:27 +1200

I know that there are only 7 stories in the world. My question is why is this the one that keeps getting told - and then badly. In fairness, I got to the end, so it wasn't a total dud, but if you want to watch this story sometime, choose a different movie.

From Mars Edit 5 - Beta

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:03:35 +1200

Directly. No Gatekeeper.

Ghost Reader Is Solving A Problem That A Lot of A.I.'s Don't Seem To

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 14:44:22 +1200

A lot of AIs seem to be focussed on how to create. new things, the interesting thing that Readwise is up to is that they are focussed on using AI to better understand what is already there ….. I think that is an interesting problem to solve.

Ghost Reader, which is definitely NOT Ghost Rider IS definitely interesting.

I have been playing round a little with it and decided that the best way of describing what it does is with a real world example.

I do like reading Napkin Math - but don’t always have the time.

Take a piece that came out this past week. At over 3,000 words it’s a 12 minute read - and THAT is if you get it first time round. I don’t always get it - and on a topic like this - I knew it would be a long job (I am slower than the average bear).

It was written by Evan Armstrong who summarized the article thus;

“Over the last few months, I’ve been obsessed with AI—chatting with AI researchers in London, talking product development with startups in Argentina, debating philosophy with AI safety groups in San Francisco.”

Sounds good, So here’s what I did.

I dropped it in to Readwise and then applied Ghost Reader, which took about 20 seconds to come up with the summary. (My bold and line breaks added to help you understand how it broke down the article and make it easier to compare to the original.) AND - if you read the article you will see that my choice of the use case might not exactly be random since Evan actually quotes Readwise Daniel Doyon in item 4 - META!

Anyway, here’s the Ghost Reader summary …

“The text discusses six micro-theories about how artificial intelligence (AI) will change human society.
The first theory is that AI will make it easier for people to create new things.
The second theory is that companies will compete more on sales and marketing than on the quality of their AI models.
The third theory is that AI will make it easier for people to find and consume custom-generated content.
The fourth theory is that AI will amplify existing power law dynamics in the digital media world.
The fifth theory is that the most successful AI companies will be those that use AI to make their products more delightful.
The sixth and final theory is that AI will enable entirely new modalities of digital interactions.”

Compare Here are my one line extracts coped out of the article

Fine-tuned models win battles, foundational models win wars
Long-term model differentiation comes from data-generating use cases
Open source makes AI startups into consulting shops, not SaaS companies
Most endpoints compete on GTM, not AI
AI will not disrupt the creator economy, it will only amplify existing power law dynamics
Invisible AI will be the most valuable deployment of AI

For a 20 second ‘read, analyze, write’ a 3,000 word article - not a bad start. Not sure I think that it got to all the salient points - I wonder what Daniel and/or Evan think … but remember - as the article itself points out MOST AIs appearing are focussed on how to create … the interesting thing that Readwise is up to is that they are focussed on using AI to better understand what is already there ….. and they are only just now getting going.

I think that is an interesting problem to solve.

What do you think?

🎥 Nobody, 2021 - ★★★★

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 22:01:26 +1200

Sly, Liam, Bruce, Gerard, Dwayne et al … meet Bob. Loved it.

🎥 Slumdog Millionaire, 2008 - ★★★½

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 20:54:54 +1200

Probably one of those times where the film could never live up to the expectations … and yes it’s taken me 15 years to watch it! It was ok .. but for me the best part was the dance on the station platform at the end!

🎥 Slumberland, 2022 - ★★★★

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 21:47:41 +1200

Totally unexpected delightful movie.

What You Remember Isn't Always What Happened.

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:20:59 +1200

Some context to this post, because it really isn’t just about memory (that’s the back story). It is really setting the scene for what I think will be a series of posts that I will link to from here that is exploring whether Geoffrey Moore’s chasm thinking can be applied to a country. Still not sure it can - but we will see as the journey unfolds.

In a different life I spent a year as a trainee Chartered Accountant and in the first course I attended I learnt the rudiments of double entry book keeping. You know the drill… debit on the left, credit on the right … Except I was taught that ‘debit is on the side nearest the window’. At the time it made perfect sense, except of course it didn’t if I moved to a room where the window was on my right!

‘Don’t worry’ said the instructor, ‘I’ve got your back. When thinking of debits and credits, you will always think of this room.’ And you know what? He was right.

Much as older people might remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, or when those astronauts landed on the moon and younger ones recalling where they were when the Twin Towers in NYC were attacked, I - and I suspect others in my basic accounting class - will always remember that room.

Another room that has stuck in my memory is when I first met Geoffrey Moore. It was at the end of 1991/beginning of 1992 … in a funny little meeting room in Redwood City in Northern California. Despite moving in to the first of ‘the towers’ in 1989, a lot of the company was ‘elsewhere’ at the time - and a bunch of marketing wonks hanging with Geoffrey - well clearly that wasn’t important enough to be in the ‘shiny tower’.

Geoffrey was talking about his new book ‘Crossing The Chasm’ and it’s applicability to Oracle - at the time, there was strong argument that Oracle was well over the chasm … but that didn’t mean some of the products in the portfolio were.

It’s funny how memory works. I can still see that dark miserable room in my mind’s eye. I can only remember a couple of other people attending the session - but at least that is a couple of people more than I remember in my accounting class!

By the way this podcast from Malcolm Gladwell is a great listen around this very topic. Highly recommend.

Anyway, ’Chasm’ is a book that rapidly became the ‘bible’ for software marketeers. You might not have read the first edition, but maybe the second? The third? That last revision was in 2014 and by then, though the subject matter was still firmly grounded in software, it has become one of those classic marketing texts that has crossed the boundaries into other markets.

So why am I writing about this thirty years later?

Easy … I have been talking to a lot of people and companies down here in New Zealand ( a lot ) and have come to the conclusion that the country of New Zealand is pre chasm. (To be clear, being ‘pre-chasm’ is not a bad thing, what’s bad is that if you are and don’t recognize it.)

But even before I get to that dicussion, I was wondering if anybody had thought this way. (Applying ‘chasm thinking’ to a country that is.)

So I checked in with Geoff and asked …

Are you aware of anybody that has taken your Chasm work and applied it to an entire country? I know it’s a leading question - but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if your work could be applied to a country and not just to a company and if it could - has anyone done it?

And almost by return, he wrote a long email which contained this nugget …

“Technologies, products, platforms — why not countries? The whole point of the model is how social systems negotiate disruptive innovations. The question is, whether New Zealand a disruptive innovation, or are we talking about New Zealand as a social system that will process a disruptive innovation? If the latter, then what is the disruptive innovation to be processed? Once we answer those questions, we can proceed.”

💬 Geoffrey Moore

I haven’t yet answered the question - that is kind of what the series of posts is about, but my starting position is to think of ‘New Zealand as a social system that will process a disruptive innovation’.

Back to my drafts.

Why Don't We All Have Agents

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:39:06 +1200

I got a voice mail from my agent this evening. She opened with her usual apologies for being out of touch but she wanted to talk to me about four contracts that were coming to a head. Details needed to be nailed down.

Four contracts? I knew about the transformation contract, but as for the other three … I had no idea what she was talking about. What else had she found?

Color me intrigued.

Of course I called her back and she dived in head first, at her usual ra ta tat tat machine gun conversational speed … and I listened - I mean what was my choice!

.. and to find out what happened then … well we have a podcast for that … a short one mind you … 6 minutes and 41 seconds.

A MicroBlog Enhancement Request

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 11:36:51 +1200

I like that micro blog can be used as an rss reader and a mastodon reader and a microblog time line reader and ….

BUT

I wonder what code change would be needed to allow me (the reader) to filter my timeline on (say)

mastodon only
blog site rss only
Microblog only
etc etc

Currently I am unfollowing every Mastodon account in Micro Blog that I have historically followed - and picking them up in Mastodon.

I have never followed a web site in MB

I follow

RSS in NetNewsWire
All Substack Newsletters in Substack app
All other newsletters in StoopInbox

This is because I think understanding where the post emanates contributes to me understanding more of the context.

I get the beauty of having everything coming in to a single place - and sometimes that would be good - but not always.

Podcasts. You Need A Player AND Something To Listen To.

Sat, 19 Nov 2022 09:37:32 +1200

Interesting that it isn’t just Mastodon that seems to be in sudden growth mode. The Mastodon questions relating to ‘how to get started’ and ‘who to follow’ are just as applicable to Podcasts - even though they are much more established. That said, it is clear that even for the long time listener, checking in and making sure that once you have found the best stuff to listen (often by asking around) that you have the best stuff to listen to it on!

This post then is my contribution to answering;

🔸 What is the best app?
🔸 Which podcasts should I follow and why?

Caveat - I am an Apple ecosystem person - so my podcast player recommendations MIGHT not be available on your platform of choice. Sorry.

Which Player

As an Apple user, you might expect me to use the Apple player and you would be wrong. Every now and then I do revisit Apple’s core apps to make sure I have a good reason to be outside of their ecosystem. I last checked the Apple podcast world 3 months ago. NOPE.

Not to say it isn’t a good app - its just that it doesn’t work for me and this is primarily because I follow to a LOT of podcasts and listen to very few of them. As a result, I need an easy mechanism to find, categorize, triage, organize and listen.

There are few apps that I haven’t downloaded, most don’t work for me (or more accurately, they don’t offer enough to make me want to switch). They might work for you - all good, this isn’y the kind of piece to get into that debate.

This is what I use and why it specifically works for me.

I have used Castro for a long time. It really is a wonderful app and I would not knock it. Castro and Marco Arment’s Overcast are the two podcast apps that I kept coming back to when I looked outside of Apple. When I first explored podcast apps beyond Apple, I tried them both. Castro won out. I just couldn’t get my head around the way Overcast worked. Castro in comparison was very intuitive. Why relearn when what you have works?

And then 3 months ago that all changed. As I referenced above, I do explore app alternatives from time. Changes had been made to the Apple app - so i explored and hadn’t realized that Overcast had itself been through a massive redesign.

Oh my.

The Apple changes were good - but nothing that helped me. BUT Overcast won out and I have been using it ever since. This is why.

I subscribe to over 100 podcasts (don’t judge me) and generally listen to a podcast for somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes each day. It does get over 90 minutes from time to time - mainly depending on what else is going on in my life. Clearly there is lot that I follow and don’t listen to. So as I wrote above when looking at a podcast app, find, categorize, triage, organize and listen are all important functions.

My Process

Every single podcast I follow is categorized into one or more place … ‘tech’, ‘politics’, ‘bbc and npr’, ‘humour’, ‘music’ … you get the picture.
As part of my morning ‘feed catchup’ i triage all the new arrivals and delete anything I know I won’t be even thinking about listening to.
When I am ready to listen - the category filter helps me do an initial narrow down and then I choose from within.

Resultant Benefits for me. (Your mileage may vary)

🔸 Very intuitive
🔸 Fast and efficient triage
🔸 Synching across multiple devices
🔸 Their app even works on the Mac
🔸 The Ability to categorize to quickly choose ‘the tone’.

The Unique Controls in Settings I won’t go into - suffice to say, the possible refinements of what you MIGHT choose to do is extraordinary - but were I to tell you that I have not changed one setting - you would know that this app is very much in synch with how I think.

Through all of this you will notice I have made no mention of speeding up / slowing down podcasts (which is possible in most players) - because I don’t do it, even with the sheer number of shows I triage. I was tempted once, tried it, didn’t like, never bothered again. To me, it is similar to reading a book’s cliff notes and assuming you have read the book.

What I Listen To

At any given moment I might have up to 40 unplayed podcasts in the queue. (Right now I am at 21, I know because I just counted. In fact - well - here they are.)

Some shows I simply have the latest version of ready to go if I feel inpired … No Such Thing, The Gist, John Hodgman being good examples.

Other shows, like Zane Lowe and Rockentours might have multiple episodes - because I really want to hear the guest. Example below - note that Zane Lowe has two shows in the hopper, Chris Lockhead has THREE. But - will I really get round to listening nearly 5 hours of Lockhead - just across these three shows - probably not, so over time they wil get removed without listening.

And finally - you will see that two of my twenty one shows are my own podcasts. Yes I do listen to them once they are published and I keep the latest Season in the Inbox for easy discovery if I need a link for someone. Season Three just kicked off - so only two shows so far.

Recommendations

So what shows would I specifically recommend? Well again - the point is what are you interested in? If I knew that, I could be of more help, so I reduced the list to a solid personal 10 - which are in no particular order, but if I know what kind of stuff you like - I probably have a view - with the exception of Sports!

🔸 Chris Lockhead and Category Pirates - marketing and business
🔸 Rob Long - 15 minutes of delight
🔸 Peter Kafka - media meets technology
🔸 Rockenteurs - a music podcast rom Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt
🔸 Zane Lowe - music
🔸 Sam Harris - for quiet relfection
🔸 John Hodgman - he’s just funny
🔸 Ezra Klein - considered thought, good guests
🔸 Mike Pesca - The Gist - a daily ‘news’ show from an ex PBS presenter
🔸 People First - my own People First podcast

That’s it - do you have any recommendations and thoughts?

🎥 Medieval, 2022 - ★★

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 21:08:55 +1200

Yeah ... No.

Appalling sound quality just the start.

🎥 The Two Popes, 2019 - ★★★★½

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 20:34:34 +1200

So so so very good.

Sad To See A Small Company You Know Declare Bankruptcy

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 13:12:54 +1200

No names - no pack drill to protect the innocent, but prompted to write this because while it is sad, I don’t like history to be rewritten.

The official statement reads that it has declared bankruptcy because of “poor economic conditions since Covid and increased costs and delays associated with expansion plans.”

Sure - and - it was clear when I talked to them that the company had a difficult route even before Covid. Capital investment needed was massive to deliver the physical spaces needed to conduct the business, meanwhile the funding being raised was easily an order of magnitude too little to deliver on the promise.

Covid might have accelerated the demise but it was plain for anyone to see with even a tad due-diligence, which continues to remain in short supply.

Not only that …

“The group had one facility and was in the process of setting up two larger ones in xxx and xxx, while also developing an online app that would …..”

It’s over 2 years since I last talked to them - but at that time they were ‘working on an app’. How long does ‘an app’ take?

🎥 The Silencing, 2020 - ★★½

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 13:00:42 +1200

It is what it is - it was what it was - a 'free' movie on Netflix

🎥 Big Fish, 2003 - ★★★★★

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 12:58:04 +1200

Quite simply one of my favorite movies of all time.

🎥 The Batman, 2022 - ★★★½

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 07:24:57 +1200

I'm a sucker for Batman. Not the best and so DARK ... not the storyline, the cinematography. At times just watching a black screen. Probably more a commentary on the TV than the movie, but still...

I guess if they are trying to get us back to the movie houses... It makes sense?

🎥 Enola Holmes 2, 2022 - ★★★½

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 20:13:51 +1200

Having watched ‘round 1’ … I knew what to expect and I wasn’t disappointed.

🎥 Enola Holmes, 2020 - ★★★½

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 20:12:34 +1200

Fun. What you’d expect.

Do you remember Rod McKuen?

Sat, 12 Nov 2022 06:34:53 +1200

He was the bestselling poet in American history. What happened?

Was never a fan - and hadn’t thought of him for decades - but there is no doubt that at the time he was big.

Just one paragraph that opened my eyes …

In the mid-1960s McKuen discovered the Belgian singer Jacques Brel and his fellow chansonniers, performers in the story-song tradition who were popular in the cabarets of Europe but hadn’t yet made inroads in the U.S. market. McKuen translated and sang a number of Brel’s songs, and fully rewrote Brel’s song “Le Moribond” as “Seasons in the Sun,” which was recorded by the Kingston Trio. (It would later be a No. 1 hit for the singer Terry Jacks.)

… in my mind, Scott Walker and more recently Marc Almond were the two ‘Walker Channelers’. Never had any idea that Rod was another.

Feedland Feedback

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 11:11:32 +1200

This post was getting too long and confusing in draft mode. So - instead I am writing a short post and will then append with comments to cover off each point I want to make. A living post if you will!

The genesis of the post is that @dave commented on one of my posts about Feedland suggesting that I publish a post about Feedland here.

First off, I am a big fan of the functionality of Feedland and in awe of how @dave - much like @manton - just keeps delivering enhancements and extensions to his world without the teams of hundreds - if not thousands - that VC backed startups seems to ‘need’.

As an ex 1999.io user (I was there before MicroBlog properly launched) .. I recognized the interface immediately. There is a style that Dave uses. Not my favorite - but I appreciate the consistency.

I found it pretty easy to set up Feedland - and it ‘just worked’. Since then, there are things I have discovered that would make for an even easier life (at least if you were talking about my life that is).

I will post thoughts into the comments below in an attempt to keep simple and less ‘rambly’.

One Week to Respond to an Email using a Template

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 10:44:30 +1200

I wrote a long email to Substack last week with a combination of personal comments together with some comments received from readers.

I opened the email with;

“No questions - but definitely a lot of input. Most of which I have written to you about in the past and generally received a ‘thanks we will let the dev team know’ kind of response … and then nothing.”

Precisely one week later a template response …

“We will pass your feedback along to our Product team. However, please note their team does not respond to messages directly, so it is expected you won’t receive a follow up. “

#NailedIt - other than I wasn’t expecting to wait a week for a template response.

Why Some of Your Salespeople Are Dragging — and How to Fix It

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 08:15:57 +1200

“To get deals over the line in today’s high-pressure sales environment, sellers must undertake new, challenging activities outside their comfort zones. The ongoing need for agility is taking its toll: In a recent Gartner survey of more than 900 B2B sellers, 89% report feeling burned out and 54% report actively job seeking.”

“nearly six in 10 sellers describe the leadership of their sales organization as not understanding what “really” motivates sellers.”

“Sellers experiencing drag are plagued by workday boredom and distraction. They procrastinate. They “go through the motions” to satisfy activity-tracking requirements. Meanwhile, progress on true priorities languishes.”

and and and … you can read it all on HBR

.. meanwhile the word ‘buy’ appears once in the entire article … and even then … well see for yourself

“Maximize seller buy-in by being transparent.”

That is the only reference to ‘buying’ is the need for the sales person to have buy in to what leadership is up to.

‘Customer’ is mentioned 7 times …

I am at a loss to understand how to improve the sales process without really talking about the buying process and customers … I know crazy talk right?

ANARCHY

Then again, the article was written by a bunch of Gartner analysts.

My Speciality ? Generality !

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 10:30:07 +1200

A slightly edited version of a post originally published on February 14th 2016 @ Beyond Bridges, now archived here

A friend and reader of this blog just sent me this link, which is a third party version of the LinkedIN map below. It seems to be limited due to LinkedIN's API constraints, so it can't map more than 499 of your connections. That said, there does seem to be a lot more information and analysis that surrounds the graph. Andy it means YOU can go try it out on your network. Thank you David.

A good friend of mine messaged me through LinkedIN. He is a fast thinking, witty, bright, intelligent, big thinking kind of guy. He's also interested in his next gig - so let me know if you want an introduction. Anyway, to my point. He had been on my LinkedIN profile and commented;

I think you would be well served to pare that list (of skills I had listed in my summary) to maybe 4-5 distinct and specialized areas where you really shine better than the rest. Things like Leadership, Marketing, Communications are too generic and readily available in the marketplace.

And I agreed. In fact, so much so that I pared it down to zero. My skill list is summarized in another part of the profile anyway. But it got me to thinking.

I am a big fan of Mike Pesca over at Slate who delivers a daily podcast called The Gist. Try it. You won't regret it. A couple of weeks ago he had Eric Weiner on as a guest, and they spent some time talking about where genius comes from. Turns out that Eric has just written a new book about 'how genius happens'. One of my takeaways was that genius emerges from generalism - not speciality. For example, he talked about the fact that Einstein was not the most knowledgeable physicist of his time, but his value was that he was broad in both interest and knowledge. A 'Renaissance man' if you will. This an absolute opposite to what we live with today. We eschew the 'polymath' in favor of the 'monomath'. From the site Gain Weight Journal;

Unfortunately, we live in an era of monomaths now. This means specialists. The problem with that is that people get stuck with one way of thinking, they have blinders on, and cannot see the big picture, including the relationships and similarities between different things.

I know, even our education system is driven to a singular focus and it seems to be getting worse. For myself, I focussed on Maths and Physics in my education from the age of 15. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I could see the future, but despite that formal focus, I did put an effort into ensuring that I didn't get locked up in that world and miss out on everything else that there was to offer. (Though I probably shouldn’t have read all three volumes of Lord of the Rings over a two week period shortly before some year end exams!). Back to the plot. Reading that quote reminded me of what we used to say back in my Group Partner days ... "The Last Thing You Ever Need Near A Problem Is An Expert" Good. Because I am not. LinkedIN 'Labs' used to run something that visually mapped your connections so you could see clusters of people in your network. They closed it a while back, but at the time I wrote about it, dubbing it 'Cloud Hopping'. I also observed that most people had a very tight network of very few 'clouds'. This was mine.

A highly distributed interconnected network, emerging from European and American networks in finance, technology, application and social disciplines. I think Derek was spot on. My strength is not my speciality. My strength is my generality. And, while I would absolutely not describe myself as a genius, I am definitely a cloud hopper. A connector. And there are not many of us around, or at least we tend to keep quiet, because we live in an age where value is placed on 'what you know'. The 'who you know' is almost written off as 'the old boys club' . But once you understand the value of the role that Gladwell calls out in The Tipping Point - the pieces fall into place.

My Speciality? Generality!

I first published this post on Beyond Bridges on February 10th, 2016. That site has gone, the words archived,

🎥 War, 2007 - ★★★

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 13:15:15 +1200

It is what you might expect from a movie with Jason and Jet - and nothing wrong with that.

Return On Effort

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 14:16:26 +1200

"This time he was here to help us understand some truths about how we really run the business, make decisions, and value what's worth doing. When I say value, I don't mean a list of generalized "values", or the bullshit phrase of "adding value", but how we attribute value when evaluating our options and making tradeoffs."

💬 Jason Fried

Read The Whole Post

Verifiable Credentials

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 14:14:27 +1200

Verifiable credentials are coming as a service; it's a proven business model | Constellation Research Inc.

🚧 Coordination Costs

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 14:07:39 +1200

The Stripe co-founders were candid about their failure to predict where the economy was heading. They also said they overspent on things like “coordination costs.” That’s not a term I’ve heard before, but I suspect it is a reflection of getting too big and too inefficient.

💬 Jessica Lessin

It's a new term to me aswell - BUT recently on LinkedIN there was a meme running around - which used this graphic.

It's pretty self explanatory. The formula is that for every person you add to an organisation, the number of potential conversations increases - a lot. If 'n' is the number of people in an organisation, the number of potential conversations is n-1 + n-2 + n-3 .... in other words ...

3 people ... 2 + 1 = 3 4 people ... 3+2+1 = 6 5 people ... 4+3+2+1 = 10 6 people ... 5+4+3+2+1 = 15

And adding 1 person to a 10,000 person organisation adds 10,000 possible new lines of communication.

Accounting Practice At Uber

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 13:04:48 +1200

‘The Information’ reports this morning (my bold)

Uber said its mobility division (the ride-hailing business most people know the company for) brought in $3.8 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter, growing 73%. But baked into that number is $1.1 billion flowing from a change earlier this year that prompted Uber to start recording all the fares it gets in the U.K. as revenue, instead of just the take rates remaining after the company pays its drivers.

I assume this is because Uber lost the battle in the courts about whether the drivers worked for them or were independent in the UK. So - if they work for them, then the whole ride is revenue. BUT - there will now be a flip side to that, in that there are now a whole lot of expenses on the other side that need to be taken out.

Is there an accountant in the house that is tracking the shenanigans that is - and seemingly always will be - ‘Uber’.

Rewriting History - In A Good Way

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 13:16:20 +1200

In many ways the 1619 Project is focused on unpacking actual history from the American narrative of history.

Meanwhile, I continue to be bowled over by the story/stories that are emerging in Rachel Maddow’s new podcast. I am so often amazed that I jump onto the internet to cross-check what I am hearing but the fact is that though the Ultra Podcast is telling a different story - it is again focused on unpacking history from the American narrative of history.

Unlike the 1619 project - Maddow’s story is much more recent and there are many accounts, news items, photographs and stories just out there for anybody to read and hear. Maddow has just done a great job in connecting the dots - because it is all otherwise ‘hidden in plain sight’.

It’s too obvious to go into the parallels of these stories from the late 30s and early 40s to the more recent stories of the late 10s and early 20s.

What is mind-blowing is that until Maddow came out with this podcast, this whole sad thing was buried, lost and forgotten.

My prior posts re Ultra …

Developers Don't Know What They Don't Know

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 10:39:18 +1200

An old adage - but is ‘top of mind’ recently.

If the IRS want ‘a little chat with you’ …. would you ‘do some research’ and then take the case on, or go find a tax accountant?
If you needed medical attention would you have a friend ‘check out the symptoms and then diagnose you - or would you go to a doctor?
If you were sued for malpractice … get a lawyer - or ‘bone up’ on what youneed to know

…. you know the list is endless.

There is a tech podcast I listen to regularly - and a recurring theme is the difficulty of doing sales and marketing …

The solution - apparently - is to do some internet research - and ‘fix the problem’.

As I say - recurring.

I don’t listen to every edition - but I listen enough to be confident in my assertion that ‘they have not ever reached out to a professional sales / marketing person that could help them and I wonder why this is?

I do lay part of the blame at the feet of those people who lead those disciplines. I do understand that there are schmucks in those two worlds that makes you wonder how they make a living - but we also know there are bad lawyers, bad accountants, bad doctors ….

But Sales and Marketing? It can’t be that hard … I’ll read up and solve my problem.

Meanwhile

I find that it is tech-oriented people who are particularly flawed when it comes to this kind of ‘thinking’ - and I use that word loosely.

Anyway - that’s all I have to say. Right now I have an app to build this week. It’s all worked out. This afternoon I am going read up on java and python. Then tomorrow I will build my prototype. Should be all done by the weekend.

I mean - it can’t be that hard can it?

Why Are Architects More Famous Than Builders?

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 10:09:18 +1200

Well. at least for real-world construction. As we build out the internet, I feel it is the other way round. Why is that? I wrote this just yesterday …

Frank Lloyd Wright, Julia Morgan, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Gaudi, Le Corbusier … are legion in the world of architecture … yet few people know the names of the people or companies that built the buildings they designed.

Today I discovered this gentle and informative Twitter account that highlights the names of building designers - not building builders.

For example

1999: Burj Al Arab in Dubai, designed by Tom Wright of WKK Architects

99/100 pic.twitter.com/YbaTimr5rX
— The Cultural Tutor (@culturaltutor) October 31, 2022

Is it odd that In technology, the ‘builders’ have become the industry names and we know so relatively few designers?

The Glass Cliff

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:48:05 +1200

What absolute crap and drivel …

“ Britain’s current dumpster fire (i.e. the British Pound reached its lowest level against the US Dollar in its entire history last week) began a long time before Truss came on board. She inherited the mess; she didn’t create it.

Driving Off the Glass Cliff.

I am fully aware of the Glass Cliff problem - this is not an example.

Yes - she inherited a mess. She then doubled down to make it worse.

🎥 Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022 - ★★★★

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:33:52 +1200

One of those multiverse movies that isn’t your usual. Well worth a watch. No disappointment.

🎥 The Gray Man, 2022 - ★★★

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:32:02 +1200

Let’s watch The Gray Man I suggested. We did, both of us looking at the arch other throughout .. the story seemed familiar. And then it didn’t. And then it did. We watched to the end. It was familiar because we’d watched it already. Just didn’t remember. And now … the following morning. Here we are again. Still not knowing what it was about.

🎥 Eternals, 2021 - ★

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 03:35:20 +1200

Well named.

We Are Becoming A Power Skills Economy

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 22:17:11 +1200

Josh Bershin writes that we are becoming a power skills economy.

In other words, automation did not eliminate work at all – it created new jobs, better jobs, and an acceleration of our workforce into what we now call the “service economy.” We are essentially shifting to the right in this model.

💬 Josh Bershin

BTW, in case you are wondering, ‘Power Skills’ is the 'new' name for ‘Soft Skills’. To be fair, it did need a new name. It’s also fair to say that whilst he’s not wrong, he fails to mention that in the last 15 years (where he references 2007) no mention that the average income of people is flat and that real income is declining.

But that's a different opportunity.

Oh - and maybe not so 'new' Josh was talking about this back in 2019 - and gave us a few clues as to what he was talking about, this is one of his graphics.

Here's My Take

1) Becoming? I think it is really more like that we are starting to recognize these skills. They have always been there - and though not necessarily recognised or even understood - I bet if you find successful people in that 'old' economy - they would demonstrate a lot of these traits.

2) Josh is not alone in highlighting these skills and their importance. What nobody is doing is organizing these skills into a taxonomy - much less an ontology. (What's the difference you may ask) Stan Garfield has a very simple explanation)

Taxonomy

Ontology

... except now there is.

More of this to come, but have to say, very excited by a company I have been talking to that has not only done a lot of research into these skills, but also which skills are most important - and why, depending on what you are trying to do.

Not only that, but they are releasing an app that will allow anybody to

assess their personal strengths and weaknesses across all skills
define which of those skills they should focus on to maximise their ability to be most succesful at what they are trying to do
all through a self paced, self directed, learning program.

As I said - more to come. Just to say - the cavalry is on its way.

Featured Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The Lore Of The Rings

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 21:48:30 +1200

I was delighted to be joined on the People First podcast by Ramsey Avery who is the Production Designer for the Amazon series - Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power.

Wonderful conversation that I know you will enjoy.

🎥 Mr. Harrigan's Phone, 2022 - ★★★★

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 23:56:32 +1200

Maybe because I have recently been watching some below average / average movies recently - that this one stands out. On another day. I might rate it at 3 1/2 stars - but leaving at 4 for now.

Here’s the question … coincidence … or action from the grave?

🎥 Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard, 2022 - ★★★★

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 23:53:00 +1200

It’s a documentary - so move on if you don’t like them. Personally - big as the issue was - I totally missed the story when it was in the news. BUT very good. I would like to have seen more delving into the Libyan connections - rather than a ‘simple’ fraud - maybe there will be a part two?

🎥 Cleanskin, 2012 - ★★½

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 23:49:42 +1200

Mindless. Watched as part of a binge-watch when I was feeling sorry for myself. Not too hard to keep up. Definitely don’t bother if you are sitting down to ‘watch a movie’.

🎥 Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022 - ★★★½

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 23:47:05 +1200

I have watched all the Thor’s and this one is VERY different - probably because Taika Waititi isn’t just the director (Thor - Ragnarok) but also the writer. Not sure what the ‘Marvel Heads’ will say / are saying … but for me it worked.

🎥 Blackout, 2022 - ★★½

Sat, 15 Oct 2022 06:22:12 +1200

Just like the character in the movie … I really can’t remember much. The script is out of some script hopper and this is the latest version of it,

I have a streaming cold … so in that respect perfect, too hard to switch off, and not much to track.

🎥 I Used to Be Famous, 2022 - ★★★★

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 12:18:58 +1200

Watched on Friday October 14, 2022.

🎥 Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992 - ★★★★½

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 12:14:58 +1200

30 years ago. Seriously? It feels just like yesterday. Of course … it could have been. The script is timeless.

Dana Channeling Lennon?

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 09:57:39 +1200

The Fog of Global War, Dana Blankenhorn

“This is also no normal midterm election. This is an existential battle between democracy and fascism. Major media try to both sides it, but that’s increasingly impossible. Every possible -ism is rising against democratic compromise and common sense – sexism, racism, fascism, Christianism. All the evils bedeviling the rest of the world have come here to roost because Vladimir Putin invited them in.”

and concludes ominously

“I do know that, around the world, compromise is no longer possible. This world cannot continue half slave and half free. It will be all one thing or all the other.”

“Every possible -ism …”

Everybody’s talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism

💬 John Lennon

🎥 Uncorked, 2020 - ★★★½

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 21:43:04 +1200

It was on Netflix … and just wanted ‘something’. Turns out it was just what I needed. The storyline is recognizable .. with wine and barbecue this time. For all of that - well done.

Trust me, I don’t need to spend time reviewing a bad film … so I don’t.

🎥 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008 - ★★★★

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 05:27:33 +1200

It took me forever to get around to watching this film and when I finally did … oh my. Tears (mine) at the end - which to me is always a good guide to the quality.

🎥 Joker, 2019 - ★★★★½

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 00:22:26 +1200

I’m a sucker for the Batman franchise interpretation anyway…but they don’t always work. This ‘side story’ is a stunning film.

🎥 Jojo Rabbit, 2019 - ★★★★

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 01:27:56 +1200

Watched on Wednesday January 15, 2020.

🎬 Just Too GOOD - but you might have missed.

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:38:57 +1200

This is not a list designed to be ALL great movies - just those great movies that you might have missed as you journey through life.

Pig
Big Fish

🎥 I Used to Be Famous, 2022 - ★★★★

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 19:19:28 +1200

Watched on Friday September 30, 2022.

Just Too GOOD - but you might have missed.

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 11:38:57 +1200

This is not a list designed to be ALL great movies - just those great movies that you might have missed as you journey through life.

I Hadn’t Previously Absorbed This Nuance

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 19:06:58 +1200

At the White House, Ornato, who as deputy chief of staff had oversight over Secret Service decisions, told Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, that the vice-president was going to be moved to the Maryland military facility Joint Base Andrews. Had he been evacuated, Pence would no longer have been able to certify Biden’s electoral victory, and Trump’s goal of postponing his defeat would have been fulfilled.

When Ornato said that the Secret Service would move Pence, Kellogg was adamant, Rucker and Leonnig reported. “You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg said. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.”

Some People Are Just Born To Over Achieve ...

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 11:50:25 +1200

Books, Siddhartha Mukherjee says, just tumble out of him, like fluffy towels and clean socks cascade out of a dryer at the end of the cycle. And it’s a good thing, because it’s not as if the man has a lot of idle time to spare.

Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, an oncologist and a researcher of cancer treatments, is one of those people who appears to have found a glitch to exploit in the space-time continuum. He sees patients, runs a blood cancers research lab, co-parents two children, writes deeply researched features for The New Yorker, helps run four separate biotechnology and health care companies he co-founded, acts as adviser to a half-dozen more, and throws elaborate dinner parties with his wife, the sculptor Sarah Sze, that are a Manhattan byword.

Oh, and even as he was completing medical school at Harvard University, he trained as an Indian classical music vocalist. Although he reluctantly relinquished dreams of a parallel career as a singer, he continues to perform with a jazz fusion band.

And yet he insists that it is not difficult to make space to write books, exhaustive though they might be: His latest, “The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human,” thuds in at 480 pages. It will be published Oct. 25.

Let's Get Ready To Rumble ...

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 11:45:39 +1200

… or not. Yeah - definitely not.

Thiel-backed conservative video platform Rumble is up 37% after going public via SPAC merger at a $2.1B valuation, raising $400M.

.. and you all thought SPACs were dead!

Definitely an interesting mix of ‘purveyors’ on the platform, noting that Russell Brand had decided that he needs to not only join the likes of QANON, Alex Jones, Greenwald, Lindell and Truth Social - but be there exclusively!

Side note

“Thiel co-led an investment in the company last year along with VC firm Narya Capital. Narya, based in Cincinnati and named for a ring in the Lord of the Rings books, is also backed by Thiel and led by his one-time business associates Colin Greenspon and Ohio Republican Senate candidate JD Vance.”

The Attention Economy

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 18:44:55 +1200

It’s funny how 'xx is the new oil' keeps cropping up … this one is kind of related - but focussed not specifically on data - but rather, The ‘Attention Economy’ ….

"For the better part of the past century, the most important commodity has been oil. Wars have been fought over it — Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike to secure Japanese access to Indonesian oil — and it elevated desert tribes to the ranks of the wealthiest cohorts in history. But the sun has passed midday on oil’s supremacy. We’ve moved from an oil economy to an attention economy.

We used to refer to an information economy. But economies are defined by scarcity, not abundance (scarcity = value), and in an age of information abundance, what’s scarce? A: Attention. The scale of the world’s largest companies, the wealth of its richest people, and the power of governments are all rooted in the extraction, monetization, and custody of attention."

Some other phrasing that caught my eye and mind …

"If Facebook is Exxon and Netflix Shell, TikTok is fracking king Chesapeake Energy, the rule-breaking insurgent armed with novel extraction methods that threaten the established order.”

"everyone is trying to outTik the Tok”

"MrBeast … most popular video (is) a real-life reenactment of Squid Game, which cost $3.5 million to produce (the cost of an episode of Mad Men). It received 300 million views."

You can read the whole Scott Galloway piece here.

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Does The U.S.A. Condone Human Trafficking?

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 15:44:44 +1200

Given that I have been reading about the ‘impending’ arrest of Gaetz for human trafficking since March 2021, I don’t expect a move against the people involved in the Abbott and DeSantis shenanigans any time soon … if ever.

If the US continues to not react, isn’t it condoning trafficking and/or admitting that its laws are toothless?

Were I a trafficker in US custody, I would definitely use this inaction as part of my defense.

If the UK behaved this way - I would use it in my defence.

‘#NotALawyer

Slavoj Žižek Is A Complicated Dude

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 14:30:47 +1200

Earlier this week a friend introduced me to Slavoj Žižek - and specifically, he referenced The Perverts Guide To Cinema. I started watching and suddenly realized that it was over 2 1/2 hours long. I saved to ‘watch later’! Seriously - watch the first 5 to 10 minutes - you can’t just stop and never return … BUT … life does have a limited duration!

I commented on this to my friend … he responded …

I had no idea it was that long! There is not enough alcohol in New Zealand to get you (let alone two of you) through 2.5 hours. This six-minute piece is more than enough to convey Zizek’s characteristic mannerisms (mental and physical). And he neatly endorses the critique of “the fetishism of action” by reversing Marx’s 11th thesis on Feuerbach: “In the 20th-century we tried to change the world too quickly, it’s time to go back to interpreting it.” Big Think

I haven’t watched it yet … still trying to understand my friend’s reply 😂

QE2 Obituaries That Are Different

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 19:32:31 +1200

I am sad for the loss of the Queen, but ….

There cannot be life without death, it is inescapable.

💬 Keisei Tagami

That said, most of what I am reading and seeing leave me cold. Nobody knows the private story of the woman. Nobody.

This is brought home when reading the 4 articles on the click throughs … four different links that tell the story in very different ways and are not the usual fodder.

The Guardian: When we asked the Queen to tea with Paddington, something magic happened.

Gaping Void: 8 Lessons from QE2

David Frum: How she did it

Politico: The short unhappy life of Elizabeth Windsor

Things Aren't Always What They Seem

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 08:46:26 +1200

Harder Than It Looks, Not As Fun as It Seems is a short neat article on this very topic.

Reminds me of what my mum used to say to me …

“If you only judge your friends by their photo album of course it will look like they have a great life.”

💬 My Mum

or as Morgan has it ….

“It’s easiest to convince people that you’re special if they don’t know you well enough to see all the ways you’re not.”

💬 Morgan Housel

That all said I think I disagree on this ….

“no matter what your role in a company is, your ultimate job is to help sales.”

… ‘revenue’ maybe - but not sales. I think there is a difference.

Two Dave Winer Quotes

Fri, 09 Sep 2022 12:34:41 +1200

“There ought to be a law. If I can subscribe without talking to someone, I should be able to cancel that way too. I was interested in subscribing to the NYT crossword, for $20 a year, but their policy for cancelling required me to converse with someone at the NYT. I know why, they want to try to convince me to stay. My time is worth something, though they don’t think so.”

and

“You can fake caring, but you can’t fake showing up.”

Overcast is My Friend

Sat, 27 Aug 2022 17:13:46 +1200

Long Time Castro user - but it was time to explore the alternatives again. (Same exercise as the RSS reader project a few weeks ago). So of course my first stop was back to Apple Podcasts .. because I keep thinking that of all companies Apple should be able to deliver the best experience …. right?

The app managed to annoy me in less than a couple of days. But it did trigger me to look at synching … enter Overcast - my new friend.

Moved over about three weeks ago. Been getting used to it, and so wasn’t ready to say bye-bye to Castro … until today.

I don’t think Overcast is any better or worse than Castro when it comes to managing the play lists - different for sure. But oh boy - synching.

I like the sound from my iPad better than my phone, so is great to listen to at home - but the iPad doesn’t travel around with me when I am walking.

Overcast synching is just GREAT.

I stop listening on my iPad, grab my phone - head out - and it just works¹ … picking up where I was in the podcast and continuing on the new device.

Seriously, someone should use that as a marketing phrase! ↩︎

The Flow Of Liquid

Sat, 27 Aug 2022 14:36:07 +1200

The title is not representative of the piece which is actually about ‘Google Maps’ and ‘personal memory’ but is pulled from the quote.

“I can remember the party where I watched two men I’d never heard of standing in the back yard, drinking lager at the same time they were pissing into the drains. There was something about the flow of liquid in and out, much the same colour at either end, that made me fine with not knowing them.”

💬 William Gallagher

Source

Most Jobs Fall Into 3 Major Categories

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 09:02:05 +1200

𝗩𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 - a person takes money, hands you an object; liquor store clerks, cashiers, bank tellers, etc.

𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 - taxis, aeroplanes, trucks, etc.

𝗕𝗮𝗯𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 - people that watch things. But this extends to people that tweak small things (on par with wiping a baby’s arse) like pool repair, HVAC repair, etc. They take the diaper off, they wipe it down, they put the diaper back on; janitors, gardeners, farmers, painters, security guards, testing, stockers, etc.

Every single one of these will be replaced by a robot, and pretty soon.

💬 Reichart 'Ki' Von Wolfsheild

Source

Raindrop and Readwise Integration

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 10:51:17 +1200

Ooohhh …

Now you can seamlessly sync all of your Raindrop.io highlights directly with Readwise.

Readwise makes it easy to revisit and learn from your highlights. When highlights were introduced to Raindrop.io, many users requested an official integration with Readwise.

Connect your Raindrop.io account to get started. Highlights will be synced periodically throughout the day.

Getting Help

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 10:49:49 +1200

“As one lawyer recounted to the Post, Trump’s legal team once urged the then president “against tweeting about the Mueller probe, only to find he’d tweeted about it before they got to the end of the West Wing driveway.” Others said he was “nearly impossible to represent and that it would be unclear if they would ever get paid.”

The Machine Internet

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 09:28:20 +1200

Bad News is Good News.

“I started talking about the Machine Internet nearly 20 years ago, before it was even called “the Internet of Things.” Sensors and motes, tied to an analysis by wireless networks. Anything whose performance can be adjusted can now be monitored and controlled by a central intelligence. You can monitor the condition of parts and schedule maintenance before things break. This matters if the part is your heart, and its breaking could kill you.”

💬 Dana Blankenhorn

I’ll take that claim and raise you by a few years …

A group of us started talking about the topic in the mid 90s.

We had the obligatory startup … Flypaper … with a back end we called ‘The Megaserver’ - and without getting into the details - the system allowed us to render a website - ‘just in time’ - by assembling components out of a database. Our message at the time … the website only exists when somebody is visiting it.

It lead to some interesting developments and conversations.

I can still remember one scenario where we envisaged every car having its own website, assembled from thousands of components that each mapped to specific things and functions in the car … this is mid-90s… people didn’t get it.

And then came the DOT BOMB. And oblivion swooped in.

Still very proud of what ‘we’ built.

Definitely ahead of its time … I mean think about the tools we had in the mid-90s to build this thing!

And The Answer Is ... Nick Clegg!

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 08:41:08 +1200

Zuckerberg’s New No. 2 Faces an Old Dilemma: Distrust of Facebook

Seriously? That’s the problem?

The new ‘number 2’ is Nick Clegg

Wikipedia

During the party’s time in coalition, the Liberal Democrats saw a significant drop in support and the 2015 general election left the party with just 8 seats, which resulted in Clegg’s ousting as Deputy Prime Minister and his resignation as party leader. In 2016, following a referendum in which a majority supported leaving the European Union, Clegg returned to the Liberal Democrat frontbench, concurrently serving as Spokesperson for Exiting the European Union and for International Trade from July 2016 to June 2017. In the 2017 general election, Clegg was defeated in his constituency of Sheffield Hallam by Jared O’Mara. After losing his seat, Clegg moved to the United States after he was appointed by Mark Zuckerberg as Vice-President for Global Affairs and Communications of Facebook, Inc.

‘#Winning

Ageism - It Never Gets Old 🥁🥁🥁

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 14:06:55 +1200

The promo on some podcast this morning (my bold)

While Tim Cook (Mr. Excitement) has been the CEO of Apple for over 10 years, he’s now getting closer to mid-60s and is probably looking past where he’ll be running things. His legacy is pretty firmly set and there’s not much more at this point he could do, so who will be next in line to run Apple? We’ll look at some of the likely candidates in the second section.

So somebody else could do something that Cook can’t?

Speechless - though not surprised.

Branson
Murdoch
QE2
McCartney
Jagger
Buffett
De Niro
Scorcese

… oh why go on?

They should all just stop - right now - because they are all clearly way past the age that ^^^this^^^ dude believes to be the point where you should just put yourself out to pasture.

Running … Up That Hill

Sat, 06 Aug 2022 14:26:34 +1200

I recently had a good email exchange with Nick Milo (LYT) after a newsletter he wrote that depended a lot on Running Up That Hill.

As a private exchange, I am not going to reveal the conversation, but rather make the observation that Kate Bush’s Running Up The Hill not only gained renewed momentum in the UK/US Music charts …. It also seems to have pushed Kate back into the limelight.

Kate will turn 64 years old later this month … it is never too late.

Beyond that, clearly, something else is going on. Detailed below are just three of many more links that I have read recently. Articles by writers I read regularly that each in their own way have latched on to the phenomena.

William Gallagher - always a good read gave us; Seeking out strange new worlds, and liking them..
Rick Beato - with a 10 a minute breakdown of the original song.
The Brisbane choir - always worth a watch have their take on the song.

Free Content Marketing = Content Free Marketing

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 14:29:13 +1200

“The Content Marketing category is almost $700 billion. Almost every company is working on content and increasing their content marketing investments. And yet, when was the last time you got a piece of content marketing and you said that was legendary? Let’s dig into how the marketing world got duped into content free marketing, aka saying nothing everywhere, and why this is one of the largest opportunities hiding in plain sight.”

💬 Chris Lockhead

He’s not everyone’s cup of tea - but he often makes very good points - AND - he knows how to talk about a topic on his podcast in under 15 minutes rather than three hours (though this podcast at 1 hour is an exception). Still, worth a listen … or just buy his book - since he is essentially doing a Doctorow - reading his own book!

I THINK it was Hubspot that pretty much lead the way on ‘Content Marketing’ (defined the category as Lockhead would have it). It felt wrong then … still does … maybe finally some sanity will prevail?

A boy can hope - can’t he?

Podcast

If 911 Had Been Treated As A Crime ...

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 14:09:24 +1200

“The 9/11 attacks could have been dealt with as a crime. This would have been sane and consistent with precedent. When lawbreaking occurs, we seek the perpetrators, rather than starting wars with unrelated parties. When the IRA set off bombs in London, nobody called for air strikes on West Belfast (or on Boston, where a great deal of IRA funding came from). When the Oklahoma City bombing was found to have been perpetrated by a white supremacist associated with ultra-right militias, there was no call to obliterate Idaho or Montana. Instead, the attacker was searched for, found, apprehended, brought to court, found guilty, and sentenced.”

“This was not the approach taken by the Bush administration. Rather than seek out and punish the guilty—and only the guilty—it swiftly launched a “global war on terror” that led to the deaths of millions.”

💬 Noam Chomsky and Nathan J Robinson

Read What Do We Owe Afghanistan?

Has Apple Forgotten How to Market?

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 14:04:55 +1200

Questions about Apple and its TV+ marketing

“Marketing during the era of peak TV is hard, but as someone who lives dead center in Apple’s ecosystem, I hadn’t even heard about “Black Bird” until last week, when Tim Cook mentioned it on the analyst call and I saw an extended trailer for it on last week’s “Friday Night Baseball.”

💬 Jason Snell

Odd. Any time I switch to 🍎📺 - Blackbird is front and center. I wonder why that is not the case for Jason?

As for

‘It is interesting that Apple, a master of product marketing, is perceived as struggling when it comes to promoting its entertainment shows.”

Are they?

Are they really?

In Case You Aren't Yet Convinced Of The Mess We Are In ...

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 10:22:17 +1200

Two examples - In one email.

False Online Reviews

“Bounty, a startup that pays users for posting reviews to select products on TikTok, raised $4.7 million in seed funding from consumer venture capital firm M13.”

💬 Mahira Dayal - The Information

and

In case you need another reason to get off Twitter ….

“Twitter donated $25,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which is raising funds for the anti-abortion movement, newsletters Popular Information and Platformer together reported. The association is using its resources to elect attorneys general that will enforce abortion bans in various states.”

💬 Mahira Dayal - The Information

In Sync

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 11:30:05 +1200

No - not the 🎶 pop group - they were 'NSYNC' ... just an acknowledgement of how nice it is to find like minded travelers on the journey.

The quote below found here

“We need to resist the narratives that are frequently served to us by corporations that sell these technologies, that these models of the future are dependent upon the particular technologies that they’re selling, that it’s always some future that is just around the corner that we have to buy into, when in fact the future is already here.”

Featured Photo Credit: Gabriel Gusmao on Unsplash

Good Advice From Manuel Moreale re RSS

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 17:18:44 +1200

But I don’t always take good advice …

Keep your feed under control. Don’t subscribe to too many feeds and periodically go through the list and remove the ones that don’t provide value to your life.
Avoid feeds that are too busy. Don’t subscribe to feeds that push content out on a daily basis. Disable all notifications from your RSS reader. Unread messages counter, email notifications, push notifications—turn everything off.
Subscribe to content that is not time-sensitive. Only read and poke around your feeds when you have time to read something and you’re in the right mood.
RSS is a bit of a relic of another time, when the internet was slower and things were

Source

For example, that first thought … I use folders to manage the feeds that lets me focus on topics I want when I visit.

Artificial Intelligence For The Creative Professional

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 17:00:57 +1200

There are a group of companies springing up that are doing for the written word what Dall-E, MidJourney and Craiyon are doing for images, which is to say - enter some core text and let an AI generate the output.

My mind explodes when I see the 'image' results.

I think ‘meh’ - so far - when I see the 'written' results.

I am pretty sure that the engines are as sophisticated as each other, so I wonder if my reaction is more to do with my own abilities - as in I have NO artistic ability when it come to creating images, but I can - and do write - so my bar is higher?

For more background, you might enjoy this from The Verge;

🔗How independent writers are turning to AI

Note - all of the words you read on peoplefirst.business are not created - or even suggested - but any AI tool. (Can you tell?). 😂

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 10:34:05 +1200

Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'

💬 Bob Dylan

With the financial problems ricocheting around the world - I see occasional headlines from 50 years ago.

Three day work week - bad.

Fifty Years Later : Four day work week - good.

I get the subtle shift in the back story, just an observation.

Thinking Allowed

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Where Am I Working?

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 10:15:00 +1200

I am sitting in New Zealand writing this. It started as an idea in my head and was typed into a local file on my computer. I copied it to Wordpress (my blog hosting software of choice) and saved a draft to my People First server.

The words were then sitting on a server in Iowa, USA.

From this point on, as I edit the draft, I am in New Zealand, the words I am editing are in Iowa - where am I working?

By the time you read this post, I will have published and anybody in the world can read it.

Example, a visitor in Kenya pulls up this web site in their browser and these words are 'automagically' read in Kenya.

Question

Where is ‘the work’ done?

New Zealand, because that is where I tapped the original words into the computer?
New Zealand, because that is where I cut and paste those words into Wordpress?
Iowa, because that is where the People First servers are?
Where you are reading this because until those words delivered value (you reading them), no work was done.

I ask because once you know where the work was done, you should have an idea on where you should be taxed and arguably where you should be licensed to work.

This conversation doesn’t seem to be a major part of public discourse, because the scenario is an edge case. But for how much longer?

New York has a law that says anybody working IN NEW YORK pays New York Taxes and from that emerges things like the NY, NJ and CT tri-state tax agreement.

“Like all states with broad-based income taxes, New York has asserted the right to tax nonresident income earned within its borders. But unlike most other jurisdictions with significant cross-border commuter flows—such as Illinois and Indiana or Virginia and Maryland—New York has never given nonresidents a tax pass in the form of ‘reciprocity’ with their home states.”

But if my servers are in Iowa, my customers are in Europe, my bank account is in California and I only live in New York, should I pay New York taxes?

I write more about where we work in this week's newsletter.

Why Non Of My Books Are Available On Audible

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 12:48:46 +1200

Why none of my books are available on Audible is a 'spoken essay' from Cory which will eventually be the only entry he has in the Audible library.

Take a listen to find out why.

The link takes you to a page on his Craphound site, or go directly to 🎙️the podcast

Thinking Allowed

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About Those Deep Links To Email Messages

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 12:01:20 +1200

MacStories : 🔗 Generating Markdown Links to Mail Messages with Shortcuts and AppleScript

Dr. Drang : 🔗 Mail links and percentages

I used to use hook - but not enough to pay for it - so stopped.

Spark has an easy way to generate deep links to emails - BUT - if you move the message to a different folder - the lnk breaks for me.

So question.

Does the MacMail linking also break when you move messages, or is the ID absolute?

Data Is The New Soil

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 13:16:32 +1200

In 2013, Mark Cameron wrote

‘Data is not the new oil, it is the new soil.’

He concludes;

"Generating business value from consumer data isn’t about technology at all. It’s about how you use data to create a fantastic experience for your customers. If you can help your customer get value from their own information they will reward you for that effort. If you continue to use data to spam your customers or provide value to your company, you may find yourself wondering where everybody went."

💬 Mark Cameron

IMHO it's a soft article with most of the cleverness centering on the (S)oil pun.

Data is the new .... was the theme of an article I wrote for BizCatalyst a few years ago; Time To Terminate Analogies

"Sure, we wrap the idea up in customer care and nurturing, just as one does when growing plants in a garden, but at the end of the day Cameron’s argument – which seems to emerge from the work of David McCandless who writes at Information is Beautiful is simply a clever play on ‘(s)oil’ and sits squarely in old thinking. "

💬 John Philpin

“The soil analogy is certainly better than big oil but to me, it’s still about personal data being something that’s owned and used by marketers, rather than recognizing that data is used by all of us – both individually and collectively.”

💬 StJohn Deakins

But It Just Got Better

The other day an interview with Jerry Michalski appeared in one of my feeds, where he talked about Data Is TheNew Soil - nice piece - though no mention of Mark Cameron (rightly probably).

I still think the analogy needs to die - but there was a lot more insight and thinking around the idea (definitely not surprised - Jerry is a thinker). I can highly recommend the whole article which isn't just about the (s)oil pun, but includes many other topics, including these that tickled my particular fancy.

Idea Superconductivity
The Betterverse - not the Metaverse
Linky Prose
The importance of breaking Zettlekastens out of their private spaces
Liquid Democracy

and a whole lot more.

Do take some time out and have a proper read.

Post Script

In case you were wondering .. yes this is the same Jerry that runs Jerry’s Brain. I am even in there - though it is clear that a few updates are needed!

What Is Web5

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 13:04:05 +1200

Good question.

Putting aside Molly White’s tweet from a few weeks ago, though she does raise a very good point ...

I did want to share a podcast I just listened to It's Mike Brock of Block (seriously, filed in the 'can't make this up' bucket) - and no I don’t think he is Dave Brock's son talking with Tech Dirt's Michael Masnick.

"Web5 is a new evolution of the Web that enables decentralized apps and protocols.”

Count me in the camp (though I am still with Molly) that this makes far more sense that anything I have heard describing the Web3 world - except isn't that how they described Web3?

Well yes - but that isn't what is going on. Of course whether Mike et al can make it happen remains to be seen - but at least when he talks he makes sense - and also clearly separates himswlf from the 'get rich quick / stay rich libertarian world that we keep reading about.

BoJo Trump Timelines and Parralels?

Sun, 10 Jul 2022 13:32:58 +1200

Just thinking aloud …

—-

June 2016 … Brexit - Driven by BoJo

November 2016 … US Election - Trump wins.

July 2022 BoJo stands down as his party FINALLY rejects him

Does this suggest that

December 2022 will be when the Rethuglicans finally reject Trump?

Interestingly, that date is just after the mid-terms, which everybody is convinced will be yet another Democrat shellacking, but what if it isn’t?

Will It Happen?

And if it does - will Trump get blamed?

Class Action Against Uber and Lyft

Sun, 03 Jul 2022 14:47:12 +1200

For example ...

set my prices
make informed decisions about which trips to accept
switch freely between platforms etc etc

This lawsuit starts instead by accepting that drivers are independent, then argues that Uber and Lyft are illegally depriving their independent-contractor workers of certain forms of “economic independence” such as the ability to set prices, make informed decisions about which trips to accept, and switch freely between platforms, at a cost to both drivers and consumers.

and

“Uber and Lyft are either employers responsible to their employees under labor standards laws, or they are bound by the laws that prohibit powerful corporations from using their market power to fix prices and engage in other conduct that restrains fair competition to the detriment of both drivers and riders,” the suit argues.

Full complaint : Class Action Against Uber (pdf)

Thinking Allowed

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The People First Newsletter

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 12:56:39 +1200

In case you aren't subscribed ...

Where To Keep The Family Jewels

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 17:27:02 +1200

Would You Keep Your Most Valuable Possessions In The Vault Of A Company That Might One Day Just Close Their Doors And Block You From Getting All Your Stuff Back?

A few years ago … let’s call at it the ‘advent of social’, common wisdom suggested

‘Email is dead … long live Social’. If you know me, you will not be surprised to learn that I disagreed with ‘common wisdom’. I even wrote how the people at the vanguard of the movement were not just wrong … they were really wrong.

Fast forward to 2022 and it is clear that email has not disappeared… in fact for the past few years it has really caught hold … with everyone.

I publish my newsletter over on Substack, a company that when it launched just 5 years ago was greeted with a general shrug of shoulders and comments that could be rolled up into the umbrella term of ‘What Are They Thinking’.

I decided that what they were thinking was really interesting and when they announced their public beta in 2018, signed up to explore more, launching my first ever Substack newsletter on February 8th, 2018.

At the time my Wordpress Blog was at people-first.net … before moving to people first.vision and then on to people first.business. But I also had a mail chimp account which I used to send occasional missives … so needed to move my subscribers from there over to Substack, but life was busy and more importantly, IMHO Substack wasn’t quite ready for what I needed.

It was a year later when I threw my entire lot in with the company, closed down my Mailchimp account and moved my subscribers and committed to a weekly missive. Since then Substack functionality has gone from strength to strength. There are still oddities in some of their design decisions … like why can’t I center text if I really want to center text .. but on the whole … all good.

Of course lots of companies have woken up to the phenomena … both on the newsletter creation side and software to generate said newsletters. The ‘arms race’ is in full swing.

It was at the end of 2021 that the Microsoft company ‘LinkedIN’ launched its own newsletter functionality. If you are on LinkedIN, you know this because you are receiving messages from many people … too many actually, to sign up for their newsletter. But it is clear that people are signing up for them - the question is - are they reading them?

(Let's Find out)

Here’s the Challenge.

Willy Sutton was a bank robber in the United States, dying at the age of 79 in November 1980. There is an apocryphal story where a reporter asked him why he robbed banks. Willy replied;

“ Because That’s where the money is.”

~ Willy Sutton

People often ask me why I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter et al

Willy knows - BUT - being there doesn’t mean these platforms are there only places where my thinking, IP, articles, ideas et al reside. All of that starts here - or over on that newsletter. In documents on my hard drive. In my Obsidian vault. Oh so many places - joined together by one common denominator.

I have control over where and how that content is managed and how it is found. No algorithms. Not 'at the will' of a faceless corporate bureaucrat.

Just my stuff. Where I want it. So when I want it, I can find it.

Linking Your Thinking

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 17:16:04 +1200

I have been tracking Nick Milo and his wonderful work around Obsidian for a while. Recently he announced LYT Kit v5 and 🔗 this is his overview.

People Are Visiting The Archives

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 17:11:45 +1200

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

After my unscheduled hiatus, I have been thinking about the podcast. It is going to be different. I mean everything is going to be different. Isn’t it? Why would the podcast not be different?

I recorded the first one earlier this week (don’t worry - you didn’t miss it - I haven’t dropped it yet). If you know me, you’ll know that I definitely err on the side of ten words where one will do … I’m working on it!

Brevity. That’s one of the changes.

It’s only 5 minutes - so far so good!

That’s also the thinking behind the newly launched ‘Short Sharp Shock’ - an ‘image lead’ sister publication that will come out weekly questioning what I am calling ‘The Status Futurus’. (Think Status Quo - except in the future.)

Meanwhile, the Blog has been redesigned to allow for easier navigation, titleless less short asides (why should everything have a title - including a Powerpoint slide) .. The book is still for sale, I am toying with a second book - similar principle - totally different topic,

And then there are the archives.

… and talking of archives and the use thereof?

Q: How do I know that people are coming given that I don’t overly bother with analytics?

A: Because people keep on writing to me telling me that a link is broken.

Sadly, yes, I know and as they are raised I either fix them or remove them.

The problem stems from using a series of People First domain changes over the past few years. Older posts pointing to people-first.net, the experimental wiki and glossary just will not work.

My sincere apologies.

We're getting there.

The Four Day Work Week - Is New Zealand Being Left Behind?

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 15:36:43 +1200

You can read the article here.

It’s not really a question as to whether New Zealand is being left behind. I think there are many countries facing this challenge … but the question is what is the challenge?

I ask because I believe that there is a massive conflation of this as people make their arguments..

Does a 4 day week mean

Working 40 hours in 4 days

OR are we really talking about reducing the number of hours of a standard week to 32 hours?

If the latter we are essentially awarding people a 20% increase in their wage/salary… really? From businesses who argue that they can’t afford a 2 Percent increase in salaries?

If it is the former … what’s the big deal? It isn't that hard to reschedule the teams .. and the benefits to the staff ... priceless!

Imagine cutting out 20% of these rides every week!

A Good Idea That Might Go Wrong OR A Bad Idea That Will Get Worse?

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 16:50:56 +1200

A New Prediction Market Lets Investors Bet Big on Almost Anything - I see it is behind a paywall - but you can read it all on Apple News

The article is about a ‘new’ prediction market : Kalshi - which initially had problems with getting approval …

“But their concerns were overruled by the agency’s politically appointed commissioners, one of whom has since joined Kalshi’s board.”

The concerns are clear - but for all of that - I can’t help wondering if this still might be a good idea. (Revolving doors between government and commerce aside.)

Of course - they aren’t the first. Heard of predictit (I never knew it was a Kiwi play.)

Good Grief - Can Writers(*) At Least Question What They Are Being Told

Tue, 31 May 2022 17:04:23 +1200

How Remote-First Crypto Players Could End the Company HQ

We will see.

BUT

The real news buried inside the post is how many of these ~~scams~~ companies are based in Malta, The Caymans, The Bahamas … very … what’s the word … ‘levelling’?

As for crap like this …

““Fellow crypto exchange Kraken followed suit in doing away with its HQ in April, and while CEO Jesse Powell said the closure was specifically a response to incidents of crime impacting its employees on the way into the San Francisco office, he added Kraken has “no plans to establish a new, formal global HQ.”

My bold - BUT - if that really is the reason - why not set up an office in a different city - in Texas or Florida say

(*) I have a hard time calling them ‘reporters’ or ‘journalists’.

There Are Three Sides To Every Coin

Tue, 31 May 2022 16:57:35 +1200

As long as Spotify continues to generate headlines like Joe Rogan: We Have a ‘Mental Health Problem Disguised as a Gun Problem

I am good with Netflix generating headlines like Netflix CEO defends Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais

Though I take issue with Netflix falling back onto the ‘Free Speech’ defence. I would rather they used the ‘change the channel’ argument.

The Future of Personalization

Wed, 11 May 2022 14:37:49 +1200

Don’t get too excited - it’s a McKinsey paper.

The future of personalization - and how to get ready for it.

Physical spaces will be ‘digitized’
Empathy will scale
Brands will use ecosystems to personalize journeys end-to-end

... wait - what?

"Empathy will scale."

You can't make this stuff up. Talk about buzzword compliance!

Then - when I was looking for a suitable image to use for this post ... I came across this doozy from Sitecorp.

Content is empathy at scale.

Good Grief!

If You Don't Add Value - Why Are You There?

Wed, 11 May 2022 14:19:57 +1200

It is telling that someone like Doug Rushkoff can write these words;

Only individuals who create value for the company are awarded new stock proportionate to their contributions.

💬 Douglas Rushkoff

... without questioning the principle.

The corollary is of course that there are people that work inside a company that don't add value, which for yours truly is of course like a 'red rag to a bull' - because as the title of this post suggests, if you are employed by a company and not adding value to that company - then why are you there?

Stakeholder capitalism (apparently) 'solves' the problem.

‘Stakeholder capitalism’ is the buzzword du jour for business practices that strive to achieve more than profits and a high stock price.

💬 McKinsey

If you want to read more - you can:

Putting stakeholder capitalism into practice.

To be fair, the idea of 'Stakeholder Capitalism' has been around for several decades, although who actually coined the term is up for debate, with names including Klaus Schwab (Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum), Peter Drucker and Tom Peters.

Still wondering? This is not a bad primer.

So yes - it is not a new idea - it's just that as the world's conversation is moving into fairness and equality, as we see a (kind of) resurgence of Unions and as 'capitalists' are pushed into the corner of 'defending their position' ... the term is emerging and arguably being positioned as the logical next step for a 'sustainable economy'.

I wrote about this over three years ago when I shared a Ted Talk from Nick Hanauer. Today, that video has had over 5 million views. At the point of 'first discovery', I had not heard of Nick - but as I pointed out, the principles of what he was talking about are engrained in People First thinking.

Today, you can hear the same language when people talk about DAOs in the world of 'Web3' and quite a few other places.

But then many steps before 'Stakeholder Capitalism', there was something called 'The Cooperative Movement' which got its start in 1844 in Rochdale a small town in Lancashire, England.

So far, I have not read anything that clearly articulates the distinction between Stakeholder Capitalism and Cooperatives and which and why each might be better or worse than the other. Sometimes I wonder if 'cooperative' is too 'radical' in this world - so we keep inventing new words to describe the same thing.

I have always liked the New Values/Old Values - New Power/Old Power model originally developed by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms nearly ten years ago.

So, picking on a random ~~target~~ company like Uber, which despite hanging its hat on 'the sharing economy' is actually 💯 an 'old thinking' capitalist company.

Now consider a company called ATX Coop Taxi - a cooperative taxi service based in Austin that has been around for over 5 years. NO - they aren't as well known - but their service is a 'cooperative'.

The question is why hasn’t it taken off?

That is for another time.

Toast Generally Lands One of Two Ways

Wed, 04 May 2022 18:59:54 +1200

“The expansion of shelter-in-place, or as we call it, forcibly imprisoning people in their homes… is, in my opinion, breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong… What the fuck!… This is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.”

💬 Musk in America in April 2020 re lockdowns

Meanwhile …

""

💬 Musk in China in April 2022 re lockdowns

Read The Whole Thing - spells out very clearly which side the bread is buttered on - and the struggles to ensure that the toast doesn’t land face down!

Every Bay Area House Party

Wed, 04 May 2022 18:47:30 +1200

Astral Codex Ten had me curled up on the floor in stitches ….

Man, it’s been a crazy few months. You hear I quit my job at Google and founded a fintech startup?”

“No! What do you do?”

“War insurance!”

“War insurance?”

“Yeah. We pay out if there’s a war.”

“Isn’t that massively correlated risk?”

“Yeah. The idea is, we sell war insurance to companies who do badly if there’s a war - tourist attractions and the like. Then we sell the same amount of peace insurance to military contractors. As long as we get the probabilities and costs right, we make the same profit either way.”

“Neat idea, how’s it going?”

“Great! Ayatollah Khameini just bought a ten billion dollar policy.”

“Of the war version or the peace version?”

“Can’t say, confidentiality agreement.”

Read The Whole Thing

The Marketoonist Nails Data Protection

Tue, 03 May 2022 14:47:56 +1200

Walled Gardens

GDPR Compliance

Relevant Advertising

Zero Party Data, First-Party Data, Second-Party Data and Third-Party Data

Can We Blame the Digital Age for the Disembodiment of Knowledge?

Mon, 02 May 2022 12:33:24 +1200

This is a question asked by Valerie Andrews over on BizCatalyst360

My short answer is NO. No we can’t.

I’ll get into the main thrust of my positon re the article in a moment - but first lets' talk about ‘the disembodiment of knowledge’.

“Disembodiment …. manifesting as a disruption of bodily self-awareness which induces a disturbing feeling of self-detachment or “depersonalisation”.

If that is disembodiment … then I don’t even agree with the premise. Maybe if a discussion ensues in the thread below - I will come back to this, but here is what I do know. The internet has certainly thrown open the doors to questioning facts and that is not always a good thing. But equally it is not a bad thing.

The world is a sphere is a fact. Despite the arguments. In fact, not to get meta - I would argue that simply rejecting the idea that the world is a sphere and is in fact flat is not an argument, but a simple unsubstantiated contradiction. I for one cannot get into those kinds of conversations.

Remember this?

“An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.”

But some ‘facts’ aren’t as clear - because it tends to question what we have been taught. As an English school kid I was taught about India and Pakistan. I ‘knew’ the facts.

Or did I?

I don’t know the answer. But thanks to the internet I now know that what I considered to be a ‘fact’ is actually up for debate. It depends on your context.

Anyway. Back to the plot.

Valerie opened her article …

“This is the age of Kindle, cloud storage, and the app-for-everything. We’ve said goodbye to personal libraries and printed books, to cabinets and accordion files, to calculators and accounting ledgers. But is our understanding of the world—and even our sense of self— diminished as we lose our paper trail? The Berkeley artist Ann Arnold recently joined me in considering the advantages of the analog life. Here are our a few of our observations about old-fashioned ways of storing and accessing information.”

I don’t use a Kindle. I definitely use cloud storage and use a lot of (good) apps for things I want to do.

Just from that paragraph …

“We’ve said goodbye to personal libraries.”

No we haven’t.

In fact despite being very much a digital citizen, I have not said goodbye to most of the things on that list - other than (filing) cabinets and accordion files (thankfully). My calculator, accounting ledger and personal library exist on my computer. Needless to say, printed books do not - but yes, I do have them, because, like Valerie - I like them. Very much - just like my vinyl record collection and my CD collection they are very much part of me.

BUT - my information world is 90 to 95% digital. I have ‘everything’ on my computer - which means that where ever I am in the world - I can still pull up something I need when I need it - try doing that with your ‘at home library’ whilst travelling, or in the office, or on holiday, or from seat 36C on a plane crossing the Atlantic ….

In fact … to riff on another line from the article ….

“In the 2020s, the Englishman John Philpin viewed his computer as an extension of his brain, a virtual (fully backed up) vault filled with a lifetime of accumulated memories and accomplishments.”

Not to take away from the physical book or the analogue world … I love them both and the digital world is the same - yet different.

I too love the touch of the paper when reading the book - but knowledge isn’t only found on paper. Part of the knowledge I store digitally is in video format, others in audio format, yet others in image format. I am utilising beta software that allows me to find things inside of the video and audio. Not yet ready for prime time - but definitely coming.

Knowledge is also found in comments in threads - and if I see something like that - it is captured and added to my digital vault. Take for example this post, which was orginally going to be a comment posted to BizCatalyst. (NOT LinkedIN or Facebook - as I intimated in those two spaces - I like to comment where the work is done.) If it remained a comment, it would still be added to my my digital archive with a link to where it was posted. As a post it is automatically part of my ‘knowledge’ world.

Meanwhile, in the image world Apple - and I suspect Google (though since I don’t use them - I cant absolutely say) - allows me to search for text inside of photographs. So I can take a picture of a restaurant’s menu and later search for that restaurant name - and up it comes, together with the phone number that I can click on to call.

Try doing that with a book!

Valerie also referenced French author Henri Bosco. How she described his thinking reminded me of Zettelkasten. Unclear whether he specifically used the methodology - but there are plenty of writers that do.

One of the systems I use in my knowledge management is Obsidian - but Notion and Roam are two other alternative. All of them support a digital version of Zettlekasten. I DO NOT use Zettlekasten - for my needs the overhead is too great - but I know people that do.

By the way - to answer …

“What do we lose as we toss out the stash of work-related articles, the stacks of reference books, the cabinets full of rigorous research, the piles of faded diaries and journals?”

I scan things into my system as I go. So I don’t have to make that decision.

Finally, it’s an old one - but thought I would share this YouTube video … imagining a conversation when the world moved on from the scroll to the book.

In conclusion, ‘HumanIT’ is moving on. The world of atoms is not being abandoned but rather it now has a companion in the world of bytes. I would say that the storage and retrieval (retrieval being something that Valerie does not specifically call out in her article) of knowledge is best managed by bits and bytes - not atoms … and so this transition is finally allowing knowledge to ‘come home’.

What do you think?

🐧 The Twitter End Game

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 14:24:26 +1200

Two writers - well … write …

🔗 Ezra Klein and 🔗 Venkatesh Rao providing their take on what all this twitter stuff means. They seem to agree on the short term effect …

Venkatesh writes

“He can no more prevent Twitter from turning into a sort of personal Valhalla orbiting his person than Jupiter can stop being a massive planet. Which means there will be a massive shift from vibe-neutral public space to some sort of Free Speech Thunderdome where Elon sets the Vibe of the Month for you to either rejoice in, or resist.”

Ezra writes

“Betting against Musk has made fools of many in recent years. But I count myself, still, as a cautious believer in Musk’s power to do the impossible — in this case, to expose what Twitter is and to right-size its influence. In fact, I think he’s the only one with the power to do it. Musk is already Twitter’s ultimate player. Now he’s buying the arcade. Everything people love or hate about it will become his fault. Everything he does that people love or hate will be held against the platform. He will be Twitter.”

But maybe not the long term one.

Venkatesh seems to be of the belief of one more nail in the blog coffin - though I can’t reconcile how he arrives at that conclusion.

While Ezra writes;

“He will have won the game. And nothing loses its luster quite like a game that has been beaten.”

Lore - What Is It Good For?

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 14:50:33 +1200

Apparently - absolutely everything, (with apologies to Edwin Star). That said, a really GREAT series of articles by Venkatesh Rao on ‘Lore’ The Index To The Series

This is Part 7 of 7 : 🔗 Towards Management Metamodernism , from which I quote;

Just as Wallace noted, in 1993, that literary writing was increasingly substituting TV-watching for observation of life (which, as he pointed out, was understandable, since life itself was about sitting on a couch watching television), by 2007 or so, on the threshold of the global financial crisis, “external reality” to leaders meant the output of the literary-industrial complex.

💬 Venkatesh Rao - Ribbon Farm

(My bold reminding me of the UK series Gogglebox - an entire show where we the viewers watched other viewers watch television!)

Dear New Zealand ...

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 11:51:00 +1200

… did you know this was going on in your own backyard?

“In the back room of an old and greying building in the northernmost region of New Zealand, one of the most advanced computers for artificial intelligence is helping to redefine the technology’s future.”

🔗 A new vision of artificial intelligence for the people

… as reported by MIT.

Vibe Shifts - Are You Part Of Them?

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 11:20:13 +1200

I never made the switch from photography to illustrations on my web properties, but I do very much remember when Unsplash seemed to suddenly be the ‘defacto choice’ for photography on many sites. More recently seeing Craft and others add the service right into their apps, I have felt for a while that I need to discover a new source of visual inspiration.

Was that due to that acquisition, or is it the uniquity of images from the Unsplash library? Are they related?

Case in point …. how many times have you seen this image?

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

According to Unsplash it has nearly 150 million views and has been downloaded 1,225,278 times - not recorded are the 2,397 sites I have visited that use this image!

So yes, I have noticed that I am struggling to find images on Unsplash that work for what I am writing about. Which is why I am eagerly waiting for my access to DALL-E 2 and … Midjourney … because I already have plans to change the illustrative approach to my blogs and social sharing.

I thought it was just me - until I read this today;

Sometime around 2015 there was a mysterious vibe shift in web design. It came so suddenly, and with so much decisive force, that it stood apart from the normal ebb and flow of aesthetic trends. It was like an invasive species taking over an ecosystem from a weaker competitor.

💬 Nathan Baschez

🔗 DALL·E 2 and The Origin of Vibe Shifts

I think when Unsplash (the free photography website) was founded in 2013 it killed the old vibe by democratizing access to great photography, and thereby ruining its function as a costly status signal. Companies then started using custom illustrations in their brand aesthetic because illustrations suddenly became much more rare and expensive relative to photos.

I’m interested in this little piece of design history because today I think history is on the brink of repeating itself. Now that we have DALL·E 2 (and other AI image generators), a huge portion of visual vibes will become democratized. What Unsplash did to photography, DALL·E 2 will do to illustrations, 3D renderings, and eventually all visual styles.

In other words: a vibe shift is indeed coming.

A Different Take On Ikigai

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:44:22 +1200

Spotted here.

Funny.

Thinking Allowed

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Finally!!

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 14:30:08 +1200

Really happy to report that the redesign here at People First is done. More to come, but first spending a little time cleaning up ~~some~~ a lot of the older posts.

Am I Dead?

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 12:46:35 +1200

You know in 🔗 Coco there is this idea that you need to be remembered to continue to live in the land of the dead?

I don’t think I am dead - but can anyone out there confirm?

Asking - because on three seperate occasions this past week - someone else has sought me out for a meeting, which I have confirmed and agreed to, only to then be totally ghosted.

I know. I know.

It’s not them … it’s me!

A Letter From Richard Feynman to Koichi Mano.

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 16:16:00 +1200

I wanted to share this because for me it truly resonated with the message we often hear in these modern times which is to “Follow Your Passion.”

The importance of the letter is (as is so often the case with Fenyman) - deep and clear.

Dear Kichi

I was very happy to hear from you, and that you have such a position in the Research Laboratories.

Unfortunately, your letter made me unhappy for you seem to be truly sad. It seems that the influence of your teacher has been to give you a false idea of what are worthwhile problems. The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. A problem is grand in science if it lies before us unsolved and we see some way for us to make some headway into it. I would advise you to take even simpler, or as you say, humbler, problems until you find some you can really solve easily, no matter how trivial. You will get the pleasure of success, and of helping your fellow man, even if it is only to answer a question in the mind of a colleague less able than you. You must not take away from yourself these pleasures because you have some erroneous idea of what is worthwhile.

You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods. But at the same time I had another Ph.D. Student (Albert Hibbs) whose thesis was on how it is that the winds build up waves blowing over water in the sea. I accepted him as a student because he came to me with the problem he wanted to solve. With you I made a mistake, I gave you the problem instead of letting you find your own; and left you with a wrong idea of what is interesting or pleasant or important to work on (namely those problems you see you may do something about). I am sorry, excuse me. I hope by this letter to correct it a little.

I have worked on innumerable problems that you would call humble, but which I enjoyed and felt very good about because I sometimes could partially succeed. For example, experiments on the coefficient of friction on highly polished surfaces, to try to learn something about how friction worked (failure). Or, how elastic properties of crystals depends on the forces between the atoms in them, or how to make electroplated metal stick to plastic objects (like radio knobs). Or, how neutrons diffuse out of Uranium. Or, the reflection of electromagnetic waves from films coating glass. The development of shock waves in explosions. The design of a neutron counter. Why some elements capture electrons from the L-orbits, but not the K-orbits. General theory of how to fold paper to make a certain type of child’s toy (called flexagons). The energy levels in the light nuclei. The theory of turbulence (I have spent several years on it without success). Plus all the “grander” problems of quantum theory.

No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.

You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are.

Best of luck and happiness. Sincerely, Richard P. Feynman

The Original Post at Letters of Note has gone - but can be found on the internet archive.

Talking About Failed Leadership ...

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 16:13:38 +1200

Just after stumbling 🔗 across this

I found this

🔗 Former tech billionaire’s Marin County mansion, once listed for $23 million, drops to $9 million after foreclosure

What tech billionaire was that wondered?

Eric Greenberg came the Google reply. He that founded Viant and then left and founded Scient. (I always thought that an odd move - to my mind they were identical companies - but no matter … onwards …)

To saving you going there, according to Wikipedia, Scient was bought and sold over the years and whatever is still left of it now sits in Publicis. Meanwhile Viant was acquired by something called Divine that filed for bankruptcy 20 years ago - and then liquidated after some of the execs were accused on looting subsidiaries.

**Meanwhile, more rabbit hold diving found that **

🔗 NY jury awards $12 million to Fla. billionaire in wine dispute

TL~DR … Eric lost in court to one of the Koch brothers over selling counterfeit wine.

Read more about that here …

🔗 Scient Founder Accused of Selling Counterfeit Wine

and out of that Eric emerged once more ….. to found ‘Wrap’

🔗 How Eric Greenberg Became a Once (and Future?) Internet Billionaire - WRAP

Who / What is ’Wrap’? Try this …

🔗 About - WRAP

LMK if you get what they are doing. I don’t.

“How mighty are the fallen.”

Sometimes Old Posts Just Don't Hold Up

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 15:56:50 +1200

🔗 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate

It dates back to 2006 - and no need to read it, because in the opening paragraph they highlighted three US business leaders that we needed to pay attention to.

William Ford Jr., Chairman and CEO - Ford
Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO - General Electric
Steve Ballmer, CEO - Microsoft

I think around that time there was a phrase bandied around …

#winning

📚The Cellist by Daniel Silva

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 15:46:13 +1200

Just finished reading: 🔗 The Cellist by Daniel Silva 📚

Definitely a good read … kept me turning the pages … though I take issue with him being described as ‘the new LeCarre … or am I just being overly defensive of one of my ‘4 Johns’.

That all said, the most amazing thing about this book is that following Jan 6th 2021 he revised the book top to bottom in 6 weeks. Not that this should cause you to read it … but absolutely testament to his desire for realism in his books.

This was my first Silva … but it won’t be my last.

MicroBlog Newsletter - The Issues

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 14:58:26 +1200

It truly is annoying that I only have 3 hours per day to try out CSS edit changes on my MicroBlog newsletter - and I can’t even choose when those three hours are. The draft appears - and then the clock starts ticking.

I have got errors - and each day I get the draft and then I try to fix the CSS in the time available - provided that I have nothing else going on - until I can’t any longer because my time is up.

Right now I am wrestling down these problems

🔸 my centered HR SOMETIMES isn’t centered.
🔸 ‘>’ HIDES the actual quote, while ‘blockquote’ works as it says on the tin.
🔸 my ‘attribution’ line isn’t indenting.
🔸 the font size doesn’t work well on a phone.

I know it is me. That doesn’t make it any less annoying!

It also doesn’t end there - because once this is fixed, I do have some other ideas on styling.

Should be done by 2023.

The Four Natural Forces Applied To Business

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 14:30:00 +1200

I used the 4 natural forces model in my 📚recent book as an analogy for the 4 forces of humanity.

And then I read that 🔗 Fermilab has found a discrepancy with the mass of the W boson.

“The current 'standard model' of particle physics describes four fundamental forces. Three of those — electromagnetism, gravity and the strong nuclear force — push or pull things, broadly speaking. The fourth force — the weak nuclear force — doesn't really push or pull anything. Instead it makes one type of particle transform into another type of particle. In doing so we get the force responsible for radiation, and it's the force that drives nuclear fusion in the sun. So it's quite important.”

I’ll say it’s important. Now I will have to revisit some of the thinking in the book!

Guy Kawasaki and Marc Benioff In Conversation

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 07:56:39 +1200

Guy Kawasaki was probably for first person in the business world with the title ‘Evangelist’ and coincidentally an old neighbour of mine.

Marc and I worked with each other back in my Oracle days.

This podcast has Guy interviewing Marc talking of his trajectory from 19 year old college kid to CEO of a Fortune 100 company.

While it might SEEM to be yet another Silicon Valley story - this one is presented through the lens of what makes Marc different to the average SV success story … which is his humanity and desire to give back. He’s doing it in spades around San Francisco. But elswhere aswell.

He’s also very big into meditation.

🔗 Great Podcast

The Famine of 1932-33

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 13:16:09 +1200

I was talking to a long time friend of mine last night. She is of Ukrainian descent.

I knew about Stalin’s ‘Great Famine’, but did not know how much of this act of aggression occurred in Ukraine.

🔗 Ukraine - The famine of 1932–33 (Holodomor)

“Of the estimated five million people who died in the Soviet Union, almost four million were Ukrainians.”

🚧 The Coup We Are Not Talking About

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 17:31:59 +1200

Shoshana Zuboff calls this development The Coup We Are Not Talking About. The subhead of that essay makes the choice clear: We can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both. Her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, gave us a name for what we’re up against. A bestseller, it is now published in twenty-six languages. But our collective oblivity is also massive.

💬 Doc Searls (my emphasis)

Hear her speak

How Are We Going To Manage The Transformation We Need?

Sat, 02 Apr 2022 16:50:27 +1200

I often listen to a podcast or read an article and at the end of it my reaction is 'yes … and' or 'yes … but’.

IF I feel sufficiently moved - a link might get posted to my Thought Stream, together with a pithy observation - and I move on.

The Thought Stream

On the stream I offer a randomized link, that takes you to one of the posts. the oldest of which dates back 2005!

Sometimes though … just sometimes … what I am reading or listening to, triggers more than a few synapses and I am prompted into writing something more substantial. This is one such occasion after I listened to ‘The Thoughtful Leader’ - a podcast hosted by Mindy Gibbins-Klein when she was talking with Steve Sanders.

Full disclosure - whilst I don’t really know either Mindy or Steve - we have talked, exchanged ideas and generally feel we are on the same playing field. All three of us happen to belong to a tight network that runs out of the UK, but in my language, I wouldn’t say I ‘know’ either of them ‘well’ (yet), whatever that means. That said, they both come across as very good people that I will get to know better over time.

So to that podcast.

First - Mindy - my thanks for the People First call-out - at least that is how I am taking it 😀 … I know you weren’t connecting it to my work - but I’ll take whatever I can get - just like when Zuckerborg (sic) borrowed the phrase, I know he wasn’t talking about me - and in fact, I don’t believe him - but nothing wrong with pushing the image to remind people!

Steve - good job and on topic - as we explored when we recently talked. I think we might be cut from the same cloth, even though our suits might be different.

I certainly do not disagree with anything you said - but I do have a couple of observations.

One - Generational Differences

I agree on the challenge of focussing on generational differences. I know 15 years olds that are 80 and 80 years old that ‘remain’ teenagers. I get why business has this need for categorization - I reject that people need to adopt it.

The New Yorker seems to agree.

Why do people adopt corporate language and thinking that is at odds with what is good for us?

For example;
I reject the use of that horrible corporate word ‘content’ that people spend so much time working to deliver into the platformed silos of LinkedIn, Facebook, TicToc, Snapchat, Instagram, What’s App and all the rest.
If your work is homogenous, un-differentiated, fodder written to feed the algorithm and garner clicks, hearts and whatever other little badge of honour the corporates regard us with - then perfect.
I would hazard a guess though that most creators don’t think that their posts, articles, essays, photographs, books, images, poems … are anything but that … but that is what we are reducing our IP to.
And of course, because anything that is an homogenized undifferentiated commodity - the price that gets paid is not on value - but how cheap an alternative might be.
.. and do not get me started on Marketing War Rooms!

But let’s keep the plot front and center.

I have been looking and commenting on these supposed generational differences for years and am not quite as optimistic as Steve when it comes to how fast this is going to change. More of that in a minute. But first - let me put my hand up in the air and emphasize that Steve is not alone in his optimism. Who am I to disagree with the findings of Accenture, who in this report seem to support the idea that we are moving towards this new world faster than any of us might think.

Esteban Kolsky is one of the few analysts that picked up on the survey - and in his post reminded us of the vagaries of such surveys!

… “let’s say you are not truly convinced that they WILL actually do what they say they may in a survey (something about an unconscious bias towards being liked makes most of us answer as expected, not as the way we will act, etc.).”

He goes on with this advice …

… “read while wearing rubber gloves and use thongs to “flip pages” if you want to avoid contact – hehe – but definitely read this about how consumers are changing, because outside of the flawed data-collection, the trend is real and well documented.”

… and it is my job as CCO (that’s ‘Chief Contrary Office’) not only to question the findings that were discovered when Accenture surveyed

… “more than 25,000 consumers across 22 countries, with follow-up focus groups in five countries.

(I’ll forgive the language - it’s Accenture, they can’t help it, but I prefer to survey people.)

… but indeed anything that sits oddly that is, in turn, being shared under the banner ‘common wisdom’.

The bottom line is optimism. Don’t get me wrong - even I am optimistic, it’s just the speed of adoption that I am questioning - which brings me to part two.

Two - The Speed of Transformation

First, I hope I am wrong. But, the evidence I am seeing suggests different.

I could highlight so many examples that might suggest how slow this is going to be - but let’s choose three.

Supply Chain Inequality

We have been able to buy ‘$1 throw away ‘designer’ t-shirts’ for decades. Stores like Primark despite pages like this exist because when it comes to action - as opposed to feeling, we turn a blind eye.

Just think for two seconds about the profit behind a $1 t-shirt being sold in a large department store on Oxford Street and other cities around the world. It surely points to inequality and sometimes exploitation somewhere (if not everywhere) in the supply chain.

Exploitation that we all hate and rail against - but we are complicit in our purchase.

What age group does Primark serve

”Whilst in-store customers may differ slightly, Primark’s social audience fall within the 17–24-year age demographic (depending on platform) and are over 90% female.

The very age group that we are pinning our hopes and dreams on to change corporations.

Ease of Transaction over Moral Compass

Uber Eats, Doordash, GrubHub et al make their profits through food delivery.

The mechanics of the transaction has 30% of the food order at your favourite takeaway magically being extracted from the local economy - only to appear as revenue in a company in Oakland, California.

It’s clear. But we continue to do it.

So much for being aware of social issues and forcing corporations to change.

A similar argument can be applied to Uber itself because it is ‘oh so convenient - and cheap … even though even in London there are apps that compete like Gett … so people who ‘say’ they are demanding Corporations to do better - vote with their thumb when it comes to the short term benefit of saving a buck. Principles are gone!

Don’t believe me? Consider this which headlines with;

“Black cabs roar back into favour as app firms put up their prices.”

Meanwhile - over in the USA …

DC AG Sues Grubhub For Sneaky Fees, Screwing Over Local Restaurants | Techdirt

“But Grubhub didn’t fully cover the costs of these discounts. Instead, it passed most of the costs of the discounts along to the already-struggling restaurants. Grubhub also forced the restaurants to pay their full commission on the discounted orders based on non-discounted prices. This promotion severely cut into restaurants’ already-small profit margins, and misled DC residents who believed their orders through Grubhub would help their favourite restaurants.”

Yikes.

Where is the outrage? Where is the socially aware youth?

Cryptocurrency

16% of Americans say they have ever invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency - depending on which site you visit, the numbers vary for the US and in different countries, but there is no doubt that a lot of people have jumped onto the bandwagon - despite the apparent danger of it being a highly volatile gamble in something that I would guess (no science here), some 90% of those people could not even start to describe how cryptocurrency works.

But that isn’t what this bit is about.

Lets start with another podcast that asks Can Our Climate Survive Bitcoin? - it’s an hour long - but well worth a listen - and it contains some eye opening stories.

One of the many stories - American towns competing with each other to offer massively discounted power to ‘crypto miners’ where the workers earn $20 per hour, and the owners - well - it’s the usual story.

Scott Galloway nailed it in one of his pieces;

and

“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”

💬 George Orwell

So how do you reconcile the crypto movement with the climate change crowd …

… “almost half of all American men ages 18 to 29 say they have invested in, traded or used a form of cryptocurrency.”

SOURCE

Maybe its just that the ‘modern youth’ are massively intelligent …

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

💬 F. Scott Fitzgerald

But I am not yet convinced.

No research yet - but as the funds spring up supporting this brave new crypto world and our children are apparently eschewing investment in the ‘extractive industries’ - we find this headline;

Exxon Mobil reportedly gets in on Bitcoin mining

Follow the money babe - follow the money.

Three - Altruism

Riddle me this … why are boomers generally seen as the ‘bad guys’. This just 5 days ago : Boomers responsible for nearly one third of greenhouse gas emissions, study suggests. Really, do some google searching - it is clear that boomers are positioned as 'the problem'.

I have no idea how true that is (full disclosure - I am a boomer)

But It Gets Worse

I am a Boomer
I am English
I am Male
I am Straight
I am White
Single handidly - most of the ills of the world might fall at my feet if you listen to the common narrative.

I do however know enough that the same data can produce very different conclusions.

But consider this;

Vint Cerf and Bob Metcalf’s work gave us TCP/IP - the internet wouldn’t work without that protocol

Tim Berners Lee’s work gave us the worldwide web.

So as to avoid confusion (and please note - this is a real image - not a photoshop .. I was there when it was taken.) …

Let’s write that in a different way.

Baby Boomers Vint Cerf (78) and Bob Kahn (83) hold the join honorary title of ‘Godfathers of The Internet’. Tim Berners-Lee (66) came up with the World Wide Web and none of them are millionaires in the ‘millionaire sense’ - and certainly not billionaires.

It’s also telling that I more than likely need to provide context as to who these people are - but that when we move on to other generations, no explanation is necessary. We just somehow know their names.

Jeff Bezos at 58 sits at the cusp of Boomer and GenX, the other names you will be familiar with include;

GenX

Jack Dorsey (45)
Sergey Brin (48)
Larry Page (49)
Elon Musk (50)

Millenial

Mark Zuckerberg (37)
Evan Spiegel (31)
Zhang Yiming (38)

The web was created by Berner-Lee as a place of equality - where everyone had a publishing press and/or microphone - if they chose to use them.

But the money was made by ‘post boomers’.

The cesspit of corruption, bias and fake news - Fakebook was created by a millennial. The other one, Twitter, by a GenXer.

I could write it another way;

Boomers created the internet and the web and did not turn themselves into money-grubbing billionaires - like GenX and Millenials do today.

Now, who’s destroying the world?

Bottom Line

No matter the indignation we feel, or how loud our screams for a fairer society, the fact is that when it comes down to it, the further that happens from your wallet and/or physical presence - the more easily it is forgotten - or even ignored.

The t-shirt situation occurs because they are made on the other side of the world - too far away for me to affect. Besides - if I don’t buy them - others will - what difference does what I do make?

Uber, is an identical situation - except the person you are now stealing (what word would you use) from might be your neighbour!

And it is all because people, on the whole, do not understand. They don’t think - why should they - life is too busy!

As a result, corporations will continue as they do and won’t be challenged as they transition their businesses into spaces to make even more money - at whatever cost.

Yes - there are exceptions. Consider Patagonia, a retailer that takes its values to heart. Revenues of $1Billion - not chump change - but that’s less than Primark’s pre Covid annual profits - interesting to note that Arthur Ryan who founded Primark is of the Silent Generation as is Yvon Chouinard who founded Patagonia.

If we are really going to compare generations through the lens of ‘business oligarchs’ - it looks like the world might have got better with Boomers - and it has been going downhill ever since!

Conclusion

And, this is all written with a bit of tongue in cheek because I do so object to behavioural classification based on age.

But it’s also asking why we think everything is suddenly going to be different - and different quick - just because we hear how ‘woke’ and ‘aware’ the youth are - when it comes to global challenges. ‘the youth’ are coming to save us.

You might not remember the sixties (if you do - you probably ‘weren’t there’), but that generation had hopes, ideals and aspirations. They were also going to change the world for the better. Did they? Was it for the better?

To borrow a ‘sign off’ from my friend Geoff Moore - that’s what I think … what do you think?

What Is The Future Of Work?

Sat, 02 Apr 2022 14:39:47 +1200

Let me point out - again - that the answer to the question is useless - because the question is badly framed. I have written about this before here, here and here and a whole host of other places aswell.

The Conclusion

There is no future of work. There is only a future of income.

Fast forward to a LinkedIn graphic that was presented to me last week.

It appeared in Brett King's LinkedIn stream. Brett and I are connected on LinkedIn, and have a couple of very good mutual friends in common. Brett, like another 'futurist' Gerd Leonhard is doing a great job in 'getting the word out', but I worry that the word being got out is not just oversimplified but actually harmful because people are being lulled into a false sense of security.

This Is One Such Example

First, I assume that 'Aritificial' is a typo and not some new technological development ...

... but the lack of proofreading of a single sentence might be a clue to how substantial the thinking is that underpins the idea.

Important: Please do not take this post as my taking an anti position on Brett. I don’t know him, but do follow and pay attention. He is not wrong on a number of issues. Like these two ..

Brett's Take

The Original Post on LinkedIn (sorry - I wanted to embed it here - but LinkedIn is the only site that seems to fail with a WordPress embeds) ... go figure.

The crux of my issue is the flip approach to what is happening in the world of business today.

I limited my response to a few lines ... hoping that a reader would be able to 'read between them', Brett read the lines, but not between them.

Brett duly responded ...

Readers of this blog will know that this is something I understand.

BUT

The point I was trying to make is not about the future of work - we know is being redefined through outsourcing, offshoring, automation, AI, the gig economy, zero hour contracts ... and it is clear those jobs aren't going to come back.

My point is (and always has been) more 'People Firsty' ... that is as all of this comes to be - how will people make income to live their lives in the future?

Example 1

In the comments in Brett's thread people referenced the four day week - and everyone is talking about how it is already happening. The assumption seems to be that a staff member will no longer work 5 days and instead work 4 days.

This is quite brilliant and lovely and utopian and - all those things we want to have in and around our lives and existence. Who doesn’t want to work less ...

If their salary is not affected.

But let's just take a couple of seconds to do a pretty shallow dive ... if people are working 4 days, not 5, then they are working 20% less. To let them work less and not pay them less is the equivalent of companies giving each of those people a 20% salary increase.

Are companies going to do that?

The answer is in plain sight because we have a stalking horse in the race. Thanks to COVID we have proof points all over the world that people don’t want to 'go back to the office' and in turn, some companies have responded with

That's ok - work wherever you want!

Spectacular - until you read the small print ...

This isn't the only article out there, do a search and you will find hundreds, if not thousands of articles debating the merits of paying your staff based on what locals earn.

Case in point - move 200 miles up the I80 from San Francisco to Reno, salaries are nothing like that of the Bay Area. On top of that since Reno is in Nevada - there is no state tax. In California - well like most places, it varies, but here is one slice ...

$115,648 – $590,746

9.30%

Source : HR Block

- so moving your life 200 miles reduces your cost of living substantially just based on tax savings. But there's more ...

Beyond the tax break, the Reno cost of living index is just 116.2, compared to San Francisco's at a whopping 244 - and that does not include the tax break just described.

So if you can do your job remotely, why wouldn’t you want to move to a cheaper place - and collect the same income. (Putting the comparison of living in Reno versus San Francisco aside.)

It does seem to be a perfect idea - except your employer is not generally going to allow that - because they do - and will - pay you based on where you live - not where you work!

I get the argument, I really do - but that's my point. If companies aren't going to pay people for value delivered, but based on where they live, then why are they suddenly going to pay you a higher daily rate because you want to work less?

To me, the 4 day week is an experiment to cut salaries - legally. It won't happen suddenly - just over time. They might well leave your salary in place, but everyone's? ... and when you leave will they continue to pay your premium rate to the next person?

Example 2

As more and more people leave their cubes to follow their dreams and passions - which is what everyone is telling you to do - right? Follow your dreams - it will all work out.

What dream and passion are you going to follow?

Look around today and you will find little societal support for artists, musicians, writers, poets et al. Imagine if the number of such people suddenly doubled, grew fivefold or even tenfold as we all follow our dreams ... are all those people suddenly going to be earning a lot more? (it's a rhetorical question.)

We are also told that there is so much opportunity in the professions of care-giving, social services, teachers, hospital workers, elderly care. They are right. Lots of opportunities. They are all on the ‘hot professions’ list, but before you get too excited, go talk to the people who work in those areas now. Ask them why Teachers are resigning en masse? Why do nurses get trained and don’t go into health services?

There are countless examples of how society (that's you and me), value these professions. We don't.

Back to musicians - we pay Spotify 10 bucks a month to stream an 'all you can eat' flow of music to your ears. The artists are generally not well rewarded. But it's not as if Spotify aren't making good money. How else do they afford to $100 million to sign up a single podcast - or buy company after company as they seek to lock up the world of podcasting. (BTW - they are doing it because the more you listen to that - the less they have to pay out.)

To conclude, as wonderful as it is for all of us to follow our dreams and passions - so we can all live fulfilled lives - we also need to earn an income. And we are barely doing that today, so how is that going to get better?

I said something better change
I said something better change
I said something better change
I said something better change
The Stranglers

Or maybe we will all move into social services, hospitals, caring for the elderly - since they are all on the ‘hot professions’ list. That said, the last two years have clearly demonstrated that while ‘society’ might value the people in those roles, it is clear that the paymasters do not.

In short, as we replace jobs with automation - and people don’t have a way to replace that income, something is not adding up.

Bottom line - as organizations remove people from their vendor supply chain and automate sales to improve business efficiency, more and more people will be left out of the workforce - and no matter how many Norman Tebbits (Sorry old English reference), how about Kim Kardashian's words of 'motivation'.

I have a way of looking at the issue. I call it ...

The Business Equation

At the simplest level, the business equation recognizes that every commercial entity has an input - where it creates something using people, money and/or assets to create a product or service that is sold - the output. The 'black box' in the middle is the business. Your business. Any business.

To maximize shareholder value, the business seeks to reduce the cost of what it produces or increase the price of what it sells. Yes there all kinds of techniques that are used - but reduce it all down and you are left with

It is a simplification, but the logic holds.

This is an early simplification of the model. The whole enchilada will become a post unto itself.

It is also true that on the left-hand side of the equation the fixed costs of 'people' is really high - which is why over the years, companies have sought to cut those costs by 'getting people off the books'. That's where outsourcing and offshoring got their start. Automation through Robotics is now turning into AI and then at contractual levels, the gig economy / zero-hour contracts all play into the needs of corporations who keep on pushing the boundaries of 'just in time' 'people'.

And you thought the days of people being cogs in the corporate engine was a thing of the past!

Now imagine every company big and small working to remove people from the equation in this way. Where does it leave people? Every mini Business Equation on the left of that diagram is doing its bit to outsource, offshore, automate .... and where do people fit in that equation?

To quote my friend Geoffrey Moore ...

That's What I Think - What Do You Think?

Andrew Yang … Pay The F$#^*ing Artist

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 09:46:10 +1200

Artist for Andrew Yang’s crypto lobbying DAO is offered $500 after being promised ‘a percentage’ of revenue in a project that raised at least $790,000

Wasn’t he the dude espousing UBI in the Dem run ups?

I guess we are going to need it if people like him maintain this story that we need to work for free to raise our exposure … payment be damned.

The artist should pay attention to Harlan Ellison

Is Provocation An Excuse?

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 09:16:04 +1200

If not - when do you stand on bullying? Just keep taking it?

If it is - then … well read on … is Chris Rock America?

Take #1: Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock violated the law—so if Rock wants to press charges against Smith, Smith should face punishment. But Rock provoked Smith with a cruel joke about his wife, and he shouldn’t have made the joke.

Take #2: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violated international law—so Ukraine’s armed resistance to it is justifiable, as are sanctions and other forms of punishment. But America provoked Russia with NATO expansion and various other policies that America, if in Russia’s shoes, would have found unacceptable—and America shouldn’t have done that.

I don’t have any polling data to back this up, but my sense is that if you espouse the first of those two takes you won’t get much blowback. In fact, you may be credited with unusual balance, prudence, even Solomonic wisdom.

But if you espouse the second take—and here, though I have no polling data, I do have relevant personal experience, since I’ve been espousing a version of it for weeks—you do get a fair amount of blowback.

Read The Whole Thing

Post Script

I am not saying Rock or America was bullying - but its surely in the spectrum?

This Whole COVID Data Thing

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 10:10:16 +1200

“The Economist estimates zero excess deaths among the elderly in New Zealand, for instance, and gives the whole region an excess-mortality range of negative 31 to positive 37 per 100,000 residents, meaning it’s possible fewer people died there than would’ve had we never even heard of SARS-CoV-2.”

and …

“The U.S. drove an unprecedented vaccine-innovation campaign in 2020, which empowered much of the world to turn the page on the pandemic’s deadliest phases, then, in 2021, utterly failed to take advantage of its power itself. But what is perhaps even more striking is that American vaccination coverage isn’t just bad, by the standards of its peers, but getting worse. About two-thirds of Americans have received two shots of vaccine, a level that is in line with Israel and not far off from the U.K., though below many other wealthy countries. (And even in the U.K., vaccination was more effectively directed toward the old.) But over the last six months, the country has had an opportunity to make up that gap with boosters and has simply not taken it. Only 29 percent of Americans have had a booster shot of the vaccine, which puts us behind Slovenia, Slovakia, and Poland and means that less than half of those people happy to be vaccinated a year ago have chosen to get a third shot through Delta and Omicron. Booster campaigns seem like an obvious opportunity for easy public-health gains, yet remarkably few Americans seem to think it’s worth the trouble. Why? For everything we think we know about the pandemic and how people have responded to it, that one remains a maddening mystery.”

Read The Article (Apple News)

Sad.

One More Thing ...

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 09:01:54 +1200

I listen to my podcasts via Castro .. and every now and then revisit the occasional alternative in the hope of getting a missing piece of functionality.

Overcast just delivered.

Or is it that I just found the functionality in Overcast?

What I wanted?

When listening to a podcast just be able to add it to your playlist of choice … rather than leaving the podcast, going to the playlist to add a podcast, scrolling down the list to find the podcast and then adding it.

Overcast is now where I am listening.

Now - because we are never satisfied are we?

If only the smart lists were really smart and let me create a playlist purely of (say) any and all PBS and BBC podcasts for example? NO manual selection needed.

Notes Reminding Us About Notes

Sat, 26 Mar 2022 16:47:56 +1200

Two short posts that arrived almost back to back in the multivarious reading apps that seem to be multiplying on my iPad.

The first came from Derek Silvers about why we should write plain text files.

The ‘shouldness’of that instruction cant be more emphasised. All that he says I do know, but it’s good to be reminded. But, even then it still doesn’t stop me from writing a lot of stuff in a couple of the most proprietary formats out there .. Apple’s ‘Pages’ and ‘Keynote’.

YES Keynote … it isn’t just for presentations, I use it to create simple graphics and structured workbooks.

The second was Note-taking became a full-time job, so I stopped

Last year out of nowhere, I became aware and interested in Obsidian. I learnt about Zeitelkasten. I discovered that Obsidian was just the latest application that promised to be my salvation.

I haven’t stopped using it - but boy did that post resonate!

Important to 🖇️ 🔎The Readers Republic

🚧 It's A Pattern

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 14:49:23 +1200

In my book ‘For Business Leaders Slapped In The Face By A World They Thought They Knew’, I referenced an organization called 'The Prout Institute'.

It came to mind as I watched this relatively unwatched (in the big scheme of things) video.

Andrew Pancholi is definitely an interesting man.

It's a 2022 video - but predates the invasion of Ukraine, though not the build-up with the result that we have an immediate feedback loop on some aspects of how right or wrong his thinking is. (He seems to be right.)

The talk is only 35 minutes or so of the nearly 1-hour video (the rest is a Q and A) - and touched on many topics including China's penetration into the world that Peter Frankopan - amongst others - wrote about in his 2018 book The New Silk Roads. (The Guardian). An excellent book that if the future of the world is interesting to you, this book should be either on your bookshelf - or (as in my case) in your iPad.

There is part of me that questions the pattern making ‘proofs’. Kind of like the ley lines of England … that are in the canons of ‘lost knowledge’. If you are loose enough with definitions and correlations then yes - everything is going to align.

Still, for all of that, it’s a good 35 minute listen - and it gets harder to say that as each day passes.

Experimenting With Footnotes

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 13:25:51 +1200

🚧 I wanted to write this post as a permanent test of applying ‘footnotes’ on my blog.

Here in the time line it is almost certainly going to look weird if there isn’t a title - but the idea is to improve the reading experience on the site - and then of course explore what it might look like in an RSS feed.

Post Posting

The footnotes aren’t coming through hyperlinked. YET!

Click On The Arrow To Get Some Context

Video embed test

youtu.be/F4SB8vIMt…

Blockquote Test

Normal

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.”

💬 Joe Blow

Hitchens Specific

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti."

💬 Joe Blow

Meanwhile ….. why not explore header formats while I am here

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

How An AI Became My Code Writing Genie

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 09:32:49 +1200

Read the article on Wired here …. (Paywall)

It’s not yet ready for prime time .. but still ….

So, using Visual Studio Code, I wrote a plain ol’ comment describing the first step I needed done:
 write a function that opens a pdf document and returns the text   For about four seconds, nothing happened. Then Copilot wrote this:   def pdf_to_text(filename):  pdf = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(open(filename, “rb”))  text = “”  for i in range(pdf.getNumPages()):  text += pdf.getPage(i).extractText()  return text

An Alternative To The Pomodoro Technique

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 14:57:50 +1200

”With this method, it is possible to achieve as many as 2 to 3 tasks in a single day, so long as you live alone and nobody else tries to contact you.

If at any point during the Puttanesca Method (so-called because there are more olives in it than in the Pomodoro) someone tries to contact you – whether by text, by phone call, by email, by saying your name quietly in the next room, whatever — cease all work at once and go directly back to bed.

Read It All

The iPad - It’s All Relative.

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 14:55:39 +1200

I just got my iPad out with its Magic Keyboard and started to work. I was reminded how I like the focus of just a single app, no multiple windows, just lock-in on what you are doing - no distractions - lovely and really makes sense - but - BUT … that screen sure does feel tiny.

And then I pulled the keyboard off and just starred at that giant piece of glass.

My goodness - the screen is enormous!!!

📺 What Is Truth?

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 13:45:30 +1200

I recently watched the TV series of Fargo seasons and came to realise that the ‘True Story’ theme of Fargo … where none of it is true … is itself a theme throughout.

It explores what different characters believe is their truth … and who are we to judge?

Example Scenes

Final Scene - Part One - of Final Episode of Series 3 of Fargo

Final Scene - Part Two - of Final Episode of Series 3 of Fargo

V M Varga Playlist

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

Albert Camus

Side Note

The actor who played Varga in Series 3 ( David Thewlis )has just popped up in a new series - Landscapers with another favourite of mine - Olivia Colman.

Landscapers is a true story - not like Fargo truth - real truth! Proving that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Web 3 - Whatever That Is!

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 11:33:44 +1200

Web3 ...

To understand what I mean - you might want to check out this earlier post. Meanwhile, on my personal thoughts microblog, I have been collecting a series of links - you can find them here.

Meanwhile, I was thinking that it probably makes more sense to include them on this blog. Thus we have a new living post, starting with that list and expanding - as I find then - below.

Probably the most important blog that relates to this post is

Web3 Is Going Just Great

Added March 11th

World’s ‘First NFT Vending Machine’ Didn’t Work And Neither Did The NFTs

Original Links

Why Web3 matters - by John Henderson - The Idea Exchange

Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs - YouTube

So … what the hell is Web3? With the Chernin Group’s Jarrod Dicker - Recode Media

The New Get-Rich-Faster Job in Silicon Valley: Crypto Startups

Notes on Web3

The Web3 Renaissance: A Golden Age for Content - by Li Jin

Web3's Instant Rush to Centralization

Matt Birchler summarizing Moxie’s piece

Seldo

Where’s The Fun

Via Doc Searls ...

I Wonder If There Is A Fix For This?

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 10:58:29 +1200

If I share an article to Drafts from NetNewswire, something like this appears in my draft

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/single/2022-02-25-0

If I first open the item in the browser … the full info, created in Markdown appears in my draft, like this.

Nelson Mandela’s paintings from prison to be sold as NFTs – Web3 Is Going Just Great

Anyone know if I can get the full Markdown direct from the feed rather than needing to go to the browser first?

Revisiting Oracle

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 15:56:00 +1200

In another life I worked for Oracle in the UK and thence onto the US. When I first met my boss to be, the UK offices were in Richmond. By the time I had joined, they had moved to Chertsey. Within a couple of years we had moved to Bracknell and around year 6 (by which time I was in San Francisco), Reading became their home.

Trying to find some picture of the buildings for a different reason and came across this.

Just a couple of examples. Click through for the mess that it was.

How sad.

The Cherstey offices were always my favorites and home to good friends and good people working on so many things including Oracle’s FIRST applications - delivered through C.A.S.E. Who knew it had fallen into such disrepair? The photos seem to date back to 2015 … but looks like they are no more - and an elderly care home is now there. I wonder if there any residents today that worked in those office back then?

It was long enough ago.

Right To Work ~v~ Union Busting

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 16:27:05 +1200

This post originated as a comment in another thread, but it made me think more - again - about how language is constantly being twisted to operate against people.

I wrote

“Language is powerful - funny how we use the term ‘right to work’ state - rather than ‘union busting’ state ….

and

It’s like how we used to have data warehouses - but now we have data ‘lakes’ and ‘mountains’ that we keep in ‘farms’ - so that we can ‘harvest’ information … it’s all so wonderfully natural - and nothing to worry about …

What say you?

We MUST Abandon the Language of the Market to Reclaim our Humanity

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 16:18:14 +1200

🔗 Thomas Keneally’s 2020s vision: We must abandon the language of the market to reclaim our humanity

I posted this link at the time it was published (2020).

It surfaced the other day through my DayONE - and I decided to repost it in the category 🖇️ ‘Language Is Important’- ‘Tom’ and I are on the same page.

Two Posts - Many Coins

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 12:48:53 +1200

This post, by Dave Rosenthal caught my eye this morning. It's long, it’s deep and is written with authority and knowledge.

Who is David Rosenthal? In his words

I worked with James Gosling on CMU's Andrew project in the early 80s. I was a DE with him at Sun later in the 80s working on window systems including X, and file systems. I quit to be employee #4 at Nvidia where Curtis Priem and I did the basic I/O architecture, then was an early employee at Vitria, the second company of founders of Tibco. Before I start talking about cryptocurrencies, I should stress that I hold no long or short positions in cryptocurrencies, their derivatives or related companies.

David Rosenthal

It obviously also caught Cory Doctorow's eyes, because he went on to write a post as well. To many Cory's will be more readable - I guess helped by him being a professional writer and Dave's original post actually being a summary of notes and slides he presented at Stanford's EE380 Whether you read Dave’s or Cory’s - if not both, the conclusion is the same ...

The Links

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/14/externalities/#dshr https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html

Featured Image Copyright: Copyright by MaxPixel

Why I Might Not Revisit An Awesome Experience

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 10:29:00 +1200

Stone Age culture in the Orkney islands

When I was eight years old, we took a family trip to the Orkney islands off the north coast of Scotland. I don’t know why we went there particularly, but it was amazing. I almost don’t want to go back because it might break the spell the place has cast over my life.

I was 18 when I did that journey (sans family)

Never been back - despite it being amazing. Not really thought about it before - but I think subconsciously Doug has drawn out my reasoning.

Pipelines to Platforms to Protocols

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 15:12:24 +1200

If you are interested in this world - Sangeet Paul Choudary is well worth a follow.

I found his latest newsletter interesting

Pipelines to platforms to protocols: Reconfiguring value and redesigning markets

… not least because I have been riffing on this for a while now - particularly after I heard Tim talk about this at an IIW a few years ago.

.. which is kind of how one of the People First Tenet’s emerged …. a while back now.

Catch Up Time

Sat, 12 Feb 2022 09:50:10 +1200

In case you hadn’t noticed - I am in a bit of a catch up mode.

This for example is a set of links that clearly at one time all connected in my head, but for the life of me - I can’t see that now. That said - I am pretty sure that all of them date back to January 2021.

Work

Tom Evslin - Who’s Pocketing the Profit - I think we know!

Josh Bersiin - The Crusade For Employee Experience: How Did We Get Here? - I find it telling that ‘Employee Experience’ is so far behind ‘Customer Experience’ - just in case you had any doubt where Corporate priorities lie.

Free Speech

Benedict Evans - Speech and Publishing

Beyond Platforms: Private Censorship, Parler, and the Stack | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Robin Rendle - Hijack

Apple and Chips

Stratechery - Intel Problems

Google Office is Horrible Software

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 15:24:28 +1200

… Truly horrible.

So when I read Google Slides is actually Hilarious … sadly on Medium (oh the irony - the ignominy of publishing your Google Slides takedown on Medium!), it needed to be shared.

With Commentary

I have long had no truck for the Google Office Suite … so was delighted to discover this piece and realize that I am not alone and neatly summarizes the challenges of using that excuse of a piece of software.

PowerPoint is bad enough - but it’s only when you try Google slides that you truly understand how great it really is (no snark - truth),

As an Apple user I have used the Apple iWork suite for more than years. Back in the day I used to have PowerPoint installed so I could create in Keynote, export to PowerPoint and then fix the few oddities that occur when you run such a routine.

These days I don’t even have MS office installed. All three apps export ‘nicely’ to MS and thence onto Google should somebody on the planet decide that what the deck needs is some ‘Google magic’.

Of course everyone loves Google because you can share and co edit … personally I get that in the doc world … but a decent presentation should not be ~~designed</> put together by committee.~~

Seriously - STOP.

Ok ok … if you must and you want to share and co develop a deck and are a Mac user - have you tried Keynote? They offer the app - for free - on the web. You can share your presentation and anyone with the link and creds can now edit.

Is that experience rock solid? Well it’s not perfect - but it’s a whole lot better than wrestling with Google crap.

A Hot New Watch

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:12:00 +1200

A hot new watch from IDZ … or is it?

They call it ‘The Identity Watch’. The web site reads more as a manifesto for privacy, data security and identity, I love it!

What Is The Watch?

An Identifier - To allow you to identify with different services

An Authenticator - To increase the value of your ZINDEX and the security of your ID

A Health tracker - To allow you to track all your fitness data in the health

via Doc Searls

By the way - if you want one, even they say it’s expensive and the buy button takes you to Open Sea (according to their web site / he first and largest NFT Market Place) … get your crypto ready!

We Are Open - Again!

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 08:51:06 +1200

It’s a new year, and a spectacular new one at that. More of that to come - but good reasons for my extended absence.

As we reopen the doors, I have decided to offer up some shorter thought posts and links beyond the longer articles that I have put here in the past. So along with a new workflow that utilizes Drafts I am hoping that you will find more to read, more regularly - but not necessarily taking more time.

Might also be a good time to remind you that there is a newsletter available, that can get delivered to your inbox. Just like this blog and the podcast, it too has been in hiatus. It’s coming back - but not yet reached it’s weekly cadence.

Onwards - and my thanks for your attention and support.

🚧Rebuilding My Micro Blog

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 09:56:14 +1200

By simply adding stuff / pages and plugins to my blog without thinking something eventually had to break - and it did. My thanks to @manton and @pimoore for pointing out the error. Turns out Hitchens doesn’t include a ‘Replies’ page - which caused my archive to disappear.

Flatearth time. I mean - everything. (Barring two hidden pages being used for 🖇️ 🔎The Readers Republic ).

The Rebuild

Install Hitchens ✅ - thankyou @pimoore
(need to move my footer into Hitchens footer.)
Install Conversation ✅ - thankyou @sod
Install Surprise Me ✅ - thankyou @sod
Reply By EMail ✅ - thankyou @sod

Next Steps

Install Bookshelves - courtesy @moondeer
Install Webmentions
Install Cards - courtesy @moondeer

Roll Over Pareto And Make Way For Sturgeon

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 09:18:08 +1200

Common wisdom regularly references Pareto - even while not knowing who the hell Pareto is. A humorist might even say that 80% of people who quote the 80/20 rule have never heard of Pareto.

Turns out it might even be worse.

Sturgeon has 90% of everything is crap .. and Andreesen agrees (Apple News Link to WSJ)

Seemingly even about his own fund.

”But doesn’t Sturgeon’s law also apply to investing in startups? A typical venture fund has a home run, a few companies with middling returns and lots of smoking holes in the ground. “We have a limited partner that has comprehensive data,” Mr. Andreessen explains. “For top-end venture funds, the good news is that it’s not 90% failure rate, it’s 50%. This is for top-decile venture.” So maybe Sturgeon’s law doesn’t apply. But wait. The 90% of funds below the top decline do worse. Sturgeon’s law rules. Mr. Andreessen pauses, raises an eyebrow, and nods in agreement.”

Consolidation

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:30:58 +1200

Web Sites

Bit by bit I have been consolidating the ‘Wor(l)ds of John’ and putting everything under a single, smaller roof. So when I say ‘single’ … less?

My Blot site is not just thoughts that somehow never made it to MicroBlog - but also includes the archives of 5 old Wordpress sites;

- Beyond Bridges
- Hidden In Plain Sight
- Quotespace
- And Another Thing
- Just Good Music (the old MicroBlog JGM - sadly my original JGM site only exists in the Wayback Machine.

Only JGM is linked since I figure that is the only blog that MicroBloggers might even want to click through to.

… and a whole lot more.

Gah - that just made me realise that I need to spend a bit of time in better organizing blot.

The oldest post in there dates back to September 2010.

Meanwhile my Micro Blog site has another several thousand ~~posts~~ entries … the oldest dating back to April 2005.

The Micro Blog collection includes an old humour site that got moved before I came up with the blot consolidation. It is a post from this blog that holds the the oldest post ‘title’.

It also includes some of my Instagram world. I resisted pulling in what is really a pile of rubbish.

My Computer Software

Meanwhile, I am also moving my main computer to a new machine. No automatic ‘restore from previous machine’ for me. I have built (am building?) it from scratch. About three weeks in ans 71 apps from the old world still have not yet made it over - and they still might not - ever.

My iPad

… deinstalling software to bring more focus to how I use the iPad and when.

More to come as I think about it.

1971 : 🚀 🧙‍♂️🎵

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:21:02 +1200

David Bowie’s Glam Masterpiece ‘Hunky Dory’ Turns 50

In his book Never A Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded, British music journalist David Hepworth lays out a case for considering 1971 as the most consequential year (from beginning to end) in music.

… which reminded me of 1971 - The Year That 🎵🎼 Music Changed Everything - excellent series.

Who Are We Trying To Help Here?

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 17:22:52 +1200

VPNs Poor Privacy and Security Practices.

(From ‘Consumer Reports’). As a ‘consumer' - not helpful.

Example …

“We found that 12 out of 16 of the VPNs we looked at either inaccurately represented their products and technology, or made hyperbolic or overly broad claims about the kinds of protection they provide their users.”

But which ones?

Wouldn’t a summary detailing some kind of ‘league table’ be useful - rather than just blasting the industry as a whole?

When Space Is The Link In The Chain

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:19:40 +1200

Idle thoughts.

Proving that ‘sound thinking’ might not be the same as ‘thinking with sound’.

Remember the ‘Semantic Web’?

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 09:29:16 +1200

Don't you get fed up with the alphabet soup of tech terms that people introduce into our daily conversation?

It gets worse …they then go on to use terms that most people can’t understand to ‘explain’ what they are talking about!

And even when we do get simple language it still doesn’t get there … because we essentially use product descriptions and features and don’t describe the benefits to ordinary people.

Take Web 3.0 .. please!

If you read the interwebs you would think that a new religion came of age in 2021. Google Trends tells a different story.

So when you are next reading about Web 3.0, forget about Crypto, Algorithms, DIDs, Sovereign Identity, NFTs, Wallets, Coins, Blockchains - and all of the rest of it. Just know that IF we get Web 3.0 right … and it is far from clear we will - but if we do …. then it is the start of finally realizing the value that everybody expected back when this web thing started.

I thought this was an interesting little doohickey that you might find an interesting explanation - though I have some issues with a few of them.

Behavioural Advertising for example. God I hope not. I wish it read 'Intent Casting' - but that's an idea that doesn't seem to have arrived in the mainstream.

And despite Zuckerberg's best attempts Blogs are not going away.

But more importantly, some of the thinking is just BAU!

One of the most important things I would add is that Web 1.0 was 'pipes', Web 2.0 is really all about platforms. Web 3.0 is all about protocols. That's one of the People First Tenets!

An Unsent Email

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 14:32:32 +1200

I created a Numbers file from the information you sent over.

I exported it to Excel and sent that file to you.

Now you have the file, you can change the Excel.

I can’t change the Excel file, because I don’t intend to pay Microsoft to use a product that is inferior to what I already have installed.

BTW - you have a Mac, and so you also have Numbers.

Tell me again why you pay to use a product that is not as good as the free product you already have on your computer?

.. and don’t tell me because you are doing serious number crunching … I have seen the spreadsheets you created!

Endless Repetition or Infinite Variety?

Sat, 11 Dec 2021 14:38:25 +1200

If you want endless repetition (in your life), see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.

What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.

You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.

💬 Joni Mitchell

🚧 CSS Experiments

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 10:06:43 +1200

🚧 Experimental Post as I play around with the CSS ... a LOT!

“wise words being captured for posterity.”

💬 They Who Said It

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“wise words being captured for posterity.”

💬 They Who Said It

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“wise words being captured for posterity.” 💬 They Who Said It

simple markdown with cite tight and

“wise words being captured for posterity.”
💬 They Who Said It

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“wise words being captured for posterity.”

💬 They Who Said It

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“wise words being captured for posterity.” 💬 They Who Said It

Full On Quote

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.”

💬 They Who Said It

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.”
💬 They Who Said It

Wealth Extraction

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 13:38:57 +1200

We’re Living Through the Greatest Transfer of Wealth From the Middle Class to the Elites in History.

When historians look back on the decisions made beginning in March 2020 and still going strong, this period will be remembered as the “Great Consolidation”—the acceleration of a historic wealth transfer and power concentration out of the hands of the middle class and into those with political power and connections.

No doubt the Covid wealth extraction plan has gone, well - according to plan!

That said, the extraction has been going on for a long time, with no abatement. I think history is likely to record ‘this period’ as a blip on the steady extraction that has been occurring for decades!

JOHN . PHILPIN . COM is working again ....

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 10:19:05 +1200

My thanks to @manton for resetting my blog that I had broken. I mean really broken.

How - because I was trying to be clever with the footer - and I clearly was not!

Now back up with the Tufte Theme - courtesy of @pimoore running as it should - and the footer kind of organised as I wanted.

Next step - now I understand the very clever nuances that Pete has included in the theme - is to reintroduce some of the emphasis I want.

I am slightly hesitant to rely to much on some of the shortcodes he has added (yet) since those short codes (I presume) will only work on this template?

More diving needed.

john.philpin.com

Drawing Parralels Between The U.S.A. and The Middle East

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 09:20:00 +1200

Maps that Show the Historical Roots of Current US Political Faultlines.

Interesting piece even of itself. But even more so if you read it and draw parallels with other parts of the world.

My interpretation is that the boundaries on this map are ‘cultural boundaries’, reflecting what people feel and how they relate to each other in the U.S.A.
Now imagine if instead of mapping the U.S.A., you mapped The Middle East.
and Rather than using state lines, you used the borders of countries.

In all honesty, I have seen maps like this in the past. Things like how the Kurdish culture spreads across at least 4 contiguous countries.

One difference between the States and the Middle East is that moving between states in the U.S.A. is a whole lot simpler than between countries in the Middle East.

I think this starts to expose the Middle East ‘fault lines’ in a very clear and explainable way. That is the historical imposition of political boundaries over people might make short-term sense and ‘bring order to the world’ - in the long term, it is ‘cultural power’ that drives the different regions of the world - and will be the final driver/decider.

This ‘culture trumps politics’ model is something that Venkatesh Rao touches on in this article from 2011. It is a long but fascinating read.

Trickle Up Economics

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:06:26 +1200

We’re Living Through the Greatest Transfer of Wealth From the Middle Class to the Elites in History

I really do hate that ‘elites’ word … they aren’t … they just happen to be a large group of people with lots of money and people in (or want to be in) power who want access to that wealth.

That said - a recurring observation.

The “connected” form a powerful bloc comprised of big government, big business and big special interests. And though their monikers label them “big,” they are comprised of relatively small elites. And they are seeking to use their power to benefit themselves at your expense.

The Seven Laws of Identity

Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:34:10 +1200

The Seven Laws of Identity - Kim Cameron

Introduced in 2004 by Kim Cameron

R ead More

Not exactly an 'update' from Doc Searls, but definitely a link with reading, remembering Kim who passed at the end of last year.

One Fact With Two Opposing Outcomes

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 12:49:01 +1200

“Today we’re excited to roll out the latest feature on Unsplash… you can now see your image download history making it super easy to re-visit and re-download any image.”

… wrote Unsplash.

Annoying that my download history only goes back 2 days.

that said,

MASSIVE KUDOS that my download history only goes back 2 days.

On the face of it they don’t seem to have been storing that information without telling me.

Writing A Book - That's Easy

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 12:21:42 +1200

Writing? Not so difficult. Writing well? OK, more difficult.
Convincing friends to give what you’ve written a free tryout on their Kindle? Not easy as you’d think.
Finding absolute strangers who like to read books like yours and then convincing them to buy Book One in an unknown series?
Now that’s the tricky part.

Source : Dan Conover

🎶 🎵 Revisiting 'Odessey and Oracle'

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 17:12:17 +1200

Revisiting Odessey and Oracle today after listening to the Rockentours talking to Colin Blunstone.

Great Songs.

🎥 Rumor Has It..., 2005 - ★★★

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 07:22:12 +1200

Watched on Monday September 27, 2021.

🎥 Big Fish, 2003 - ★★★★★

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 06:41:34 +1200

Watched on Friday July 22, 2005.

🎥 The Good Liar, 2019 - ★★★★★

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 06:39:53 +1200

Watched on Tuesday September 21, 2021.

🎥 Boss Level, 2021 - ★★★

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 05:45:33 +1200

SciFi Groundhog Day.
Very unsatisying ending.

🎥 Anon, 2018 - ★★★★

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 05:43:54 +1200

Watched on Monday September 27, 2021.

🎥 Lansky, 2021 - ★★★★

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:46:19 +1200

For a 99 cent rental I wasn’t expecting much - but heh - Harvey Keitel - right? Well worth it. In fact at $9.99, would have been worth it.

🎥 Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, 2021 - ★★★★

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:44:18 +1200

Not as good as the 2017 Hitman’s Bodyguard - but definitely well worth a watch.

🎥 Pig, 2021 - ★★★★

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:42:40 +1200

Cage’s films are either great or awful. Put this one in the great bucket.

🎥 Cruella, 2021 - ★★★★

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 04:51:09 +1200

Watched on Sunday September 5, 2021.

Is America Great?

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 12:04:10 +1200

Dave Winer over on Scripting …

“I am an American, nothing is going to change that, but if you asked me do I feel this is the greatest country ever, I’d say that’s an idea we have to purge from our minds, the US is the opposite, it’s a fat, lazy, spoiled, ridiculous excuse for a country. If we want to amount to anything we need to take a 180 degree turn now.”

Channeling Jeff Daniels / Will McEvoy 8 years later?

ATS systems should just be banned.

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 17:03:59 +1200

They are singularly the most inhuman invention you might imagine. But they aren’t half as bad as humans.

I went through a process about three months ago. You have resumes and cover letters stored on your hard drive. You even have a linkedIN profile that contains a wealth of information. But none of that is good enough. No. You need to fill in the forms that you are presented with and then add pdfs of the docs to the application.

You just know that the form filling is the filter mechanism that the ATS will use to decide how it is all prioritised. I got it all in within the time specified and then connected with the current incumbent AND the hiring manager (knowing them both) to let them know my hat was in the ring. A little later - the application deadline was extended. No reason provided - but I was told - even though my application was in.

I could only think of two reasons.

1] There weren’t enough candidates - it’s a pretty niche role.
2] The candidate they wanted hadn’t applied - so they told him to - extended the deadline and waited.

Other than that single communication …

Nothing … nothing … nothing … except alerts from the ATS saying that I won’t hear more from it - since the application was ‘now in the hands of the recruiting organisation’.

Nothing … nothing … nothing … and then

**In their occasional newsletter I read that the position has been filled … by someone I also happen to know. Good chap actually. **

Still heard nothing from the ‘recruiting organisation’. At minimum I might expect a pro forma - ‘thanks for applying’ at the start - and then a ‘sorry you didn’t get it’ pro forma at the end.

At best,I look to how I used to operate.

I would meet everyone on candidate short lists.
I would insist that my recruiting managers connect with every candidate personally - not the HR wonk - the line manager.

Maybe I am odd. I am certainly an exception, because this story is not new. It happens every single day to people all over the planet.

When you read how tech has lost its humanity - people blame the machines.

I don’t. I blame the people.

The good news - if this is how they operate - glad I am not part of it.

If I say this I am going to be in trouble. I don’t care.

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 15:46:49 +1200

Much as when a clear and obvious lie is stated - it doesn’t give you confidence that the rest is going to be any different. I refer you to ’45’ over the past 4 years.

I have not seen ‘the’ recent Oprah interview. Life is too short.

But when I hear someone claim that they “didn’t really have any idea what the royal family was, didn’t Google or do any research.” … my antennas will go up. My antennas went up!

So no … sorry. If that wasn’t a lie then stupidity is the only possibility.

This from Peggy Noonan summarises it nicely.

”Public life has gotten extremely, unrelentingly performative. Have you noticed you keep hearing that word? It means everyone is always performing—the politician, the news anchor, the angry activist. This gives natural actors an edge, and leaves those who aren’t by nature actors at a disadvantage. Meghan was a professional actress.”

Read the whole thing - save me writing it again - and it is better written than I would manage!

Cancel Culture

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 12:14:21 +1200

Matt Taibbi on the Topic

The media business keeps trying to ruin Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, and they keep prospering. On the loony Substack controversy, and the paradox of moral panic in media.
Matt Taibbi

Substack Has A Problem

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 09:50:17 +1200

I'm a fan of Substack - but it looks like they might be hitting some issues as they rush to attract famous writers to the platform - and paying them. On the outside it looks good that famous writers use you - but if you are paying them - and not discllosing that - we have an issue.

Beyond that, to pay someone means that you are choosing not to pay someone else - at which point you are becoming a publisher - not a platform and thus arguably support/agree with those writers words and opinions. What then distinguished you from any other publishing vehicle.

Vox has a view.

Then again there is this (spolier alert - an opposite pov : Adding My Data Point To The Discussion Of Substack Advances.

The Future of Remote Work

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:13:00 +1200

Over on the podcast and in the newsletter - oh and in the People First network, I have been ruminating about remote work.

Photo by Christine Roy on Unsplash

Specifically about work visas and wondering where work is done and once you know where it is done - then - do you need a work visa?

Quick example. You LIVE in P0rtugal. You connect to servers in the US. You are paid in London. Your value is delivered (eg where the code (for example) is rendered and turned into something that can be charged for in Canada.

Where do you work?

Seems like I am not the only one, Adam Ozimek from Upwork shares his ideas about nomadic workforces with Matt Yglesias. He is really only talking about the US - but still raising valid and related questions about the other side of the where do you work equation - where do you go if you cant work. Which state?

They discuss the implications for migration, local governance, and the elusive concept of work/life balance. (Where have I heard that one before?)

Adam argues strongly for the whole work thing in America to be Federalized.

Listen to the podcast here. If you don’t have a full 60 minutes to listen - scoot through to minute 4o for the pertinent stuff.

Switch It Off Already

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 07:40:19 +1200

I'm kind of over people complaining about how LinkedIN sucks because ... or Facebook users are ... or Instagram Photos are ....

Social Media channels are like TV channels. If you don’t like them you can ignore them or even delete them.

Just do that. Why fill my feed with your rubbish.

In fact you can refine your feed even further ... block, remove, delete the people that offend you. It is

much easier
massively more effective
way quicker

than writing a screed on why you feel so upset.

Why Do You Work?

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 13:12:13 +1200

Photo by AR on Unsplash

I promise, Manton, Daniel and I did not coordinate this - I think sometimes synchronicity just happens.

In last weeks newsletter I asked the question

"Why Do You Work?"

A reply post will be available this Saturday.

There have been some great answers, but that is not the reason for this post.

Manton Reece - the brain behind Micro Blog¹ and Daniel Jalkut - the brain behind Red Sweater² have a weekly podcast called Core Intuition. This week I learned that they have been running their podcast for twelve years. A remarkable feat even of itself. Both of them are independent developers and this week the conversation turned to employment. A really nice discussion between two professionals that wrestle with following their dreams and passions, while balancing the need to put bread on the table.

Have a listen - you won't regret it and very pertinent to the discussion 'Why Do You Work'.

Footnotes

1] If you want to see MicroBlog working in the real world, my web site - John.Philpin.Com is powered by MicroBlog.

2] If you want to see Red Sweater working in the real world, that’s a little harder - but Daniel has a superb product called Mars Edit that I am using to write and post this article. Seriously. If you are a Mac user that writes a blog - you should be using Mars Edit.

When Zero Is Everything

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 13:19:03 +1200

For decades, the business world has embraced worker empowerment. But recently a countermovement—workforce optimization—has been on the rise. It treats labor as a commodity and seeks to cut it to a minimum by using automation and artificial intelligence, tightly controlling how people do their jobs, and replacing employees with contractors. This approach is especially prevalent in the tech sector and the gig economy. And it is cause for deep concern.
Peter Cappelli

I can only agree.

Read what Doc Searls has to say about Zero Party Data

Shaped By History?

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 13:10:48 +1200

”I thought back to the day I decided to go to law school. It was a warm spring day. May 4, 1970. I was a freshman at Oberlin College. A few days earlier, President Richard Nixon had expanded the Vietnam War by invading Cambodia. Antiwar college protests erupted throughout the country.
About 1 p.m. in the afternoon, the news hit us in the gut as we huddled around TVs and radios on our sheltered college campus. In just 12 seconds, the Ohio National Guard fired over 60 shots at student protesters at nearby Kent State University. Nine students were wounded, one of them paralyzed for life; and four students — Allison Krause, Jeff Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and Bill Schroeder — were killed.
Bill Schroeder was an ROTC student watching the protest; he was shot in the back. Sandy Scheuer was walking to class. I didn’t know them, but I’ve never forgotten their names.”
Lee Fisher

Photo by Andreea Popa on Unsplash

That quote comes from an article that my friend, colleague and 'he that keeps me on the straight and narrow' … Stuart Robbins just shared with me.

Stuart, thank-you.

My father fought for the British Army in the second world war. If you are 75 or under, you were not on planet earth during that war and as a result, the impact it had on that generation is being lost - if not forgotten.

The Vietnam war is much more recent, but still, is - like WWII being lost into history, so when I read first hand experiences, especially something as personal as the words Lee wrote, I like to stop and reflect for a moment.

And who is Lee Fisher?

”Lee Fisher is dean of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. He is the former Ohio attorney general, lieutenant governor, director of the Ohio Department of Development, chair of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission, president and CEO of the Center for Families and Children, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, state representative and state senator.

But there's more. He recently came on to the People First Podcast and talked with Stuart about Law - and, IMHO, more importantly Leadership in Law. If you don’t want to jump off to another site, you can listen to it right here ...

[cdn.simplecast.com/audio/d86...](https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/d8638681-f4eb-453b-81d7-d86dcb079f26/episodes/bfe8acac-cf70-412b-acb3-64930cb4bd10/audio/1d831d61-8308-44bc-81f8-585aedf1b550/default_tc.mp3)

Or follow the link to a great interview, weighing in at under 30 minutes of 'gold'.

I often find that knowing a little more about people, their history and what shaped them, helps me understand the context of who they are today and what they are saying. Lee is no exception. In fact I think it is possible to draw a straight line from the experience he described in that quote above to his life's work. I hope you agree.

Slack Solves The Wrong Problem Really Well

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:37:57 +1200

Or as Cal puts it …

"Slack is the Right Tool for the Wrong Way to Work."

”The future of office work won’t be found in continuing to reduce the friction involved in messaging but, instead, in figuring out how to avoid the need to send so many messages in the first place.”
Cal Newport

Cal nails the problem I have with Slack that I have never managed to nail down.

Read the article in The New Yorker

Thinking Allowed

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ClubHouse

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 15:25:38 +1200

People ... Process and THEN Technology ... but as usual the world at large is ignoring the advice - and jumping straight into an app without much thought ... let me explain.

If you are a celeb - you can get in.

Photo by kilarov zaneit on Unsplash

If you are one of the masses ... we have a wait line for you ... once you have downloaded our app and given us your telephone number ... curiously out of the box it asks you to confirm the phone number you want it to use ... so it has already read the data on my phone - without my permission - even before I have been accepted.

It is iPhone only for now. (They know where the money is).

The site itself tells you nothing - but others have explored and looked and opined. (Links at the end.)

But What About Privacy?

One thing the site could have done would be to talk about their privacy policies, where the data is, why they have it (because they don’t seem to ask for it) and why they need it. Not to mention how they intend to handle things like harassment. But like all good 'bro software' - we'll sort that out later ....

Nothing on the site reveals much about what people should be concerned about, only what they are concerned about ... access to celebrities!

Diving further down ...

"Recording any conversation is strictly forbidden, meaning your encounters with VIP members or general conversations are protected."
ClubHouse

... how do they manage that? They don’t. Nothing stops me audio recording a conversation ... if I can hear it ... I can record it. (By the way - I am sure that they record it. Are they? The prohibition stated applies to us - not them. And I assume that if they aren't now - they will be using AI to scan the voices to 'learn more about us' in the future.

Contacts

Also - any idea if your contacts are safe? Or are they going to be mined aswell? (In fairness - I just checked my phone - they aren't even listed on the 'approved apps' - but then again, I'm not in yet.

But here is the truly insidious thing. Let’s say you have no interest in Clubhouse. That said you aren’t a hermit. You are ‘connected’. You have to be. The people that are inviting you to join Clubhouse know that you are connected and in their minds should be there. And that’s just the ones you know about.

The fact is that if you are in the contact book of anybody that has joined Clubhouse ... it’s a safe bet to assume (like it or not) that your information is already in the ‘Clubhouse Social Graph. And if you know anyone who is inviting people - your data has definitely been uploaded.

Watch the articles start to appear in the mainstream press as Clubhouse starts to grow. Watch people throw their hands into the air and ask ‘who knew this was happening’ ... who gave Clubhouse permission. I don’t need to wait.

The answer is you - assuming you joined and invited people.

Ignorance

The sad thing is that all of this (and I am writing this as Clubhouse numbers are sitting around 1 million) is so clear to anybody who pays attention or even stops to think for two minutes before clicking away on buttons ‘confirming their agreement’)

This play is designed to operate around 'ignorance', at worst and at best - ‘who cares - I don’t mind - I have nothing to hide’.

You might not, but Clubhouse and similar actors also don’t care about you (sorry). The point is that they have no interest at all in the ‘nodes’ on the graph - they are focussed on the connections and you dear clubhouse member are feeding the beast ... but not just with your information ...mine aswell.

Added Thought (21st February 2021)

It just occurred to me as I was reading ...

this (Why Hot New Social App Clubhouse Spells Nothing But Trouble) from the Guardian

... how hard would it be for Apple ( if they do it - others will follow - after they stop laughing ) to offer two contact/address books. Only you know which is real and which is a dummy. In the dummy, you keep a couple of contacts and it is that which you upload when asked by corporations like Clubhouse.

Of course - Clubhouse will then demand a minimum of (say) '100 contacts', and then a market will spring up - £5 for 100 dummy contacts. $10 if you want to include names like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreesen, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth - you know the people that cause these problems to begin with, you can!

Additional Highlights:

Before we get to what others are saying ... this is what they are saying (not much and it goes back to July last year).

Clearly not yet worked out:

How will we evaluate complaints of abuse or harassment when we don’t record user conversations?
Clubhouse Post (and the only reference to 'harassment in the entire post)

But It's Already Valued At $100 Million!

Of course it is. Andreesen Horowitz dropped a cool $10 million into their bank - and if they got 10% of the company for that deposit - then the company is valued at $100Million ... The 'V'in 'VC' stands for 'Voodoo'.

But still - nothing as to how they recoup that investment.

So How Do They Make Money?

No idea.

I lie. Lots of ideas ...

They will upload all your contacts to their servers.

They aren't recording - but they say nothing about scraping the conversation running it through AI and building a profile of you - after all - they know who you are - what you are saying - which groups you are in .... (and if don’t think they can dynamically and in real-time scrape and transform your spoken words into text - then clearly you have not seen Descript.

Of course - I have no idea if all this is happening, could happen, would happen - but just three months ago - Facebookers were up in arms after watching 'The Social Dilemma' and now here we go again - flocking like lemmings to become the latest product for Silicon Valley tech bros to use.

This is their privacy policy. Take a read, that policy doesn’t say anything about not being able to do all that I just described. In fact, it all but spells out that this is exactly what they are going to do. Also interesting that they keep it on 'Notion'.

Various people have said different versions of these words in the past - I like the one from Rounders ... that talks about if you cant spot the mark - you are the mark.

Maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time .... but if I am - can someone tell me how they make money?

Clubhouse Articles

(I have ignored all the puff stuff from March and simply linking to December / January stuff - now that the honeymoon is over.)

Vanity Fair - The Murky World of Moderation on Clubhouse.

spoiler alert - what moderation?

Vogue - Everything You Need to Know About Clubhouse, the App Celebrities Are Flocking To.

spoiler alert - that 'celebrity access' is both a clue and the key.

Bloomberg - Private Social App Clubhouse Courts Fresh Controversy

One exception, Wired - back in May.

Wired - They aren't big fans.

Conclusion

No, I don’t know everything about what this app is setting out to do.

When that blog post came out, there were only two full time members of the team - the two founders. One is ex Pinterest. The other is ex Google. So nothing to worry about there. Right?

To my mind their 'Field of Dreams' approach - 'Build it and they will come' is working for them ... but at what cost to the people that join in. I've requested access - and sitting quietly waiting to hear back from someone. I am not going to push for access - I am just interested to see how long it actually takes.

Once in - I will be able to say more, but my initial thoughts are very much of a 'wait - haven't we been down this road before'?

Thinking Allowed

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Where Do You Work

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 16:05:22 +1200

A response to a recent newsletter. Specifically one where I explored Work Location. (You might want to click in and have a read to get the context.)

Sometimes people have a lot to say, but they don’t join into the dialogue - nor even make comments. I get it. I really do. Another post from an anonymous reader, this time answering something I wrote in a newsletter and again - reproduced with permission from the original writer.

Photo by Kevin Bhagat on Unsplash...

Now, this is a subject that really gets to me!!

I have long argued that the biggest conflict in the world today is that between global and tribal politics. I have met anthropologists who maintain that the human-animal is basically tribal - pre-programmed by history, if not genetics, 'to want to belong'. They argue that this is at the root of all sorts of things we see today - including racism/xenophobia at the most serious level and, more prosaically, things like fashion fads, football fans, pop group mania, etc., at the daily level. However, there is, in my eyes at least, clear evidence of emerging subsets of humans who want to throw all that away in favour of seeing the world, and our species, holistically.

One rather crude indicator of this - a frequent topic in my Operations and Supply Chain Management consultancy and teaching - is the tension between global companies (not of all which are the spawn of the devil, planet-destroying, secret cabal members, but simply businesses whose raw materials, skill-base and customers cannot be defined by random, historical, “lines on the ground") and national Governments, most obviously over issues like differing tax regimes (and where it’s paid) and customs (import/export) processes.

Extend this to the individual with the option of working at very long distance from 'the office', and we see similar issues. Some 6 years ago, I did a piece of work for a Greek client, itself funded by the EU, whose direct customers were mainly from the new Eastern EU member states. HMRC was out of the traps like a top greyhound: within days I was in receipt of paperwork explaining what I needed to do to make sure that my work was taxed (and subject to National Insurance) 'here in the UK' (despite me NOT actually being in the UK), rather than in Greece. I presume the argument would be that we are a UK-registered company, I am a UK citizen and the education/experience that enabled me to win the contract were gained in the UK, some of it at University, at the taxpayer's expense. That’s fair enough. However, many of the people who would say “quite right too” are EXACTLY the same people who complain when a US company, say, elects not to be taxed in the UK on earnings made here. Yet, those companies are employing UK people, who pay (quiet a lot) of tax, when you take NI, VAT, duty etc., into account as well as direct PAYE, they are renting or buying UK property, and paying local tax on it, they are consuming UK products and services that create more jobs and tax, etc. If they moved all their operations out of the UK, would we win or lose? It’s not such an easy calculation as the 'red top fury' suggests.

So, back to your individual, living where (s)he wants to live but working for a company 'back home', or, in the extreme, in the economy that places the highest monetary value on her/his skills. Would (s)he pay tax in the country of residence, the country of origin, the country employment, or several of these? Would the value of the residence (shopping local tax, etc.) be offset against the value of direct employment taxation in deciding policy?

Or is this another nail in the coffin of nationalistic division?

Thinking Allowed

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Message From A 🎵 Musician

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 09:28:04 +1200

As a reader of this blog and newsletter or as a listener of my podcast - you know that I am a keen supporter of the broad category of ‘creative professional’ - and specifically ‘musician’. What follows are not my words, but those of a musician that wrote to me recently. Reproduced with their permission and names and venues changed/anonymized to ‘protect the vulnerable’.

I just got my first real paying gig since March 17 for Saturday December 26th. Meanwhile, due to an uptick in local COVID cases the county has announced that restaurants are to remain open, but no one allowed at the bar for the next 2 weeks.

By my calculation from today (Dec. 10), that takes us to December 25th. So, December 26th we will be back to normal?

After 9 months of ‘COVID communications with the owners of a local ‘hostelry’ - and having played there every Friday for over fourteen years, I have now experienced a full u-turn, so instead of returning to my Friday Afternoon slot - which they said “would be there for me whenever I was ready to return”, they have instead told me I will be “on call”, if they need a last minute substitute as ‘their schedule is booked full’.

I told them actually no …. no I won’t.

Beyond that, they are no longer paying what they used to - and that was never a lot to begin with!

The business (music AND the hostelry) has never been stacked with integrity, but this has to be a new low. Maybe to match the pay rates of the stand-ins?

Meanwhile on the other side of town, my Tuesday night gig (again over 14 years) has been taken over by a guy playing bass with a karaoke backing machine … in return for ‘a burger and a beer’ !!

The musician said “he did not want to steal my night” … funny - because he did. He could have said no. I guess the burger temptation was too great.

He was offered the gig by the owner because his belief was that I wouldn’t work for free. (Correct!).

I grew up in a Union town. I remember what those kinds of people were called.

I get it. I really do. I know the venues are struggling with finance like us all - musicians included - but if they can’t afford musicians - why bring them on at all?

If your business model is to offer live music - shouldn’t you pay for it?

And sure - I can hear the gallery calling down - you’ll make it up in tips.

With luck - but in reality - no.

So take a share of the profits of extra beer sold …. yeah - good luck with that! When THEY are doing well, YOU are on a fixed (low) fee - “make it up in tips”. But now they are down … well, you know how it goes.

As you know I’ve made my living as a full time musician and creative all of my life, so sad to reflect on COVID lessons;

loyalty - out of the window promises - not worth the paper they are written on dogs - they will eat dogs Don’t get me wrong, the competition is just getting ramped up. The number of musicians - in this area seems to be growing by the day - and I am pretty sure that the number of hostelries are reducing. (One of the biggest just 10 miles away has announced that it is closing for GOOD. )

Not sure how this is going to play out - but I stand with my belief that a business should only offer what it can afford - and the race to the bottom of price is not a race I am going to join in.

When I order Lobster, I don’t expect to eat it and then renegotiate the price - but that seems to be the life of the live performer.

Still - one door closes, another opens - I wonder what happens when two doors close!

Thinking Allowed

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Employee Surveys

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 14:52:32 +1200

Why employee surveys, like political polls, are misleading.

They should have called me!

Digital Nomads

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 14:44:54 +1200

The War For Digital Nomads Heats Up As Greece Passes New Tax Law

Business Bifurcation

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 08:23:57 +1200

Another Gaping Void nails it. Full piece here, though they don’t use the phrase 'business bifurcation'.

For a long time, it has been clear that business is bifurcating. The two models are either;

the 'pile-em-high-and-sell-em-cheap' model to borrow from Tesco's Jack Cohen's business strategy
the 'totally-high-end-special-and-niche' model - think $20 dollar pints of beer, $300 bottles of wine, handcrafted artisan wafers ...

Gaping Void's piece brings you right up to date with stories form Saville Row - a set of businesses you might expect to fail in thelight of (say) Brookes Brothers collapse. But no - business bifurcation.

To be fair - those high-end examples aren't the only way to be in that niche space. Business that scale and deliver low price, do so at the cost of service, value, the personal touch, sometimes quality ...

If you are a small business - don’t wonder how to compete with Amazon ... work out how to differentiate from Amazon. What worked 20, 30 years ago - still works. It's just that the 'what' is different.

And the first 'what' is 'what business are you in'. It might not be what you think. The business you are in is your 'core'. Everything else is context. (To borrow from my 'old' friend Geoffrey Moore.)

Don't Fear The Future Of Work

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 06:35:22 +1200

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the source of this piece on The Future of Work. I don’t disagree with the headline, but the article itself falls short of providing solace. In fact it falls short of being an article - but that's another story.

An altogether disappointing piece that ends ...

“I really come away from this concerned about the direction [of work], but optimistic about our ability to change it."
David Autor, Co-chair, MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future and MIT Professor of Economics

On what grounds? Their was nothing of substance in the piece. Just opinion.

Philosophy Week

Sun, 22 Nov 2020 14:01:32 +1200

Photo by Jeremy Enns on Unsplash

Part 2 of my conversation with Cristina DiGiacomo, M.S. goes live at 5 am Pacific Standard Time on Monday 23rd. You are going to love it. Hell, we loved it so much that when we finished - we just kept going - you'll see what I mean.

Part One - if you want to catch up first.

And it's not as if there is a theme going here BUT - later on in the week, part 1 of my conversation with Tim Walters Ph.D., goes live.

It must be philosophy in the workplace week!

War - What Is It Good For?

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 13:06:57 +1200

Absolutely Nothing! Say it again.

Simon Sinek talking about what game theory teaches us about war.

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bFs6ZiynSU&t=10s)

Maybe why we no longer win wars?

Thinking Allowed

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American Business

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 12:25:31 +1200

It's an old one that I rediscovered in the archives. Time to publish.

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCEDUiqfO-w)

Killing Them Softly: America is not a country, it's just a Business

It just seemed right, timely and very 'People Firsty'.

A Hidden Side Of One Of Our Podcast Guests

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 14:50:55 +1200

Managing Complex Change

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 09:19:34 +1200

🚧 Brought to my attention by Stuart Robbins, who went on to write ....

It is known as the Knoster Model for Complex Behavioral Change (circa 2000). For those who would like to know more, search for Timothy Knoster. In sum, Knoster identifies the 5 key elements needed for any Change Management initiative to be successful, and the relative symptoms caused if/when one element is missing.

Stuart Robbins

Interesting. I went of looking further and found an even better image (see below) that adds context to the steps and happy smiling emojis that reflect the expected feelings! :-)

The keen observers amongst you will also spot a different order and an extra step - but the principle holds. (The principle being - as Stuart said in his original message to me ... (I paraphrase) ... how much information can be packed into a single image (doffing hat to E. Tufte.)

John Philpin

Describing The Cynefin Framework

Sat, 14 Nov 2020 10:13:12 +1200

[youtu.be/N7oz366X0...](https://youtu.be/N7oz366X0-8)

Dave Snowden introduces The Cynefin Framework

I first referenced the Cynefin Framework and published this link on my old Beyond Bridges - now decommissioned - site on June 18th - 2017. Needless to say, though the site is going away, the articles are already archived and dropped safely on my 'words site'

It seemed important, right and relevant to reference it here as I build the archives of frameworks and models relevant to People First.

For sense-making - not categorization.

Listening

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:06:58 +1200

Today, we have the skills and technologies to listen to the universe. But often we don't listen to the people around us.
Jim Macnamara, Organizational Listening

Listen. I'm gonna tell you a story.
Max Bygraves

I had the privilege to sit in and watch (and listen) to a presentation this past week. Can't say too much (Chatham House Rule (sic) and all that), but if I were to tell you that I hauled my ass out of bed at 4:30 am to listen live - even though I could have watched the recording later - maybe that will provide you with the import I laid on this talk.

That and the fact that I can share who presented ... Kristin Little who has The IEEE, 14 years at The World Bank and Fellow of The People Centered Internet - to name but three institutions on her resume. To summarize ... well worth 'tuning in'.

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

The point of this piece is not to take you through what was said idea by idea, but rather to provide some key points that you might find interesting. Each headline groups one or more takeaways that I thought were interesting.

A lot was talked about and covered and I am real happy to get into a dialogue about this and other threads around the challenge of listening. For now, though, this is it.

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Most important .... in 40 minutes nobody said anything like ‘you were born with two ears and one mouth - use them in the same proportions' ... and for that, I was truly thankful. So, here we go.

Opening Comments

On average, around 80%, of organizational resources devoted to public communication is focused on speaking.

Some organizations even were up to 95% of their so called communication was outbound.

At the individual level, we've diminished our ability to have real listening and real conversations. We're now able to voice our thoughts and opinions easily, social media has allowed us a platform to do this.

The Promise of Listening

At the same time, we willingly or unwillingly customize our feeds. We end up hearing views that are just similar to our own. And we filter out the others, it feels like everyone is speaking and not enough listening is happening.

Listening is more important than ever.

To Listen is to Participate

Well, I guess that is exactly what I did. I said nothing. I asked nothing. I just listened. (I know - right? ME!)

Translation

Came up a few times during the talk, not just between different languages, such as English to German, Japanese to Russian etc but also cross-disciplinary translation. This is something I talk about a lot in my world. I am a 'cloud hopper', and I can do that, because my superpower is 'translation' (not language translation, which tends to be the assumption, but cross-disciplinary translation; sales to marketing, customer to vendor, American to English.

It's that last one that confuses people the most. Surely both countries speak the same language?

They do. They don’t. We hear similar words, so we assume we have understood. My view is that we spend less time listening - and thus understanding if we don’t have to concentrate too hard on what is being said. In other words, we assume. (How many times do we leave meetings and each one of us has 'understood' the conclusions, only to discover at the next meeting that this simply was not the case. Partly I think this is because we hear words we recognize and so assume we understand them.

Back to the talk. What really made me sit up was the idea of cross-species translation. The lady that spoke said she 'swims (and talks) with the dolphins' daily. We know that the animal kingdom communicates. Few of us really think about communication with them. In fact I would go as far to say that if we hear such talk - at best we 'raise our eyebrows'!

Stop The Post Mortems

The speaker spoke of post mortem analysis around projects and programs that she has been part of. An audience member suggested that rather than using post mortem, postpartum be considered as a more positive alternative. In their words ... "the line ahead as being a death experience as more like a birth experience."

Postpartum - opening up the possibility to the idea that lessons are being learned and that a new beginning would be possible the next time. Post mortem implying dead, over, passed and definitely not being revisited (my paraphrase).

The Delphi method

Uses 'iterative feedback' to reach consensus (one way to drive more listening in an OODA loop spirit.)

A way of driving towards consensus by everybody giving an opinion and then iterating on that opinion, until everybody agrees on a consensus. It's iterative and a useful technique.

(Delphi Method and OODA)

Superb Quote

It’s hard to transcend a combative question. But it's hard to resist a generous question. We all have it in us to formulate questions that invite honesty, dignity, and revelation.Krista Tippett

Thought(ful) Leadership

A twist of the expression 'thought leadership', and instead focus on thoughtful leadership.

Thought Leadership offers ideas so as to 'lead' in the marketplace of ideas.

Thoughtful leaders listen first, before they pronounce.

Not to mention that Mindy Gibbins-Klein has a book out on this very topic.

Two Stories About Computers In Meetings

Someone who went into a meeting and said, Why is everyone looking at their laptops for the entire meeting. There was nobody who looked at the speaker. Turned out that it was a special meeting for people who were on the autism spectrum. It was meant for them to be watching the speaker on their laptop and replying that way, because that's what was comfortable. That's how they could best function.

I gave a talk recently at a conference for blind people and was shocked to find out that when I was talking, everyone was looking at me. So I was very perplexed. Because I thought well, I would think they would be looking down at their screens. Well, of course, they can't see the screens, but they really loved engaging by looking up at the faces that they couldn't see. Because it made them feel part of the conversation.

Use of Zoom

It's distracting when, people don't seem to be looking at you in the eyes.

Side (authors) note - there's a fix
- place the camera further way from you
- place the camera focussed on you as close to the person on the screen as possible

Smaller groups tend to benefit more interaction.

Break out rooms are very helpful in bringing out people who might otherwise remain quiet.

Encouraging people to be on camera is good,

When you start a meeting, ask a question, an easy question that people can answer,

And so much more, that all felt very much motherhood and Apple pie. Maybe that it is because Zoom and all the other video conferencing tools have just been part of me for a long time. It was nearly twenty years ago that my startup was building 'across the firewall collaboration tools' that included embedding video conferencing software and chats right into the dynamically generated collaboration sites ... twenty years ago? Ok - eighteen!

Separately, I thought this was an interesting exchange. To me, it clearly demonstrates a before and after scenario. The questioner and presenter, both appeared to be in what I would call the old paradigm, the 'refiner' attempting to recalibrate the job of the presenter.

Question : How do you gently encourage people in Zoom not to multitask?

Answer : Beyond telling them that it's very important that we all focus beforehand, maybe also send an email in advance with expectations, and clearly explain what those are and why you would like them to not multitask. And recognizing that it happens, but saying that you want them not to for these reasons. And then thanking them for having not multitask.

Alternative Suggestion From The Audience :
I would like to suggest that multitasking is a feature of Zoom. It provides the environment for you to be able to be looking at multiple things, especially if the camera gets turned off. So the first notional idea is, is that you have to accept that. And then secondly, it's incumbent upon the person who's hosting the meeting, to have content that's worth paying attention to, that will arrest your attention.

That seems to be a perfect summary of why presentations fail in general, which I accept is a totally different topic - but one that I am very keen to drive home.

A lot more was said about Zoom, but it didn’t cover off the issues that I have with that world - which happens to be the topic of this week's newsletter. (I will add a link here when it goes live.)

Conclusion

So much was said. So much was covered. I just wish I could share the actual conversation. Bottom line. Fascinating and delighted that I did indeed haul my ass out of bed when I did.

This piece is knowingly not a flowing article, but I hope it peeked the interest and held (if not arrested) your attention. What are your thoughts?

Thinking Allowed

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Finding Your Life's Purpose

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 13:49:38 +1200

Photo by Gary Butterfield on Unsplash

Of course it is. But the bigger question is what is your purpose?

Imagine my delight to stumble across this Ted Talk ... 'How to know your life's purpose in 5 minutes.' Finally!

Adam sets the scene pretty quickly. You just need to ask yourself 5 questions and 'Bob's your Uncle'.

5 Questions To Answer Your Purpose

who you were
what do you do
who do they do it for
what those people want or need
what they get out of it - how they changed as a result

Simple. Right?

It's so simple that he takes the entire audience on a journey of him asking - and them answering - those 5 questions, by shouting them out.

[youtu.be/vVsXO9brK...](https://youtu.be/vVsXO9brK7M)

Adam Leipzig

The answer to question 1 - after a little prompting - was loud.

Question 2, still pretty good.

After that it all falls apart. By the time you get to the answer to number 5, well it's not that you could hear a pin drop - but you kind of get the feeling that the audience is sorry for him.

Why?

I think it’s because the questions are easy. You've read them so many times before. The answers, not so much.

To be clear, the purpose of this article is not to state the 'bleeding obvious', but rather to highlight that if you are struggling with that definition. It's ok ...

We all are!

The Edge Is Where It's At

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 11:04:42 +1200

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TfwRRJTF1o)

As we move computing power to the edge, this talk resonates even more. Two - that's two conversations just yesterday that I had where we talked about bringing the power of computing to your pocket.

Think about it - we glibly talk about the 'supercomputer in our pocket' - and we use it to 'like' Facebook posts, send messages and whatever else it is you do - but hardly supercomputer activity.

Photo by Melisa Popanicic on Unsplash

Conversation one, no need to explore in detail, but I loved the sentiment of the thinking of the company ...

We want to move analytics to the people not their data to the corporation.
Jim Hewitt

... right up my street. As I have always said ....

I don’t think it will be this year, but Jim will be guesting on the podcast. It's going to be a great conversation.

Conversation two, I can't say too much about, suffice to say that the work being done is moving the power of a Cray (for those that don’t know - the Cray literally is a Supercomputer) into your house! Get your head around that for a minute.

I am reminded of (what I thought was an old bumper sticker, but turns out is a real quote.

What Are We Going To Do About The Rich?

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 18:26:21 +1200

I came across the Pet Shop Boys track 'What Are We Going To Do About The Rich? It seemed to be very People Firsty in nature.

[youtu.be/CHMk9WdoF...](https://youtu.be/CHMk9WdoFHg)

Apart from the recurring refrain "What are we gonna do about the rich?" we do have other words;

They say democracy is simply very bad for business
While deploring student protests in the middle of Hong Kong
They insist that people have to work on zero contracts everywhere
So profit margins grow and shares are very strong
But one group that they never take to task
And one question that they never seem to ask
Is...
They're buyin' football clubs today with absolute impunity
And so much of the media to give themselves the power
To destroy the very notion and the feeling of community
While poisoning the public discourse hour by hour
But although it never seems to make it into Hansard
The question at some point must still be answered
Oh...
They're avoiding paying taxes
While the welfare state collapses
Their extravagance and arrogance
Their lack of tact to balance this
Their lawyers and their attitude
The scale of their ingratitude
They only give to charity
For maximum publicity
Pet Shop Boys

A New Model For Business

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 07:57:16 +1200

Wouldn't you know that one of the first real blog posts to go live on the newly revamped People First Blog is really not my work at all - but rather that of 'People First Friend and Member' ... Jeff Mowatt.

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

So what does business that puts people first actually mean in practice?
People-Centered Economic Development derives from a paper for the steering group for the Committee to (Re)Elect the President, describing a business model which operates for social benefit rather than maximising shareholder returns.
In the core argument which critiqued the fractional reserve banking system the paper asserted:
"Economics, and indeed human civilization, can only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings. Everything in economics has to be adjusted for people, first, and abandoning the illusory numerical analyses that inevitably put numbers ahead of people, capitalism ahead of democracy, and degradation ahead of compassion."
"Each of us who have a choice can choose what we want to do to help or not. It is free-will, our choice, as human beings."
Jeff Mowatt

Read the whole article here ....

More about Jeff Mowatt, Director, People-Centered Economic Development UK.

Business Thinking

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 07:49:42 +1200

After a few decades stumbling around the topic, two things became clear.
- You have to change the way business thinks if you want to change how it works.
- If businesses change how they work they can change how their audiences think.
John Caswell - over on linkedIN

I had to reply - of course, and I did, but it felt substantial enough to include here - flip though the first sentence was.

You might imagine that I won’t argue too much - except to say that businesses not only won’t think - they can’t. It’s the people in those businesses that do the thinking.

We then have to ask - if what needs to happen is so clear to so many people, (judging by everything that you read), then why doesn’t it change?

My friend (Daniel Szuc) in Hong Kong has observed that when at work people are essentially in the mode of sleepwalking … and related to that, see their roles defined in the organizational boxes - and rarely look outside that box … ‘not my job’.

One question …. “if not you … if not now … if not ….” you know how it goes.

Seperately Venkatesh Rao developed a simple model a while back where he mapped the 4 forces of nature to his own 4 forces of humanity, drawing comparison between the relative strengths and reach of each force. He mapped business to gravity.

I take it a step further - unlike the 4 natural forces - the 4 forces of humanity are not givens. It is in our power to change any of them.

Gravity is a given. Business is not.

Corporate Hierarchy

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 14:51:07 +1200

It's arguably too true to be funny, but not why I am sharing. Rather because in the accompanying post (here), reference is made to a post by Ribbon Farm's Venkatesh Rao. (This post specifically.)

The Gervais Principle (I wonder where he got that name from) also introduces us to The MacLeod Life Cycle, which seems to be very closely modelled on Sakar's life cycle.

You see - it is all connected.

Thinking Allowed

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The Harder We Work

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 13:01:10 +1200

The harder I work, the sooner I get to be king! the harder he works, the longer I get to be king!

Chess is a metaphor. It is a complex game of strategy and execution. The game provides a useful mental model for the complex world of organizations. Are you a Knight, Rook, or Queen? Do you need to move straight in or tack to achieve the successful delivery of your project? We know that the most effective people are able to be pawns to kings, depending upon the context.
Gaping Void - Chess Pieces For Business

How Many Different Ways Is This Wrong?

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 13:57:26 +1200

A friend of mine sent this link to me. I was incensed. (I think he knew I would be). In turn, I sent this link into an Internet Identity community I belong to and asked : "How many different ways is this wrong?"

Amazon To Pay Consumers For Their Shopping Data

Photo by Free To Use Sounds on Unsplash

People First Podcast Guest Tim Walters was quick to reply (the link takes you to the podcast - the show has not yet gone live).

The great and sadly late European Data Protection Supervisor, Giovanni Buttarelli, said it all in 2014:

"There might well be a market for personal data, just like there is, tragically, a market for live human organs, but that does not mean that we can or should give that market the blessing of legislation. One cannot monetise and subject a fundamental right to a simple commercial transaction, even if it is the individual concerned by the data who is a party to the transaction."
If I thought it was worth $10 a month, I'd go to a shopping district and gather discarded receipts to scan for Amazon. After all, "That data will be used anonymously, the company says." But . . . if it is genuinely used anonymously, why doesn't Amazon just collect and study discarded receipts themselves? They could certainly find a way to do it at far more scale -- not to mention, actually anonymously -- than a cumbersome mailed-pictures-of-paper-receipts-for-Amazon-credit scheme. (S&H Green Stamps, anyone?)
The company says it deletes any sensitive information such as prescriptions from drug store receipts and allows panellists to delete their own information whenever they want." Oh, not so anonymous after all.
Tim Walters / Giovanni Buttarelli

What do you think?

Thinking Allowed

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Our Web Properties

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 10:55:07 +1200

More of a status check than information, but it kind of makes sense to record here - and periodically update.

People First has 9 domains that get used for different initiatives.

'Broadcast' Sites

Not Yet Live - and so for now, all should resolve to PeopleFirst.business

PeopleFirst.pub - it will be the book site.
PeopleFirst.systems - the structures, framworks, models that allow you to use People First thinking.
PeopleFirst.video - when we move into video - this is where it will be.
PeopleFirst.community - it will map the fabric across the internet.

The People First Community

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 12:16:07 +1200

Community mind you ... not Network - is a yet to be developed space/application that will serve to provide a fabric that wraps so many people, organizations, books, papers, applications etc. My observation is that in any initiative you find parallel organizations that seem to relate and compete and yet essentially are discussing the same topic. Think 'not-for-profits' fighting each other for the same funding to solve the same problem.

People First is not the only organization in this space - so in one sense we are another node on the network. No argument. BUT. What [peoplefirst.community](https://peoplefirst.community) will do is provide a network map of anybody and everybody related to and working with the challenges we are identifying.

Example of a Dynamically Generated Interactive Network Map

No need to click through by the way - nothing there - yet - move along. It for the moment remains the vision.

DigLife and Generative Identity

Once such organization, lead by Philip Sheldrake is The DigLife Collective - of which yours truly is a founder member. Their observation says it all;

COOPERATING AT GLOBAL SCALE IS HUMANITY'S PRIMARY CHALLENGE
DigLife Collective

DigLife has in turn recently spawned another initiative that explores Generative Identity. It's new thinking that I wanted to capture now. It's an important message. To me the first time that I am aware of the world of technology that in talking about identity, they are not just talking about the 'ID' - but also starting to think of the 'entity' of Identity.

For those keeping track, you will recall that it is a significant stone in the People First canon.

ID and Entity are the two sides of Identity

From The Generative Identity Site

Whenever we contemplate human dignity and well-being, social inclusion and equity, economics, education, democratic process, peace and justice, whenever we contemplate many of the sustainable development goals and corresponding targets, we inevitably contemplate the question of human identity in the digital age.
Anyone who has worked on projects in areas such as these will vouch that questions of identity are integral to their research, their analyses, and their designs.
The term generative identity is used to refer to research and thinking and designs that prioritise psychological, sociological, and ecological health in their approach to digital identity. The interdisciplinary working group on generative identity exists to encourage such work and, by corollary, to highlight the innate dangers of approaches to digital identity that do not qualify as generative.
https://generative-identity.org/about-generative-identity/

Funny, just today, I published the weekly newsletter referencing a quote from Douglas Adams. There must be something in the ether. Over on the DigLife site, I found this image of dolphins.

Dolphins By Courtnie Tosana

🚧 Navigation

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 17:57:56 +1200

Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash

Some Useful Tips To Navigate The Articles

The RSS feed is here.

Article Navigation

Like any good WordPress blog, searching by category is of course possible. We have also work hard to only have a single category per article.

We then refine the indexing of the article with free form tags.

We have also introduced a second layer of article - which is 'post type' ... using this filter you can find posts, asides, videos etc

Combine the two look for

category = work
post kind = video

Hit 'filter' and back comes the list of all posts that contain 'videos' categorized as 'work'.

And then, of course, you have search!

The Journey

Fri, 16 Oct 2020 07:56:40 +1200

People First has been a winding journey for the last four years. Most recently, I find it has been coming together in my mind very clearly and with that clarity I have been encouraged to talk about what is going on in a more open manner. The interesting thing is that as I have become more open about what I am doing, more questions are being asked.

Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash

A year ago, asking someone to sign up for the newsletter resulted in them either signing up for the newsletter - or not. No questions. No debate.

Today, I still have the newsletter , added a podcast, the book is coming out shortly and now we are beginning to create community - the questions are beginning to flow.

I still don’t understand. What is the mission/goal of the group(s)?
a newsletter reader

and

What would you say, in three or so sentences, is the hard objective of People First? Not the vague, all singing all dancing "unleashing human potential" nor the activity based "bringing like minds together" etc. What are you (and other participants) trying to tangibly accomplish? This isn't rhetorical. I am just trying to understand what will change/improve at the coal face as a result of your combined efforts.
a newsletter reader

This post is not to answer the questions ... yet. I touched on it in this weeks newsletter - and was specific about that, but here’s the good news. One takeaway for the recurring question is that people are sitting up, listening, they are interested ... which from where I sit is all good news.

As one reader wrote ...

I believe you are on the verge of an overnight success!!!

I hope he's right!

People First Is Not Political

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 11:37:17 +1200

Though it might well be political.

Scene From Us+Them, A Film By Roger Waters

I am writing this post, which is extracted from an email I had cause to write this week when someone questioned a stance I had taken in a newsletter that Pink Floyd was a punk band.

I know - right?

To quote the writer ...

"And Pink Floyd a punk band, WTF!!???)"
an email correspondent

I often take a contrary stance on things to elicit a response. But when I take that stance, it isn't uninformed, just different. So 'Pink Floyd is a punk band' had the desired effect, it elicited response - but no logical argument back, just a preconceived notion that they are a rock/progressive band - which cant possibly be punk. Me - I still say YES. I mean if Malcolm McLaren can produce an album that fuses opera and R&B has he lost his punk? Rigid classification just doesn’t work - I think that also goes some way to explaining how databases have transitioned over time from hierarchical to relational to graph. But back to Punk Floyd.

A Collection of Links you might enjoy - if not - read on

The point of it all being that if Punk is only about the music / style / genre … then no, Pink Floyd is not a Punk Band

BUT

If Punk is all about anti-establishment commentary and political action - then absolutely yes, they are ... and Roger Waters specifically is the original punk.

Have you seen his Mexico concert?

The desire of the article and a lot of what I write is to take a non obvious stance to make people sit up and either respond "right, I never thought about it that way" or "the guys talking crap” … and I look forward to that debate … always seeking to learn.

Thinking Allowed

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What Drives Us

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 07:58:38 +1200

What Drives Us?. Mazlow, Herzberg, and Levi Strauss
StoweBoyd

Interesting read, questioning the relevance of Maslow in this new century. I think he is onto something.

Trust

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 14:33:57 +1200

CX in the age of privacy and trust, part 3: Can we rebuild trust?
Tim Walters

Fits nicely into something I read recently from Union Square Ventures .... Trust is offence (trust gaps create opportunities for startups) as well as defence (trust is a moat).

Skills

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:07:00 +1200

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Soft skills ... wooly, fluffy, comfortable ... not like ' real, hard, proper skills are they?

Soft skills, bendy, malleable, unmeasurable ... nothing like ' real, hard, proper skills ...

.. and yet

I often talk about vocabulary and language .... here's another one ... because if you list all the skills that people are highlighting as important in the future - it's close identical to the soft skill list.

My advice ... get into that cuddly warm blanket and embrace those soft skills -- you can always learn the other skills as and when you need them ... despite the name ... they're not that hard.

Character

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:06:36 +1200

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

I was really taken by these words that came in an email from one of my newsletter readers. Capturing it for posterity ... because it is important.

Character may be something you are born with and largely in place by age 5 but surely it is something that is developed and refined in many ways through a thousand experiences in both good and bad directions. Right?
Since a zillion years ago I have ALWAYS subscribed to "hire character, teach skills". It has never let me down and the boneheaded moves I have made here and there were when I deviated from this.

The Future of Work

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 12:21:23 +1200

First, there are many possible futures - it is not yet clear what the future is, so we should be asking what is ...

A Future of Work?

Second, what the hell is ‘work’ - why do we care about it?

If you ask most people if all their creature comforts were taken care of - would they continue to do what they are doing? More than likely they will answer ’no’ - the question then is what is ...

The/A Future of Income?

Third, the future is already here, so let's call it

The Present of Work

…. and by the 'Present of Work' - your life, labour, time to do your work is not a gift, not a present. You should be paid fairly and equitably for your contribution.

Thinking Allowed

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Technology

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:06:34 +1200

Technology is one of the eight pillars of People First ... with a single, solitary 'stone’, a mighty 'Sarsen' reaching to the sky that is that pillar.

Technology ... OMG ... Technology

Owned
Managed
Governed

... not by you - by others.

Updates to Quotebacks

Sat, 25 Jul 2020 20:07:43 +1200

tomcritchlow.com/2020/07/2…

'A' Future - Not 'The' Future

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 16:44:00 +1200

Time
Is it really a dimension if you can't travel in the opposite direction?

In January 2020, not a single CEO, government leader, politician or consultant let alone futurist, futurologist, sociologist, FoW expert, forecaster, strategy planner or pollster ... wrote or talked about what we should do 6 months later when the world was in the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu, suffering the deepest financial depression in nearly a hundred years with a global #BLM movement provoking civil unrest that threatens the global power structure that has been in place for centuries.

"Expect the unexpected."
social media meme

When it happened. We froze.

This will become a repeating paragraph on the bottom of newsletter posts.

Roadblocks

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:34:00 +1200

Teseract

Here are more things that don’t always help;

Looking through ‘different lenses’
Putting ‘new filters on the glasses’
Viewing things from a ‘different angle’

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair

The Things We Say

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:16:00 +1200

Salvador Dali
The Persistence of Memory - 1931

Sometimes we get so caught up in working out how to communicate across national boundaries, we forget that we can barely communicate within them. That’s why language is one of the eight tenets of People First.

Our language slowly became invested with mechanical metaphors: We needed to grease the wheels, crank up the business, dig deeper, or turn a company into a well-oiled machine. Even everyday phrases, such as “fueling up” for eating lunch or “he has a screw loose” for thinking illogically, conveyed the acceptance of humans as mechanical devices.
Douglas Rushkoff

Flying High

Wed, 27 May 2020 14:22:00 +1200

Murray Foubister.
Iguassu Falls, Brazil/Argentina

Good practice for ‘COVID times’ I suspect.

I've never worked for a large company. Well, unless you call 30 people large. I’ve worked for myself and for others … in construction, emergency services, tourism, deliveries and seen the world while I was at it
Will

How The Future Works - The Arrogance!

Wed, 20 May 2020 20:41:30 +1200

In fairness, the full title was

How The Future Works:
Why your ultimate job is to be HUMAN.

Well yes. Couldn't agree more ... but that opening line - that suggests that it is all pre destined. This ... is how .... it is ... going to work ... Surely the Future hasn't yet been decided?

We have heard all this before. The robots are going to take away the meaningless jobs, the repetitive jobs, the boring jobs and we are going to be free to pursue our happiness ...

And Yet?

I took part in a small MeetUP yesterday. A nice friendly group that I seem to have latched onto and they haven't objected so far .. ?.

At the beginning of the session, a video was played. This video.

After watching Gerd wax lyrical over what we can do to manage 'VUCA' - that is that the world is increasingly; Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous .. but don’t worry, we can combat that with our own VUCA ... with our Velocity, Unorthodoxy, Creativity and 'Awesomeness'.

I'll put aside why a better word than 'awesomeness' couldn’t be found and just go with the flow.

The discussion then set out to explore whether we agreed or disagreed with the premise - and what would we add. To summarize what I heard, I think the answer is that the world is 49.9999% Optimists and 49.9999% Pessimists ... and then there are the rest of us.

I didn’t discern anything specific about why someone fell one way or the other on the optimist/pessimist scale ... although definitely some of us on the 'older side' had a certain cynicism.

I made a few notes on what I saw which I talked through with the group - and for posterity reveal them here.

We on this call are a particular slice of humanity - I'd love to hear what construction workers, shop keepers, and janitors think about this video.
There is a corporate narrative - that has always been about 'managing people' and setting their expectations to the benefit of corporations. This is one such corporate narrative/
There is no future of work - only a future of income/
Whose technology is he talking about? Where is my personal 'edge' AI?
Who is in control? Who's AI? Where is the data?
Tech companies are only now just realizing the need for ethicists ... and even then to ethics - what about them?
He talked of STEM - I talk of STEAM - Arts / Liberal Arts - lose that to STEM and we WILL be lost
Work-Life Balance will never work. I talk of Pay, Purpose, Passion and Play.
Life long learning - people have been doing that forever. The key is to 'Learn to learn'.
Our Education system has primarily been for to train people - not Educate. Training people does nothing to open their eyes to possibilities.
Our education is actually training to be a cog in the machine
There are close to 8 billion people on this planet. I look forward to them all rising up and following their purpose ... but first - how about clothing them. Feeding them. Allowing them access to good healthcare. We don’t really need AI and Robotics to do that now. Why will it change?

My conclusion : All of this is moot, if we don’t do something about the world we live in. If we don’t change our education systems to educate, not train people. While we allow our Governments to drives lower income people into the ground. Our humanity, where we think it is all right for millions of people to be starving and dying from heat. Where our Trust in Government is so low that we can barely be bothered to vote. Where Corporations have been taken to such new lows that it is ok to treat people as cogs in their machine. I could go on - but readers of this blog and associated Newsletter know they don’t want that!

Bottom line - all this talk of AI, Bots, Data and the 'technical future; solves the wrong problem really well. Because ....

What I would like to happen with this post is to document what we talked about. So I am going to stop here and publish and then share it with the group and see if I can get some of the others to weigh in on their thoughts. I was but one voice and I wouldn’t want to bias the conclusions. So ... here goes nothing ... the comments are open.

Always Stay In Your Own Movie

Wed, 20 May 2020 19:47:27 +1200

Ken Kesey
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion

Just yesterday during our walk, my wife said (with no desire to insult or degrade my worth), “Well , you’ve had a good run up til now …”

Fuck the economy.
Fuck the mainstream music business.
Fuck the shallow music listening audience
My friend the artist and musician

Work-Life Balance ... The Unsolvable Equation - A Snicklecast

Mon, 18 May 2020 17:09:16 +1200

Working towards work-life balance solves the wrong problem really well.

But I realized something else last night …

Value Yourself

Wed, 13 May 2020 14:44:10 +1200

Golconde (Magritte).
Golconde is a synonym for 'mine of wealth'.

Do this exercise and then look at the projects you take on. How many of them deliver less ‘units of currency’ for your time, per day than the number you just calculated. Next question. Then why are you doing them?

Want to earn $100,000? Then your day rate is $1,000.
John Philpin

A High Tech Dystopia - coming to a city near you!

Mon, 11 May 2020 15:15:26 +1200

[Under Cover of Mass Death, Andrew Cuomo Calls in the Billionaires to Build a High-Tech Dystopia](https theintercept.com 2020 05 08 andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine) … including Eric from Google (who has now left)

Google owns Sidewalk who were doing something similar in Toronto … but, well that was cancelled just two days ago

So, now what? Oh this;

“The tech companies to which Schmidt has deep ties, and which populate the influential advisory boards he chairs, have all repositioned themselves as benevolent protectors of public health and munificent champions of “everyday hero” essential workers (many of whom, like delivery drivers, would lose their jobs if these companies get their way). Less than two weeks into New York state’s lockdown, Schmidt wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that both set the new tone and made clear that Silicon Valley had every intention of leveraging the crisis for a permanent transformation.

Value

Wed, 06 May 2020 15:58:28 +1200

Value is a function of a matrix of parameters

... it’s a thing we talk about and attach importance to - but remains aloof. A little like art, we know it when we see it. And yet, the recurring mantra of all of those advice books? Provide value. Deliver value.

Meet the Bay Area doctor who ordered America’s first coronavirus lockdown

“Well-being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing.”
Zeno

Thinking Allowed

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Wall Street. Main Street.

Wed, 06 May 2020 12:35:22 +1200

It used to be Wall Street and Main Street.
Now it's Wall Street versus Main Street.

When you read all the analysis, what can I add, other than connecting the articles to a story that highlights the challenges society faces through this pandemic. The stories are new, the underlying themes are not. I have been talking about them for a couple of years. What is new is that they are getting broader attention. Amplification.

Now we need to do something about it. Before we fall back into the ‘normal’. Or worse - accept a ‘new’ normal, because that is ‘just the way it is’.

People First Tenets

Over on Wall Street on the 28th of April, stocks jumped 2%, putting the S&P 500 on track for its best month since 1974. (CNBC) and the next day it went even higher, dropping back on the last day of the quarter and now two days into the new quarter it is fully 5% down on that peak. I mean, it really is just a game isn’t it? There really is no rhyme nor reason to the fluctuations, Wall Street can look around at the overall economy just as Main Street can. But that’s not how they work. Bailout news appears and ‘Wall Street’ buys-in, sells at ‘peak’, watches it crash and then buys back in at the low and with that done another several billion of ‘the people’s wealth’ is extracted and pocketed by the few. The Markets have absolutely no relation to the well being of the country, it is simply a place that people with money go to gamble and make money (off the taxpayers back - after all - where is all this bailout money coming from?) They must be doing well because while the world is hunkered down, billionaires wealth grew by 10%. (IPS), so let's stop pretending that they are in the same boat as the rest of us during this pandemic. (The Guardian)

Meanwhile … in the real world, the economy shrunk by a 4.8% annual rate in the first three months of the year - and the worst is yet to come. (NPR) To put that into perspective, this was the “first quarterly contraction since 2014 and the largest since the Great Recession”. Not only that the number of people unemployed in the USA is sitting at 30 million (that’s 20% of the workforce). (CNN).

So, of course, we need to get back to work. Would you risk your life to go to work? What if you decided that you don’t want to go back to work because you don’t think it is safe? Well, you could lose your job. (NYT) The article focuses on Amazon and Walmart - but we know they aren’t alone. But heh, life’s a crapshoot, right? I’ll suck it up, go back to work and if I catch it. I catch it. I mean it’s not as if I am likely to die. And I’m unlikely to be the only one. If we all catch it, then we can hold the company liable. Right? WRONG. If you do go back to work and catch COVID-19, it might well be that the company has protections against any liability for you. (WaPo)

Amazon (to pick a ‘random’ company) has received a lot of criticism, but it looks like there are some right-minded people in there. Oh wait - correction … were, not are … an Amazon VP quit over the whistleblower firings (The Verge) .. which of course means that he is no longer in any kind of place to change Amazon policy (if he ever was), but he did write a blog post (TBray) which has obviously got attention - so who knows?

"They fired me to make others scared.”
Bashir Mohamed

The Amazon story alone would take books to properly record. Suffice to say while businesses around the world crash, Amazon soars. Even in 2020.

Amazon Stock Performance

While people around the world are losing their livelihood (CNN), their businesses (CNBC), the food off their table (NYT), their running water (The Guardian), Bezo’s fortune soars. It has soared so much that in the middle of April his personal worth was estimated to be $138.5 billion. (Fortune) ( I remember his net worth not that long ago being $1Bn - and that was before his divorce. His ex-wife is worth $45 billion.

But with all that growth and wealth his workers on the frontline are essentially treated as cogs in a machine with no rights, no voice and highly replaceable - often as contract workers with no rights - but as it turns out even if you are employed by the company you have no rights. (The Guardian)

Finally, ‘gig workers’. We shouldn’t forget them. Those people who still go out and risk it all because they have nothing left to lose. A few months ago, they were hailed as people showing us what The Future of Work looked like. I am here to tell you - that need not be your future, but if we follow the ‘it will be ok’ road - that is exactly the future.

But Tech’s Fine. Right?

Ummm … depends which part of tech. Here’s an under-reported fact: As I write 366 tech startups have laid off 35,969 employees since Mar 11. (Layoffs.fyi) that’s one extreme. And at the other, we have the ‘tech-a-liths’, who, when all this is over, could have all the power and absolutely none of the accountability, (NYT) though of all of the industries you might look at - tech is the one where they won’t be going back to work in offices.

But I’m sure everything is going to be fine. I mean this is what Boris said (The Guardian), the US is re-opening (Morning Brew) and Bolsonaro has written off COVID-19 as a ‘little flu’ (Morning Brew). (WorldOMeters). So what’s the big deal? Other than the fact that here we are in May, America is moving into Summer (AKA ‘disaster’ season, think Hurricanes, Floods and Fires), but someone is thinking … FEMA has ordered 100,000 ‘human remains pouches’ (also known as body bags). (Axios)

Finally, in case this is all a little depressing ans cynical - let me end with a short video that is doing the rounds. It is lovely. I think it made me think that I wanted to write a story this week. I don’t think I did. It’s too real.

[youtu.be/Nw5KQMXDi...](https://youtu.be/Nw5KQMXDiM4)

California is seen as a leading light in the fight against COVID - but do some underlying figures suggest a deeper truth?

Mon, 04 May 2020 12:07:32 +1200

As always the numbers won’t be exactly right.

Total cases in CA : 53,611

Fully 46% of those are in LA County.

In fact 66% of all CA cases are in the top 4 counties in CA - SOCAL specifically and have 72% of all CA deaths.

In NORCAL; San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Cruz account for just 14% of all CA cases.

Those are the six counties in the Bay Area that were the first counties in AMERICA to go into lock down. Everyone laughed at the time.

Fifty

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:12:01 +1200

Earthday, NYC, April 22nd 1970

We can elect to go backwards and just carry on. Really?

OR

We decide to move forward, with different ideas, different measures and different thinking.

“Well-being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing.”
Zeno

Not Scientific - But Interesting

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 17:45:30 +1200

You could be forgiven for thinking that all of the world's problems that were top of our collective mind as we celebrated the closing of 2019 are now solved.

To be clear this is definitely not a scientific analysis, but 4 google searches where I search for the term 'front page news xxx 2020' and replaced 'xxx' with a month name and then looked at the image results. The four images below are the top two lines of the resultant search result.

In January

No mention of COVID-19

Results From Google Search : 'front page news january 2020'

In February

No mention of COVID-19

Results From Google Search : 'front page news february 2020'

In March

COVID-19 dominates

Results From Google Search : 'front page news march 2020'

In April

COVID-19 dominates

Results From Google Search : 'front page news april 2020'

Meanwhile what of Climate Change, The UN Sustainable Development Goals, the #METOO movement,

For example a Google search for Greta Thunberg over the past year reveals that she has totally fallen off the radar.

Of course it hasn't all gone away. Once e have COVID-19 licked - we will all be back on pace - but hopefully this time it will be different. But that’s up to us.

What kind of difference do you want to see?

People: Will

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:02:46 +1200

I got my skills very early in life and never looked back. A lot of people in my line of work are ex-military, but I was trained and worked as a civilian all of my life. It's funny when I was at school all the advice I got was about getting a ‘good’ job with a ‘reputable company’. What they meant was ‘large’.

I've never worked for a large company. Well, unless you call 30 people large. I’ve worked for myself and for others … in construction, emergency services, tourism, deliveries and seen the world while I was at it.

Papua New Guinea ... only after their independence (I'm not that old!), up in Canada, down in Australia and New Zealand …. I pretty much work wherever the next phone call takes me.

Me? Oh, I fly helicopters.

Will never had ‘pilot’ on his ‘what I will do when I grow up’ childhood list, but he’s never regretted it. “What else would I do?” he asked.

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
Seneca

Thinking Allowed

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

What's Next

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 12:01:28 +1200

Day and Night - M.C. Escher, 1938
"A masterful demonstration of symmetrical opposites."

What's Next? It's a question being asked all the time. The answer? It depends. What does it depend on? YOU!

Microsoft Files Patent For New Cryptocurrency and Mining System

“ “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ”
Buckminster Fuller

Three Stories

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 15:00:00 +1200

These three stories provide context to the People First Newsletter that was published on Tuesday April 21st.

Mining Coin Through Your Bodies Activity

"Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. A cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify whether or not the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified."

and

"a brain wave or body heat emitted from the user when the user performs the task provided by an information or service provider, such as viewing an advertisement or using certain internet services, can be used in the mining process."

What could possibly go wrong? The answer - as always - it depends.

Investing In The Student Body

Back in 2015 Purdue announced that it was going to invest in its students. I mean really invest.

“Through its research foundation, the school plans to create ISA funds that its students can tap to pay for tuition, room and board. In return, students would pay a percentage of their earnings after graduation for a set number of years, replenishing the fund for future investments.”
… WaPo (source)

There was a lot of huh hah in the media at the time about people selling themselves into servitude. Education is a right and and and …

.. and yet 5 years later …

One Man Voluntarily Enters ‘Indentured Servitude’

It’s just that this isn’t how he sees it. (The story of the man who sold fractional shares in himself.)

It’s not the same, but it reminded me a little of this idea from 2005 - essentially fractional advertising on a single page to fund Alex Tew’s education. (I am going to say it worked. Ever heard of Calm? Alex co-founded the company and he is now co-CEO. Calm is rocking!

Anyway - back to Alex (the other one) - and isn't it odd that they are both called Alex?

$ALEX holders are promised a share of any money he makes in the next three years! (He'll pay out up to a total of $100,000 over three years—the rest is (his) to keep).
$ALEX holders can vote on some of his life decisions!

That second one smacks a little of Luke Rheinhart’s Diceman - but essentially what Alex is doing is convincing people with money to give it to him - and in return, he will give them more back within 3 years. Why is that any different to those same people buying stock in a company?

The world has been dallying with these ideas for a long time. There is push back from some quarters that caution needs to be applied because this could return us to millions of people working in ‘indentured servitude’ - and certainly by Investopedia’s definition that is exactly what Alex has just signed up for.

I think they are wrong. Sure, we need to tread carefully and not blindly sell all our rights (Lessons learned from musicians of the 60s?) - but surely none of it can be worse than the alternative?

Nobody Should Adopt Social Distancing.

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 11:09:00 +1200

Nobody Should Adopt Social Distancing.
Now 'Physical Distancing', That's Different. Definitely Do That.

I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘Social Distancing’. It’s wrong. We should not be Social Distancing. You know I am right. You aren’t doing it either. Nobody is doing it. Now ‘physical distancing’, that’s very different. Definitely do that.

“ The financial markets are rallying because they can ‘feel that companies are soon going to be back at work’. They should really be asking when will the buyers go back to buying. ”
John Philpin

You Can't Make This Up

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:41:20 +1200

Trump retweeted a post calling for Dr. Fauci to be fired after the nation’s top infectious disease specialist said more could have been done to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The White House, meanwhile, denied that Trump is considering firing Dr. Fauci, calling Trump’s own retweet – that said “Time to #FireFauci” – just “ridiculous” “media chatter.”

Trump, meanwhile, spent the weekend calling people close to him and asking them, “What do you think of Fauci?”

On The Frontline.

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 12:33:43 +1200

The Frontline Might Be Different.
But It Is Still A Frontline.

Words of wisdom from a captain on the frontlines. His role when I met him was very different to what I expect he’s doing now, but his skills and talents will have transferred to the new reality just fine.

“Maybe that’s something else those big companies could learn from us. If they did, we wouldn’t charge. That’s another thing - we don’t charge to learn - learning makes us all better.”
Sylvester

Value.

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 16:22:10 +1200

Value.
What Is It?

We need something to help people understand if something truly is of value to them because as we journey through these strange times, I have a deep belief that value - and ‘our values’ - are going to bubble to the top of what we and collectively ‘society’ holds important.

“Years later I find myself paying monthly for a storage container in the city of York, England. Total monetary value - not a whole hell of a lot. I have easily spent more on keeping the container than the monetary value of all of everything inside. In total. Why? Because to me, it is all valuable. Irreplaceable. Just like that wooden carving, which is just one of the items stored in the container.”
John Philpin

The Defence We Have Is Simple - A Snicklecast

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 17:07:51 +1200

A snickelcast highlighting the solution and what can go wrong.

🖇️ The Text

🚧 Extra! Extra!

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 17:01:00 +1200

Extra! Extra!
Read All About It.

Apologies for this interruption - and breaking with my cadence of one newsletter a week. But I felt this was important.

“ I hope you agree that this ‘bonus’ addition - more than any other - deserves sharing wide and far. Please do that and let’s make sure that as many people as possible are aware of that they can do - even at home - to help fight this virus. ”
John Philpin

Good Things Happen.

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 15:44:00 +1200

Good Things Happen.
They Sometimes Take Time.

It’s always important to share good news and good stories - even more so in the times we find ourselves in. This is one of those stories.

🔗 Read The Whole Article.

“ “I'm in a Catch-22 situation until someone takes a leap of faith.” ”
Carl

Louis Daguerre and Daguerreotypes

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 09:17:21 +1200

I asked a question about this image in this newsletter.

The Boulevard du Temple photograph of 1838 (or possibly 1839) is one of the earliest daguerreotype plates produced by Louis Daguerre. Although the image seems to be of a deserted street, it is widely considered to be the first photograph to include an image of people. (Wikipedia)

More to come, but to recognize here that it was a stretch ... First Person ... People First!

People First!

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 17:10:00 +1200

People First!

Why would it be any different?

Why People First? It’s a question that I am often asked. Why not? If not people, then what should be first?

The questions being asked by mainstream media are primarily about how markets and business will recover - few ask how people will recover.

💬 John Philpin

There Are Four ‘Casts’. That’s Why They Have Four Names - A Snicklecast

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 14:55:41 +1200

Not an explanation … just a fact.

We Live In A Viral World.

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 17:39:00 +1200

We Live In A Viral World
There's A Perfect Storm On The Horizon

Don’t we all want our YouTube video or Instagram post to go viral? You know, where 24 hours after the post, there are millions of likes and shares and people all over the world are suddenly aware of you and your message? I wonder how many people think about the etymology of ‘going viral’? They are probably more aware today.

“ I don’t need to have the numbers (of confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases) double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault. ”
Donald J. Trump

Garbage Language

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 16:42:42 +1200

We need to stop it.

“We’re waiting on specs for the San Francisco installation. Can you parallel-path two versions?”

Good grief ... I think Molly Young is channelling me.

... at the very bottom, customer service. Which, by the way, has been rechristened “customer support” or “customer experience” at most companies — as though the word service might remind the college graduates recruited for these roles that they will in fact spend their days pacifying irritable consumers over phone, chat, text, and email.

As you know - Language is one of the People First pillars.

I have no reason to write more on this article - it only becomes a block to you reading it yourself.

🚧 Data Is Being Used To Screw Us

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 15:13:55 +1200

This popped into a thread that I am part of ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63&v=z-_ARP8m4Fg&feature=emb_logo

Yeshimabeit Milner

A thread that caused 'Friend of People First' - Adrian Gropper to write;

A talk that argues that most of the big data is being used to screw us and mentions data trusts as a possible solution. Data trusts are an immature concept but worth considering because it's one approach to decentralizing governance. Until we figure out data governance principles that are transparent and contextual to specific communities we should limit data aggregation by default and focus on personal agents and other fiduciaries.
Adrian Gropper

It is interesting because on that very same day I received these words from another 'Friend of People First' and occasional colleague Daniel Szuc after he received my newsletter declaring Data is Energy.

Energy is energy.
Climate is a result of energy misused.
Environment is the outcome.
What are the impacts on our environment today, inside people and in the outside environment people live in?
What contributes to the health or toxicity of the environment?
Data, understood deeply, should be used to contribute to the healthy environment ... yet ... how is it being used today?
Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong

The answer, of course, is exactly what Adrian expressed above.

It is being used to screw us.

Ian Grigg On Identity

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 13:31:48 +1200

[youtu.be/2ITif1OBV...](https://youtu.be/2ITif1OBVX8)

I think that is the opportunity and in five years time we'll know whether we got the mega-corporations holding my identity or whether we managed to take it back.
Ian Grigg - October 2015.

The five years are just about up and I think if the 'megacorps' have not won - they are about to. Is it too late?

Three years ago he wrote: Identity is an edge protocol, and not a nodal protocol. (pdf)

Fuck You. Pay Me.

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 07:43:57 +1200

Imagine, turning around to a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor and telling them that they weren't going to be paid.

Dear Lawyer
I listened to your advice - but I am not going to use it - so I don’t owe you.
Wrote no one ever.

So why does that happen to designers, creators, writers et al?

Thinking Allowed

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Data?

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:59:00 +1200

Data?
Data Is Energy!

In 2020, extractive industries are under siege for many reasons, so why on earth would we hang our hats on such a flawed analogy as 'Data Is The New Oil? Regardless, it is just plain wrong.

“ If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. ”
Nikola Tesla

Technology?

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 19:12:00 +1200

Technology!
O.M.G. Technology!

We live in the thrall of technology. ‘Shiny Things’, that deliver 'squirrel’ interruptions into our daily lives. Nothing wrong with that, with all the usual caveats that we read about. BUT …

“ OMG - Technology … all
Owned
Managed and
Governed
Not by you - but by the very companies that 'sold' you the ‘bill of goods’ to begin with. ”
John Philpin

Reflections on Reflections

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 16:23:59 +1200

Reflecting On/Of Pillars

I have been reflecting on the pillars of People First. Each pillar has at least one reflection that throws new light on something we might have thought we understood, but on reflection we might conclude that 'common wisdom' should be questioned.

Reflections of any subject aren't exactly true to the original. Sometimes distorted. Occasionally murky. Always the opposite of what we perceive as reality. Yet they are valid representations of reality.

Always revealing differences. Often adding new facets. To know the reflection is to understand the subject.

This is a living post and will be updated as reflections are added to the canon.

Pillar	Reflection
Identity	ID - Entity
Data	Data? Data Is Energy!
Technology	Technology? OMG - Technology

Identity

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 05:11:00 +1200

Always revealing differences. Often adding new facets.
To know the reflection is to understand the subject.

We get so caught up in the idea that your ID is your identity that we forget that ‘entity’ is also part of ‘identity’.

Even without ‘ID’, you remain an ‘entity’ - with distinct and independent existence.
John Philpin

Who's Responsible?

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:53:38 +1200

Just You.

Every single individual creates wealth for themselves through their labour, skills, information, knowledge, insights, wisdom, time and through their assets, thinking, analysis, compassion, agility, flexibility, street smarts, humanity …

"There is no future of work - only a future of income."
John Philpin

When You Connect The Dots

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 16:01:00 +1200

You Don’t Always Reach The Right Conclusion.

This newsletter is a journey through a series of disparate - yet connected - dots. Each dot leading to the next with the final dot also being the first. An image of the journey is created. A mandala. An image of some ‘25 degrees of People First’.

The peak of the internet searching for the term ‘Ad blocker’ was September 2015.

“Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
The Windmills Of Your Mind, Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Politics In Business

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 14:12:45 +1200

The New York Times : Yellow or Blue? In Hong Kong, Businesses Choose Political Sides on the 19th January contains this quote ...

Families and businesses have cleaved, sometimes forcefully, between those who believe Beijing must be compelled to carry out promised reforms and those who worry that the democracy crusade is destroying Hong Kong’s reputation as a stable financial capital.

I thought of the UK and the US ... and made two modifications

For The USA

Families and businesses have cleaved, sometimes forcefully, between those who believe Washington must be compelled to carry out promised reforms and those who worry that the democracy crusade is destroying The USA's reputation as a stable financial capital.

For The UK

Families and businesses have cleaved, sometimes forcefully, between those who believe London must be compelled to carry out promised reforms and those who worry that the democracy crusade is destroying The UK's reputation as a stable financial capital.

People: Sylvester

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 20:06:00 +1200

“They come for three months - they stay for four years - and I welcome that. That’s how we learn. They see us up close and personal and we see them. A lot of countries that they come from have very different governments, with different rules. We get to learn about each without the filter of what they are told. I wouldn’t say that when they leave we fully understand each other’s cultures, but we are surely better off than we would have been if we hadn't.”

“We bring people in from all over the world, staff and customers. So, why would we treat anyone differently? Them, Us, Staff, Customers, Family … each one of us is part of another’s world. And I mean all of us.”

“I don’t know much about those large companies you hear about in the news. You could fit our entire community into one of their office blocks. They have their ways. We have ours. So we’re different. Except we’re not. None of us are. They just haven’t worked that out yet.”

“Turns out, we have more in common with ‘foreigners’ - like you” (he smiles and points his finger at me) “than some of the people from our own country. Turns out that the ones that are just here to 'party' are the odd ones out. That’s why we came up with the 'Silly Bugger' rule.”

“It goes like this. When you come here, you can work and you can party. But that’s on your time. If you play 'silly bugger', there is no second chance. You are out on the next boat. That’s how we build and strengthen our community. Everybody is welcome until they make themselves unwelcome.”

“Maybe that’s something else those big companies could learn from us. If they did, we wouldn’t charge. That’s another thing - we don’t charge to learn - learning makes us all better.”

“There is no harm in our criticizing foreigners, if only we would also criticize ourselves. In other words, the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little more of the old humility.”
G.K. Chesterton

Thinking Allowed

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Postscript : Ad Tracking

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 13:39:41 +1200

Are we winning? Well a whole lot more than we might have been pre-internet.

Ad blockers are used by some 25% of internet users in 2019. In real terms, this means that 25% of internet advertising that uses trackers will not reach their intended audience. (It’s quite a bit more complicated than that, but the point is that somehow the word got out that people were being tracked and it was those pesky Ads doing all the tracking - enter Adblocking and so an industry was born and an ‘arms race’ ensued.)

Me - I call it ‘tracker blocking’. There are sites that allow advertising and do not track. Ad blockers don’t work there - because there is no tracking to be blocked.

But there is no escape that at one point people were increasingly aware of ad blocking - what it was doing and most importantly - what it was doing to them. They got interested. And then it all fell away.

That's the mistake - we need to keep piling on. Keep reminding people what is going on.

Postscript : Climate Change

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 10:38:58 +1200

If you are old enough, you will remember that the French Government blew up a boat belonging to Greenpeace in the Auckland harbor, New Zealand. (If you aren’t old enough - trust me - this is not a movie - this is history.) That was 35 years ago - 14 years after Greenpeace was founded to protest the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Since the early 90s Greenpeace has had a broader goal that puts Climate Change front and centre. They are but one organization fighting that particular battle.

It took until 2016 for The Paris Agreement to come together and really is only the world’s united effort to start to fight climate change. The only countries recognized as ‘significant emitters’ that have not signed are Iran and Turkey.

Anyway - must be all going smoothly. Right?

Captain Peter Wilcox was the skipper and onboard the Rainbow Warrior in 1985. He still is the skipper of Rainbow Warrior (the third).

“I’m scared that we have lost the battle against climate change. But this stuff gets me up in the morning.....I say we’re losing, does that mean I’m gonna stop? No. Absolutely not. I’ll go down fighting. We’re not winning, we’re not succeeding. Global warming is getting worse, and worse, and worse and we haven’t even started to change the way we live on the planet”.
Captain Peter Wilcox

If you feel helpless - imagine how Peter feels.

If I stop using plastic bags, recycle and am I ‘carbon neutral’? What good is that in the fight against climate change? What can a single person do? I don’t know … but don’t tell the mosquito in a tent that it is ineffective.

Moreover, The United States of America has pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

Meanwhile, climate activist Greta Thunberg has risen from relative obscurity to Time Person of the Year and nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in less than 18 months, all the while being made fun of by bullies like Donald Trump and Steve Mnuchin.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

I think we are around stage two/three on ‘climate’.

Postscript : Marketing

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 10:38:10 +1200

AIDA is a marketing model that is well over 100 years old. It has gone through countless iterations, twists and turns. It has been cast out - only to reappear with different words. More stages. Less stages. The ‘Young Turks’ who run today’s corporate marketing department will be using some version of the AIDA model. It is a simple, timeless truth that goes something like this:

For a product, service or idea to gain traction with an individual, that person needs to be attracted in a way that Attention is garnered. Once you have that attention, the person needs to become sufficiently Interested to learn more. To educate themselves. With that education, the person should then develop a Desire to adopt the service, product or thinking so that the Action of purchase of ‘adoption of idea’ can be completed.

There’s more. While it takes two to tango, it takes an army to change thinking, because the opposition to established ideas, general knowledge and 'plain common sense' is hard. But important and necessary.

NO need to start a discussion here on civil rights. Is there?

Michael Porter published “Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors” in 1980 and introduced the world to The Five Forces Model

Competition in the industry
Potential of new entrants into the industry
Power of suppliers
Power of customers
The threat of substitute products

It’s a longer discussion, and maybe not immediately obvious - but we can apply this thinking, with the AIDA model, to build a solid series of campaigns and programs to start to change the dialogue and remind everyone that

Technology is a tool for people to use - not be used against them.

Capitalism is Dead.

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 17:24:23 +1200

... Long Live Capitalism.

Here’s a snippet from a long-form interview of Yvon Chouinard in Fast Company.

Yvon Chouinard

Question : In the past, you consulted with folks at large companies, such as Walmart, and came away not so convinced of their actual ability to pursue sustainability. If we’re looking to create a better version of capitalism, what do you think should be done with publicly traded companies?

You’ve got to reinvent capitalism altogether. It leads to a whole bunch of poor people and a few extremely rich people. Ultimately, capitalism is going to lose its customers. There won’t be anybody to buy the product because everybody is going to be so poor. The whole thing is going to crash before the next election, probably. We’re going to get another huge recession, and everybody’s going to lose out on their stocks. There we go again. It’s a system that’s got to change. The whole stock thing is dependent on growth. Look at Amazon. Amazon doesn’t make a profit. They don’t pay any taxes. Nothing. But they’re growing like crazy. It’s all growth, growth, growth—and that’s what’s destroying the planet. I’m dealing with that myself. We’re a billion-dollar company, over a billion, and I don’t want a billion-dollar company. The day they announced it to me, I hung my head and said, “Oh God, I knew it would come to this.” I’m trying to figure out how to make Patagonia act like a small company again."

"There won’t be anybody to buy the product because everybody is going to be so poor." As we have it here at People First ....

There's A Gap

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 17:05:17 +1200

Over here I share a lot of Gaping Void's work. Hugh Macleod more often than not nails it. But this one needed a comment.

Boom! That’s the way it works, for anyone in the innovation or creative business. History decides what is 'art', history decides what is 'important' ...
Meanwhile, you’re just doing your job, you’re just showing up, trying to be a pro, you’re just trying to be a grownup, you’re just trying to get paid.
Hugh Mcleod - Gaping Void

Whilst I don’t disagree that 'history' decides what is important - Hugh of all people knows that 'history' is not neutral. An example would be that 'History' for the longest time did not recognize art that came from (say) Africa, because we 'superior' Westerners were writing off thousands and thousands of years of 'art' - because it didn't fit into our Western sensibilities and so classified the art into Natural History Museums.

Example essay on this topic

But there's more.

I reject the idea that just because you aren't 'recognized as an artist' then you are not an artist. That is just wrong.

During his Blue period, Picasso wasn’t recognized, was destitute and nobody was buying his paintings. Was he not an artist until he was 'discovered' ... sounds a bit like the 'superiority gene' is kicking in again.

Sorry Hugh - wrong!

People: Jeffrey

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 10:24:17 +1200

In a recent newsletter, I referenced a book; Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead which unbeknownst to me was written by a friend of a friend. Turns out the two friends used to swap Grateful Dead stories and on reading my post this story came to mind. When I read the story, it seemed a perfect addition to my Travels Without Charley series - so please read on and enjoy the first 'guest post' in the series.

One favourite was about a concerned father and his 16 year old son.

The affluent, NorCal dad arrange to meet with a well-regarded psychiatrist and youth councillor regarding his son. The father was troubled and anxious that his son lacked motivation. He further arranged for the son to also meet with the same Doctor. After a few months, they all agreed to have a face-to-face sit down.

During the course of the intervention, the Doctor learned the son was a Deadhead. The Doctor apprised himself of what that meant, and the recent activities of the boy. The Doctor immediately concluded his diagnosis and recommendation.

During the three-way meeting in the Fall, the Doctor asked the dad if he knew what his son was doing for the last three summer months. The dad really didn't know. The Doctor explained that his son, his only spawn, had recently travelled to 30 different cities, in nearly as many states, saw around 20 Grateful Dead shows, all with no money, no car, and no visible means of support. The Doctor quickly allayed any fatherly concerns about 'motivation.'

Eventually, the dad became a Deadhead, went to shows with his son, all while his son graduated cum laude from Leland Stanford Junior University aka Stanford, in Palo Alto, the ancestral home of the Grateful Dead.

I use this vignette to rail on the emetic notion of managerialism. The fact is the Deadhead kid was exceptionally motivated. It was just a different type of motivation. It was foreign to the father. Eventually and fortuitously it was embraced. Unfortunately, this metacognition is sorely absent in most orgs.
John Maloney

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People: Kevin

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 09:47:41 +1200

"Me? I'm from England ... you’ve heard of the 'Garden of England'?“

“I have - Kent right?”

“That’s the one - and every garden needs a compost heap - that’s the town I'm from, so my girlfriend and I sold everything we had, bought a couple of tickets and here we are.”

Kevin went on to tell me that he moved here because he had friends in the country and they spoke well of all they found. Recognizing that their options couldn’t be worse, they just did it. Where they work is thousands of miles from family and hundreds of miles from any of their ‘local’ friends but they'd both got jobs at the same place ... so it was a ‘no brainer’, although he'd been working there twice as long as his girlfriend.

“She started today. Me? I started yesterday.”

Kevin and his girlfriend broke the chain of their 'destiny' and created their own opportunity. They don’t know how it will all work out ... but if it doesn't, they'll just do it all again.

“No point in waiting for things to happen is there?”

You don't stumble upon your heritage. It's there, just waiting to be explored and shared.
Robbie Robertson

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Take Three Words

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 15:43:00 +1200

I discovered the three words process only last year from Chris Brogan. It worked nicely for 2019, so I repeated the exercise for 2020. Since publishing the three words in my annual new year newsletter, a number of people have asked questions;

where did the idea come from?
what are the rules?
can you tell me more about the process?
is it ok to have four words?

etc etc

So first - not my idea. I got it from Chris Brogan - but I don’t think he started it. To fill in some gaps - this is what Chris has to say.

What is My 3 Words About?

The My Three Words idea is simple. Choose 3 words (not 1, not 4) that will help guide your choices and actions day-to-day. Think of them as lighthouses. “Should I say yes to this project?” “Well, does this align with my three words?”

My take : Rules are made to be broken. I get why three is better than one ... for me - but whatever works for you. This is an exercise to help you shape your thinking and actions in a consistent way throughout a year.

How to Choose Three Words

I started this process back in 2006. Back then, my 3 words were “Ask. Do. Share.” I picked these very simple words and they served me very well. One of my best years ever. When I asked questions, I learned. When I took action based on what I learned from asking, I made more ground and took over more of the universe. When I shared what I learned with everyone, I made connections and some friends.

Choose any three words you feel will guide you forward. I can tell you a few things about this:

Don’t make it a phrase. “Publish the book” is a terrible choice. “The” is wasted.
Try to make the words actionable. “Expand” is better than “bigger.”
The more utilitarian the word can be, the better. These words have to be your compass.
Stick with the 3 words all year. Every time I’ve changed one a month or two later, the year mucks up. I can’t explain it. But I can report it.
Years where I’ve tried “fancy” words with layers of meaning, I lost the thread. Use plain words, maybe.
BUT the words don’t have to mean anything to anyone but you. Don’t worry about explaining them.

My take: Can't argue with anything here. That last one is probably the most important. The three words are not for you to explain to others. They are your words, for you.

Review Them Daily

The more you review your 3 words, the better. I have mine built into my daily planning guides and action stacks. I try using them for a mantra when I can. Sometimes on walks, I just repeat them over and over. I like to reflect on them and meditate a little with those words in mind.

My take: I didn’t do this last year. I am going to try this year, particularly since this year's words have a very specific direction in mind, whereas last years was more of a broader 'raise the boat' theme.

My Three Words

I have decided to follow Chris' example and publish my words in a single place and so annually, will revisit this post and update.

2019 - Uncertain - Less - Different [published here]

2020 - Believe - Move - Ascend [published here]

What Is A Gig?

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 15:51:57 +1200

As I was publishing this post from John Maloney, I thought I would look up the word gig ... it makes for an interesting read.

A child's pacifier or any object, as a cloth square, spoon, or the like, used as a toy; any object to which a small child is attached and with which he likes to play; any object treated by a child as a fetish; a gigi or ju-ju. Orig. Negro slave and Southern use. From "gigi," the word is very well known to about 35% of the population, unheard of by the rest.

The rectum. From "gigi." Used euphem. by some children, as part of their bathroom vocabulary, but not common to all children. Used by some male adults [taboo] as a euphem. for "ass" in such expressions as "up your gig." 3 [taboo] The vagina. From "gigi." Not common. Prob. Southern use.

A party, a good time; esp. an uninhibited party; occasionally but not often, an amorous session, necking party, or even a sexual orgy between a man and a woman. c1915 [1954]: "Cornet players used to pawn their instruments when there was a lull in funerals, parades, dances, gigs and picnics." L. Armstrong, Satchmo, My Life in New Orleans, 100. 1958: "Life is a Many Splendored Gig," a song title.

A jam session ; a jazz party or gathering of jazz musicians or enthusiasts. Orig. swing use. 1920 [1954]: "Kid Ory had some of the finest gigs, especially for the rich white folk." L. Armstrong, Satchmo, My Life in New Orleans, 141.

An engagement or job for a jazz musician or musicians, esp. for a one-night engagement. 1950: "If I ask you to go out on a gig, it's thirty-five or forty dollars for that night." A. Lomax, Mr. Jelly Roll, 204. 1954: "On a gig, or one night stand." L. Armstrong, Satchmo, My Life in New Orleans, 221.

Something, as a jazz arrangement, that is satisfying or seems perfect. Orig. swing use.

An unfavorable report; a demerit; a reprimand. Army and some student use since c1940. The relations, if, any, between a child's pacifier or fetish, the rectum and vagina, a party, a sex orgy, jazz music, a pronged fork, and a reprimand are most interesting, and lie in the field of psychology rather than of etymology.

A fishing spear; a pronged fork as used for catching fish, frogs, and the like.

etc .... they forgot this one:

A gig, also called chair or chaise, is a light, a two-wheeled sprung cart pulled by one horse.

Who Knew?

Thinking Allowed

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The Gig Economy is Dopey

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 09:17:33 +1200

The following post comes courtesy of John T. Maloney, who sent me an email reply to one of my newsletters and it just was too good not to share. Thankyou John. Nicely delivered.

The 'gig economy' is dopey. Always had a problem w/the term.

For me, a gig is a trident tip spear used for gigging. Period.

A Trident Tip

A Trident Tipped Gig

Growing up in rural and coastal Connecticut, from April to November, gigging was a principal pastime. We'd go after anything gigable, but mostly bullfrogs and flounder. It was very effective.

Imagine it was quite unpleasant for the gigged fauna. (Not unlike the 'gig economy.') Most of the catch made it to the table. We could gig in the Winter, by simply cutting a hole in the ice, chumming and waiting. It was cold and not as fun.

Once moving to California, the prospect of gigging New England Style was not really available. However, gigging with a modest technological change, was even better than gigging in ponds and estuaries on the East Coast.

Supposedly the Hawaiians invented the 'Hawaiian Sling'. It’s a gig with a piece of surgical tube attached. It is wicked effective.

From Santa Barbara to Mendocino got to gig/sling a lot. The best was the halibut at the beach at the entrance to Diablo Canyon in SLO at night. Wow. Could fill my freezer with one clean shot. (Later learned it was a key halibut spawning area, thus frowned upon.) It was fun and delicious while it lasted.

Gigging is a good metaphor for the gig economy. Just make sure you are on the right end of the gig. Avoid the King Neptune of Gigging, Dara Khosrowshahi.

Neptune and Amphitrite in the storm

Have to say ... of gigging as described by John I know nought, but totally with him on the Dara reference and that is another story about why a gig is no solution.

Careful Where You Publish Your Work

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 09:02:16 +1200

Doc Searls, Godfather of The VRM/Me2B Movement observed recently that he writes on 4 (what amount to) personal blogs ... which made me feel a lot better about myself. In that same post he wrote;

Bigger than all four of those blogs is Linux Journal, where I wrote a great deal, including what amounted to blog posts on its website, for 25 years. That ended when Linux Journal ceased business in August. Also, as of today the entire site, with all its archives, is offline, erasing a third to a half of what I've written online so far.
Doc Searls

Think about that .... a third to a half of what you have written online is suddenly not available. And you wonder why I write articles like this.

It's a cautionary tale because Doc (who's final position at Linux Journal was Editor in Chief) might reasonably have expected that whoever owned Linux Journal wouldn't suddenly remove it from public view.

Rule Number One : When it comes to your IP trust no one. Keep your articles and writing in a place that you have access to and control.

Rule Number Two : There is no Rule Number Two.

On a side note, but keeping the theme of Doc ... he recently published the links to the last three posts on the VRM Blog. They are good reads.

People are the real edge

We’re not data. We’re digital. Let’s research that.

What law might clear the way for VRM development?

Thinking Allowed

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The Gig Is Up

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 04:44:47 +1200

Counting both noun and verb forms, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists and defines thirteen separate ‘gigs’.

‘A flighty, giddy girl’ was where it all started and then ‘spin’, ‘whirl’, ‘whirligig’, ‘fool’, giggle and ‘joke’ are all in one way or associated with the word. Even when you get up to the 18th century where it meant ‘light one-horse carriage’, its origin might be ..

perhaps based on the ‘bouncing, whirling’ sense of the earlier ‘gig’.

Until recently, most of us would primarily have associated ‘gig’ with the music industry and even today young struggling bands are delighted (initially) to get their ‘first gig’. In this sense, we have two possible origins;

‘a gambling bet’ (possibly from the use of a spinning wheel in some original ‘gig’ game), which then was generalized to mean ‘a business undertaking’ and then applied to a musical performance.
the musical engagement sense to the original ‘spinning’ meaning of the word, perhaps influenced by the Old French ‘gigue’, meaning ‘dance’. which also gave us ‘jig’.

The word in this context dates back to 1926 ... and this makes for a good little read if you want a more thorough and entertaining overview of the myriad meanings and learn where some of this research came from.

But when did the gig we know today come from?

That dates just back to 2009. And to me it continues to honor the light, flighty, gaming/gambling origins of the word. So let\'s stop using it and call it what it is. Exploitation? Slavery? After all they shoot horses, don't they?

Your Id Isn't Your ID

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:06:38 +1200

[ Image by John Hain from Pixabay ]

Delighted to report that this one - FINALLY - hit a chord. Not just a small chord - put a very large sonorous one. Ok - some of the chords were - well - dischordant ... if you will pardon the extension of the musical metaphor. But really - isn't that what it is all about. Dialogue! It's just great to see responses. it means people are really reading and taking things to heart.

Click through, read on and comment back. I want to hear. And once the excitement has died down I wil be sure to do a follow up.

Human-IT

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:33:09 +1200

Human 2 Human - photo credit - Doc Searls

Human-IT, Human 2 Human, Team Human, Stay Human ... they are all connected and all came up in the last few days

Threats To Democracy

Fri, 04 Oct 2019 12:59:08 +1200

[youtu.be/OQSMr-3GG...](https://youtu.be/OQSMr-3GGvQ)

Dates

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 10:32:49 +1200

What Is Data - A People First ebook

Not the ones you eat.

Not the ones you go on.

The ones you try to plan your life around,.

WeWork - 'uck 'em

Sat, 28 Sep 2019 10:34:58 +1200

I wrote this over three years ago about We Work - and they have been high on my list of ‘FTW - you gotta be kidding' posts since along with my old buddies Uber, Theranos and yet to be confirmed

Of course the ‘metaphorical’ hit the ‘rotating blades’ this past week and all kinds of words from Monday morning quarter backs are popping up through the woodwork.

I posted this yesterday linking to a couple of posts from people that have also been calling BS for a while.

But this one from Matt Stoller came out a couple of days ago and I missed it - but definitely worthy of addition.

Highlighting because it in turn highlights that same lay off over three years ago - **and then reporting on the after party … **

”Mass layoffs followed by an expensive alcohol fueled party hosted by a celebrity reflects a problematic leadership style, to put it mildly.

As Galloway wrote …

”The boards of Theranos and WeWork included former and future Secretaries of Defense, Supreme Allied Commanders, and billionaire CEOs of iconic firms. These individuals can assess geopolitical markers, troop movements, and business trends better than anybody on the planet, maybe in history. But put a young woman from Stanford in a black turtleneck, or a guy with great hair, in the same room, and these global leaders couldn’t recognize blatant fraud.

I can explain it all …. as I wrote in one of my many groups earlier today …

… “this - just like Theranos - is more greed than stupidity … and ‘they' wonder why ‘they' are increasingly viewed with suspicion.”

Your Identity. Your Data. It's Personal.

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 09:32:09 +1200

Exploring 'Data' in the context of 'The People First Business Equation'.

Dirty Secrets

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 10:31:31 +1200

Nick Hanauer - Rebel VC?

A Ted Talk from Nick Hanauer - rebel VC ... if that isn't an oxymoron!

Interesting that he concludes his talk with 5 rules of thumb behind 'the new economics' that answers the question. Interesting because all 5 are some of the building bricks (tenets) of the Pillars of the People First Business Equation.

I Never Knew Samson Was This Small

Fri, 13 Sep 2019 05:58:00 +1200

Just a test really. So far so good.

Rewriting History

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 10:38:31 +1200

Guernica - Picasso - 1937

Did John Lyndon Hate The Floyd?

Is Pink Floyd a punk band?

Are people really surprised when Roger Waters delivers protest?

Why is the film not Called 'Us and Them'?

All this and more in this week's newsletter.

STOP

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 10:09:23 +1200

Not much more to say ... sometime we just have to .... stop.

Instagram

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 10:05:41 +1200

We have a steady stream of images that are being pushed into Instagram - like these.

One Word Art

Following Your Passion. Finding Your Purpose

Wed, 28 Aug 2019 05:37:01 +1200

'Real Stories | Real People' is a new occasional series that will start to appear on this blog in the not too distant future. But that's not the point of the newsletter. The point was first to share the story of Richard Montañez.

The second was to ask you to think about success. What is it. And more importantly - is it uner your control. It isn't as clear cut as you might think.

Dongles - A Snicklecast

Sat, 24 Aug 2019 09:29:11 +1200

Now that’s a handy dongle.

The Pain Of Boiling An Ocean

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:24:24 +1200

Sometimes the task in front of me seems to be so large and never-ending that I get despondent. And then I read something like this and I just tell myself to shut up and get on with it.

John Steinbeck

I wouldn't normally link to something like this - at least not on this blog - but this morning I also happened to catch Rob Long's Martini Shot Podcast ... a 'shot' in the arm over a few minutes. It's the one dated August 21st that I want you to listen to. Sage advice and not far off from what I was writing about in this week's newsletter and then seeing this ... well 'put up or shut up' as they say.

"I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this."
John Steinbeck [efn_note]Steinbeck is one of the four John's that I constantly reference and have read 'everything' that they have written.[/efn_note]

He was talking about The Grapes of Wrath, a tour de force that he wrote in 100 days in 1938. It was published in 1939. One Hundred Days.

Read The Guardian Article Here

“It isn’t the great book I had hoped it would be. It’s just a run-of-the-mill book.” A year later, it won the Pulitzer prize. Eighty years on, it’s sold more than 14m copies.
The Guardian

Bottom line. Get on with it John. (This John that is).

Employee Experience and Motivation

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 07:55:58 +1200

At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

I mean none - 100% owned by Taso Du Val and I assume none by all the rest on this page.

As Toptal’s Chief Executive Officer, Taso manages Toptal’s core team of hundreds of team members distributed throughout the world, with a focus on innovation. Since Toptal was founded in 2010, Taso has led it to become the largest high-skilled, on-demand talent network in the world. Taso serves on the board of multiple organizations, advising on talent strategy and innovation for Fortune 100s and nonprofits. Taso has guest lectured at Harvard Business School, Wharton, and Oxford on talent management and entrepreneurship.
Toptal's Web Site

Anyway, what he does and how he runs his business is - well - his business. But it got me to wondering ... what he is advising those other companies to do when it comes to employee engagement? Employee motivation?

From where I sit, these words resonate;

What a shitty situation for employees and seed investors:

- Founder (CEO) raised $1.5M seed round in convertible notes
- Notes convert IF the company raises additional funding
- Employees were promised stock IF the company raises more money
- The company is profitable ?
- The founder has no intention to raise more funding ?
- Employees and seed investors own 0% ?
- Founder owns 100% ?

Employee contracts and notes should include a clause to convert in the event of liquidation or change in ownership.
Kai Gradert writing on Angel.co

Yes - shitty indeed - but VCs and Angel investors should be covering themselves .. no? Likewise staff? I mean why would anybody agree to join a start up with zero options?

No. It might seem unfair - but this is a case of needing to look before you leap. Promises mean bugger all. BUT ...

But, what I do worry about is that advice. he's giving. Are we going to see more of this?

Questionnaire

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 07:41:44 +1200

It a little more political than the usual People First fayre - but the fact is everything ... everything ... is becoming political in these times. So, why not.

How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.
For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite evils
and acts of hatred.
What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.
In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.
State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
Wendell Berry

The amazing Maria Popova and her Brain Pickings site is the source for this poem. She is writing a lot more about it over there. But if I were to tell you that it includes a live reading of the poem by Amada Palmer - would that convince you to click through?

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'Fitting In' Might Be All Bullshit

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 16:26:06 +1200

It’s easy enough to carry a Legal and General umbrella in a sea of ‘bankers black umbrellas’, it’s a very different proposition to take a more meaningful stand against the status quo.

Shareholder First

Mon, 19 Aug 2019 03:36:19 +1200

Leading US bosses drop shareholder-first principle.

As the article opens ...

"The real test will be in deeds not words."

Have to say until action - and I mean real action - this jury is out!

Read the opinion by Larry Elliott in The Guardian

Watching. I don’t think People First has won just yet!

People First - What Next

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 11:25:39 +1200

I have a schedule of material that I am working on, but what would you like to read about next? What drives you to read this weekly missive? What topics are you most interested in reading about. Learning about?

The Full Post

Content

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 11:24:18 +1200

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, ‘anything will do’ kind of word. Which is why it has no value.

STOP using their words to describe OUR work. OUR soul. OUR beliefs. Our passion. OUR effort.

START using our words to describe OUR work. OUR soul. OUR beliefs. Our passion. OUR effort.

The Recap

Play, Passion, Purpose

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 09:39:41 +1200

Needless to say those three words grabbed my attention immediately. And then when he said ...

The culture of schooling is radically at odds with the culture of learning that produces innovators.
Tony Wagner

I was hooked.

[youtu.be/hvDjh4l-V...](https://youtu.be/hvDjh4l-VHo)

Very good Ted Talk - just one gripe ...

He just about opens the talk with

I came to understand, that there's a set of core competencies every young person must be well on their way to mastery before he or she finished high school.
- critical thinking and problem solving
- collaboration across networks and leading by influence
- agility and adaptability
- initiative and entropenorialism
- effective oral and written communication
- accessing and analyzing information
- curiosity and imagination
Tony Wagner

i.e. if you have left school, sorry - we taught you all wrong as to how to succeed in the life in front of you.

What he should have said was

I came to understand, that there's a set of core competencies every person must master.

I know he doesn't mean it and I guess it is about education - but the implication is that you have left school then 'we taught you all wrong'.

Keeping that in mind ... well worth a watch.

Double Digit Delivery

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 09:31:18 +1200

Though this Newsletter has been around intermittently for a few years now, I only harnessed it as a vehicle to share People First thinking in May of this year, Issue One going out on May 31st. Since the launch in May, readership has been steadily growing and judging by the emails received I have hit some nerves with some of the pieces. Definitely a good time to take stock and recap where we have got to.

The Recap

Age And Your Chances Of Success

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 08:57:46 +1200

Albert-László Barabási

Alberto Laszlo Barabasi @ LinkedIN

Alberto is a pioneer in network science, Albert-László Barabási uncovers the hidden order behind complex systems.

My Thoughts

Excellent summary of how what we just assume to be the truth is bunkum. This applied to our assumptions about age. Bottom line - you are never too old

Rating

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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How Do We Find Dignity At Work?

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 10:35:21 +1200

Roy Bahat and Bryn Freedman

[embed.ted.com/talks/roy...](https://embed.ted.com/talks/roy_bahat_and_bryn_freedman_what_is_the_meaning_of_work)

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Roy Bahat invests in the future of work, with a focus on automation, data, robotics, media, productivity tools and more.

Roy Bahat's Blog

Roy Bahat @ LinkedIN

My Thoughts

I sat down to watch this with great anticipation and was thoroughly disappointed. It’s not just that it wasn’t a good interview - it wasn’t - but the thinking espoused by Roy just didn’t resonate for me.

Yes he’d done research and talked to people - but that is at odds with what anyone can see if they open their eyes.

Rating

⭐️⭐️

🚧 Ditch The Binary - Redux

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:45:40 +1200

As I finished this short post, I headed out to the 'google-web-net' to see if I could find a suitable and representative image. I was failing unitl I focussed on 'Redux'. The images associated with Redux are highly Redux oriented, with a high degree of focus on their logo. What you might expect, given the name - but this is not about what they do. So I kept looking and discovered this.

It's as if Karin Edgett read my mind. The image was perfect and the words so in tune with my thoughts, that I couldn't resist.

My entry 'let go of everything or anything and breathe' is part of a series of paintings and haiku exploring infinity in it's transformative sense.
Karin Edgett

Back On Topic

Interesting to read this post from Doc Searls today - which also happens to be his birthday.

[blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2012/...](https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2012/07/29/the-final-demographic/)

Halfway down he writes;

For individuals, demographics are absurd. None of us are an age, much less a range of them. We’re animals who live and work and have fun and do stuff. Eventually we croak, but if we stay healthy we acquire wisdom and experience, and find ourselves more valuable over time.
Yet we become less employable as we climb the high end of the demographic ladder, but not because we can’t do the work. It’s mostly because we look old and our tolerance for bullshit is low. Even our own, which is another bonus.
Doc Searls

Two main thoughts came to mind as I read those words.

Doc doesn’t mention the boomer, gen x,y or z, he doesn't need to ... but he is circling around that world. And it reminded me of one of my posts from three years ago - where I was on one of my rants about the inadequacy of business having to define its markets by generations - if you are 24 to 35 you want this - but if you are 60 plus - you want that etc etc. I couldn’t resist and wrote Generational Categorization Akin To Astrology and not entirely coincidentally a couple of years later : Generational Astrology Redux. I think the second article is better FWIW.

Please stop talking about, categorizing and yes – judging people based on their age – and I do mean judging. It is absolute nonsense and yet we continue to talk and think and communicate in this shorthand because it suits lazy people in corporate marketing departments as they attempt to build personas that purportedly understand us so they can better target their ‘content’. And yes it is – just content. Homogenized, bland, insipid content that drives people along their customer journeys and through their engagement funnels.
John Philpin (Beyond Bridges)

I even managed to weave in some 'anti-content' sentiment!

Second thing? Why the newsletter from a couple of weeks ago - Ditch The Binary, which included a quote from Ashton Applewhite.

“Look at gender. We used to think of it as a binary, male or female, and now we understand it's a spectrum. It is high time to ditch the old-young binary, too.”
Ashton Applewhite.

Happy Birthday Doc ... there’s definitely 'Something In The Air' ...

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTZoJ01FpD8)

Friends Don't Let Friends Write Content

Sun, 28 Jul 2019 11:28:58 +1200

I have had versions of this article on a number of different blogs and publications for years. The time has come to formalize it, since content, its ownership and how we think about it, is central to the principles of People First.

A recent question from someone in one of my many groups ...

"Why is it so difficult to find a freelance writing gig?

My reply ...

Because the people who pay for writing have no clue of the value, which is why they call it ‘content’ which we know has no value and is homogenous ‘filler’ that can be swapped out at a moments notice.

My Content Rule ...

'Don't Call It Content'

.... book, novel, short story, article, white paper, promotional piece, advert, painting, sculpture, song, opera, photograph, image, graphic art, poster, fine art … anything … anything but ‘content’.

If you want a general catchall phrase, how about material? It's the words that creative used to use - it meant something. Stood for something. It had value.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Why?

Because as long as ‘we the creators’ fall into the trap of using low cost, homogenous, non-descript words like 'content' to describe our work, our soul, our passion, our beliefs then our work will continue to be viewed as ’free - to - cheap - to - low - cost’, as ‘homogenized, non differentiated, interchangeable fodder’. Moreover, we then only have ourselves to blame and the resultant payment for your art, your thinking, your ideas, will continue to race to the bottom.

It is not in the interests of any creator to allow that, so why allow their interests to define how we think?

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, 'anything will do' kind of word. Which is why 'content' has no value. It is also important to know that it is in the best interests of the buyers of our sweat, labour, thought and time to keep their price down. But our costs are not kept down. So our net earnings suffer. And they are suffering badly.

And it has to start with you - the creator, because it isn’t in the interests of buyers to change their behaviour and vocabulary - 'they' want great work at no cost.

From a while back now - but well worth repeating ....

It's the amateurs who make it tough for the professionals

💬 Harlan Ellison

I wonder if that is how this kind of thinking comes about? As I wrote when I first saw this ...

For all those of us attempting to get paid for value by people who wouldn’t get value if it smacked them between the eyes.

💬 John Philpin

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, ‘anything will do’ kind of word. Which is why ’content’ has no value.

“I draw and paint on paper using pen, ink, and watercolor. I then scan and publish my work on this web site. People then visit and read this graphic novel, or if you prefer, webcomic. Occasionally, I write a blog post like this one. There is art and there is commentary, but there is no content and there are certainly no consumers.”

💬 Don Macdonald - August 24th, 2011

All Creators Should

STOP using THEIR words to describe OUR work. OUR soul. OUR passion. OUR beliefs.

A N D

START using OUR words to describe OUR work. OUR soul. OUR passion. OUR beliefs.

On Blocking Ads

Sun, 28 Jul 2019 07:12:56 +1200

To be strictly accurate - we should be talking about Blocking Trackers

... I came across this article (note if you are using an 'ad blocker' ... then guess what - they tell you that you have an 'ad blocker' on .... actually I don't use an 'ad blocker' - I use a 'tracking blocker'.

That aside, I thought I would extract some pertinent quotes from the piece and add my comments. The piece appeared in Adage and was written by Jason Jercinovic - and so all the quotes below I attribute to him. Adage says that "Jason Jercinovic is global head of marketing innovation and global brand director at Havas."

Havas is a pretty good agency that has produced some great campaigns for Air New Zealand, Global Mental Health and Canal+ - so I kind of feel that they (should at least) know what they are doing. I'll go further. They do - but it is clear that they remain bought into the narrative of 'poor us - we have to do this [efn_note]Use Ad Trackers[/efn_note] for it to work'. They don't.

So - let's get too it ...

and no one can blame the advertising industry for rapidly adopting them.

I can!

Advertisers may soon know us better than we know ourselves.

... there are more practical considerations around the use of AI in advertising: inherently biased data, algorithms that make flawed decisions and violations of personal privacy.

That is happening now - and nothing to do with AI.

The more complete our understanding of an individual, the more persuasive our marketing can be.

Why does he assume I want to be persuaded?

But each new insight into a consumer raises new questions about our moral obligations to that individual -- and to society at large.

... then ask out permission

AI is fueled by data, which is used to train algorithms and sustain the system.

'Back in the day', we had an experession 'Crap in ... Crap out' .... that adage (which is different to the publication) is as relevant as ever.

In order to make an informed choice, consumers need a clear explanation of the value exchange in any given campaign. What are they giving up? What are they getting in return? And they should be allowed to opt out if they are uncomfortable with the transaction.

At last .... sadly - I don’t see much of that happening.

Do you?

Thinking Allowed

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On Aging

Sun, 28 Jul 2019 05:16:10 +1200

I’m very much a Darwinian. This means I must ask myself questions like ‘How come all surviving cultures until modern time have been based on religion?’ and I draw the conclusion that religion has somehow helped people and civilizations to survive.
In the same way I ask ‘how come all sexually reproducing forms of life age (unlike e.g. amoebas, or yeast)?’ and its the same conclusion - in different words now: ‘if there has ever been a sexually reproducing species that did not age, they have not survived to tell the story’. Have there existed such failed species, then? I’m suggesting that its likely, because (unless I’m misinformed) aging is a ‘feature’.
Around the age of 45 the human body ’switches on’ aging, or rather, it switches off the function that keeps us young. Much of the research today is (unless I’m misinformed) about how to keep the stay-young-function ON.
To be provocative - the ambition to stop aging can be seen as disrespectful of the wisdom of Darwinian nature and it has a slant toward man-made creationism.
It’s not going to end well, in each case.
David Nordfors

It struck me as so very right - little to argue with, so recording for posterity!

RelBasil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me: Dorian is what I would like to be.
Oscar Wilde

A New Look At Data

Sun, 28 Jul 2019 04:59:02 +1200

Celebrating my 4 part series on data, it is designed to be;

“Non-technical, hopefully fun, definitely not definitive and absolutely a work in progress.”
John Philpin

Because if you don’t understand what it is and how it is being used against you, then you are in for a shock …

“Failure of society and ‘we the people’ to do this (understand what data is and how it is being used) will mean that the last few hundred years of societal development was for naught and we will return to the feudal states from whence we came.”
John Philpin

Exaggeration? This is what Shoshana Zuboff said in her recent book ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’.

“Many scholars have taken to describing these new conditions as neo-feudalism, marked by the consolidation of elite wealth and power far beyond the control of ordinary people and the mechanisms of democratic consent. Piketty calls it a return to “patrimonial capitalism,” a reversion to a premodern society in which one’s life chances depend upon inherited wealth rather than meritocratic achievement.”
Shoshana Zuboff

You can read the whole of Issue Number 9 here. You can even get our new ebook, so that everything is available in one handy place to take with you wherever you go.

It's 5 0'Clock

Fri, 19 Jul 2019 07:32:48 +1200

[caption id=“attachment_5443” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Nobody told The Vogues to retire.[/caption]

Up every morning just to keep a job,

I gotta fight my way through the hustling mob,

Sounds of the city pounding in my brain,

While another day goes down the drain (Yeah, yeah, yeah).

but it’s a five o’clock world when the whistle blows,

No-one owns a piece of my time,

And there’s a five o’clock me inside my clothes,

Thinking that the world looks fine, yeah,

A-da-lay-ee-ee (up, up, up!).

Trading my time for the pay I get,

Living on money that I ain’t made yet,

Gotta keep goin' gotta make my way,

But I live for the end of the day (Yeah, yeah, yeah),

‘cause it’s a five o’clock world when the whistle blows,

No-one owns a piece of my time,

And there’s a long-haired girl who waits, I know,

To ease my troubled mind, yeah,

A-da-lay-ee-ee (up, up, up!).

In the shelter of her arms everything’s okay (yeah-yeah),

She talks and the world goes slipping away (it slips away),

And I know the reason I can still go on,

When every other reason is gone (Yeah, yeah, yeah),

in my five o’clock world she waits for me,

Nothing else matters at all’,

Cause every time my baby smiles at me,

I know that it’s all worthwhile, yeah,

A-da-lay-ee-ee (up, up, up!)

The Vogues

youtu.be/L3wMesI8a…

🚧 Platform Failure

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 09:32:44 +1200

Sadly, this wasn’t what I thought this was going to be about.

A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail

"Platforms have become one of the most important business models of the 21st century. Five of the six most valuable firms in the world are built around these types of platforms. However, a study of 252 platform companies showed that 209 of them failed. The most common mistakes into four categories:
(1) mispricing on one side of the market,
(2) failure to develop trust with users and partners,
(3) prematurely dismissing the competition, and
(4) entering too late.
Researchers have extensively studied pricing decisions, yet managers still get them wrong. A platform often requires underwriting one side of the market to encourage the other side to participate. But knowing which side should get charged and which side should get subsidized may be the single most important strategic decision for any platform."
Kyle Westaway

Interesting what each of us takes away when we read articles. The quote above is from Kyle Westaway - and indeed nothing wrong with his takeaway. But there is more - and even the HBR article doesn’t really get down to it.

For me, platforms have been a key to my thinking ever since I read Platform Scale, which I first discovered by reading this blog, which I came to know through Jobsworth's Blog ... that I was certainly reading 10 years ago.

People, Passion, Platforms were even my 'three words' for a few years - but more recently I have been moving on. More on this to come - but increasingly I am seeing platforms as yes, a way to 'lubricate a market place', a way to do 'better business' and certainly 'good platforms' fall into place under this particular lens ...

BUT

But ... I can't help thinking there is more. Platforms serve the corporate masters well. Look no further than Uber for that, but in fact do they really serve people well?

Jeremy Heimans' 'Power and Values' model, I think highlights the issue perfectly. The graphic below is old, but I haven't been able to find a more recent one. Like all good 2*2 quadrants, top right is best, bottom left is worst and the other two quadrants have their challenges [efn_note]To be fair JH would disagree with my assessment - he argues that no quadrant is wrong - so long as you understand which quadrant you are in and work accordingly. And yes of course. But I am not in any of those quadrants. I am arguing for how people can operate in a 'Corporate First' society - and to me - the best chance they stand is in the top right quadrant.[/efn_note].

Platforms are indeed lubricators of a a market place, but they are also a series of silos. Deep, inpenetrable tanks that inside are wonderful - but don’t work well for the outside.

Quick Example .... imagine that you work for Uber. You clock up 10,000 rides. You have a five-star rating and then you decide that you want to move to Lyft. (The same argument applies the other way round). You now have 0 rides to your name, there is no star count, your reputation is effectively locked up in Uber. You have to start again.

How hard would it be to have a universal reputation that travels with you. Spoiler alert - not hard at all (technically). Very hard if you actually want these silo'd platforms to adopt your reputation system.

More to come, but just as Sangeet was talking all that time ago abou the transition from Pipes to Platforms - so too I am asking you today to think about the transition from Platforms to Protocols. Specifically open protocols.

It's not a new idea. It's just that some ideas don’t get much air.

Work-Life Balance

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 06:04:09 +1200

Trading my time for the pay I get (up!)
Living on money that I ain't made yet (up!)
Gotta keep goin' gotta make my way (up!)
But I live for the end of the day (up!)
The Vogues

Written in 1965 - and nothing has changed. This newsletter introduced you to the 4P model of People First ... Pay, Purpose, Play and Passion.

With a more open, enlightened recruiting process there is so much more that people could do in any company if they were given the chance. The answer is to stop job filling and start fulfilling.

You can read the whole of Issue Number 8 here.

📚 Advertising Shits in Your Head

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 11:09:27 +1200

Strategies for Resistance. A visual documentary of subvertising, an essay against the ad-man.

Excuse the language - but that is the name of the book. The link takes you to their kick-starter.

Funny. Been thinking of doing a kick starter for my book, but I am too busy writing to spend another chunk of time thinking about what the campaign would look like.

Needless to say I have done my pledge - it is such a People First topic that I couldn't resist and as an extra message, the campaign deadline is my birthday. The ether was in alignment!

My thanks to John Wunderlich for the heads up.

Thinking Allowed

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Let's End Ageism

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:40:32 +1200

Ashton Applewhite - Let's End Ageism - A Ted Talk

Released	August 23, 2017

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfjzkO6_DEI)

Lot's more to say on this, and will. Some of the points I touched on in Tuesday's Newsletter.

Thinking Allowed

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Ditch The Binary

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 12:31:12 +1200

“Look at gender. We used to think of it as a binary, male or female, and now we understand it's a spectrum. It is high time to ditch the old-young binary, too.”
Ashton Applewhite

Says it all really. Ageism is alive and well. In fact the same day, Paul Krugman wrote a piece on the job market that I totally disagreed with - so of course I had to write something.

You can read the whole of Issue Number 7 here.

Krugman Should Comment On The Complete Picture

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 11:50:42 +1200

Paul Krugman writing in the NYT today.

There was a message in the latest jobs report that is consistent with what these reports have been telling us for at least the past year or two. Namely, the workers are alright.
Paul Krugman

Well who am I to disagree with Paul Krugman?

John Philpin - that's who. And I completely disagree.

As always, its what's not being said that matters. The elephant [efn_note]elephants?[/efn_note] in the room cannot be ignored, and I am disappointed that someone like Krugman should waste his time on this kind of 'opinion'. Yes, we have 'great' employment figures. But that’s because as usual, we measure and comment on the wrong things. 'Everybody' having a job is not the point (if a large chunk of the workforce is excluded from the count of 'everybody'). It is everybody (not just 25 to 54-year-olds) having one job, that is paid fairly, so doesn’t need to work a second job to make ends meet. That is what we should be looking at.

Consider The Whole Workforce

The data was reporting on "the prime-age employment ratio, the percentage of Americans in their prime working years, ages 25 to 54, who have jobs."

54 is just at the point where ageism creeps in ... see this week's newsletter

It's just at that point that the problems kick in.

“This isn’t how most people think they’re going to finish out their work lives,” said Richard Johnson, an Urban Institute economist and veteran scholar of the older labor force who worked on the analysis. “For the majority of older Americans, working after 50 is considerably riskier and more turbulent than we previously thought.”
Richard Johnson, Economist [ProPublica]

Full Time Or Part Time

From the same ProPublica report, the graph speaks for itself.

Strong argument to suggest BTW that some 18% that are not in the labour force have partially self-selected out. Do we really believe that 8.39% of all American workers eligible to work have actually retired? Or is that what they use to describe their position because they can't get another job.

Multiple Jobs

Twenty percent of teachers in America have a second job.

And they aren't the only ones!

People rarely work second jobs for fun, they work them to survive.

Reward For Your Work

Pew Research reporting just last year that real wages have not moved in decades.

So yes, 'fully employed' America, where you aren't counted in the last ten years of your working life, and those that are counted are working double jobs to make ends meet, while others are self-declaring early retirement because they can't get a job. Life is just dandy ... no?

Wrong. Very Wrong.

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 10:12:15 +1200

Startups are now offering people “passive income” for their personal data. These companies claim to empower consumers to profit from personal data. But actually, they entrench an attention economy where cash-strapped consumers trade personal privacy for quick cash — much like the plasma-for-cash biz. Data exchanges broker the sale of personal data between the people who generate it and the large companies hungry for it. One, Streamr, connects real-time personal data with companies via subscription. Another, UBDI (Universal Basic Data Income), buys personal data and sells “insights” to companies. At first glance, it’s tempting … If my toaster and my watch are already collecting data, I might as well get paid for it, right?
The Hustle

My Take

Wrong. And they know it. Read more here. No most discussion needed, but if you want to - I'm ready.

What is Data anyway?

Human Agency

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 09:46:51 +1200

"No one ever conceived of a more sophisticated and dynamic philosophical history than Hegel. His system is built around three fundamental ideas."
Sam Haselby

In summary ...

First, the key to human agency is self-consciousness. For people to be doing anything in any real human sense is to know what we are doing as we do it.

Secondly, self-consciousness is always a matter of locating ourselves in a kind of social space of ‘I’ and ‘we’.

Third, there are ways in which things can go better or worse and we can make it possible to become new, different and better versions of ourselves. But what we can make of ourselves depends on where we are in history.

... but what we can make of ourselves depends on where we are in history.

Hegel’s search for the universal patterns of history revealed a paradox: freedom is coming into being, but is never guaranteed

Read the whole thing at Aeon : What is history? Nobody gave a deeper answer than Hegel

Thinking Allowed

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Cleaning House

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 07:13:02 +1200

More of a record to self than something to overly concern you, but nonetheless potentially useful. As People First continues to further establish itself, we are 'upping the ante' on our online presence.

First, we are moving the site away from the blog centric feel it has had for a while now to more of a functional site. Most content not in place, yet, but there are plenty of pointers and 'eye candy' in the galleries.

There has been a Google Groups in place for years, but it fell into disuse, so it is being killed and replaced with a new group on Groups.io Emails have gone out to the old membership to test the appetite before I spend too much time building it all up. I can say that I have good experience of it, since a 'sister' organization - Me2B - is using Groups.io very effectively.

We have agreed to our first Sponsorship, more details about it in the not too distant future.

Tomorrow being Tuesday, will see our seventh newsletter hitting the streets (if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor), really wanting to grow that readership.

The Instagram and Twitter accounts are in full flow and a presence on a few third-party publishers is beginning to happen, with plans for more. Any of the links below will allow you to engage with People First in your way and on your terms.

Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 04:55:35 +1200

”I am moving more of my long-form writing to Medium, and placing it behind the paywall there. I have a considerable following there, and I find Medium’s social affordances the best anywhere. I still like certain aspects of Tumblr, but my time there is coming to an end, I think, at least for long form.”

Stowe Boyd

.. who IMHO is moving from one problem to another.

Flawed Thinking - A Snicklecast

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 12:14:24 +1200

Somethings you just do not do in the ‘atom world’ - but in the ‘bits world’, it’s a totally different story.

Not to me.

That’s partly why I launched People First

In This Cold Place

Thu, 04 Jul 2019 12:57:49 +1200

Moby and The Void Pacific Choir - 'In This Cold Place - With animation by Steve Cutts.

Released	June 19, 2017

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmi-MtP969M)

A second video that hits you to the bone.

Are You Lost In The World Like Me?

Thu, 04 Jul 2019 12:53:53 +1200

Moby and The Void Pacific Choir - 'Are You Lost In The World Like Me'? With animation by Steve Cutts.

Released	October 18, 2016

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VASywEuqFd8)

Its a couple of years since this was released - but still relevant today - and definitely relevant to People First, so capturing it in the archives.

Challenge of Work

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 12:28:19 +1200

Our sixth newsletter explores the value of a person to a corporation.

In understanding how organizations search for ‘talent’ these days, candidates know that their first two or three hurdles will have nothing to do with people and everything to do with machines and as a result valuable time is spent in tuning their resume and cover letter with SEO like terms, so that they bubble to the top.

Do you find that as sad, bad and depressing as I do?

It’s like outsourcing your customer support team to a call center, full of untrained people … oh wait!
I mean it’s like putting junior people into sales training on their inside sales team … oh wait!
I mean it’s like putting a temp on your front desk, so that anyone who comes into your offices is greeted by someone who knows nothing about your organization …

Read the whole of the 6th issue here.

Vocabulary

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 09:24:42 +1200

... a building block of Language, one of the Tenets of People First. We are developing and sharing a new vocabulary that continues to evolve in the course of conversation between People First, its customers, partners and members..

We use this vocabulary to shift the topics and change the conversation about how we put People First in the work we do and the way we live.

THEN	AND NOW
The Future of Work	The Present Of Work
Work Life Balance	Pay Purpose Play
Gig Economy	Portfolio Lifestyle
Customer Experience	Employee Experience
Talent Acquisition	Working with People
CRM	VRM
B2B	Me2B
Competition	Cooperation
Me	Us
Exclusive	Inclusive
Hierarchical	Networked
Tightly Managed	Loosely Coupled
Winner Takes All	Winner Contributes
Tomorrow	Today
Continual Change	Continuous Change
Corporations	People

The Value Of People

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 05:38:41 +1200

There's some fucking guy, scientist or something. Real sick bastard. Says he measured out the remains, the cremated remains of a dead man. Measured out the, uh, minerals left behind, you know? The iron phosphates, the ... whatever it is we're made up of. Says he added it all up to the cost of $4.40.
$4.40. Burnt down man's worth less than a fucking Big Mac.
Michael Grey played by Liam Cunningham in The Numbers Station

I caught The Numbers Station over the weekend, and that is the opening dialogue. It resonated. I know nought of the truth - but it does seem about right.

After last week's newsletter, and the responses, I have thought about it more and more. How we as a society spend so much ... too much ... time reducing anything ... everything ... to a value based on the component parts.

We know that the click bait mongers of the internet write stuff like this - to save you the click through it’s all about adding together the cost of the sum of the parts of an iPhone - and thus by extrapolation conclude that Apple is - as we might say in England ... 'Aving A Larf'. Total BS and nonsense but there are still people who argue that SApple are riping us off.

No - this is not a defence of Apple - but to ask a question.

Isn't this exactly what businesses do every day week, month and year to people. You earn a salary or wage based on what they consider is your worth to them while they rent you for the 40, 50, 60 hours each week that you are in their service?

But it's worse. The value is not just for the sum of your component parts, but actually for the sum of your component parts that they think they need, and everything else is ignored. Your component parts are what they have defined are needed to do the job that they have defined needs to be done. Everything else is of zero value.

Thinking Allowed

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🚧 People - Not Assets, Talent, Staff ... People

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 05:03:44 +1200

I just read this and decided to drop in a few People First tenets to remind us all .... the problem Kevin raises is not easily fixed - it is a systemic view of how people are seen by business.

Bunker19

The Working Day Is Done

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 04:41:24 +1200

No, not Cyndi ... Neil.

They say that life imitates art. In this particular case I would argue art is imitating life.

When the working day is through
And you're waiting in the rain
For another overdue
Overcrowded railway train
And the movie poster screams
"It's the best film ever seen!"
But it's all a different world
To which you have never been
And you're bored out of your mind
So you keep yourself amused
Reading the Financial Times
Of the fellow next to you
Then something in you snaps
And you shout with all your lungs
"We give and get nothing back!"
When the working day is done."
Neil Hannon - Divine Comedy

Unfair - possibly, but Hannon / Divine Comedy has a history of social observation. In this particular case and entire double album on Office Politics. Wont it be grand when we no longer have to deal with them?

European tour in the autumn of this year.

Corporate Speak

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 12:11:29 +1200

I have a problem with ‘Corporate Speak’. Putting aside how ‘we the people’ seem to adopt corporate speak as part of our conversation - how else does ‘content’ become part of our day to day vocabulary? (Although that is an entirely different topic.)

Here’s the thing … the same organisations that use phrases like;

‘Share of Wallet’

‘Attacking and Targeting a Market’ (that’s you and me folks) and breaking down those

‘Adoption Barriers’

‘Taking the hill’

‘Users’ not ‘People’

And have something called a ‘War Room’ !!! - you know the place where Marketing meet to plan how to extract out last cent. Anyway these organisations are exactly the same organisations that say things like

‘Your Passion Is Our Satisfaction’,

‘Pleasing People Is Our Motto’ and

‘A Customer Is Always Right’.

Which language do you believe reflects the true nature of the corporation?

Me? I think what is said behind closed doors more often reflects the truth. What is broadcast in public is what they think we want to hear. It’s politics, not business, but isn’t that what happened to Mitt Romney?

This week’s newsletter explores corporate language and asks why have people just blindly adopted it without question? It doesn’t serve us - only the corporation.

🔗 Read the whole thing here.

🖇️ 🔎 .. and much more on what I think about language here.

People: Leo

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 12:47:00 +1200

"In Italy I was a photographer. In Rome."

“A pretty place to photograph.”

"Well, not so much, my job was a police photographer. When someone died, I took the photographs. I was very busy. Ten years .. every day … click click click … more death. Depressing. Soul ‘killing’’. I couldn’t make a life out of death."

So different city, different country, different job?

"Yes. But same girl!"

"She said to me one day that she is coming here. To England. It seemed a good idea. Time for change."

You didn’t want to do something in photography? Maybe scenery, weddings, commercial … put your skills to a different use?

"No."

"My girl friend she is always changing. Me too. I wanted change. But Only one change. Change. Stop."

So you have been here for ten years.

"Yes. And will be for another ten. My girlfriend she has had 15 jobs in the same time. Sometimes working 50 miles away. Always changing. Always chasing. But never arriving."

"Me? I’ve arrived."

Any journey is a series of events and one of those events is the destination. [efn_note] I was reminded of this story when I was sharing a bottle of wine with a friend recently. The wine was 'own label' - and on that label was a line ... that he assured me was his, I haven't found it anywhere else so let me attribute accordingly. [/efn_note]

Thinking Allowed

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Time For A Better Capitalism

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 12:35:56 +1200

When Henry Blodget writes an opinion piece about the inequality in modern America ... concluding with

"It's time for a more balanced approach"
Henry Blodget

Then I guess it must be time!

On the click through– a good read, some informative images, and the fact that the whole things is sitting in the LinkedIN silo shouldn’t put you off. In particular he writes;

... the problem with the profit-maximization obsession is that it hurts the economy.
Henry Blodget

I have to say - I agree.

It's pretty simple really .. and a central theme of mine. In fact, I go further. It's bad for society.

The 'graphic story' I have in the works shows why. Don't worry - it won't be as complex as the Mueller one.

People: Alfie

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 12:00:16 +1200

How about you? I asked.

"Me? More brothers and sisters than most and none of them talk to me and the missus."

That must be hard.

Not really. It runs in the family. My parents hardly ever talked.

"You can't choose your family, but you sure can choose your friends".
My Dad [efn_note]A long time ago[/efn_note]

Thinking Allowed

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People: Semera

Mon, 24 Jun 2019 12:11:35 +1200

He looked at me. Eyes piercing my skull.

“Yes - I have heard of it I replied. An African nation … right?”

African yes.

"I’m sorry, I can’t place exactly where in Africa - but, my memory tells me in the North .. near Ethiopia?”

You do indeed know my country. He gave me the biggest smile.

And then this young man from Eritrea launched into the story of his journey from Africa to San Francisco. Not harrowing … though if you know anything of that region, that is more surprising than if it was.

I won a scholarship to America. I am a musician. I came here ten years ago.

"Why San Francisco?”

My friend … anyone coming to the USA knows the San Francisco is where you should enter America.

"Because they are more accepting?”

I must have hit a nerve.

I came here legally. He stopped talking. Looking at me.

Legally.

"I know, I know, I’m sorry, I wasn’t suggesting anything else, I am just intrigued why San Francisco.”

I came here legally … with scholarship. I have always worked to earn money. I have always paid my taxes. I am not illegal immigrant. And no - not accepting. Look at me, 10 years after arriving in America I am here, my music I play for weddings 4, 5 times a year. I have qualified as accountant. But no work. I barely survive. No my friend I am not accepted. San Francisco is not accepting.

"Sorry - I understand, didn’t mean to imply, I am just interested in how you come to decide to arrive in San Francisco when you are living on the other side of the world. New York would have been closer. Easier?”

Aaaahhh my friend … the paperwork. San Francisco understands the paperwork. Speak to anyone coming to America, the stories you hear about other places. San Francisco undersdtands.

"Have you ever considered going back to Eritrea?”

One day. Maybe. I have family there . But even now, even with so called peace … it is hard. Too hard.

Working too much. Not applying his education to his job. Massively over qualified for what he does. Struggling to makes ends meet. Not following his dreams or passions. Rarely seeing his family.

And yet still this life is better than what he would have if he returned home.

Success has always been easy to measure. It is the distance between one's origins and one's final achievement.
Michael Korda

Thinking Allowed

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It’s Not The AirPods - It’s Bluetooth - A Snicklecast

Sat, 22 Jun 2019 06:55:33 +1200

Getting myself ready for Episode 0.4 before I formally launch the People First podcast .. so, thought I’d give it the old college try. It failed .. but I’m pretty sure it’s not me!

FYI @manton and @cheesemaker

🚧 Our Greatest Assets

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 08:13:46 +1200

Our fourth Newsletter just dropped. The focus this week .. People!

Hamid Ulukaya - founder and CEO of 'Chobani Yoghurt' presents his plan - 'the anti-CEO playbook'. A fascinating journey through the early days of the company - and how it's success can be reduced to .... people!

Secondly, A reminder that when you build systems and make changes in your organization, it's

Finally, for a while now, I have been writing about why we should stop using the word 'Content' to describe our ”book, novel, short story, article, white paper, promotional piece, advert, painting, sculpture, song, opera, photograph …. you get the point.

This week Om Malik and Khoi Vinh have both written about that very topic. Personally delighted if finally this message is catching on and gettingg through.

As long as ‘we the creators’ fall into the trap of using ‘their’ words to describe our work, our soul, our passion, our beliefs as ‘content’, then our work will continue to be viewed as ’free - to - cheap - to - low - cost, homogenized, non differentiated, interchangeable fodder’.
John Philpin - People First

Humanity

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 09:16:48 +1200

Newsletter Three from People First just launched. The theme for this week's edition is 'Humanity’ including me spotting this in a clothing store recently. I didn’t buy it - but I sure was tempted, as I ready myself for October’s IIW. (more)

Language - One Of The Eight Pillars

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 07:08:53 +1200

It's funny how things work out sometimes. Since the beginning, 'language' has been a core pillar of People First. I've written about it from time to time, but was not intending to get into the meat for a while. Then - after last week's newsletter, I received an email that resonated in so many ways, that this week's newsletter morphed into riff on .... Language.

And then this morning, I was just browsing through some of my draft posts deciding what to publish next - and up pops this from Hugh Macleod and Gaping Void.

Why Words Do Matter

In other words, successful CEOS tend to 'get' the culture idea that language is the foundation of culture.
Hugh Macleod

Talk about the universe working in mysterious ways. Needless to say, we agree.

Now we just need to ensure that the corporates don’t takeover the language of culture as they have changed our day to day language, with their militaristic business jargon.

The Anti-CEO Playbook

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 07:01:19 +1200

I am not usually slow in attacking the nature of business, but not sure the 'Anti-CEO' playbook is exactly the right angle here. That said Hamid Ulukaya's points are excellent. How he built Chobani is a fascinating story. And at one point I was very much reminded me of a couple of People First tenets.

[youtu.be/SGTMSV8QU...](https://youtu.be/SGTMSV8QUrs)

You Build Bridges From Both Sides

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 11:48:03 +1200

I am often asked what People First is about and how it differs to everything else that goes on in the identity/data/self-sovereign/blockchain ... blah blah blah space? I was asked again this morning. I replied, but as so often happens, the essence of the message was not specifically 'private' - and so this post emerged.

If you check out The DigLife Collective, The Me2B Alliance, The People Centered Internet, The Internet Identity Workshop, The Indie Web Movement, Human First Tech ... even the IEEE to name just a few organizations [efn_note]These organizations are top of mind as I type, there are many more.[/efn_note] that tangentially relate to People First ... they all seem to be feeling their way around the elephant and interpreting the trunk, tail, tusk, foot accordingly. Nothing wrong with what they are doing ... all focussed on their individual missions.

In my email exchange, I was taken by one phrase;

"It really has to do with bridging that chasm between technology makers and people."

That idea is often referenced, with variations of actual words used. The meaning is constant. The visual is instant. Or is it?

It dawned on me ...

When engineers build bridges, they always build from both sides.

When Building Bridges - You Start From Both Sides

My ah-ha moment ... was understanding that the technology makers recognize the need to cross the chasm - but all seem to be building from the 'Tech Side'. People First is building the bridge from the 'People Side'.

Does anyone know of any other organization that is building the bridge from the 'People Side'? I sure would like to talk with them.

Supply and Demand

Wed, 05 Jun 2019 08:27:05 +1200

We have been trained to think that;

The ‘supply chain’ is where businesses buy what they need to produce the products and services they sell to other businesses and people.
The ‘market place’ is where businesses sell their wares to other businesses and people.

But we've been thinking about it all wrong (more)

The American Dream

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 11:32:11 +1200

All that is needed ... just three minutes of your time. A little more 'political' than the usual People First posts ... George Carlin - Life Is Worth Losing.

Released	January 10, 2006
Recorded	November 5, 2005, Beacon Theater, New York City, New York

[youtu.be/KSuEa2xPd...](https://youtu.be/KSuEa2xPdYo)

Thirteen Years Ago ... needless to say - nothing has changed, other than more people are aware ... hoping that this will make even more people aware ... and then we do something about it.

Thinking Allowed

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People Matter

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 11:01:02 +1200

[youtu.be/lKx3MUqzC...](https://youtu.be/lKx3MUqzCcQ)

Thinking Allowed

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An Introduction

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 04:42:18 +1200

Cogs In The Machine

In Brief

People make their money through ‘business’.

People save or spend their money with a ‘business’.

People are thus central to any business.

So why does it seem that People are an afterthought?

People First is focussed on a new way for People and Business to engage.

We put people at the center of ‘The Business Equation’ because ‘The Future Of Work’ is only part of the problem, the bigger problem is ‘The Future of Business’.

Read The Rest.

Who Is The REAL Taron Egerton - And Why Is He Welsh?

Thu, 30 May 2019 05:27:54 +1200

I had cause to look up Taron Egerton on Wikipedia (do you need to know why) … where I read …

”Taron David Egerton (born 10 November 1989) is an English-born Welsh actor.

… which to me at least doesn’t make sense - so I checked out some more … my bold

”He was born in northern England but raised Welsh. Egerton’s parents, who are both British, moved from Cheshire, England to Wales when he was a baby. “All my friends are Welsh, I speak Welsh, and I feel very Welsh,” he said.

So if I ‘feel' European … do I have to worry about Brexit? Assuming I speak German or French or one of the other ‘Euro' languages?

Seperate fact - at one point he did live in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch - take note @derekpeden :-)

His grandmother was born in Wales - so I guess he is at least 25%.

More On Brian Warren's New Page.

Sat, 25 May 2019 05:42:28 +1200

Daniel Jalkut talking about Brian Warren’s Mac Open Web and if you want to see what he is talking about go here

I agree with Daniel - it’s a nice list. It might not have everything you think should be on the list, but that’s ok - because all you need to do is email Brian with what is missing - and if it ‘fits’ - the product gets added. And added to it has been … almost twice as many things listed now than when I first saw the list a week ago.

I just counted. I have 16 of those apps running somewhere on my machines/devices … and I can now quickly spot ‘indie compliant’ alternatives for things I have that aren’t there.

I thought Feedly should be listed, but Brian explained why he thought it shouldn’t be there …

“I don’t think Feedly would fit. Sure, it’s a web-focused service, no real proprietary formats, but it does require you use their app on their server.”

Meanwhile, Flickr is on the list. I wasn’t aware that you could use different apps to talk to the Flickr servers … you see how much you can learn?

I also think it would be useful for a link to be added at Indieweb.org - another great resource if you are thinking of dipping your feet into this burgeoning movement.

Bottom line - great idea and nicely done.

My Exchange With Stowe Boyd and A Postscript.

Fri, 17 May 2019 12:01:30 +1200

How It All Started

A Stowe Announcement Last October (ish)

”I am working to move all the old newsletter issues posted at Substack and even earlier tools over to here, at workfutures.org on Tumblr. I am dating them as they were published, so you can access them using the Tumblr archives feature or the Tumblr tag: workfutures.org/tagged/daily.”

JohnPhilpin To Stowe:

”Tumblr … Owned by Yahoo … Owned by Verizon … Have you a back up plan if Verizon decides to close Tumblr down? I hope / presume / assume that all of your IP in Tumblr is already stored on places that you control and own …. And if it is … how about moving it there now … and then cross posting it from there to Tumblr, Twitter, Medium as and when you feel like it?
Think what Medium just did to their self hosted model.
From someone who does not see RSS as old school. More ‘retro’ … And very much ‘now’. 😀”
<If all thought through - then who am I? … but to me, basing your entire IP in a platform that may or may not survive … you need a plan B. Or maybe it does survive …. but decommissions support for personal domains like Medium did recently. Then what?

Stowe To John

”I can export from Tumblr if that happens.

Postscript

Today’s Newsletter From Stowe

Beacon NY - 2019-05-16 — Yesterday evening, without any prior notice or previous discussions, Tumblr ‘terminated’ my stoweboyd.com account. So, if you browse to that URL you’ll see Tumblr’s landing page, and none of my 13,000+ posts.
Strangely enough some of the blogs associated with the account can still be viewed, like workfutures.org. I was working on that blog yesterday just prior to the ‘termination’, so maybe it’s related.
At any rate, this brings back into high relief the question of whether I should abandon Tumblr. One of the issues is that I have so many posts there most import tools don’t work. And Tumblr offers no export, any longer.
More to follow on that front.

… and ‘Tumblr offers no export, any longer.’

My Conclusion is no surprise ... but you can only go there so many times.

Move To Micro.Blog

Smear To Sneer ... It’s A Well Practiced Tactic.

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 04:38:21 +1200

And a counter balance from our friend @Gruber quoting the BBC Julian Assange, Houseguest From Hell

Kind of like the politics we see from the current Whitehouse … don’t bother with policy, the principals, the main story … instead smear to sneer at the individual.

Why now? What is the backstory? Who’s putting in the pressure? What was Ecuador threatened with?

That all said … if all of the smears are true … I fully expect an insanity defence.

The World Exists Beyond The Borders Of The USA (A Snickelcast)

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:57:42 +1200

I have been thinking a lot recently about identity … personal, national, governmental just to start. And then just today … well listen for yourself.

What is a Snickelcast? | More snickelcasts | All ‘My Sounds’

Failing To Keep Up - A Snicklecast

Sat, 06 Apr 2019 07:34:01 +1200

Many thanks to @manton and @cheesemaker for today’s micro.blog extension … anyone else feeling behind?

What is a Snickelcast? | More snickelcasts | All ‘My Sounds’

People First Now Available On Apple News

Fri, 29 Mar 2019 09:54:02 +1200

I just wanted to let readers of this blog know that if you are an Apple News user, I have set up a channel on Apple News specifically focussed on People First.

You can find it here.

Right now there are some historical posts from a while back that I am flushing out, whilst making sure I retain anything relevant and pertaining to People First.

Going forward any and all posts to this blog will be routed to here - Aswell as other relevant writings that appear on other platforms such as BizCatalyst.

The Snickelcast. What is It? Why Is It? - A Snicklecast

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:05:40 +1200

Click on through … it will all become clear.

This is a Snickelcast. If you want to read more about Snickelcasts, take a look.

If you want to hear more snickelcasts … scroll through here - or find them in broader context as part of my Sound Site

Well She Loss By Less Than Last Time ... But Still One For The Record Books

Wed, 13 Mar 2019 08:29:21 +1200

Theresa May has suffered another shattering loss in parliament after lawmakers voted against her Brexit deal by 391 to 242.
Lawmakers have been promised another vote on Wednesday, in which they can decide whether the UK should crash out of the EU without a deal.
If that, too, is rejected, parliament could then vote on whether to request a Brexit extension.
The United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union in 17 days.

Get the extension … go back to the people … this is the deal …. up or down.

Llanfair Etcetera - A Snicklecast

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 11:59:22 +1200

I’m English, not Welsh … but anyway … for you @derekpeden

What is a Snickelcast? | More snickelcasts | All ‘My Sounds’

People: Benjamin

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 10:41:03 +1200

Stood to the side of the road, walking stick supporting him. Well kept. Elegant even. Just standing. The traffic constantly passing him by. No slowing down, but then no attempt by him to get them to either.

I slowed down to let him cross. No movement.

I opened the window.

“Would you like a lift?”

“Thankyou.” he said. “Thankyou very much.”

Slowly walking towards the car, he gets in.

“Much appreciated.” he said. “I’m going to 4th street … is that ok?”

"No problem. Which cross street?"

“It doesn’t matter. Anywhere on 4th. I’m going to the bank.”

4th Street is long …. twice as long as the distance I was going to drive to get him there. We pulled away and got back into step with the traffic.

“Good news he said. I have $5,000 in my account that I didn’t know I had. I’m going to check that it’s there. That it’s real. Hope so he said, I’ve already been celebrating.”

I’d already guessed it wasn’t cologne that I was smelling.

"Which bank?"

“It doesn’t matter. If I have it, maybe I will buy the car I’ve been wanting. Save all this waiting and walking.”

"You could get a nice car for $5,000."

“Can you? It’s been a long while since they took my last one away. They took it with my license.”

"How long ago?"

“Can’t rightly recall. A long time ago. Be nice to drive again.”

“Oh, wait - here will be just fine.”

"There’s a bank 5 blocks up. No problem to take you there."

“Oh no no no… thankyou. Here’s just fine.”

I pulled over, and he got out.

I watched him walk away in the opposite direction to the bank.

Who knows where his mind was going to take him next.

One thing was sure. It would be wherever he wanted it to be. A walking stick isn’t going to stop his travels.

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Words and Pictures ... There's Room For Both

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 09:55:19 +1200

In my world, there is even a space for both!

Pictures - they say - are worth a thousand words.

Words however are very specific and in many ways less open to interpretation (lawyers aside!!)

So, I am going for both.

Here on my muttering stream - i have oft’ referenced the closing down of my different social spaces, so might I welcome you to :

Words - now Archives - the lead content on this space are words - sometimes supported by pictures … but not always. (UPDATED LINK)

and

Pictures - now Archives- the lead content on this space are pictures - sometimes supported by words … but not always.

Both are based on Blot.IM

I will also publish a picture of how it all connects on … where else … Archives !

Also to come soon … Sounds.

UPDATE 2024 04 22

More broken links identified in the archives.

Consolidating Yesterday To Tell A More Connected Story Today.

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 06:40:41 +1200

I attended this yesterday …. a 1 day (actually closer to two days squeezed into one day ) event feauturing Tim Berners Lee, Vince Cerf, Professor Wendy Hall and a veritable host of others.

During the day I posted a series of images and comments in separate posts, today I am consolidating them into a single post to bring more of a story together.

In chroniclogical order »

Kick Off

… with Ray Wang, Mei Lin Fung

… and Vint Cerf

Later In The Morning

Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee … who didn’t invent the internet or the www (respectively) … at least according to them.

TShirt Proof

Dame Wendy Hall …, with Sir Tim listening quietly in the background.

Sponsors For The Day

Vint and Ray Wang

World Economic Forum

Hashtag for it all : #OurDigitalFuture

Who put the ‘Con’ in Content?

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 23:26:52 +1200

There’s that word popping up again. As WP launches G and the world at large talks about how they hate it and they want a simple editor to use for their; post, article, photography, journal, chronicle ….

No of course they don’t they say content.

good name that … who did put the con into content?

Eleven, Eleven, Eleven, Eleven

Mon, 12 Nov 2018 10:16:50 +1200

The First World War officially ended 100 years ago today … November 11, 1918. More than 16 million people were killed, 8 million of them ‘civilians’.

And then just 21 years later … WW2 broke out. But that is a different story.

100 years ago today is a fascinating site that gives you a day by day summary of The Great War.

Meanwhile, Yo Yo Ma performing at WWI Armistice Ceremonies:

and The Guardian writing about ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’

WW2 broke out just 21 years after the end of WW1. That’s like a major war ending in 1997 and a second one starting this year.

Here’s hoping (though we probably need to do more than ‘hope’) that WW3 is not just around the corner - because sometimes I wonder. And I think senior world leaders also ask …

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,” the French president said, according to a translation of his remarks. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values.”

President Emmanuel Macron

Trump continues to be a global disgrace, and increasingly a major threat to world peace and stability.

1 Password Subscriptions - A Gouge?

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 05:21:34 +1200

Asking myself why I hadn’t upgraded to 1Password7.

Because subscription I reminded myself.

36 dollars per year IF billed annually.

I have used since v 3 … I have had v 6 since Jan 2016 ( I upgrade asap for good valuable products).

Under subscription that would have cost me $90 to date … minimum - round about double what I paid.

That is a price increase that I see as gouging.

I am not anti subscription … I am for fairness. I mean - I pay that for Bear, more for Ulysses … so it isn’t that … under the old system existing customers got rewarded for loyalty.

Have I missed something?

Teething Problems at Starbucks, or ….

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 06:33:55 +1200

Super Dooper new one opens, you know the kind - with the beer, wine and couches. BUT a few teething problems …

Used the phone to redeem my free drink - which they managed to take off and charge me for … I know that because they wanted more money than I had stored … took the manager to resolve that one.

As they gave me the drink, the barista sneezed all over the cup. No ‘sorry’. No ‘excuse me’. No, ‘let me get you a fresh one’. They did after I asked.

Which I returned after I sat down, since it was a Mocha, not a Latte.

Meanwhile - the locals are settling in … looks like a table to me … but it is obviously confused with a foot stool.

Note to self - don’t eat off this table … If I come back.

People: Jan

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 10:35:47 +1200

Jan knows the UK and lives in Texas now, but the journey from one to the other allowed her to see the rest of the world.

She lived in Mildenhall. I’d heard of it. Used to live near there myself.

She joined the USAF to get trained, qualified and see a world ‘outside of the 50’. She left after just three years because she met and fell in love with the man who became her husband (best-laid plans and all that!). Training and Qualifications put on hold, but still traveled and saw the world. After all - her husband was still in the forces.

Now she is an antique dealer and her husband works at the nearby USAF facility. Well not just the USAF, turns out it is the only joint USAF and NATO training facility in the world.

Who knew?

Her vision was clear, as was her mission and strategy: join the USAF, get trained and qualified. See the world.

But, the tactics to achieve the mission changed. Quickly.

Regardless, mission accomplished. She saw the world and got trained and qualified.

Jan never looked back. In fact, by not holding on to a pre-conceived notion as to how this was all going to work out, she did everything she wanted to do and then some.

Without her husband, she would never have gotten into antiques ... which turned out to be her passion. Seeing the world? Sure.

We never quite know what we really want to do. Or be. Do we? At least that's true for the most of us. So why hang on to some arbitrary plan?

I am reminded of the Japanese term Ikigai ... literally a 'reason for being'. Jan started in a military profession to live, with a personal mission to see the world. Through the good fortune of her USAF career being derailed, she discovered her own 'Ikigai. Good fortune? Maybe. But really through her own agility.

Life is What Happens To You While You're Busy Making Other Plans.
John Lennon

[ Or Was It? ]

Thinking Allowed

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People: Alex

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 09:32:56 +1200

“I spent the day with my dog.”

"What kind of dog is it?" "A Boston Terrier."

"Oh wow, do you have pictures?"

"I did, but I lost my camera and so all my pictures."

"Oh no, you know these days it’s so easy to keep your photos backed up in the cloud, so you’ll never lose them."

"I know. I have Google storage and Verizon cloud, but I just never get round to doing it, because it isn't important."

"Well maybe you will now."

"Maybe. But now there’s an opportunity to create a set of new memories."

The differences in people are revealed by the smallest truths. I live in a world of online back ups, local back ups - duplicated and a system that allows me to recover files lost just a minute ago. Anything less would make me nervous.

There are also those people that never back up because they simply don’t know. Or they have never lost their phone, and with it their only copy of photos, phone numbers and notes.

And then there are people like Alex. He knows all about that. He just doesn’t care. He is not driven by the same triggers that drive me. He lives in the moment. For the moment.

“What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It’s today,” squeaked Piglet. “My favorite day,” said Pooh.”

A.A. Milne

Thinking Allowed

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Winner Of The The Nobel Peace Prize

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 07:55:57 +1200

Unless you track it, this kind of news can scoot past you before you even realize what is going on.

The 2018 winner was just announced.

"The Nobel Peace Prize 2018 was awarded jointly to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict."

Inside the triumphant Alex Jones banned everywhere story is a worrying nuance about free speech and platform dominance

It’s extraordinary how people contribute to society for the better good, and you think - what can I do to be more like them?

Which reminded me of last year.

.. when the Nobel Peace Prize was won by ICAN. That’s The ‘International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ to you.

The Nobel committee drew specific attention to ICAN’s …

... “work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons."

At the time, Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of ICAN thought the announcement of the award was a prank. But it wasn’t … as witnessed by this photograph of Xanthe Hall just a year later.

And who is Xanthe?

Well, apart from a life time activist in the world of Nuclear disarmament, starting as a member of the CND in the UK and now the Co-Director and IPPNW campaigner for nuclear disarmament, she also sits on the board of ICAN Germany.

But that isn’t really the point of this story.

She is also the little sister of my first ever girlfriend as I grew up in a small village just outside of York, England. I haven’t seen or spoken to Xanthe since those teen years, although I knew what she was up to.

It’s truly amazing how life’s trajectories work and though this post is a year late in the coming, I am forever blown away by what people do and achieve. And really, to celebrate winning The Nobel Peace Prize … I mean that is not just a one-off is it? I would be celebrating it every single day! It’s for life!

And when I ask myself ‘what can I do to be like them, I look at Xanthe … to all intents and purposes, growing up in the same village, knowing the same people, going to the same kind of schools …. I was like ‘them’. It’s just that Xanthe focussed her life in that direction. I didn’t.

Because it takes a village ...

… an African proverb, because of course, it wasn’t just Xanthe, it was a global team effort … here she is celebrating at the time with one of her partners Sascha Hach - at ICAN, Germany. Reported Here.

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

Harry Truman

And Another One Bites The Dust

Sat, 22 Sep 2018 10:36:10 +1200

For the past two months, I have been running blottings.philpin.com in parallel with a free wordpress site. All has been working fine, so this morning I moved the prior three months of that site to john.philpin.com - perfect.

Doubtless some odd css cleanup as I find them - but random testing says no point in going through it all.

SO .... about that Wordpress site ... well the newest relevant post in there is now 2015 - and the oldest May 2012 ... time to wander through and [see if these posts do in fact provide context](https://blottings.philpin.com/who-are-you-just-in-time-advice) ... or is just garbage.

Wish me luck!

Two Years Ago Today and Nothing Has Really Changed

Fri, 21 Sep 2018 11:13:00 +1200

I wondered back then if some people were above the law (spoiler alert - they seem to be)

According to Wikipedia …. about three weeks later he resigned.

”Stumpf stepped down as CEO and Chairman of the board on October 12, 2016.[19] In February 2018, Janet Yellen, on her last day as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2014-2018), approved a strongly worded critical letter to Stumpf to emphasize his failures as Chair of Wells Fargo board of directors. The letter, signed by Michael Gibson, Director of the Division of Supervision and Regulation, cited Stumpf’s complicity in ignoring the bank’s poor risk management programs, and failure to initiate any serious investigation into its sales practices.

And since then donuts.

I guess he’s safe now - or does anyone know any different?

Good To Know

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 11:04:38 +1200

Brexit Explained

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 09:12:45 +1200

It Must Be Me. Not You.

Thu, 13 Sep 2018 11:30:14 +1200

That day you walk into a coffee bar with a big beautiful Espresso Machine behind the cashier.

“A latte please.
Sorry?
“A latte”
Cross talk behind the scenes asking someone else if they know what I was talking about.
A third person enters the scene ….
How can we help?
“A latte please.”
She turns to the two young kids …
Latte … It’s a coffee drink …
Oh … never heard of that … thank you.
Third person turns around and starts to make the drink … The coffee appears and she disappears behind a curtain, to emerge three minutes later with one of those ice blended abominations.
“No. sorry, I wanted a Latte.”
So you’ve changed your mind?
“No. Not at all. I have wanted a Latte since I came into the store.”
She turned around and made one.
It really is rather nice … But what did they THINK I was talking about?

Security

Thu, 13 Sep 2018 04:34:04 +1200

Why Banks Need To Die

Fri, 07 Sep 2018 13:00:36 +1200

VoiceMail: This is BofA ... please call us at your earliest convenience, we believe your card has been compromised.

I logged on to ‘free up’ the situation - usually works - but no - please call this very specific number.

I do - I am on hold for over 20 minutes - I know - I can see.

Eventually my call is picked up.

I identify myself.

“Before we get going, I know it isn’t your fault, but I would like to point out that I have been on hold for over twenty minutes.”

Snaps back - “Well that shows you how busy we are.”

“Oh - good to know” - in my mind.

“Well I said - you have stopped my card because of possible fraudulent activity, which I can’t resolve through your web site, so essentially you are asking me to call you - because you have stopped my card and then failing to provide a reasonable response time to help me - a customer - solve your problem.”

“Do you want to get this solved?”

I moved on. Five minutes later, all was confirmed that yes - the purchases I made with the card are indeed my purchases - you will note that I have bought from these enterprises in the past …. etc etc …

Deaf Ears.

“Your card is good to go.”

Hang Up.

Ok - and thank YOU for being my credit card company - I say to a ‘dial tone’ (remember those kids?).

Thirty minutes later the card was refused.

Not having another spare half hour today, I just tried to log on. This is what I got.

Says it all really.

Yes - the Internet is working - that is how I managed to post this!!

Thinking Aloud About People On Micro Blog

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 07:25:04 +1200

Back in the day when I was using Dave Winer’s 1999 - he used to have a class of user called ‘POETS’ … in his mind they were the ‘non tech’ crowd.

I see a lot of tech and non tech peeps on micro blog … and it got me to wondering if everyone on micro blog self selected that they were ‘primarily’ either ‘POET’ or ‘TECHNOID' (we need a better word) … it might help discover like minded people - and of course un-like minded people for each of our communities.

Maybe there is a different spectrum that could be applied?

Maybe there are Five Descriptors and you get to distribute 10 points across the 5? So your personal proloctivity shines through?

Thoughts?

People: Nenah

Fri, 31 Aug 2018 06:39:31 +1200

I worked in San Diego in those days. Everybody around me was promising the world and just doing it what it took. Nobody was asking questions. It was crazy. I held to my truth. But I was the only one that did. But it still all blew up.

That was ten years ago. Now I am here, for me, nothing has changed. I work hard. I reap my rewards.

I love Commercial Banking. It is what I do. All of it.

I find the deals. I work the deals. I close the deals.

I never let go of my core principles.

I didn’t react.

Our truths are our lives. Those truths ~~can~~ do move.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

William Shakespeare

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Trump Has Remade the Republican Party

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 12:44:47 +1200

“With the 2018 primaries about to end, all but two of the 37 Republicans Mr. Trump has endorsed for House, Senate and governor during their primary campaigns have won. Mr. Trump has abandoned or undercut the party’s traditional commitment to free trade, fiscal conservatism and a hawkish foreign policy. Mr. Trump’s most vocal GOP critics in elective office have been defeated in primaries, announced their retirement or gone quiet.”

The Full Story

That may well be - but is the mood of the country (well - at least those that vote) … such that they will be allowed to beat the democratic opponents?

Make your voice heard …. Vote On November 6th

Are you in pain by having to gas up your own car? There’s an app for that.

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 04:19:19 +1200

On-demand gas startup Yoshi expands to 16 cities to end your pain at the pump … so now we are so lazy we can’t even be bothered to go gas up our own cars.

But what do we need them for anyway? Our food is delivered and Amazon does everything else. Our entertainment is virtual and streamed. We work at home.

And aren’t cars meant to be electric and self driving anyway?

Alex Jones has not been barred from speaking ... he’s just had his microphone taken away.

Thu, 09 Aug 2018 12:28:33 +1200

‘Cory’ himself commenting on the Alex Jones stuff … nowhere connecting the ‘amplification’ aspect that @manton raised yesterday(?) … how do we move that thought into wider mainstream thinking?

Feedly * Unread * Reeder

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 08:58:02 +1200

I have used Feedly for the longest time - always done it for me …. and then I switched on Feedbin to benefit from some specific features that I wanted to try out … which in turn took me to Reeder and Unread as rss clients.

Reeder is functionally very rich - very nice.

Unread has a beauty all of its own.

Feedly is not as feature rich as Reeder nor as beautiful as Unread.

What’s a boy to do?

Naive? Or Ahead Of His Time?

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 06:15:23 +1200

We live in a world where knowledge, experience, thoughtfulness, kindness are really not valued. Just look around if you need proof.

There is also far too much emphasis on short term thinking, instant gratification, cheap at any cost …. both at an individual and corporate level.

So Chip Conley writing How We Combat Ageism Is By Valuing Wisdom as Much as Youth. makes me wonder … which is he?

For Posterity

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 06:02:12 +1200

Steadily working through the snippet collection backlog … and decide to drop these in here.

Will England ever get its own Parliament? - BBC News

… they should.

15 Signs That The Middle Class In The United States Is Being Systematically Destroyed

… only 15?

Retailers can’t out-Amazon Amazon, but they can change the rules

… but few will.

The Web We Want

… we do.

People: Rebecca

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 11:53:57 +1200

“I live about 30 minutes North of here. There really isn’t any work up there. My husband is a mechanic from Mexico. He has his own auto repair business and helps me look after the children. I drive down here to work. I like it, the hours are flexible so it makes the family side easier.”

“I have 5 children. My firstborn is 15, the youngest is 2. It’s good because my mom helps, particularly with my eldest. He likes her and she likes him. It’s a good relationship and they bonded at birth”.

She will miss him when he moves away.

“That won’t happen. He is 15 years old with the mind of a 2 year old. When he was in my womb, the umbilical chord had wrapped around his neck three times and choked him.”

"Do you get help from the authorities, the local government, social services?”

She looked at me as if I was an alien.

  “No. There is not much government help on the reservation, but we all help each other.”

"Your father?”

“I have no idea who my father is. My mother, she’s Navajo, told me once that he was Irish - but he has long gone.  

“We survive in the nation. We always have.”

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.

Barack Obama

… strangers to the nations that had already been here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

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People: Leroy

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 07:37:05 +1200

“I am 76 years old and have been married for 58 of them. She had just turned 17 when we started our lives together.”

“I buy jewelry from the Zuni Indians and sell it to people that appreciate the intricacy and beauty. Their art is so fine it is almost like needlepoint.”

How do your customers find you?

“They don’t … I find them. I have been doing it for 40 years. No point in stopping, it is what I love and my wife isn’t waiting at home for me any more.”

Married 58 years, but his wife is no longer waiting at home for him ... I swallowed.

“She lives three hours away. So, I visit every weekend. Drive there. We have lunch together. I drive back.  It’s been a little over two years now. She still recognizes me, which is good, but I am not sure for how much longer.”

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

Friedrich Nietzsche

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🎵 Fred Frith - Founder of Henry Cow - A Little Joint History

Sun, 22 Jul 2018 12:28:23 +1200

I came across an old Fred Frith album in my collection today and recalled that when at school I ‘knew’ that he was the son of the headmaster of my school.

I forget how I ‘knew it’ and over time even started to question the truth of my own memory (just because they have the same last name, blah blah blah .. )

So, with the internet on hand, I just finished some ‘research’ - ok I went to Wikipedia to see if I could find out if there was any truth …

Turns out he was. Still is I assume!

”In the early 1970s Fred’s grey Morris Minor sported the band’s heraldic logo, much to the amusement of boys at his dad’s grammar school in York where he was the headmaster.”

I even remember the car. The memory was real.

Lest We Forget ... If Indeed You Remembered It First ... Because Only Then Can You Forget ....

Sun, 22 Jul 2018 07:53:18 +1200

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

”… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

🎥 The Adventures of Tintin, 2011 - ★★★★

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 20:18:03 +1200

Marvelous - hadn't even heard of it till I watched it - highly recommended. Just do not understand why the stories have never been turned into a film series. Hopefully '2' will be forthcoming in that not too distant future.

🎥 Acts of Violence, 2018 - ★★

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 20:16:47 +1200

a total car wreck - if I am being generous

Just An Experiment

Sat, 14 Jul 2018 08:41:55 +1200

… move along now.

People: 'JK'

Thu, 12 Jul 2018 18:28:54 +1200

‘JK’ was born in Eastern Texas - ‘where there are trees and orchards’. From there she moved down to Corpus Christie … showed me photographs of the Ocean and Beaches that she could step out to from the restaurant she worked in.

Gorgeous, what took you there from East Texas?

“My boyfriend.”

“I have moved a lot, so when he suggested it, I was hesitant, but he pushed, he had a great opportunity and said that when we moved, we wouldn’t be doing the lifting, moving and driving, we were going to pay someone else to do all that. Nobody had ever said something like that to me before. How could I refuse?”

So great boyfriend, great career opportunity, beautiful new place and town to live in …

.. and yes, she had moved again. Away from the Ocean and Beach. Away from her new home. Leaving behind her new life and was now working in a very different kind of place, in a very different part of Texas.

Turns out she wasn’t even with her boyfriend anymore.

He was everything she could have wanted, but it wasn’t to be.

It was Thanksgiving. She and the children were at her mothers waiting for him to join them. She called. No answer. Eventually, she got word.

He was just 37 when he had his heart attack and died. Thirty Seven. Leaving behind her, her ten year old and his two young teenagers.

She was worried that she might not see his children anymore. They had gone back to ‘their family’, she meanwhile has headed north to her family, the only ‘close’ people she had left in the world. But essentially, she was still alone and all after being shown the possibility of a brighter new future, only to have the rug whipped out from under her. In her mind, she had nothing left.

She met another woman at her new place of work. Instant connection. ‘Two sisters from different misters’. Support immediately given. Unconditionally. They have been inseparable for nearly a year. Just a month ago, they were driving in the city and as she looked out through the car window, the cloud lifted. In her words, it was nothing short of an epiphany. As she looked at the view, truly seeing for the first time she knew at that moment it was time. Time to live again.

She still misses her partner and his children, the ocean, the beach, the life that he had promised and that they had started, but she is getting through it thanks to her ‘BFF’ - a true friend without who she couldn’t have done any of this.

I met her friend. As always, never far away, even at work.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

John F. Kennedy

Adding 'Value' In The 21st Century

Sun, 08 Jul 2018 09:08:43 +1200

“A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place.”

Matt Taibbi

Careful now ... in case you were thinking about renewing that Green Card.

Sun, 08 Jul 2018 02:23:09 +1200

A quiet change in US policy threatens immigrants who apply for a change in status

”non-citizens who apply for a “benefit”–such as an extension or change of status, a green card, or citizenship—would be placed in deportation proceedings if that benefit is denied.”

”merely losing your petition for visa extension … or doing something DHS considers to be criminal (even if never arrested or charged) places you on the same fast-track.

People: Alan and Margaret

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 10:07:48 +1200

Alan from the mid west, Margaret from the East Coast, met, married and started a family in Ohio.

Alan was someone who lived by the rules, so it took ‘Madge’ to show Alan an advert for a job opportunity in California.

Alan wasn’t sure but applied anyway. He got the job and the two of them moved their lives 2,500 miles away.

They had children and grand children and all the while, Alan whilst moving jobs, played by the rules and kept a single career in Banking. The whole family all still live in California

Alan retired and continued into his retirement with the rule book at his side. He didn’t say if he ‘got the gold watch’.

And then he hit 70. Something stopped inside of him. Something started inside of him. The rule book was dispatched to the garbage can.

He is now 72. Their house is sold - as are most of the furnishings. The rest sits in storage. The two of them travel. Everywhere. Together. They just got back from Portugal. She would have stayed there. He needed to come back first. They still might move.

Life is changing around them faster than ever - but just as when they were in their twenties, it’s Madge who is ahead in the thinking. Alan just needs to catch up. I think he will.

"I said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side."

Lou Reed

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People: Brad

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 08:02:42 +1200

Brad studied and graduated in Aerodynamics and then went on to work in Florida, before moving to Virginia as an Aeronautical Engineer.

And then he ‘had the rug pulled out from under him’.

I assumed that he was the casualty of some corporate down-sizing or reorganization, but no…

“I met a girl, and then she said ‘Hi’.”

… and at a stroke, he started his life again, moving to the other side of the continent and then training as an actor and getting work over a period of many years.

He naturally progressed to Director with his last production being mounted just two years ago - after he had started his novel which which was published in 2015.

His engineering background directed the back drop for his SciFi novel where he explored a number of themes based in what Brad called ‘bleeding edge and real science’.

Longevity was one of those themes.

The book is set 400 years into the future, both Moon and Mars are colonized and people now routinely live to 200 years old and during that life-time they may have three or four careers. In Brad’s world, it is routine to qualify and work in one discipline and then start all over again in another, and another throughout life.

I can’t help feeling that as an aeronautical engineer-come-actor-come-director-come-writer - not to mention quite a few other ‘careers’ as part of his life’s journey that the book was perhaps semi-autobiographical.

”There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”

Aldous Huxley

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Titanic Titans

Sun, 24 Jun 2018 08:10:36 +1200

”Krauthammer was - like George Will - the sort of conservative pundit who largely does not, and perhaps cannot, emerge in today’s media landscape. That is to say, he took positions that were carefully thought out.”

”21st century conservative commentary either hew to the party line or else choose whatever positions will stoke the most outrage and thus sell the most books and/or attract the largest audience”

NFL Now Requires Players To Stand For National Anthem Or Stay In Locker Room

Ian Bogost has a mixed vision of the future ....

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 21:12:57 +1200

Ian Bogost asks Are Apple AirPods Any Good? This caught my eye:

”The earbuds won’t disappear, just like the smartphones haven’t. But they will become invisible as they become ubiquitous.

For all his skill in envisioning a future AirPod world and the social ramifications does he really think that Airpods won’t get smaller, maybe even just embedded?

People: Pete

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 19:15:45 +1200

Pete … loud … but nice. Turkish is his ’baby’ has ‘been with him for 15 years’. Turkish looked up at me from Pete’s lap. Cute.

“You don’t sound like you’re from America”

“What’s it like?”

… staccato questions - like gunfire.

“Never been myself … my brother went to New York a couple of years ago. Had a great time, other than being manhandled by the police.”

I stopped and looked at him. An older gentleman, with that rough London accent that would have fitted into a movie like ‘The Long Good Friday’. (Excellent movie BTW - if a tad dated.)

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said " up in Harlem. My Brothers mad on Jazz, so someone bundled him in a cab and told the driver to take him up to Harlem. He had a great time. Only white bloke in the entire place and the Jazz was amazing. Well, that’s what the brother said, i don’t know. I wasn’t there.

“Yeah that area is great for music, sounds a fun time … what went wrong?”

“Well, it turns out that he was the only white boy and not just in the club! When he left, a police car driving by saw him and they thought he didn’t ‘look right’, so pulled over and had him against a wall in seconds.”

He went on …. “Once they heard him talk, the penny must have dropped … so sent him on his way, but they told him he wasn’t in the right neighborhood - so don’t come back.”

“So he didn’t, not even to America. Blimey that President of theirs talks about ‘no go’ areas in London … what a load of bollocks, I think he got confused with New York.”

"So would you go to America?" I asked?.

“Me? No mate. Not me. My brothers a big bloke and if that can happen to him - I’m not gonna risk it … I’m 76 now, not as quick on my feet as I used to be.”

"But that’s a pretty unusual case."

“Probably.” he said, “but why risk it? What’s America got that I need - let alone want?”

Good question.

A little piece of you The little peace in me Will die For this is not America

David Bowie

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People: Riley

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 22:00:43 +1200

Riley was angry. Not visibly. But it wasn’t hard to ‘see’.

He had been fighting the fires as they encroached on his house with his father. He could see the fire down the street, but right then he felt it was all manageable. He was about to cut down the fences while keeping the house wet with the water hoses.

That’s when the Fire Department arrived.

“We’ve got it”. They said. “But you and the family need get out to safe ground.”

Riley looked around, the fire was a quarter of a mile away, the Fire Department had arrived, there was a water hydrant right there in the road.

“We’ve got it.” They reiterated - you need to leave.

Riley and the family left. They only took what they needed.

They returned the next morning, their house was gone. All the houses from where the fire was through to his were gone. The house next door was still standing.

Apparently The fire had ‘jumped’, quickly with speed - there weren’t sufficient resources, once a fire took hold the strategy was to not to ‘protect’, but to ‘contain’.

It would have taken them maybe 10 minutes more to load up their cars with the boxes of pictures, the memorabilia, the family history … packed for an entirely different reason, but left behind because they ‘trusted’ the authorities, the professionals, the people who ‘knew what they were doing’. All that was now gone, along with their house.

Yes - Riley was angry. ‘If only’ - he had stayed, it would have been different. ‘If only’ - they had loaded the cars, mom would not be crying every day … 6 months later. ‘If only’ - the fire service had done their job. He had a lot of ‘if only’ in him…

But he knew in his heart that they had done their job. He was really just angry at himself. He seemed to feel that he had failed.

What he didn’t know was if he had stayed whether the outcome would be different. And if it was different, would the outcome be better or worse.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal held in your hand, with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the only one that gets burned.

Buddha

People: Evelyn

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 05:04:36 +1200

“We quit taking credit cards because of the fees.”

“Couldn’t you have passed the fees back to customers that wanted to use credit?”

“That would have been too complicated.”

“And now you are closing down because there aren’t enough customers?”

“Yes.”

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.

Mark Cuban

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People: Enrique

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 03:18:46 +1200

“I was born in Tijuana. I grew up In San Diego. I moved to San Jose and then San Francisco. Now I’m in Oregon. I guess I’ll get to Canada eventually.”

“Always a barman?” I asked.

“Always a barman.”

“Never thought about doing more? Management? Your own place?”

“Nah." He said. “Increase my hours, increase my responsibilities, increase my workload, reduce my interaction with my customers and slash my earnings? I might be a barman, but I’m not stupid!”

“I recently asked a room full of 100 managers, ‘If you could keep your current pay but go back to your old role as an individual contributor, would you do it?’” Wellins says. “About 90 people raised their hands. It startled me. I see it as an indication that lots of managers accepted promotions for the wrong reasons.”

Richard Wellins

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People: Cynthia

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 02:45:59 +1200

Cynthia was brought up about 50 miles away, moved here in her teens, and ‘worked the tables’ for longer than she meant to. On ‘the way through’ she fell into a job that she had for 38 years and had just retired from, not because she had to but really because the market had fallen through the floor.

Cynthia traveled the world working for a single company for every one of those 38 years. She loved it.

Before she got into it, she didn’t even know it was a job to be done. Have to say - 38 years later, neither did I.

Ever wondered what happened to those gold fillings when grandma passed? Cynthia knows. In Cynthia’s words; “Whoever saw grandma last, just before she was ‘planted’ …. that’s who knows where the gold went. And it wasn’t buried with her.”

Bottom line, Cynthia worked for a gold refinery business - ‘recycling’ division. It was ‘big business’ and kept Cynthia in a really good job for most of her working life.

In case you don’t think that there was money to be made, Cynthia assured me that just one old dentist carpet that was going to be thrown away delivered thousands of dollars in gold.

“Gold," I said. “I thought that market was very much alive and well?”

“It is,” she said, “but not at the dentists. People haven’t been doing gold fillings for years now - and if they aren’t filling their mouths with gold, we have nothing to buy and recycle.”

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

Orson Welles

---

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People: Graham

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 02:03:40 +1200

The conversation started simply enough. He lived just up the road, had a little farm … “just as a hobby you know”.

Yes, he’s been in farming the whole of his life, always in ‘these parts’.

His son runs the ‘family farms’. We’ve mainly got grain, orchards and nuts.

“Oh. All over” … the answer to where the farms are located.… “and we have patents."

Which raised my eyebrows … how many farmers do you know that have patents? No, me neither.

Turns out the patents are in water - wastewater specifically.

Turns out that there are many customers from all over the world already using his technology. Paying customers. A global business that emerged from the farming. And you would never know without talking to him. Exploring the conversation. Doing the journey with him.

Without all of that, he was just 'another' elderly gentleman, keeping himself to himself, watching 'the game', having a glass of wine at the end of the day - like he does every day BTW.

Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.
C.S. Lewis

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People: Kerry

Tue, 29 May 2018 07:37:02 +1200

“I trained as a Psychologist.”

“I became a Winemaker.”

“I run a Bar.”

“It’s all the same really.”

People: James

Tue, 29 May 2018 07:35:58 +1200

“I’m descended from a Scotsman who married a Dakotan Indian. That’s how I came to be in the Crystal business.”

James never explained how that particular logic worked. I think that is part of his charm … and, of course was proud of his lineage.

“But I am Gay - who KNOWS where that came from,” he then proclaimed … in that wonderfully affirmative, standing proud way that some people have.

James. Lovely. Outgoing. Humorous. Positive. Self-Effacing.

Is it because I’m English that I value that trait?

Then again, a six foot, loud, witty, dyed blonde, gay guy selling crystals in a town of less than 30,000 - can you be self-effacing?

People: Midori

Tue, 29 May 2018 06:57:08 +1200

“My dad is half Japanese and half Latvian, my mom is French, they met, married and I was born in Alabama.”

That’s a story right there … it emerged as I complimented her on her tattoos.

“This one,” pointing to her upper left arm, “is by an artist that specialized in Victorian Cats but as she got older the cat illustrations morphed into psychedelic art. The explanation of the morphing emerged when doctors diagnosed her as schizophrenic. My brother is a cat lover who is schizophrenic, this is to honor him."

As I looked at the tattoo, it flipped between cat and owl, not quite as a Rubin Vase … better, more detail, with color … it was almost alive.

The tattoo just below the dedication to her brother was of a tear vial. The art was beautiful. The story that accompanied it just as.

A young woman literally (?) wearing her heart on her sleeve.

It is as sure as you are Roderigo, Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago. In following him, I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so, for my peculiar end; For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In complement extern, ’tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.

William Shakespeare

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People: James and Jean

Mon, 28 May 2018 08:52:48 +1200

“I was born in Palm Springs” he said.

He had my attention. I know a few people who have lived in Palm Springs. James was the first time I knew of someone born there.

“Then I moved to Wisconsin.”

An unusual move (at least in terms of direction), from my perspective.

“.. and now I’m here. I do guided walks through the wine country.”

"That must be wonderful."

“Not really,” he replied, “I’m actually a pastor, but sometimes you need to make it work.”

Jean used to be a Dean at one of California’s Universities.

“… and now I work in a tasting room, learning as much as I can about wine. It’s the dream of my life."

Different horses on similar courses … from different stables, with different riders heading to different finish lines.

You have to know which race you are in - and you will rarely know that of another.

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Kneeling Used To Be A Sign Of Respect

Thu, 24 May 2018 05:57:15 +1200

Next time I am in a Church and we are all asked to kneel, I will stand, since it is now obvious that kneeling is a sign of disrespect … I mean the NFL are an authority on this … right?

I would also suggest those players that do choose to stay in the locker room … do so for the entire game and see how long the ban lasts … but they won’t …. because money.

I wonder if that rule will apply to NFL games in the UK? Or is that a different authority that is attempting to establish American Football as something more than a National game?

People: Sarah

Tue, 22 May 2018 04:58:14 +1200

She was alone at the bar … a glass of water, a giant pile of French fries and a separate bowl of potato chips sat in front of her. The seats on either side of her were empty at an otherwise full bar.

“No” she said. “Nobody is sitting there”

I took a seat, introduced myself and she said her name was Sarah. I ordered a beverage.

Someone to my right was talking about a seminar being held that night on the topic of renewable energy.

Interesting. I wouldn’t really have expected that topic to be high on the list in this establishment. I surfed the conversation. Not my gig really. It sounded as if it was going to be more like a sales pitch than educational.

That didn’t put Sarah off who had heard the answer and asked if anyone could attend. Turns out it was invitation only, but the other person ambled off to see if there were any ‘spare’ invitations.

I asked Sarah if she was interested in renewable energy. Not specifically she said, but it’s always good to learn.

Our investigator returned but there were no spare invitations. She then spent time explaining to Sarah how she could get invited to the next seminar.

Conversation with Sarah was sporadic, and I eventually stood up, excused myself and went out for some air.

I returned 10 minutes later, the Barman had packaged up Sarah’s chips and fries to go and she had left.

I never learned her story, but the barman filled me in on what he knew. The previous manager had banned her but she had discovered that there was a new one and started coming again. The ‘carb loaded diet’ was what she could afford, the water was free. The spaces either side of her at the bar helped the other patrons breathe more easily … hygiene was not her highest priority. She lived ‘nowhere’.

And yet she understood the world well enough to have a meaningful conversation with the lady running the renewable energy seminar … though my guess is that what she was really wanting was some proper food.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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People: John and Mary

Tue, 22 May 2018 04:50:31 +1200

They were from Massachusetts. This was the start of their fourth month on the road - thousands of miles away from their home.

Mary was stood watching John who was lying on his back under the car.

I remarked that if I actually knew anything about how to fix engines, I would offer to help diagnose the problem. But I didn’t, so it was pointless. Was there anything else I could do to help?

Mary smiled, “no thank-you” she said and went on to remark that they had just spent $500 giving the truck a service because they felt it needed it. Not because anything was wrong. They got the truck back yesterday. This was the first problem of the trip.

“I am sure it is just a coincidence,” said Mary.

I know I would not be so magnanimous.

“It’s ok”, she said, “we have Triple A. They will come and fix it. And while we are waiting, who could want a more beautiful place to wait.”

I looked around. No argument.

The smiles on their faces. The positivity. The gentleness, The patience.

They were just fine.

A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

Tom Stoppard

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People: Gina

Tue, 22 May 2018 04:35:26 +1200

Gina told me that her husband was a magician. A very good magician.

Turns out that he is also a maths teacher. That’s how he makes is money. He really wants to make his living as a magician. Magic is is his passion.

Her husband thinks that maths could be made more interesting to students by using magic. Essentially going to schools and revealing the maths through performance and magic.

Not exactly sure how that would work, but it is a wonderful example of mixing passion with income. Ikigai is a simple guide to how well we are all doing on that score by the way.

I asked her if he had approached any of the schools in the area to let him come in and try out the idea.

No. No he hadn’t. He didn’t think that they would ‘go for it’.

“If you don’t ask - how do you know?” I asked.

She looked at me silently and after a long pause said that she would tell him to start asking.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Steve Jobs

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People: Dan

Tue, 22 May 2018 04:23:12 +1200

Dan knew what he was doing. He offered me an Amber Ale from his selection. It was glorious. Arguably one of the best Amber’s I had ever tasted.

The rest of the beer selection looked equally impressive (Looked - because I didn’t taste them all).

I didn’t quite get why Coors was on the list. It hardly fitted into the craft beer category that described everything else.

“Oh”, he said, “I did a deal with them, they agreed to install my entire beer system for free if I agreed to sell Coors. They did, So I do.”

“And we are a business. A lot of people drink Coors and those profits support what I really enjoy doing.

He’s a wise man that Dan. Maybe that is why he is moving to The United Arab Emirates. Or maybe he’s doing that regardless?

“No matter what the work you are doing, be always ready to drop it. And plan it, so as to be able to leave it.”

Leo Tolstoy

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People: Candy

Mon, 21 May 2018 12:00:06 +1200

I met Candy while she was having dinner with her beau ... Brian. She is a truck driver who operates as far North as Seattle and as far South as San Jose.

Her grandfather had a business maintaining and fixing trucks. In that part of the country, back in those days, I am guessing his shop was THE place to go. Her father didn’t share the love of trucks. He tinkered. He knew his stuff ... but he didn’t feel it.

On the side, he fixed bikes. He was good at it. Very good. It was a passion. Everybody said to him that he should go into the bike business. He did. He loved it. It worked. He never looked back.

That is probably why Candy found herself riding a motorbike at the age of 5. On her first ride, she fell off. She wasn’t hurt and with help from her dad - got right back on.

She hasn’t fallen off since, let alone crashed.

It was through her bike that she met Brian. He was a pro motocross rider. Together they still ride ... on and off the roads.

A woman living a life she loves. Blending a legacy of trucks and a love of motorbikes.

"You can get what you want or you can just get old."
Billy Joel

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People: Caroline and Marcus

Mon, 21 May 2018 11:43:16 +1200

Caroline and Marcus had arrived in the US a couple of days earlier, most of their two-week sojourn in front of them.

They described their route over the next 10 days. There was going to be a lot of driving. A lot.

I knew where they lived in the UK. Each day they were going to drive a distance equivalent to what they did in a month at home.

Each day they were going to see a unique piece of nature the likes of which they would not see at home.

I knew that somewhere near their home their were tourists from the other side of the world seeing everything that they had in their backyard.

"The profoundest distances are never geographical."

John Fowles

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People: Stevie

Mon, 21 May 2018 11:40:01 +1200

Stevie was unsteady on his feet. He walked slowly. He didn’t seem to have much money. He was visiting the area because he had a hospital appointment.

It wasn’t clear why he needed a hospital. I didn’t ask. His elbow was gashed. But was that the reason? No idea - and not what you explore when you first meet.

His father owned a hardware store back in the day. With his uncle they bought a second store in the next town over.

You know that the hardware businesses did well when you got Bill Champlin to come over to your house and give your son (that would be Stevie) music lessons. Bill was good - even then. Stevie apparently wasn’t.

It is clear that Stevie was a handful throughout his teens. It seemed that he remained that way most of his life.

According to Stevie - he was never much good at anything - but he was alright. He “didn’t need much”.

Listening to Stevie, it seemed that he recognized that he had a lot of opportunities, but didn’t make the most them. It wasn’t clear that he regretted anything.

Except he was lonely. I think he is facing his mortality and wondering why he is alone.

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

Tom Wolfe

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People: Jeff and Emma

Mon, 21 May 2018 11:12:25 +1200

Jeff had worked in Somerset for 4 years. Emma's mother was born in England. Now they lived in America. Together.

We found ourselves talking over a couple of brews about the benefits of America over the UK. That with the current uncertainty of America, where would we rather be? More importantly, what would we do if the US continued this way after November of this year.

We agreed that the UK probably wasn't the solution.

"It is of course perfectly natural to assume that everyone else is having a far more exciting time than you. Human beings, for instance, have a phrase that describes this phenomenon, 'The other man's grass is always greener." The Shaltanac race of Broopkidren 13 had a similar phrase, but since their planet is somewhat eccentric, botanically speaking, the best they could manage was, 'The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauvy shade of pinky-russet.' And so the expression soon fell into disuse, and the Shaltanacs had little option but to become terribly happy and contented with their lot, much to the surprise of everyone else in the Galaxy who had not realized that the best way not to be unhappy is not to have a word for it."

💬 Douglas Adams

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A People First Update

Mon, 21 May 2018 11:05:44 +1200

People First has a big vision and is moving forward on a variety of initiatives. Life is too short to record it all in detail here ... so I am choosing to reference a few (in alphabetical order);

(The) Business Of Identity
CH-MRC
Digital Puerto Rico
IndieWeb
Internet Identity Workshop
Lost Identity

Some are large far-reaching initiatives some are small ideas. Some I am just interested in, others I am helping get established. I believe all are designed to help 'move the can down the road' in different ways. (The can being that which we each need to move forward to create a better world where people and their humanity are not afterthoughts but at the center of thinking, decisions and action.

And that human-centered perspective got me to thinking about people - and their stories.

So, in parallel with these initiatives, we are also pivoting the site, including moving the blog front and center and dropping the 'WhoWhatWhenWhereWhyHow' pages to a supporting role on the site.

We are also announcing the introduction of a new theme of posts categorized as 'Travels Without Charley' - tipping cap, doffing hat, nodding head vigorously towards one John Steinbeck.

Steinbeck is one of 4 literary ‘Johns’ that I reference from time to time. Steinbeck, of course, wrote ‘East of Eden’ and ‘Grapes of Wrath’ ... but also a lesser-known work from 1962 that records a journey in 1960 through America with his dog Charley. The book ‘Travels With Charley’ is lovely, containing such delights as

“I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless.”

... still true 60 years later!

Me? I don’t have a dog to travel with and would not even begin to compare myself to someone like Steinbeck. I am just borrowing his idea because there are stories I hear from people. All kinds of people. All the time. So ‘Travels Without Charley’ is my modern day, far less skilled contribution to the storytelling that in my mind has never been lost by people that care - but that corporations and punters constantly reference as if they have just learned of the 'second coming'.

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The power of the blog, even if it is on Medium

Sat, 12 May 2018 04:54:14 +1200

It’s a piece by SF mayoral candidate Jane Kim … calling the SF Chronicle out on their attempted hatchet job.

One of her questions back:

”Why didn’t you fact check the false assertions contained in these questions against publicly available information before contacting me or choosing to move forward with this story?”

Which resulted in them not runing with the story at all …. this is their response

The irony is palpable

Sun, 06 May 2018 04:32:37 +1200

Politico reporting how Seattle, San Francisco et al are too expensive to live in because highly paid tech people are arriving and pushing up the prices.

Those same tech people are very quick to preach that the Future of Work is virtual.

Is it that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander?

The Echo Chamber

Sat, 05 May 2018 11:57:54 +1200

Great read - and spot on …

“And this leads to my second reaction, which is the deepest impatience and frustration with IndieWeb itself for having developed tools to very literally revolutionize the web, but then continuing to not strive for a level of public visibility beyond that of model-train enthusiasts, perhaps, or ham-radio clubs. Smart, motivated people gathering regularly in the shared pleasure of their craft, with these quiet gatherings having negligible effect on the world at large.

I really want to work out how to elevate the conversation and get to a wider audience …. the challenge I think is that we don’t have sufficient weight / experience of people in the community that understand how to Cross The Chasm.

Cambridge Analytica

Fri, 04 May 2018 14:52:02 +1200

As I said … they will be back ….

”In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. Mr. Prince founded the private security firm Blackwater, which was renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.”

Just didn’t quite expect them to include Blackwater this time round.

About Flickr and SmugMug

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 07:57:35 +1200

My bold ….

We think you are going to love Flickr under SmugMug ownership, but you can choose to not have your Flickr account and data transferred to SmugMug until May 25, 2018. If you want to keep your Flickr account and data from being transferred, you must go to your Flickr account to download the photos and videos you want to keep, then delete your account from your Account Settings by May 25, 2018.

This reads that all Flickr moves to SmugMug - and if it doesn’t your Flickr account will be deleted.

To my knowledge there is not a free SmugMug.

So is that going to be introduced after May 25th? Or will we all then be paying?

Why You Should Not Delete Facebook

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 02:35:11 +1200

Again not me .. but …

I’m specifically not deleting my account because:

I intend to exercise a number of my data subject rights, and complain if Facebook does not respond appropriately.
I’m expecting the alternatives to Facebook to improve (because they’re virtually non-existent now), and will look forward to using data portability.

Siri - Drafts Experiment

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 02:19:38 +1200

The following is an experiment using Siri to talk to Drafts which I will then publish to microblog. The idea works by use of special code inside of Drafts that allows you to talk to your device and it in turn happily translates that into text. The cool thing is that normally with Siri there is a time cut off. With Drafts you can keep on talking talking talking while it types and types and types. What it doesn’t seem to do is improve the ability of Siri to understand what you’re saying.

One step at a time.

What Can Possibly Go Wrong?

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:02:31 +1200

The premise is simple: instead of owning your own bike, you can find and rent a JUMP bike directly in their app – each one has a built-in GPS. Bikes are scattered across the city, locked to racks, poles, or even trees.

An example of went wrong in China is below - and that doesn’t include bikes tied against trees, lamp posts and stop signs that will be all over San Francisco.

Thank-you dear tax payer - we will repurpose these ‘utilities’, make your city look like crap, probably cause accidents because we won’t be too careful about where we leave stuff …. oh and we are not responsible … you see we simply ‘facilitate bike sharing’.

Healthcare Is not the same as Healthcare Insurance

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:54:34 +1200

The headline,

Josh Kushner’s healthcare start up

caught my eye, so I read on.

Oscar, the health insurance startup co-founded by Joshua Kushner and Mario Schlosser, has raised $165 million in new venture capital funding. A source puts the post-money valuation at $3.2 billion, which is up from $2.7 billion in early 2016.

Oh … not healthcare start up at all … health Insurance startup. I do find the conflation of these two very different businesses in the US not just confusing - but almost deliberately misleading.

…. and yes, Josh is the Kushner that you don’t read too much about.

Vehicle Costs May Put Some Uber and Lyft Drivers in the Red

Exploitation Of People By People

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 23:07:05 +1200

”The ride-sharing drivers earn just $3.37 per hour on average, according to an MIT study. I have said for a long time that the same people who object to treatment of workers in remote countries making phones, garments et al ... are generally the self same people who love the convenience of ‘their’ Uber. Case In Point ... disasters. We seem to worry more about issues that are close to home far more than remote ones ... 2 dead in storm floods in the next state over is so much more worrying than 200 dead in Pakistan floods ... yet exploitation of those people in Pakistan by the garment industry hits the news cycle regularly ... exploitation of our own countrymen in the so called ‘sharing economy’ ... that we don’t hear about too much at all.

Meat - Meet Meat

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 06:51:55 +1200

This is a great read … essentially talking about the many different initiatives around the globe working on creating meat to eat, independent of animal.

Then there is this where The US Cattlemen’s Association are essentially proposing that

FSIS exclude from the statutory definitions of “meat” and “beef” those products that are not “derived from animals born, raised, and harvested in the traditional manner.”

Personally, I am with the Cattlemen - we should be clear about where our food comes from … count me in on the side of ‘clear GMO labelling’ for example. But then I am also on the side of those Cattlemen being clear about where their animals come from … how they are treated … etc etc but they do tend to fight that - because really they are also against this kind of publicity:

But that all said - I am also interested in defining terms. Is meat something that is defined by process …. i.e. all meat comes from an animal or content / structure …. i.e. all meat is meat if it cannot be distinguished by scientific analysis.

I also full expect ‘brand' to enter the debate … after-all - I can make ‘Champagne’ anywhere in the world - and you will not be able to chemically or structurally separate it from Champagne made in Champagne - but of course we all know that only Champagne made in Champagne can actually be called Champagne. In other words - there is a prior case in the food world that process does NOT define what you can call something - only the source defines it. ON that basis - the Cattlemen might win.

Humanity Over Tech

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 03:55:09 +1200

The news is full of the bad boys of the internet. Their lack of interest in ‘we the people’. Their apparent disregard for humanity. The need and importance for tech tech tech - no humanity needed.

But sometimes - just sometimes - the good news, the positive news, the uplifting news does get through.

Keith Block, vice chairman, president and COO of Salesforce, and his wife, Suzanne Kelley, VP of operations & PMO, global business units at Oracle Corporation, made the lead $15 million gift to establish the Block Center for Technology and Society at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.

Turner Sports Service to Let Fans Buy Portions of NBA Games - Bloomberg

Afternoon Coffee

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 11:29:13 +1200

Sunny, restful, quiet - the opposite of the actual day!

🚧 Cognitive Elites

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:23:33 +1200

“A 'cognitive elite' will rise to power and influence, as a class of sovereign individuals 'commanding vastly greater resources' who will no longer be subject to the power of nation-states and will redesign governments to suit their ends.”

The Second Innings Of The Internet

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 09:39:12 +1200

“Moral leadership means truly putting people first and making whatever sacrifices that entails,” said Seidman. “That means not always competing on shallow things and quantity — on how much time people spend on your platform — but on quality and depth. It means seeing and treating people not just as ‘users’ or ‘clicks,’ but as ‘citizens,’ who are worthy of being accurately informed to make their best choices. It means not just trying to shift people from one click to another, from one video to another, but instead trying to elevate them in ways that deepen our connections and enrich our conversations.”

Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN

via Thomas Friedman

… makes total sense to me. What we have today is the total domination of the online world by old school, old power, old values corporations - and people be damned. That is why we started People First - and interesting to see ourselves at the intersection of organizations and issues like The Indie Web and Internet Identity amongst others.

But if you think about issues like Ad Tracking, Profiling, Big Data, Walled Gardens, Data Warehouses, Self Sovereignty, Data Ownership, Net Neutrality, POSSE, longevity - you can complete the list as well as I can … the entire push and narrative today is to the benefit of the large corporation and the detriment of ‘we the people’.

By the way - if you want to see indie web in action - john.philpin.com is running on micro.blog - a nascent but emerging micro blog environment that is just part of this particular persons war chest of tools to take back the internet for people. More of this to come in future posts.

As I have said for many years - “I am my own system of record”.

A Potential Subscription Model For ESPN

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 11:29:34 +1200

.. which got me to wondering how fans might game the system ~~ eg I will only watch the last quarter to save money … but what if the price to watch was actually a kind of surge pricing model combined with INCREASING the price per minute as the game progressed and actually increased faster the closer the game and the more people there are tuning in.

So, for example to watch the last quarter might only be a 10% saving over the price to watch the entire game … and if it was real close with many fans tuning in as the game reaches its climax it might actually cost you more … would that work … kind of brings gaming into the very act of watching?

Actually .. There Is Something New ... It just Doesn’t Seem To Be Better

Sun, 25 Mar 2018 04:43:19 +1200

I concluded this post with the comment that ‘there is nothing new’ - but of course there is … a new twist.

Rowntree and others like him were of course trying to build environments for people in their employ that only had slums to live in as an alternative. The tech giants seem to be more focused on ensuring that their staff don’t ‘wander off' … think of it as an extension to the ‘free lunch’ that morphed into ‘on campus gourmet restaurants’ .. the problem is that staff then get to go home at night. This fixes that issue.

Of course people working, living and sleeping in one environment mirrors that old world of servitude, that on the face of it works, but actually covers a raft of moral and legal issues, not to mention how it makes it very difficult to move on … want to leave the company? Then find a new place to live at the same time.

The Self Same Day

Sat, 24 Mar 2018 06:45:32 +1200

Just 5 hours and 5 miles separates these two images.

Catch 22 Or Just Irony ?

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:24:45 +1200

The Facebook scandal is interesting in a number of ways, not the least of which is that we’re sharing our communal outrage on the very platforms that we accuse of breaching our our trust.

The expression of our anger at being turned into a set of psychographic profiles is, ultimately, adding to our psychographic profiles.

Dave Pell - Next Draft

Individual Rights

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 02:16:10 +1200

The GDPR provides the following rights for individuals:

The right to be informed
The right of access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to data portability
The right to object
Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

Pretty Clear

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 14:45:16 +1200

(ORDER LIST: 583 U.S.) MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2018 ORDER IN PENDING CASE 17A909 TURZAI, MICHAEL C., ET AL. V. LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, ET AL. The application for stay presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.

The original is just as short

How do you define meat!

Sat, 17 Mar 2018 02:53:49 +1200

Cheesecake - is it a pie?

Hot Dog - is it a sandwich?

… and what exactly defines a bridge?

And all if that was just yesterday. Today there is a new one that has hit the national news.

Is meat defined by it coming from animals OR by what it is made of?

Those seem to be the two opposing arguments that are emerging today - and possibly coming to a Supreme Court near you soon.

When Is A Bridge Not A Bridge?

Fri, 16 Mar 2018 08:16:05 +1200

Building on a recent debate as to whether a ‘hot dog’ is actually a ‘sandwich’, which at one point had me listening to a podcast asking that if a ‘cheese cake’ is not a ‘cake’ - is it a ‘pie’ ?

I believe that this too fits into a similar debate category.

This image of a bridge (?) was shared by my good friend and And Another Thing co-conspirator, good egg and ‘chap’ Dr. Watson (I kid you not) … asking if I was still interested in bridges.

I am. But my question is whether this is one?

What defines a bridge for you?

The Atlas Obscura Source

Keeping The Dialogue Going

Fri, 16 Mar 2018 07:31:10 +1200

In a parallel space, on a different topic, someone directed me to 16 of Stephen Hawking’s Most Mind-Expanding Quotes.

Number 10 resonated for the micro.blog community, ending thus;

With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Digital Tech Is Transforming The Physical Shape Of Our Cities

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 10:48:49 +1200

"The digital revolution is changing how and where work happens. Employment is becoming more flexible and fluid, with digital technology enabling more people to work remotely and to collaborate in the cloud. This will impact city-centre offices, with landlords having to adjust to weaker demand and shorter leases. And as artificial intelligence bites – machines don’t care where they work – we’ll see the growth of cheaper regional back-offices, which is bad news for expensive cities."

The Full Story On Mashable

Leaving Silicon Valley - The Irony

Wed, 14 Mar 2018 06:28:08 +1200

It’s Time to Leave San Francisco over on Medium, penned by Sunil Rajaraman

Two observations

1} He only considers moving to somewhere else in America

… the usual narrow mindedness that The Valley is famous for.

2} He concludes that he can’t do the move while his equity continues to vest.

.. because after-all - it is all about the money (my take, would welcome other conclusions).

But there is more … The tech world preaches that a lot of the #FOW is all about virtualization, working remotely, flexibly, not being geographically constrained, blah blah, blah …. but really - how many tech companies really practice what they preach … other than Manton and Micro.blog of course - but then he isn’t in Silicon Valley.

// @manton

@Casper (The Mattress Company) takes on the Internet

Tue, 13 Mar 2018 06:11:08 +1200

This from Fast Company.

It makes for an interesting read that I haven’t picked up anywhere else. A search of the article reveals 106 mentions of ‘Casper’ (the mattress company).

About 90% of what I know about Casper comes from the podcasting adverts I hear as a result of listening to @gruber @jdalrymple and others podcasters. This piece reveals an interesting, dark and seedy underbelly to the mattress industry.

A ‘couple’ of eye catching quotes;

”Casper approached Hales and offered to resume the relationship, on terms considerably more favorable to Hales, if Hales would agree to state a more positive opinion of Casper’s mattress on Sleepopolis. Hales refused.”

”In July 2017, a subsidiary of JAKK Media LLC acquired Sleepopolis.com. Casper provided financial support to allow JAKK Media to acquire Sleepopolis.”

”From the first days of the site’s new management, that thorn in Casper’s side–Derek’s damning yellow box, pointing prospective buyers to competitors–disappeared from Sleepopolis’s Casper review. In its place there appeared a green box, with a coupon linking straight to Casper.”

”Casper had finally hammered out the last, most troublesome kink in the yawning purchase funnel that lured ever more traffic to its billion-dollar online storefront. The company could indeed claim, as it did on its site, to have “the internet’s favorite mattress.”

It got me to wondering how true it all is … and if so - how their position and what they are doing synch with our favorite podcasters own principles.

Would welcome thoughts - even better - knowledge.

Data Is The New Oil

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 06:12:52 +1200

As I watch the emerging news surrounding MoviePass and how they are (note - not have …. despite the changes to their app) tracking their customers, I keep hearing ‘Data Is The New Oil'. It is not a new phrase and in fact as far as I can tell was coined by Clive Humby back in 2006 … but it struck me that if true (it isn’t and I really need to publish that post) then corporations obviously view people as vessels, silos, containers … whatever, but certainly not as people.

Thinking Allowed

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Lonely? Isolated? Read On.

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 11:02:23 +1200

This just in

… as an Englishman I obviously need to pay more attention. I did not know that I had a minister concerned about my loneliness. I will give her a call, it would be nice to talk to someone - and she does seem to be welcoming it …

… though I don’t quite qualify for her two categories ‘elderly’ and ‘younger’ …. yet again falling between the cracks!

Duty Free Shoppers - The Untold Story

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 10:39:20 +1200

As an Englishman, I definitely know this company, but never knew the backstory of the co-founder who now lives in The Bay Area. In a rented apartment. With no car, and a plastic watch.

The Irish Times has the whole story - it might not be what you are thinking!

🎵 26 Seconds

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 10:46:42 +1200

The ‘full’ version of the ‘single second’ … for @seansharp .. more about Wilson can be read here

BEing Seen and BEing Heard - Mitchell Levy

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 09:17:19 +1200

Great to see my friend Mitchell Levy on The TedX Stage.

Decision Making

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 07:18:15 +1200

Just read Stowe Boyd on ‘Decisions’ (scroll down to the second article). An interesting read, to which I would add that one problem with assessing good-v-bad decisions, is that we justify retrospectively based on outcome.

We would never say that driving home drunk is a good decision, but the outcome of getting home with no incident reinforces the thought that one should do it again because there was no bad outcome. In fact if you consistently do it - the reinforcement just grows.

Strikes me that much management practice is based on this same kind of thinking.

This also relates in some ways to the work of Simon Wardley.

February, 2018 ... One Second A Day.

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 06:25:58 +1200

My thanks to @modernlittleme for the tip on ‘1 Second Every Day’ … I have been playing around with it through February and this is my first offering.

Caveat - though I think if myself as a visual thinker, I am not that great at using images for journaling - in fact one idea I had for using this product was to try to get me thinking that way. So ….

Not all the images are video
Not all the videos/images on a specific day are from that specific day

I will get better as my muscle memory starts to kick in. All that said, this is nice Ted Talk from Cesar Kuriyama on why he does this.

Anyway … for posterity - my first foray. And, thank you again @modernlittleme

Pots and Kettles

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 08:45:34 +1200

"I got through about three minutes of Phantom Thread. I put in a good solid three," Lawrence said after Maron asked if she had seen the film. "I couldn't. I'm sorry to anybody who loved that movie."

… yeah I think that is what I managed in total across all The Hunger Games movies … I know what you mean J!

The Downside Of Social Media

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 07:21:38 +1200

Titans of Social Media explain why they might have made a mistake.

There has been a lot of recent commentary on social media addiction, but this video summary was interesting, concise and in 15 minutes says it all.

To me what is interesting is that they all say that they could see it coming … and then did it anyway. What does that say about them. It certainly doesn’t say that they ‘put people first’.

Don’t just ignore it - oh one of those 'Anonymous' posts just scare mongering. Here's Politico (this is not Social Media specific .... but heavily related.

For those of us who have lived in relatively placid times, it is hard to believe that American politics could become more chaotic than it is today... something...will push us into a new and uncertain era of politics, likely far stranger and possibly more dangerous than anything in memory. The force is technology. It's easy to think we're living through a disruptive period now, but we're only scratching the surface of what true technological change can do to a society... technological change over the past half-century has been almost trivial... however, a new pivot may be coming.
Within just a few years, driverless cars will be plying the streets in great numbers, multilingual artificial intelligence programs will take over many customer service roles, and algorithms chewing over the massive amounts of data we emit will manage everything from our day-to-day health to the contents of our refrigerators. Robots are becoming more dexterous and less likely to trip over themselves, and gene editing may trigger a transformation that starts with the treatment of disease and could easily end up with the transformation of humans themselves… perhaps just 10 to 20 years from now, we will have to deal with the threat technology poses to our social order-and to our politics… widely cited work by scholars at Oxford University puts the share of jobs at risk in America…at nearly 50 percent.

The best-case scenario is one in which American society experiences a great awakening, leading to a flowering of social movements that provide the political support for significant reforms… a second, more dire scenario might come to pass: that of creeping authoritarianism… If democracy cannot respond effectively and authoritarianism does not keep the peace, then a third scenario becomes more probable-state failure…There is a fourth possible future: the deus ex machina, the external shock that creates the conditions for radical, but democratic change."

Old Age - When Does It Start?

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 05:49:16 +1200

I only know Julian Summer Hayes through his writing here. This particular post came through the ether this morning … some quotes (my bold):

But **I can feel it: the slow creep of old age:** my neck hurts; my knees ache after a long walk; and my sleep is easily interrupted by at least one trip to the bathroom.

and

**I thought I’d be depressed with the onset of old age.** I’m not. If anything, it’s forcing me to live more thoughtfully, more connected to the true me and to appreciate what I’ve got — in all possible ways.

While, I don’t disagree with the overall thrust of this chapter on his blog … the slowing down part ... I think we all can benefit from that advice - regardless of age .... he does seems to center on how old he feels . He opens the post with;

This year, I’ll be 51.

I feel very sad for him.

🎬 Phantom Thread Nominated For Six Oscars

Sat, 24 Feb 2018 04:25:33 +1200

They’re all sewing away …. and I see Somner run through the scene and say, “Alright, you gotta get this dress ready! Here we go! Everybody ready and ACTION!”

And they all kept sewing at exactly the same pace they had been sewing and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Paul Thomas Anderson

Full Article

If

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 09:53:03 +1200

Just Rediscovered:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!

Bezos and Longnow

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 04:36:18 +1200

If you listen to the news, it’s as if;

Longnow hadn’t existed for the past twenty years.

Jeff Bezos woke up yesterday and thought what we need is a 10,000 year clock.

The Bezos investment happened this week.

In fairness, Bezos credits people like Danny Hillis and Zander Rose … I just wish the media would - and get the story right.

Burros

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 12:30:13 +1200

No relation to Edgar Rice … it isn’t even spelt the same!

Thankyou UCD

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:34:29 +1200

Olive Oil directly from the fields.

Homepod Or Echo

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:01:41 +1200

For years I have listened to people as they gather around the ‘internet campfire’ discussing what/who makes the best hardware, software, service.

But is it really about the best hardware or software or infrastructure or stack or whatever else we want to call it? Surely, there can never be an absolute comparison, without understanding the rules of judgement? And those rules aren’t someone else’s. They are yours. You need to define what your needs are and the parameters against which you will judge before you can get to an answer of what is right for you.

It is about each of us defining what we want to do to improve ourselves, improve our efficiency, make life easier, more enjoyable … whatever we are wanting to achieve … and then choose what we want to use.

I happen to live in Apple land … but if a Surface tablet, an Android phone, a Chromebook works for you, I’m good. Trust me, even if you want to talk to Amazon’s Alexa through your Echo, your call. I am not in a position to judge whether you have the right tool, because you haven’t told me what you are trying to do and (just as importantly) what you are using at the moment.

BUT …. if you did … I can probably help.

As for the Homepod. Not got one. Yet. Probably will. Eventually. Not because I want to talk to Siri - I barely do that with my phone, but because I want to listen to great music with great sound. That’s what I want, and why Alexa won’t do it for me. Then again as a long time Sonos user, it might explain the Homepod procrastination!

People, Process THEN Technology.

Post Script

I have a related post about Microsoft Word in the works that relates.

Free Photo Resources

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 09:24:47 +1200

Here

Your Rights

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 13:21:43 +1200

The right to be informed
The right of access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to data portability
The right to object

At least according to GDPR

🎵 Pete Frame

Fri, 09 Feb 2018 09:03:06 +1200

Read all about him on Wikipedia or - pop over to his web site

I had two of his books a long time ago. Long gone / misplaced / lost. But, if you are interested in the music of the 60s and 70s, the books and trees inside contain a veritable cornucopia of visual information relating to the music of the day.

I have often thought that it would be interesting to see something similar done for the software industry - again starting in those heady days and how companies were gobbled up, grew, where the founders went to etc … I think the results would be fascinating.

Pinboard Commit

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 08:10:41 +1200

OK …

commit to pinboard … check
import old deli.co.us tags for posterity … check
- all 12,396 apparently … good grief!
import Pocket history … check
tie into Instapaper and Pocket … check
publish the stream to a microblog page … check
a tool bar short cut so I can push other stuff into the stream … check

Just so we can all see it

##Still To Do

import Instapaper - snafu - ticket logged

Anything else?

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans ....

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 06:21:31 +1200

John Lennon’s words came to my mind this morning driving on the 101 to a meeting.

Apparently Starbucks thought it was my birthday today ( it isn’t .. but that’s a different story). To celebrate the occasion I was offered a free ‘whatever I want’ to celebrate. So, totally out of the norm of my morning pattern, as I drove down the hill - I swung into the local Starbucks and ordered myself a check complementary Latte.

Fast forward to now as I write this post on my 📱 in the courtyard of a car wash I know. The car did need it - just been delaying it through some of the weather. Whilst getting it cleaned, they are also extracting one venti latte - less one sip - from the car’s carpet.

##Lessons

there is no such thing as a free latte
don’t pretend it’s your birthday
stick to your routine

That’s all … enjoy your day … I’m going to … who knows maybe I just avoided a major accident resulting in my ability to even write this post!

Maybe Why We Rebel Against Machine Learning?

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:28:37 +1200

Not my words … in fact, not sure whose they are … if I find out, I will come back and correctly attribute … until then …

Big data and machine learning (is) all oriented to one type of intelligence or a western view of intelligence. Mimic the brain, no heart. Instinct defined via algorithm. Maybe we struggle against this because deep inside we know its profoundly dysfunctional.

Who I Am

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:18:19 +1200

By the numbers there’s my driver’s license,
car registration, license plate, zip code,
various accounts, street address, birthdate
home, work, and cell phones, passport, credit cards
debit cards, PINs, social security
frequent fliers, internet passwords, stocks
checking, HMO, IRA, museums
library card, land and enneagram.
I know its a lot to remember, but
thank god i finally know who I am.

Jim Woessner - Box Poems

The Open Web

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 11:03:20 +1200

My own work right now is with Customer Commons, on terms each of us can assert, and that sites and services of the world can agree to: the exact reverse of what we’ve had since forever on the web. We’re getting help from law students at Harvard and elsewhere, but we need geek help too.

I believe making every user a Neo is not only do-able, but the most world-changing revolution since the industrial one, which was when subordinating personal power to the requirements of big business began.

Digital technology and the internet were designed for freedom, and not just for more enslavement on the industrial model. If you want to help make everyone a Neo, talk to me.

Or keep munching that blue pill.

Doc Searls : Editor Of Linux Journal

Full Article

Great read from the author of The Intention Economy.

Time

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 09:33:00 +1200

Being of a certain generation … the existence of The Berlin Wall is very much part of the DNA of my memory. (Berlin itself - not so much … though I had reason to be in Berlin shortly after the fall of the wall.)

The Berlin Wall has been gone for longer than it existed, Deutsche Welle reported on Monday.

The wall was constructed in 1961 and kept Germans in the eastern side of the city from fleeing to the west after 3.5 million had left following World War II. It was up for 28 years, two months and 27 days.

Hard to believe that more time has passed since then than the very existence of that edifice (if that word is not too ‘honorary’ of such an abomination).

The Full Story on Deutsche Welle

John Philpin

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 06:36:52 +1200

Two John Philpin’s? It might get confusing.

Yes we have talked on the phone

Yes we are related (we think)

🔗 This is his philpin site

🖇️ This is one of my philpin sites

This was originally posted to my 1999 stream, which after importing from 1999. seemed to get ‘upset’. So I have moved it here and deleted it there to fix the problem.

Originally posted on ‘river.beyondbridges.net’ : April, 2017

🎵 Martyn On Monday

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 05:10:16 +1200

Reminded of this today …

A live BBC recording from his Solid Air album.

John was never classified in the prog genre - quite rightly … but I definitely think there are some influences.

Vellum

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 03:12:21 +1200

Does anyone have any knowledge / experience / thoughts about Vellum?

##Later

Now - that is really interesting …

Vellum is a free download. You can use Vellum to import your manuscript, explore Book Styles, and see how your book will appear on a variety of devices. A purchase is only necessary when you’re ready to generate books.

Personalized E-mails Should Be .. Well .. Personalized!

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 04:51:40 +1200

There must be something about me at this time of the year .. apparently I first signed up with IFTTT six years ago! They even sent me a ‘happy birthday’ message this morning …

It’s been six years since you joined IFTTT on February 6, 2012.

… and then tried to give me some guidance on using the service more with some recommendations.

I have to say the 4 applets that they picked for me were neither relevant, interesting, clever or even unknown … you would have thought that with all the triggers and tracking that they have behind the scenes that they could have done a lot better with their personal recommendations.

For example they know the services I have connected to, how often my applets get triggered, how long they have been there … which is a clue to where I spend time, what I do and where my interests lie.

Moving My 1999 Posts to Micro.Blog

Sun, 04 Feb 2018 06:15:10 +1200

I have linked my 1999 site into Micro.Blog - so that if I publish something on River.BeyondBridges.net … the post finds it’s way into my Micro.Blog timeline.

So far so good.

Now what I want to do is pull all of the historical posts that are there into here (the public facing side of my Micro.Blog)

In other words …

A one off import of all the content at My River to John DOT Philpin

Onwards - I know there is help to be had somewhere.

David Does David

Fri, 02 Feb 2018 04:56:36 +1200

Just watch

It will take five minutes and 24 seconds of your day.

**File Under ** Just Great 🎵

Good Grief

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 12:16:00 +1200

sometimes - you just have to wonder ….

Hundreds of top-secret and highly classified cabinet documents have been obtained by the ABC following an extraordinary breach of national security.

Click through if you want to see the story of how this came to be.

Consolation prize

I guess we should be happy that government ineptitude is not limited to the USA and the UK!

Last Night’s Supermoon Eclipse.

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 06:02:58 +1200

Well … I got up. I looked. I watched. I waited.

Pretty amazing … although you wouldn’t think so based on the photos!

Micro Blog Safely Delivering A Post To Wordpress

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 05:56:48 +1200

This is a specific post - with a specific reason.

The specifics relate to using this plug in on one of my wordpress blogs - thankyou for the link @manton

The idea is that this post gets fed through to And Another Thing. When it arrives it will be classed as ‘Pending’ - so as not to inundate the readers at And Another Thing.

I will then visit the site later today and publish the post and .. if it works, the plug in will add in a footer to this post .. and it will appear there.

If it does - I will come back here and add the link to the experiment.

Fingers crossed!

Later

It worked - and now have a nice workflow that starts with Mars Edit from [@danielpunkass](https://micro.blog/danielpunkass) and the team at **Red Sweater**, that allows me to publish to Micro.Blog (of course from [@manton](https://micro.blog/manton)) and through the power of a Wordpress plugin developed and offered by [@michal](https://micro.blog/michal) that post is routed to [And Another Thing](http://www.andanotherthing.co) where it is held in Pending mode.

I can then periodically check and delete the irrelvant posts (all irreverent posts will be allowed) and tweak with some tagging and other tuning for that site before it gets published.

The plugin allows me to append the message with a standard footer, so a reader can also register for the occasional newsletter and/or click on a link to see other posts that arrived on the site in this way.

Next - clean up the Newsletter flow and then add this functionality into my other blogs. (Don’t ask).

Shop Class as Soulcraft

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 04:34:20 +1200

I captured the following information on this 📚 somewhere ( maybe even here ). I haven’t read it - but it is on my list. I like the look of it. It seems to have a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance feel to it and right in line with the work I am doing here. Has anyone read it? Recommend it?

A book that I loved reading that provides insights here is “Shop Class as Soulcraft.” It’s an inquiry into the nature and depth of cognition and levels of expertise and experience at play in work that society under values (for example, motorcycle mechanic).

Shop Class as Soulcraft

Steven Wilson

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 04:04:55 +1200

File Under : 🎵

Over the past ten days I have dropped a daily entry of an image, with a comment into the music feed. This is the eleventh in the series of ten (doffing cap to Spike Milligan) that provides some context - and links back - to those entries. Suffice to say - I class Steven Wilson as one of the most prolific musicians and sound engineers that we have ever seen. It isn’t just the quantity - surely bands like The Dead and Phish can beat him on that count … but more the quantity with the both quality and variety of what he produces.

It was late 2002 when a good friend put me onto a new album that had just been released - he’s one of those guys that when he says listen to this … you listen. The Album was In Abstentia that came from a band that I had never heard of …. Porcupine Tree. The band’s creative force was a guy called Steven Wilson. Turned out that this was Porcupine Tree’s seventh album (depending on how you count them - and how you think of the Tree) …. but that was a lot of music to have passed me by - particularly since I loved it. Needless to say - I went into the back catalogue and discovered two albums that I liked even more … Signify and Lightbulb Sun. File under Progressive Rock / Psychedelic Rock / Alt Rock / Post-Progressive / Metal

But there was more, before - and during ‘The Porcupine Tree Years’ - Wilson had another band No-Man with Tim Bowness. To be clear, I am not a massive fan of No-Man … just amazed that in parallel with launching a solo project (Porcupine Tree - because that is how he started), he had the time and desire to create a second totally different sound, band and direction. File under Ambient / Art Rock / Dream Pop

But there’s even more, two years after I was introduced to In Abstentia - out comes Wilson with another project …. Blackfield - this was (is?) a collaboration with Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen … 5 albums to date - love everyone one of them. File under Art Rock / Power Pop / Alt Rock

It took until 2012 for another collaboration to be formalized. For many years Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt - who is essentially Opeth’s Wilson - had been friends, worked together and appeared on each others albums. 2012 saw the release of their first - and to date only - formal collaboration - Storm Corrosion. File under Metal / Progressive Rock

I doubt we will get a second - but you never know - because Wilson just keeps going …

Consider IEM - another of his projects in the late 90s - this time with … well himself … file these albums under Krautrock / Pysychedelic

Or Bass Communion -file under Ambient / Drone / Electronic

To my mind, it is his solo career that has really opened him out. He released his 5th, 6th or 7th (again - it is is how you count) solo album last year - and is now on tour with it. But his full creative genius absolutely shines with the one ‘before’ that … Hand.Cannot.Erase. - that wasn’t just an album, it was a book, an experience a tangible engagement was created to engage the listener.

My music collection tells me that I have over 50 of his recordings across all of these projects - and that doesn’t include the 5.1 surround sound mixes he has been doing since 2009 for classic Progressive bands including Yes, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Caravan, ELP, Marillion, Rush, Roxy Music, … oh and Hawkwind, XTC, Gentle Giant, and Tears For Fears. (BTW - he hasn’t won yet - but has been nominated 4 times for Best Surround Sound Album in the Grammies)

All in all - safe to say - when it comes to music - there isn’t much he doesn’t do

Note : the classification / genres that I have used above come from Wikipedia with odd personal extensions

Finally, Wilson is on record (if you will pardon the pun) that as a kid he listened a lot to Dark Side Of The Moon - because of his dad and Donna Summer - because of his mum … certainly explains a lot of the crossover you see in his music … but it doesn’t explain this … which has nothig to do with him - but somehow seems related!

Informed Consent

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 18:06:22 +1200

A question raised recently, that ‘everyone’ should be able to answer …

How do you make a judgement about what is safe to do online?

Good question. But I specifically put ‘everyone’ in quote marks because I worry about ‘everyone’. I worry that given that people generally do nothing to protect their passwords … think yellow stickies on monitors, using thr same password across all services, sharing your password(s) with friends … however you look at it - whatever you do …. if that is hard to understand - we have an uphill battle with ’Informed Consent’

Discovery

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 07:19:44 +1200

Discover Suggestion for @macgenie …. how about an index somewhere (another icon?) of all blogs that have achieved Micro Monday Status … they will be blogs that someone in the community at some point thought worthy of promotion and therefore contain good things that others might enjoy … and will always be discoverable - long after they have passed through the recommended stream of Micro Monday - and so possibly lost?

The Homepod

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 07:03:15 +1200

Apple Homepod Review By An Audio Engineer

##The Songs He Used

“Hotel California” by The Eagles.
“Way Down We Go” by Kaleo.
“Lie To Me” by Depeche Mode.
“Fitzpleasure” by Alt-J
“Black Mambo” by Glass Animals
“Delilah” by Florence and the Machine
“Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley

🎵

Artists Start To Get Paid A Bit More

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 06:42:05 +1200

Micro.blog Help - Replies and @-mentions

“A federal copyright board has raised the music streaming royalties for songwriters and music publishers by more than 40% to narrow the financial divide separating them from recording labels.

Up to this point, music streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora, and others, have had to pay out 10.5 percent of their revenue to music publishers and songwriters. Now, though, after the court ruling, those platforms will need to fork over 15.1 percent of their revenue.

It is still amazing to me how little artists get paid for streaming. While this is a step forward … it is a long way form being fair. Afterall, people complain about the Tax on the app store at 30% - and yet a tax of 90% being reduced to 85% percent for music makes the news and is seen as acceptable.

What am I missing?

🎵

Oh Wait

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 19:06:39 +1200

2017-12-28

I’m A Fan

2017-12-29

Maybe A Sign Of The Times

It's People That Make A Company.

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 16:10:06 +1200

Got to tell you … @Manton at Micro Blog rocks.

For a variety of reasons I have posted trouble tickets to 4 different companies today (Is it me? Really? Say It Ain’t So!)

Pretty sure that Manton is the smallest of the four operations … but that didn’t stop him from being not just the first to respond, but the only one thus far that has even offered me a solution to fix the problems described. (Manton actually fixed it.) In fact two of them have yet to respond.

If you are reading this … and wondering what the hell Micro.Blog is … well ping me and let me know. I have some spare invite codes that will get you in. You won’t regret it.

Sunlit - Straight Out Of The Box Observations And Comments

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 06:15:35 +1200

I am running the beta of Sunlit (thankyou @manton).

I have done two posts so far ….

This one

… Which is pretty simple really - adding a picture, dropping in some text - it’s like a post - which I can already do in the core app.

BUT

I think what Sunlit is really about is ‘telling visual stories’ - in fact in the interface, it actually uses that term, so I took three pictures out of my library and wrote a story … (don’t worry - I am not expecting an award!)

This is that one

So far so good - but here are the issues

That layout doesn’t naturally come out of Sunlit - I had to come back to my post once published and edit to get the order of the photos organized - and then move my text around to relate the text to the story.
This might be ‘operator error’ … So just recording this thought for now.
Also - on the single post - I have a big picture, but with multiple pictures, the app forces the images to something smaller - and in fact - notice how the portrait is smaller than the two landscapes …

This is what I Think Sunlit should be able to as an MVP for visual story telling …

Load multiple pictures
Reorder the pictures that make sense for my story
Let me control how big those pictures are
Let me inject copy throughout the pictures

To be clear … Sunlit is a beta app - so I am sure that this is all taken on board … certainly will continue to use it - high hopes - might even get me to think about posts using images more than I do.

Just for kicks (that aren’t always on route 66) two screen captures of what the posts look like after I di the editing in the micro.blog - ‘visual’ view and ‘text’ view

Kicks

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 04:56:07 +1200

Riding The Road. Living The Dream.
No … that isn’t me - I’m the dude on the other side of the camera!

Get Your Fix On Route 66

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 04:49:34 +1200

Just passing through Oatman on Route 66

… and found a gunfight in process.

It was unclear if the burro was relaxing or part of the performance

… that said I was assured that no animals were hurt in the making of this particular epic.

Editorial and IAWriter

Sat, 27 Jan 2018 11:35:28 +1200

So playing around with both Editorial and IA Writer - both have their ‘bennies’ and I can see a role for both in my world as a staging post for thoughts before they end up here.

That means I would mainly be using them on phone / pad - since on the Mac I have Mars Edit. IAWriter has a Mac Client - which I like - so I can do some ‘tuning’ before publishing. I’m kinda old school like that. On Editorial - not possible, other than using a text editor … which is ok but not exactly a markdown expert. So I thought … maybe I could use either to write on the phone and then use IAWriter to edit on the Mac … BUT …

IAWriter ONLY uses iCloud to synch and Editorial ONLY Dropbox … apparently recent changes in Drobbox caused IAWriter to drop Dropbox - so to speak.

Wondering how Editorial makes Dropbox work if IAWriter can’t …. anyone know?

More importantly - any ideas how I could make this setup work?

Is That How You Do It?

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 03:52:55 +1200

…. because, when you put it like that, it seems so easy … How to Write a Blog Post

I particularly liked the idea of ‘bumping’

Wait for time to pass and see if the bumping sound returns.

via Rands in Repose

The Homepod

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 03:32:56 +1200

🎵 What’s in YOUR HomePod makes for a quick interesting summary of some of the tech that makes it what it is. Seemed right to share it here after yesterday’s to and fro, back and forth, this and that, well … you get the point.

via Loopinsight

An Experiment

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 14:59:22 +1200

This is a bit of an experiment. I am writing using Editorial

#Inspiration
Thanks to @frankm who was considering drafts to publish to micro.blog

#Idea
Use editorial … since I don’t use drafts and see what happens.

#Delivered
Well …. let’s see

… because this is really just an experiment

A Mathematician’s Lament

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 13:33:57 +1200

A friend of mine sent me this, written by Paul Lockhart. I don’t have time to read it in its entirety at the moment - but I have read sufficient of it to know that I do want to read it.

Posting here and a couple of other places to keep it top of mind.

The first thing to understand is that mathematics is an art. The difference between math and the other arts, such as music and painting, is that our culture does not recognize it as such.

Part of the problem is that nobody has the faintest idea what it is that mathematicians do.

... Paul Lockhart

I will come back to it at some point.

Journalism and Platforms

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:14:14 +1200

It’s time for journalism to build its own platforms

The ‘Monday Note’ take

I think we can all agree on that one … I know @Dave in particular has been saying that for a while.

Here’s the thing … if ‘we all’ can see the benefits of ‘roll your own’ why can’t the media ..

That’s rhetorical.

Integration and Aggregation

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 04:38:01 +1200

Capturing this link now and will come back to it later.

Bottom line I will be tying three external Wordpress blogs into my Micro Blog instance … and am excited to see how it can / might / will develop into a single place for aggregation and distribution.

Time will tell … but that’s the goal.

Innovation Silicon Valley Style

Thu, 18 Jan 2018 08:30:30 +1200

People First is delighted to share work that is relevant to our initiatives. Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker and management strategy advisor. His work has influenced the careers of many of us at People First and we are excited he granted us permission to share this particular article.

There is a cottage industry in conducting executive tours of Silicon Valley, and now increasingly San Francisco SOMA, to expose teams from other parts of the planet to what is admittedly a uniquely successful culture of innovation and wealth creation. I’m all for it up to a point. Where I part company from the herd is with the notion that global corporations have a chance in hell of playing the same game. They don’t. Here’s why.

To quote a hopefully soon-to-be would-be candidate for president, Silicon Valley’s version of the innovation game is rigged! That is, it is specifically designed around a venture capital oriented ecosystem that is uniquely aligned to support investments in disruptive innovation. The limited partners who fund VCs want their money put into these high-risk, high-reward endeavours. The VCs that parcel out that money interview entrepreneurs to pick the best ideas, plans, and teams to prosecute a disruptive innovation. The ecosystem of service providers needed to support these fledgling enterprises is deeply experienced in navigating the economic gyrations brought on by the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. And when any individual joins one of these companies, he or she knows their sole mission in life is to bring the targeted disruptive innovation to scale as fast as possible, come hell or high water, Devil take the hindmost. Now, I ask you, where else in the world could you expect to find this kind of alignment?

Most companies in most economies in most places live by sustaining innovation, not disruption. Successful investments are typically medium-to-low risk with medium-to-high rewards. They do not involve going through a bet-the-company J-curve, that deep and harrowing financial trough from which only a fraction of traveler’s return. Financiers from traditional economies do not want the companies they invest in to take this route—they want steadier ROIs from more proven paths. The executive teams who run these companies developed their considerable expertise prosecuting opportunities of just this sort. The workforce’s who report in to them are not prepared to work crazy-long hours in pursuit of some visionary dream, nor do they want them to. They want them to show up, be present, do real work, and then go home and spend time with their families, loved ones, and significant others. That’s what economic stability is all about.

So, when a disruptive innovation does cross the chasm and breaches the defenses of one of their mainstream marketplaces, it should come to no one’s surprise that it is not being led by any currently successful established competitor. Frankly, such organizations all have better fish to fry. BUT, once a disruption has breached the mainstream market’s defenses and taken hold, then the game is dramatically changed. The old way is now under existential threat, the established ecosystem is no longer economically viable, and customers are looking to their traditional vendors to see if they can and will adopt the new playbook.

Now, the good news here is that customers do not like to switch vendors. This means, if you and your ecosystem of partners can stand down from your old positions of power and take up the new modus operandi, then your prospects of defending your turf are actually quite good. You don’t have to introduce a disruptive new business model of your own to do this, but you do have to catch up—and smartly too! This means you have to incorporate enough of the new technology to modernize your operating model, to blunt the appeal of the disruptor by stealing a bit of their thunder. That is, your goal is not to differentiate in order to win new customers—that’s the disruptor’s playbook. They want the customers you have. Your goal instead is to neutralize the opposition’s appeal in order to keep your existing customers loyal to you. Differentiation and neutralization call for two very different playbooks. Silicon Valley is the master of the first. You need the second.

For that, you should look outside the Valley to a company like Microsoft, one that has spent the entire arc of its history protecting the extraordinary customer base it was gifted by the near-universal adoption of the IBM PC. Without exception its most successful products were born out of neutralization, not differentiation. That is, Windows neutralized the Macintosh OS, Windows NT neutralized Novell, Office neutralized WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Persuasion, Outlook neutralized cc:Mail, SQL Server neutralized IBM DB2 and Oracle, and Internet Explorer neutralized Netscape Navigator. In every case, Microsoft was quick to clone just to get something vaguely competitive into the market asap, and then worked relentlessly first to bring its product up to speed and eventually to surpass the original disruptor. And all along the way, it leveraged its existing market position to bundle early offerings in for free, monetizing them downstream either on their own or by virtue of them sustaining the price premium of the suites they had been incorporated into.

By contrast, Silicon Valley companies that have found themselves under a comparable attack have often tried a different tack. They have sought to out-innovate the innovator, to leapfrog the freakin’ toad that just leapfrogged them! Yahoo wanted to out-innovate Google with social search. Sun and HP wanted to out-innovate Intel with Spark and PA-RISC. eBay wanted to out-innovate Amazon by buying Skype. But when the barbarians are at the gates, there is no time to invent a new weapon or experiment with an unproven one—you have to co-opt the one they are using against you.

So, yes, please do come to Silicon Valley and take away whatever lessons you can incorporate successfully into your current enterprise. Everyone needs to differentiate eventually. But you might extend your trip up to Redmond to learn a trick or two from the folks up there as well.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

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Power To The People

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 09:18:20 +1200

Vendors spend billions of dollars every year on software to manage their ‘customer relationships’.

But we (the people) don’t even have software to manage those vendors.

Ageism

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 09:05:45 +1200

Odd ... Isn't It?

When you were aged twenty to thirty years old, you were told that you did not have sufficient experience to do the job.

Now you are forty to fifty years old, you are told that you are over qualified.

Now he's too old to rock 'n' roll
But he's too young to die
Yes, he's too old to rock 'n' roll
But he's too young to die

Ian Anderson

Happy New Year

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 20:05:24 +1200

Best wishes to each and everyone of you. We hope you make 2018 what you want it to be.

Our apologies for the apparent silence over the past three months. To the casual observer, this might seem like a quiet place but it belies the frantic activity running under the surface. We plan to make out work public in the next few months, so watch this space.

Until then, take the sentiments of Cyril to heart.

If you don’t know who you are, there is little you can do to improve the lives of others. You have to make your own way and help yourself before you can help others, as we seek to help others at People First.

Don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter to keep up with the latest activities.

Executive Development: We Need Our Next Generation of General Managers Now!

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 01:20:49 +1200

In this second article that Geoff has agreed to share through People First, it was "The 'T' for Talent" model caught our eye. While we in People First are not fans of the word "talent", we recognize that corporations need to find the best and brightest people to spur them onto success. Geoff highlights the need as succinctly as ever.

This article on leadership and management was published on LinkedIn, August 10, 2017.

As technological innovation continues to disrupt industry after industry in waves of what Joseph Schumpeter taught us to call “creative destruction,” executive decision-making is being driven down in the organizational hierarchy, closer to the customer, nearer to the action. This in turn is putting pressure on the HR function to deliver programs to develop executive talent faster and better than ever before. They are going to need help.

All development programs are intended to change state, so as good program designers, it behooves us to answer two questions at the outset:

What is the current state a candidate needs to have achieved to qualify for entrance into the program?
What is the future state a candidate needs to achieve in order to graduate?

Here is a template for getting started:

The seminal idea behind these two sets is a “T for talent” model that values executives both for expertise in a specific function (the vertical bar of the T) and the ability to collaborate effectively across functions (the horizontal bar of the T). Much of the management literature I am exposed to undervalues the former and overvalues the latter. The truth is you need both, and in my experience, they are best developed sequentially.

The good news here is that every profession has excellent resources to help candidates achieve what we have labeled current state. These skills are specific to each discipline, and there is no substitute for mastering one such set. If you never become expert at anything, you can never really grasp the power of expertise nor understand its limits, so when you go to lead, you end up being naïve about both. That said, I think our current systems are clear and powerful when it comes to addressing this challenge. It is with the next one where they start to wobble a bit.

The first thing to say about what we have labeled future state is that it represents an and, not an or. We are creating a T, and that requires both a vertical and a horizontal stroke. Too many so-called leadership curricula dismiss management as pedestrian in their efforts to position leadership as equestrian. Or worse, they oppose leader to manager, making the former a hero, the latter a villain. This is not just a mistake, it is an invitation to a catastrophe. Under most circumstances, organizations are far better off with strong management and weak leadership than the opposite. That said, however, today’s disruptive era is not most circumstances. In an age of disruption, strong leadership is a necessity. So what, then, does an evolution from effective manager to effective leader actually entail?

Adding Power to Performance. Functional managers focus on meeting the performance objectives embedded in their funding contracts, consuming the resources they have been allocated in order to do so. General managers do too, but they also take responsibility for increasing the power of their enterprise at the same time. This means they have to cope with the trade-offs involved in redirecting resources away from immediate deliverables to invest ahead of the curve. The whole point of Zone to Win is to provide a framework for addressing these trade-offs in a clear and principled way.

Adding Cross-Functional Perspective to Functional Expertise. Functional managers focus on being excellent at their function—that is their job. General managers have to clear the same hurdle, but they also have to keep a broader game in view, how their organization interacts with others to achieve the outcomes sought by the enterprise as a whole. This often requires subordinating local efficiencies in order to achieve global effectiveness, taking a hit on one’s own KPIs to enable the overall system to function more powerfully.
Adding Creative Situation Assessment to Creative Problem Solving. Solving problems is what makes work fun, and successful functional managers are great at it. But sometimes the problem at hand is not the real problem, and addressing it is at best a Band-Aid and might actually set things back overall. By taking a cross-functional perspective and focusing on power as well as performance, a general manager seeks to first frame a challenging situation in a way that best reflects the dynamics at work, allowing the team to attack it from the most effective angle.
Adding Orchestrating to Directing. Functional managers get things done. They do so by directing their teams to tackle the challenges that fall within their organization’s purview. General managers are able in addition to take on challenges that extend beyond their organization’s charter by engaging and enlisting others in a common cause and guiding them to a mutually desired outcome. Holding people accountable in these situations calls for a clarity of purpose and an authenticity of commitment that transcend reporting relationships.
Adding Trusted Advisor to Go-To Expert. When it comes to fixing things that have gone off the rails, no one is more welcome than the go-to- expert, and the more expert, the better. There is no substitute for expertise. But what about preempting the issue before it happens? This is where the role of trusted advisor comes in. Leaders who have the experience and understanding to anticipate downstream problems and guide solutions in better directions are hugely valued as trusted advisors by customers and colleagues alike.
Adding Writing the Future Playbook to Nailing the Current Playbook. Let’s be clear here. If we don’t nail the current playbook, there will be no funding for the future playbook, so once again, this is an and, not an or. But sooner or later the current playbook wears thin, and in an age of disruption, this can happen with shocking abruptness. General managers must be able to let go of the strategies and tactics that have been core to their past success and bring a clean sheet of paper and a beginner’s mind to the new reality. They must experiment fast with a “win or learn” attitude and get their enterprise on a new path as soon as possible. Success here represents leadership at its finest.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

From Customer Service to Customer Success: Taking the Next Step

Tue, 03 Oct 2017 20:27:43 +1200

In the article, Geoff explores the transition that organizations must act on as we move deeper into the 21st century. Products have driven the enterprise—selling more to whoever will buy—when it is the customer experience where all eyes should be turned. Geoff believes this experience is not something you can expect a chatbot to deliver, and we agree.

This article on customer technology was published on LinkedIn, September 25, 2017.

In the Age of the Product, customer service ensured that the product lived up to its specifications. Everything after that was the customer’s responsibility, not the vendor’s. In the Age of the Customer, the bar has been raised. Now it is the outcome that must live up to the customer’s expectations, else it is the vendor who is left holding the bag. That requires a whole new function, what the SaaS sector has taught us to call customer success. Let’s take a closer look at what has to change.

First of all, we still need customer service. Products still break, implementations still go awry, and parts still wear out, and they all need to be attended to. The traditional CRM customer service model is admirably suited to the task. It is organized around a trouble ticket generating a case which is managed through to a resolution with the data captured in a knowledge base to better inform the next case. This is by design a product-centric model, putting a premium on accuracy of information and reduction of errors, with productivity being measured first and foremost by the number of cases closed and the time taken to close each one.

What this system does not measure well is the customer side of the equation.

In a B2C world we call this the customer experience. In a B2B world, the critical variable is the customer outcome. In both cases it is the reason the customer bought the product in the first place. The problem with this variable is that it is, well, so variable. Experiences and outcomes are in the eye of the beholder, and there can be as many as you have beholders—even more if some of your customers tend toward schizophrenia as they so often seem to do. How in the world are you going to manage that?

For this you need more than data. Data will give you the facts, but as in any relationship, the facts are just part of the equation. You also need signals, the business equivalent of your spouse kicking you under the table. The good news is that our increasingly digital world abounds with such signals. The bad news is they are embedded in a whole lot of noise. Nonetheless, this is the path forward.

Specifically, we need to detect signals to feed a customer health model. In the B2C world these are likely to come from social media, as well as from the log files of users interacting with any connected product or service, or even just our web sites. In the B2B world they are more likely to come from proactive outreach, perhaps triggered by a signal from a connected product, but reaching beyond product health to connect with customer outcome status. This is one of the great new job opportunities for a digital economy, for it requires intellect, curiosity, empathy, and judgment far beyond what a chatbot can deliver.

The point is, in the past we were focused on the state of the product. Now we need to be focused on the state of the customer. That means there is a market both for programs that can help change state and for systems that can help maintain state. Both have to be customer-centric in their design, something that implies a new data model and a whole lot of opportunity for the next generation of application software developers.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Can the Digital Economy Ever Be Sustainable?

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 02:11:40 +1200

People First is delighted to share work that is relevant to our initiatives. Mei-Lin Fung is a member of the People Centered Internet and an active, founding member of People First.

Read this article at The World Economic Forum as published on September 19, 2017.

Hurricane Harvey dropped 52 inches of rain and 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas and Louisiana. And a new kind of “All-hands-on-deck” response emerged.

Glenn Reynolds, author of An Army of Davids, writes: “But the real difference isn’t citizens getting involved, it’s the willingness of responsible officials to see that involvement as a plus rather than a potential problem … the excellent record of civilian volunteer responders in the post-9/11 record is behind that willingness.”

The Cajun Navy flotilla of private boat owners demonstrated the value of government, the private sector and regular people working together. The value of such cooperation in earlier disasters like Katrina and Sandy increased the ability to coordinate when Harvey struck.

Traditional global governance is failing. Yet the need for effective collaboration, delivering good performance in the face of new challenges has never been greater.

Good governance requires openness, transparency and integrity which are in short supply at a time of rapid economic disruption and social and political change.

As we face the challenge of transforming to a digital economy and society we face a difficult set of risks where the trade-offs for decisions will affect different organizations’ ability to act, as well as education, health and economic opportunity. Yet with the flood of information, many people will have the opportunity to voice their concerns, and face the frustration that their opinions will not be considered, their energy and skills ignored.

[caption id="attachment_913" align="aligncenter" width="408"] Source: Australian National Audit Office[/caption]

Positive deviance is an approach that harnesses the solutions of people already in the community and spreads the solutions. Outside of the US and Western Europe, local community innovations are changing the future of the digital economy and society.

Positive Deviance in a Nutshell
* Community looks for members who are having success, their approach is more likely to be locally successful

* Local people design a way to spread the new behaviors.

* Finding solutions is the job of everyone on the front line dealing with the problem. Leaders facilitate and spread the successful solutions.

* People track and see that things are getting better in the community, that’s incentive to continue

In Singapore, United Overseas Bank launched BizSmart, an integrated group of five cloud-based digital apps so that SMEs could reduce costs by up to 60%. Business owners can get direct account transaction data flows using one of these apps, Xero

Bulgaria greatly expanded internet usage in 1999 by making it easy for businesses to start being internet service providers. Speeds went up to 1G per second and prices went down to 10 Euros per month.

Meanwhile, Vodafone worked with mobile operators in Africa in 2007. In Kenya Safaricom expanded their loyalty card programme and made it possible for people to use it to transfer money and to access microfinance. This has since spread to Afghanistan, South Africa, India, Romania and Albania.

By June 2016 Tanzania had 7 million MPesa accounts operated by Vodacom. In India, 1.1 billion people had digital identities for the first time which enabled payments to flow to the intended recipients, and in full.

This approach of Positive Deviance is neither new nor unusual. What is surprising is that Big Tech has not embraced it as they feverishly work to drive the digital transformation, generating a backlash as jobs are lost and as debates on the ethics of artificial intelligence are heating up.

The original digital transformation of business used very similar approaches, working closely with the innovators and early adopters then working to spread the solutions. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey Moore was first published in 1991, revised in 1999 and was updated again in 2014. Moore built on the technology adoption lifecycle (Wikipedia entry), a sociological model that describes the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation.

Innovators – the risk-taking positive deviants
Laggards – very conservative, oldest and least educated
Early adopters – younger, more educated, less prosperous
Early majority – conservative yet open to new ideas
Late majority – older, less educated, conservative

Working with the assets and strengths of a community is the modern-day equivalent of working with the businesses and organizations who had the strategic vision and strong IT departments able to take advantage of advances like relational databases, client-server technologies and enterprise software.

A sustainable global digital economy and society can be built and developed by the people who live in communities. Positive Deviance is an approach which allows the trade-offs to be decided at the local level, in a sustainable manner. The openness, security, transparency and integrity and inclusiveness of the networks that connect these communities is essential to create a trusted framework for investments to pay off for the borrowers and the lenders.

And Neither Are People

Mon, 11 Sep 2017 17:00:38 +1200

Do you remember The Prisoner?

If you are old enough and you were living in the UK in the 60s, I am sure the answer is a resounding, "Yes!"

I am well aware the TV series was also shown in Canada and the US, but I think it's one of those peculiarly English productions that didn't translate too well. For those of you not old enough (most of you I am guessing), this is a key line from the show that always struck me: "I am not a number—I am a free man!"

Prescient, when you realize, to quote Wikipedia that ...

a major theme of the series is individualism, as represented by Number Six, versus collectivism, as represented by Number Two.... McGoohan [the co-creator of the show], stated that the series aimed to demonstrate a balance between the two points.

Now if that is not a "discussion for our times," I'm not sure what is! And as you can see, this debate has been occupying me for some time. Then, along comes Gaping Void to point out something similar.

It all reminded me of a wonderful poem from a friend of mine that lives in Sausalito.

By the numbers there’s my driver’s license,
car registration, license plate, zip code,
various accounts, street address, birthdate
home, work, and cell phones, passport, credit cards
debit cards, PINs, social security
frequent fliers, internet passwords, stocks
checking, HMO, IRA, museums
library card, land and enneagram.
I know its a lot to remember, but
thank god I finally know who I am.

The poet in question? My friend, Jim Woessner, who also happens to be one of those annoying people who are so multi-faceted that he built a career as an engineer in the oil industry before becoming an artist, sculptor and writer. I know, right?! Some people have got an unfair share of talent.

You can buy his books on Amazon, including his "box" poems, like this one.

Box poems are a kind of spin on Haiku—but nothing like, really. Imagine each poem is a short story told in 10 lines using 100 syllables. I can barely write a poem—much less enforce that kind of rigor on myself.

What I can tell you is that Jim is most definitely fits who we are at People First.

Art that inspires art inspiring art. Examining and questioning the same thing. We are more than a number, we are more than what we expose, we are more than what we want, even allow, others to see. We are, each and every one of us: individual and unique and different. We eschew categorization. We do not fit predictable patterns. Why allow corporations, enterprises, governments, marketers, advertisers to see us in that way?

🚧 Equifax Breach of Trust

Sun, 10 Sep 2017 01:00:20 +1200

On September 07, 2017, Equifax—one of the “big three” credit reporting agencies—shared a quiet investor relations document with information about a security breach that began in May, 2017 and was not discovered until late July:

[Criminals accessed] names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. [They] also accessed credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers.

It took Equifax another 40 days to let people know outside the company.

The response from Equifax has been “corporately cautious” with little consideration for the effect on people.

Ironically, the company is offering “complimentary identity theft protection and credit file monitoring.” If you do sign up, you are also agreeing to the small print that signs away your right to be part of a future class action lawsuit.

[caption id="attachment_767" align="alignnone" width="1440"] The small print links to Terms of Use that read on Section 4: PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE SECTION CAREFULLY BECAUSE IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS BY REQUIRING ARBITRATION OF DISPUTES (EXCEPT AS SET FORTH BELOW) AND A WAIVER OF THE ABILITY TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION, CLASS ARBITRATION, OR OTHER REPRESENTATIVE ACTION. (Source: Equifax)[/caption]

Helping consumers understand the impact of the breach was handled so poorly that according to Ars Technica, Open DNS initially warned visitors that Equifax’s website about the breach might be a phishing scam:

[T]he website … runs on a stock installation WordPress, a content management system that doesn't provide the enterprise-grade security required for a site that asks people to provide their last name and all but three digits of their Social Security number. The TLS certificate doesn't perform proper revocation checks. Worse still, the domain name isn't registered to Equifax, and its format looks like precisely the kind of thing a criminal operation might use to steal people's details. It's no surprise that Cisco-owned Open DNS was blocking access to the site and warning it was a suspected phishing threat.

Many of these issues have been corrected since the release of the website, but it stands to reason that a company would want to secure the website they’re using to rebuild trust with their customers. News about executives within the company also doesn’t bolster their appearance.

According to company spokesperson, Ines Gutzmer, when Equifax executives, including the CFO, unloaded up to 13% of their shares before the breach, they “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred.” This comes reported by Anders Melin on Bloomberg. Whether these executives knew of the intrusion, it feels that people in a power come out ahead in any circumstance: win or lose. The people who trust Equifax to hold their data securely are the ones that lose.

Chris Drake, the Founder of the security firm Armor, reminds us who suffers most from a security breach:

Regardless of emerging details, one thing is certain: big companies will continue to be the ones that make headlines when breaches occur, but the millions of people affected will ultimately suffer the most as their information is potentially traded or sold on the Dark Web.

Companies like Equifax can take this as a calling to make the people who use their services a priority, because it’s clearly not happening. Their investor relations document went on to assure investors that, “We ... expect to increase our capital spending in an effort to further accelerate IT infrastructure, systems and data security and resiliency improvement actions.”

[caption id="attachment_764" align="aligncenter" width="500"] "After falling as much as 12% in the after hours, EFX stock stabilized... then fell as much as 19%." (Source: Zero Hedge)[/caption]

Zero Hedge, an investment website, responded cheekily:

Oh, good, because a hack involving 143 million SSNs is one of those cases where capex probably should have taken precedence over stock buybacks. Don't worry though, because as it explains in the same quesionnaire [sic], "Equifax remains committed to delivering on the long-term financial model of 7-10% revenue growth and 11%- 14% growth in Adjusted EPS on average over a business cycle. Equifax’s long term financial model reflects our continuing fundamental ability to utilize our unique and differentiated data assets and leading analytical capability to deliver high value products and services to our customers."
Uhm, after this… what customers?

It’s more honest than I can write. We’re getting an idea of the truth, but how can we make this better? Our friends at Adaptable Security are working to combat unethical business practices by making privacy and security transparent, one company at a time. They help people understand which companies can be trusted with their personal information.

I spotted a call for papers on ethics in business as this story broke. We know it’s a problem, we know it needs to be addressed. Now, let’s get out there and do something about it.

The Future of Work

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 22:30:15 +1200

I just read a blog post, The Future of Work – Redux by John Philpin. It provides a nice, short look at what might happen as computers, robots and artificial intelligence become increasingly present in the workplace—what will people do when “all the work is done by robots?” As a result, I will be using computer, robots and AI interchangeably for the rest of this post.

John expresses a view that the future includes people working with robots, not simply people being replaced by robots. I happen to agree with that. I’ve written several blog posts on artificial intelligence (AI) and my skepticism about the capabilities and pace of the introduction of AI systems. AI has enormous potential, but I don’t see AI making humans obsolete any time soon (actually, I don’t see AI making humans obsolete—period).

Computers, and by extension, robots and AI, possess one important capability: they can add and subtract really friggin’ fast. George Boole developed what we now call Boolean Logic and it created an approach that allows us, following in the footsteps of Charles Babbage, Augusta Ada King-Noel Countess Lovelace (nee Byron), Grace Hopper and Claude Shannon, to stick those additions and subtractions together in such a way as to resolve any computable task (à la Alan Turing).

Since we don’t really understand what intelligence is and what generates intelligence, it’s difficult for us to create a tool that mimics human capabilities. That does not mean that we cannot use AI in some kind of evolutionary process to develop increasingly higher performing AI—only that it isn’t likely to mimic (and by extension replace) human intelligence. We will need to understand what those differences are and how computers / robots / AI and humans can work together synergistically.

These insights in hand, I want to look at what might happen in the near term as more and more capable AI systems make an appearance in the workplace. I think that there are a limited number of ways it will impact the workforce:

AI systems will replace one or more humans completely. I don’t see this happening any time in the near future for jobs requiring significant cognitive skills. Such human jobs tend to encompass a great deal of implicit diversity of tasks. For example, an administrative assistant’s job of making travel plans and reservations could be done by an intelligent agent. It’s not likely that said intelligent agent can then build the travel packet to accompany the traveler. I know that the traveler can have all that information downloaded onto a portable device to accompany them. However, to quote a deployed US Marine, “A computer with a bullet hole in it is a brick. A paper map with a hole in it is still a map.” While it’s unlikely that anyone will shoot a hole in the traveler’s digital device, there are any number of minor problems that would become a catastrophe should that device be impaired (which I know never happens—except, per Mr. Murphy and his eponymous law, any time that it can).
AI, or perhaps more appropriately automation, will replace jobs in which there is a limited requirement for cognitive skills. Jobs have already been replaced by ATMs, and by touchpads in some restaurants. This is very much akin to the replacement of agricultural workers by mechanical reapers, threshers, and balers in the nineteenth century, and is a pure productivity enhancement.
AI systems take over part of the human’s job. This is akin to the industrial case where power tools replaced hand tools in factories in the early nineteenth century. It makes the human more productive and organizational leadership then has the option of how to use that productivity.
AI systems start doing a job that wasn’t done before. This is the Big Data job. By definition, analysis of massive data files is not something that was being done by humans. This can result in an increase in productivity of the organization, but it may manifest an advantage in other areas than productivity—areas such as exploiting market niches previously unrecognized. It’s possible that the results of this analysis could lead to the need for additional human jobs.

If I am correct that the introduction of AI will result in an increase in productivity, organizational leadership can view themselves as suddenly having additional resources (the time of the people freed up as AI systems do some of their work) to apply to previously un-resourced activities. Every organization has such un-resourced activities—things that the organization would like to do, but for which it doesn’t have the resources. A company may have wished to develop two new products but had man-hours for only one and now may be able to accelerate development of the second product. Alternatively, a non-profit may now be able to provide services to additional clients.

The application of AI systems can help redirect those resources.

The challenge is for leadership to make the proper fit of human resources to those previously un-resourced activities. Just because the use of AI freed up four hours of skilled time a day doesn’t mean that leadership could assign a machinist to create computer graphics.

Admittedly, this is a “glass half full” perspective, but we, as humans, have a terrible track record of predicting the labor impacts of the introduction of new technologies. The industrial revolution didn’t result in massive factory unemployment, it merely changed the kinds of jobs the workers did. The introduction of personal computers into the workplace thirty years ago didn’t result in massive unemployment among office workers, it merely resulted in the gargantuan increase in the number of PowerPoint presentations. I suspect that AI systems will be a factor in changing a number of professions that require significant human intellectual effort but are now being done in a mass-production fashion. My exemplar would be teaching. Today, teachers almost never have the time needed to provide the personal, one-on-one attention needed to identify and develop individual talents, and people are individuals with different abilities and different learning styles. Mayhaps humans liberated from the drudgery of office work can become part of an educational workforce that leads to a future in which we approach a situation where every person actually has the opportunity to gain a quality, personal education contributing to the betterment of humanity.

Thoughts?

It Is Up To Us

Sat, 26 Aug 2017 08:50:01 +1200

If we don't care—why should the government or corporations?

Working through the news this morning, my eyes caught three different articles that I felt were pertinent to People First.

David Byrne

A fascinating article—if a tad 'self'-repetitive from the thoughtful David Byrne. The final line from his piece that examines the role of technology is contributing to and detracting from human interaction and engagement. No specific solutions, which is good, since the answers lie with 'we the people'.

“We” do not exist as isolated individuals. We, as individuals, are inhabitants of networks; we are relationships. That is how we prosper and thrive.
Source: David Byrne for Technology Review
(August 15th, 2017)

Federal Unions Disbanded?

Executive orders have become the 'order of the day,' if you will pardon the pun. I hadn't thought that executive orders from the current administration could be so far-reaching. At the time of writing, there are 900 thousand federal employees who belong to a union. Could that really be reduced to zero by the stroke of a single pen, held by a single man?

“What the law actually says is that the President is empowered, through executive order, to exclude any agency or subdivision from coverage,” Canon said, “if the President determines that that agency or subdivision has intelligence, investigative, or national security functions.”
Source: Gaby Del Valle for The Outline
(August 25th, 2017)

Why Fake News Won't Stop

For all of the screams and squawks about fake news in the USA, nobody seems to be doing anything about it, but in France, there is a different thought. Storyzy has launched a solution that allows any brand to whether they are running ads that appear on a 'fake news' sites. Good—right? Well, it would be if the corporations did anything about it, but apparently they aren't. And (this might be disingenuous of me), I think that fact is driven by a combination of three things:

those who run corporations don’t care
ads run on fake news sites earn these corporations money
these corporations are measuring the wrong things

This is important to People First, because if corporations don’t publicly care about fairness, equality, and democracy and position those forces lower in priority than convenience and profit on something as massively visible as this topic, we can only imagine how they must operate when 'those doors' are closed.

Storyzy's business is alerting brands to their presence on fake news sites. By and large, the advertising community's response is simply appalling.

Source: Frederic Filloux's Monday Note
(August 21st, 2017)

🚧 Lost Knowledge

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 22:17:50 +1200

Forty years ago, I belonged to an organization called RILKO. As you can see, they still exist. A friend of mine, Randall Rospond, Posted this to his site today. And it occurred to me that this too is a 'little bit' of lost knowledge that we could so easily regain... with thought.

What do you think?

People Last

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:40:31 +1200

You probably know that we publish articles to the People First Publication on Medium. We just published an article on politics and venture capital funding.

People First is not a politically driven group, but in modern America, it is increasingly hard to keep politics out of business as the two seem to get rammed against each other over and over again.

This article falls into three parts, the first referencing a politically oriented post, the second from a venture capitalist and the third my thoughts about the connection between the two.

Start Up Culture

Sat, 12 Aug 2017 10:05:24 +1200

Dan Lyons shared a video about working in the new tech start-up bubble on his blog.

This made me smile...

The biggest challenge of the talk was that I wrote it thinking I had 40 minutes but arrived to find I had only 20 minutes.

...sometimes it helps to be caught out. I recommend you read Dan Lyons's books as well.

So Long - And Thanks For All The Fish

Sun, 09 Apr 2017 09:23:11 +1200

And So ... The end of the River Experiment.

Continue Reading Here.

What You Need To Know About Uber

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 13:22:04 +1200

This last post highlighted a recent article about the likely failing of Uber .... it was one of a series. The full set can be found here:

Part Two

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

... and lots more on the topic of Uber

Essential reading for all.

... even better - Part Ten - Can Uber Ever Deliver - The Uber Death Watch Begins

Uber Is Not Natural And Needs To Die

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 06:14:53 +1200

This article neatly and concisely summarises everything that I dislike about Uber.

If you follow me, you will know that despite my interest in platforms and their obvious role as a significant future of Marketplaces, Uber stands uniquely in the #FAIL bucket - and would have been in the dead bucket years ago - if anything in the world was at all fair and reasonable.

This is the latest in a highly detailed series that dives into the underpinnings of Uber ... and it really does make you wonder about those VCs that have invested in them.

For those of you who are late to this series, the underlying reason that Uber is not a bona fide tech success is that the fact that it has cars available at affordable (cheap) prices is solely the result of massive, unsustainable investor subsidies. There are no network economies in running any transportation network because beyond a baseline service level, there is an inherent tradeoff between service frequency (size of fleet and staff) and profits. Uberâ€™s app is trivial technologically and does not create a barrier to entry or confer scale advantages.

Read The Whole Article Here â€¦ Read on for some pertinent quotes:

The think tank taxi deregulation campaign blocked discussion of industry reforms based on economic evidence of potential impacts on efficiency and welfare with an emotive/tribal battle framing that precluded compromise.
â€¦
Twenty-two of the pieces were published by pro-corporate/libertarian/objectivist oriented advocacy groups that received major funding from Charles and David Koch
â€¦
Uber adopted the think tank propaganda approach almost word-for-word as the foundation for its market control battle Uber needed to establish the image of a battle between cutting-edge technologists fighting to disrupt a backward industry so that people outside of its core of supporters would view Uber as the heroic good guys.
â€¦
Despite Uberâ€™s transparent interest in destroying all incumbent operators in order to establish global industry dominance, Kalanick insists Uber is just trying to increase competitive options.
â€¦
Uber insisted that the emergence of an unregulated, Uber dominated industry had nothing to do with multi-billion dollar subsidies but was strictly the result of the free choices of consumers in a competitive market
â€¦
But as law professor Eric Posner points out, â€œâ€¦[this] is a response that any monopolist could makeâ€¦But whether or not Uber does overcharge people now, sooner or later â€” once it displaces taxis and dominates markets â€”it will.â€

Time To Find A New Coffee Place

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 05:30:27 +1200

Interesting - it's kind of like expecting good food from a business who's job is to fly you across the Atlantic - so too good internet connectivity from a business who's job is to serve you coffee.

Dear Mr. Trump ....

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 04:12:24 +1200

... Recognise anyone?

Voice Ads - And Not What You Are Hoping For

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 03:14:22 +1200

Google Tests Waters of Voice Ads on Speaker
An unprompted promotion highlights balancing act the tech giant faces between monetizing new search formats and usersâ€™ ad tolerance

[Paywall]

I love that expression ' user's ad tolerance ' ... do they not read the news? We have already that we have zero tolerance - hence the rise of ad blockers.

File under another reason not to buy Amazon and Google tech ... and stick with Apple ... a company that makes its money from what it makes - not the people that use what it makes.

Oh - and that caption? Jeez - Alexa might be able to recognize word patterns - but it doesnt understand anybody!

John Philpin - The Other One

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 10:15:55 +1200

No we haven't met

Yes we have talked on the phone

Yes we are related (we think)

johnphilpin.com is one of his philpin sites

john.philpin.com is one of my philpin sites

Listen - I’m Going To Tell You A Story

It was a few years ago now, you can tell, because I had to get up from my chair, walk to the kitchen and pick up the phone.

Hello .. John Philpin

.. and those were the last words that seemed to make sense in this particular conversation. The following is paraphrased, my memory is not that good.

Oh hello, we are calling to see if you have any commentary on the recent developments in Gainesville.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

Oh yes, we are following up on some recent developments around the murders in Gainesville, and calling to ask if you might add any perspective.

I’m sorry .. what kind of perspective?

Well given your involvement at the time, we were thinking ..

Sorry. What involvement?

Is that John Philpin?

It is.

P H I L P I N ? (Spelling it out).

Yes.

Well given your connection to ..

I’m sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else.

But you are John Philpin ..

Yes. Tell you what if you give me your number, I will look into who it might be and get them to call back.

.. number exchanged and I sat down.

In 2024 if you Google “John Philpin”, you will indeed find that there are two of us, but back then, there wasn’t a Google … I know kids .. hard to believe. There was something called ‘Alta Vista’ and Yahoo - but nascent at best.

In all honesty, I can’t recall exactly how I went about the next step. We had Compuserve - and of course at Oracle I had access to the ‘real’ ‘internet’ - but - there still has to be something at the other end to be found for a ‘search’ to work … so this was going to be tough.

But … BUT - you may not know this, but ‘Philpin’ is a pretty uncommon name. Uncommon like there may be 5 to 6 hundred of us - tops - around the world today. I can also tell you that 75% of them live in Pembrokeshire, Wales, or at least in South Wales.

Ok - I jest - but it is not so far off.

Donald Philpin - a cousin of my dad’s - did some research back in the 60s and 70s and unpacked a family tree of sorts essentially connecting us all back to a ‘Walter Philpin’ of Tenby, Pembrokeshire in the 1600s. (When I say - research - this was no internet search (see earlier google comment), this was serious - visiting parish churches, pouring through registers of birth, deaths and marriage and painstakingly putting it all together, by talking to family members. (Now THAT was commitment.)

Anyway, long story short (let’s assume I used Compuserve) and tried to find this other Philpin. I failed. Kind of. I found an author called John Philpin - who was probably the writer this journalist thought I was. But - no way of connecting - no phone - certainly no email - even for the publisher - just an address in NYC, which IMHO seemed too hard. (Clearly I was no ‘Donald’.)

I also found a musician by name of 🎵Five Philpin and there seemed to be a connection to a John Philpin - and I am a music nerd anyway - so what the hell - I reached out to him through email that seemed to be associated with his music.

And nothing … for a few weeks and I then got an email from Five.

We exchanged emails - and I bought every CD he had ever released - ( I like to support ‘smaller’ musicians and hell - with the same last name as mine - of course I was.)

Asked him about John - and turns out John is his father - at the time Five was in LA / Seattle - and dad was over In New England. Anyway could Five connect me?

Five - “Leave it with me.”

… delivering a result a week or so later, here’s Dad’s phone number - give him a call.

I did.

We talked for a couple of hours … mainly around who both us ‘John Philpins’ came to be us ‘John Philpins’ .. and given the tightness of our Family tree, we tracked back to our mutual roots … in .. Pembrokeshire and and and …

.. and finally I got round to telling him about the call from the news paper asking for a comment .. and there was a silence, and then .. (again ..paraphrasing)

I have no interest in talking to these people whose only job seems to be title tattle, so I wouldn’t bother getting back to them … but should they call again, I would answer their questions. They are looking to speak to John Philpin and gather ‘quotes’ .. give them. Don’t let knowing nothing about the cases they call about get in the way .. make it up .. it would stand more chance of being right than some of what they write. Might be fun?

We chatted a little longer - said our good byes and moved on with our lives.

I never heard anything more from the journalist - or any other for that matter, so I never got to try out John’s idea. I sporadically kept in touch with Five - had one more email exchange with John - but basically all our lives just continued, with this one tiny dent of connection.

🔗 John writing (in 2002) an analysis on 🎵 Kurt Cobain’s death - on the way through referencing his son ‘Five’.

Car Sticker With Truth

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 10:14:43 +1200

What It Means To Be American

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 09:57:09 +1200

... it certainly explains why I am not Republican.

A couple of choice extracts:

Nearly six in 10 Republicans (57 percent) think that â€œa culture grounded in Christian religious beliefsâ€ is important to our American identity.

and

Forty-six percent of Republicans say that â€œa culture established by the countryâ€™s early European immigrantsâ€ is an important part of what makes us Americans.

Meanwhile - on a related topic - check out what you can do with an old cement factory.

America Continues To Lead ...

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 09:23:53 +1200

... that's sarcasm folks ....

I have to say it took Battersea many many false starts before it got to here, but - it did get there. So maybe Philadelphia could adopt some of the ideas.

Oh that's right - America leads the world in thinking - and doesn't need to look outside of its borders for ideas.

That's how they always win the 'world' series and put themselves up on the pedestal of the global powerhouse.

What am I talking about? This.

Does The End Of The London Taxi Portend The End Of Everything?

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 02:51:20 +1200

First they licensed Uber, and I did not speak out - Because I was working.

Then the Trade Unionists and Taxi orgs called a mass demo, and I did not go -Because it was busy and I had to work.

Then, after realising our largest org was doing nothing, two drivers stood up shouting and rebellious...but they were expelled - I did and said nothing, just carried on working.

Then they asked for members to go to a branch meeting to vote against Judas and his WAGs - but I didn't go as I was working

When they finally took my Badge and Bill and handed it to an Uber driver - there was no one left to fight for me.

A sad reflection on the state of the taxi industry in London from TaxiLeaks. I will let you click through for the analysis and prompt to the homage above.

I just hope the apathy is not an indication of the broader topics of what is going on politically across the world. Whatever your political belief system ... the world gets the leadership it deserves. Just look at America. Trump won. Sure. Hilary lost. Sure. Hilary ran a bad campaign. Let's go with it. Trump stole the election. Whatever.

Here is what happened.

The voting population of America did not turn out in sufficient numbers to state clearly what they wanted.

As my twitter bio reads:

Power for the few will be assumed through the inaction of the many.

Uber [ No Longer ] Alles

Sat, 04 Mar 2017 11:38:45 +1200

Good Grief

To lose 1 senior VP in a week is never good. To lose two is very careless.

Add to the growing woes captured on this thread just this week.

But there's more ... check out this:

How Uber Used Secret Greyball Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was being resisted by law enforcement or, in some instances, had been outright banned.

The list of all the other crap - JUST - from this week can be found here.

Is Uber Trying To Get More Crazy and Confused Than The Trump Administration?

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 12:28:39 +1200

Interesting to see that when I wrote ...

this

and this

oh - and this

as I tried to summarise everything that is going on at Uber that is wrong ... someone else had the same idea.

A great summary - though not a fan of the color scheme!

Uber - Liars or Just A U-Turn?

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 08:29:05 +1200

Remember when Uber said ... not us ...

... looks like it is!

As Gruber writes:

The message to other women at Uber is clear: stay silent or we will come after you.

.. which is what Sarah Lacey said over two years ago ...

Apparently We Are Tapping Our Leaders Phones

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 07:56:53 +1200

Absolutely Brilliant !!!!

Life ... Not 'Liff' .. Life

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 13:13:30 +1200

I won't be getting this one - but I did have the first - what was it thirty years ago?

Travis, Travis, Travis .... WTF

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 06:49:18 +1200

Seriously?

You just can’t make this stuff up. If this and this wasn’t enough - now you have this …

My Psion Has Been Updated

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 12:08:21 +1200

The Truth About Uber Continues To Surface ...

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 03:25:08 +1200

I wrote and published this post about the trials and tribulations (ok - not trials - YET) of Uber yesterday. It was a rapid summary of the fronts that they are fighting that came through my feeds just last week.

(It is worth a click through just to get a quick summary of the breadth of problems hitting the company.)

These posts came out yesterday - Monday 27th February.

Uber’s SVP of engineering is out after he did not disclose he left Google in a dispute over a sexual harassment allegation : Recode.

Seriously? We are meant to believe that. Oh, that’s right - they demonstrate over and over again that they do not believe in background checks. (And anyway it was known who he was BTW - this is a very small valley).

And, in light of that, this becomes even more believable.

Another Tale of Rampant Sexual Harassment at Uber - Medium, another ex-staffer writing about the toxic Uber culture. This quote stood out to me from one manager to a subordinate, a woman and the writer of the article.

There is no place for ethics in this business sweetheart. We are not a charity.

Uber dismissed warnings about its illegal self-driving test for months, emails show - The Verge. (I wrote at the time, there was more to this and I still don’t understand why they weren’t prosecuted at the time. But I guess that is a different story.)

Oh … and the so often repeated story of how some Uber drivers are either totally ignorant of where places are, definitely lacking in ‘smarts’ and possibly just corrupt.

It Could Only Happen In An Uber, Passenger Taken To Croydon Via Bristol…Then Charged four hundred and forty POUNDS STERLING.

Forbes? Seriously? No Auto Rotation?

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 12:50:05 +1200

I Spy With My Little Eye - Something Beginning with 'T'

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 09:56:47 +1200

Private Eye Reports ...

According to her attack-dog attorney, Charles Harder, the Mailâ€™s allegations harmed her â€œonce-in-a-lifetime opportunityâ€ to cash in on the Trump presidency by selling Melania-branded â€œapparel, accessories, shoes, jewellery, cosmetics, hair care, skin care, and fragranceâ€.

As they Eye says ....

No need for the Mail to trash her reputation: her lawyer seems quite capable of doing it all by himself.

[For my American readers - for Private Eye - think 'Spy Magazine' - except edgier, unafraid, wittier and first published in 1961 - a full 27 years before Spy Magazine got going and hasn't stopped since - which Spy did in 1998.]

Let The Punishment Fit The Crime

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 09:49:20 +1200

Virginia man gets 11 years in prison for trying to join Islamic State

... not actually joining, and had he joined, not actually done anything ...

Meanwhile in 1931:

Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000, signaling the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s.

Meanwhile - a quick Google search reveals that 11 years is what you get for

A hit and run driver killing a little girl
A meth dealer in Eugene
Fraud
Pimping
Drug Trafficking

#JustSayin

Time Moves Faster When You Are Older

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:47:52 +1200

As we move steadily into 2017, I know that I am not the first to recognize that we are now 50 years away for the 1967 Summer of Love. Talk to a teen/twenty something ( donâ€™t you just hate those ‘ennial tags?) … and I wonder if they would / could even comprehend what was going on back then.

Sure they listen to the music form that era … but to have a real understanding of Vietnam, The Kennedy and MLK assassinations, Civil Rights Movements et al … might be stretching it.

Why? Well, let’s put it into context.

Back in 1967, the equivalent would be to have that teen/twenty something understand everything that was going on in and around the FIRST WORLD WAR - much less the SECOND WORLD WAR.

In fact - when you think about it, the SECOND World War ended just twenty two years before the Summer of Love.

Twenty Two Years Ago the President of The USA was Bill Clinton and The Prime Minister of England was John Major.

People of my age can remember it all ‘like yesterday’. But for the newly emerging generations that are beginning to shape the future of this world - it all was a very very long time ago.

Which is all good - but let us not forget how we got here. The wars and the sacrifices made by millions. The shared experiences that shaped us.

He isn’t a teen/twenty something, so he should know better (but he doesn’t), but the current president of The USA is rattling his saber at pretty much everyone.

Hopefully, it will continue to just rattle because he won’t be able to work out how to take it out of its scabbard. But if he does ….

Slick By Name ... Slick By Nature

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:21:49 +1200

Absolutely brilliant. Back in England - in the middle ages - people would occasionally get ‘hoist by their own petard’ …. I believe Chick-Fil-A have just experienced that delight.

Yes, she is aware that Chick-Fil-A is a famously conservative, Christian-run company that has advocated against same-sex marriage and donated to anti-LGBTQ-rights causes through their charitable wing, The WinShape Foundation. Slick revealed that she explicitly decided to accept the company's offer to use the song so she could donate the proceeds to a charity that works against Chick-Fil-A's convictions: Lambda Legal, a non-profit legal organization working on behalf of LGBTQ community and HIV patients.

The Precursor To The Fall

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:17:54 +1200

Oh c'mon!

And for heavens sake grow up.

Conway says she gets 'different set of questions' on TV

Oh and honey, when you say ...

"It's a 'build you up to tear you down' kind of town."

Nobody - repeat NOBODY - 'built you up' - you did that all by your little old self.

And ...

"I'm focused on why we're here."

Can you tell us. Please. WHY are you here? Because I certainly don't see any added value.

I Don't Even Know What To Write ...

Wed, 22 Feb 2017 03:34:53 +1200

British MPs lined up on Monday to pour scorn on a â€œracist and sexistâ€ Donald Trump, who they said should not be allowed to come to Britain for a state visit because of the risk it would embarrass the Queen.

... aah yes - your democracy at work ... 1.8 million people in the UK sign a petition that wants the state visit invite to the UK to be revoked - and

the conclusion was ...

... those close to ministers made clear that there would be no rowing back on the invitation to Trump and hit out at MPs.

I found this the most interesting

Labourâ€™s Paul Flynn said that only two US presidents had been accorded a state visit to Britain in more than half a century and it was â€œcompletely unprecedentedâ€ that Trump had been issued his within seven days of his presidency.

Read All About It ...

... before you read this

... where a British Maths teacher who is Muslim was escorted off a plane in Iceland bound for New York - despite having all the valid papers and visas necessary for the school trip.

This was on the same day that the TSA let 11 people through screening at the same airport.

Tell me again about National Security Donald ...

Now We Know Where The Line Gets Drawn

Wed, 22 Feb 2017 03:20:14 +1200

After I wrote this at the beginning of the year, where ..

The Chicago Review of Books (had) made the decision to not review any books produced by Simon & Schuster during 2017.

The article asked the question 'Where is the line to be drawn?'

Now we know.

The Guardian today ...

Milo Yiannopoulos book deal cancelled after outrage over child abuse comments.

So actually as usual .. he self-destructed. But I am not sure that we can rely on this - eventually, even a douche like Milo will learn. (^^^ Yes - that is him up there. ^^^)

And Another Example Of Recurring History

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 04:53:09 +1200

First - there was this.

Then on reading about who actually built Mar-a-Lago, it is revealed to be Marjorie Merriweather Post - who had some interesting ties back to Russia.

During the 1930s, the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin began selling art treasures and other valuables seized from the Romanov family and former Russian aristocrats after the Russian revolution to earn hard currency for its industrialization and military armament programs. Critics have claimed that these items were expropriated; however, Post and Davies's transactions were from the recognized governmental authority.

#JustSaying

Mar-a-Lago Finally Fulfilling Its Destiny?

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 04:47:07 +1200

Now that is an interesting piece of history - given where we are today ..

Mar-a-Lago is an estate and National Historic Landmark in Palm Beach, Florida, built from 1924 to 1927 by heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. Post envisioned the house as a future winter retreat for American presidents and foreign dignitaries, and following her death in 1973 it was bequeathed to the nation. However, successive presidents declined to use the mansion, which was returned to Post's estate in 1980 and in 1985 was purchased by Donald Trump, later 45th President of the United States.

Remember When Serving Your Country Was an Honour ...

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 04:31:48 +1200

.. and not a way to make a quick buck - I offer this as an example.

The U.S. Marshals Service says it is providing security for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos after a handful of protesters prevented her from entering a D.C. middle school.

Quite apart from the fact that the country is paying for security for someone in the Education Secretary role - surely that has to be a first - and reveals how reviled/divisive she must be …. but as I wrote here … she is the brother of Erik Prince … founder of Blackwater and the ‘go to’ guy for security in this fine totalitarian state - sorry - country - we live in.

Given that she, her husband, her brother, her father are all individually billionaires - don’t you think she could provide her own security … or at least pay for it.

AirBNB Facing Significant Law Suit

Sun, 19 Feb 2017 04:35:26 +1200

Denver-based AIMCO, one of the biggest landlords in the US, owns and manages over 50,000 apartments across the country. Real-estate research firm Green Street Advisors told the WSJ that this is the first time Airbnb has been sued by a major landlord. Other apartment owners might now feel emboldened to follow suit if the service refuses to cooperate with them.

The plaintiff says short-term rentals are against their leases, and Airbnb is helping its tenants break that rule. It also says the practice of renting to transients creates unsafe conditions for other tenants and that it has suffered loss of income, property damage, nuisance and disturbance.

Read the whole piece here.

Personally, have been waiting for something like this to break for a while. I donâ€™t see AirBNB in the same category as UBER - but they are certainly approaching it. (BTW - that is a category that you do NOT want to belong to.)

Snap - Not just a Company - But A Description Of Market Position

Sun, 19 Feb 2017 04:21:55 +1200

Snap is going to market, trying to pitch itself as a unique blend of Silicon Valley and Hollywood. And no wonder: It has the losses of a tech startup combined with the anemic growth of a media company.

OUCH!

That quote comes from 'The Information'

Read all about it.

And The Winner Is Blackwater

Sat, 18 Feb 2017 06:34:46 +1200

When I wrote this, I hadn't seen this ... so I am going with Blackwater.

Jeremy Scahill, editor of the online news publication The Intercept and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the Worldâ€™s Most Powerful Mercenary Army profiles Erik Prince as a â€œChristian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,â€

Scared yet?

How about this ...

Erik Prince is allegedly the new ex-officio foreign policy adviser to Trump today!

Erik Prince Is Advising Trump from the Shadows should have red flags going up. Lest we forget, heâ€™s the same man who wants to eliminate Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.

Scahill spoke with PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) recently.

He mentioned a man by the name of Joseph Schmitz, who too is President Trumpâ€™s top foreign policy adviser.

Schmitz worked for Erik Princeâ€™s Blackwater.

Oh - that logo at the top ... Academi, according to Wikipedia

Academi is an American private military company founded in 1997 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince as Blackwater, renamed as XE Services in 2009 and now known as Academi since 2011 after the company was acquired by a group of private investors.

Their name changes faster than leaks out of the Whitehouse. Why would they do that?

Will It Be Amway or Blackwater that drives future Education policy in the USA?

Sat, 18 Feb 2017 05:55:30 +1200

Old pieces now - but let’s not forget the connections that don’t seem to be too much reported by the ‘dishonest media’ on Betsy.

Betsy DeVos's brother, Erik Prince, the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater, has been quietly advising Trump's transition team, including helping vet Cabinet picks.

from Here and

She is the daughter of Edgar Prince, who founded the Michigan-based Prince Corporation, an auto parts business that sold for $1.35 billion in 1996; she also married into the massive Amway fortune by marrying Dick DeVos, whose father co-founded that company.

from Here.

Yup, Betsy is married to Amway … bastion of the original pyramid selling scheme and implicated in more global corruption schemes than your average soldier and brother to Blackwater - the private ‘protection company’ that the US government had to extract itself from.

The other common connection?

Both Blackwater and Amway have had to change their names in an attempt to present a more acceptable face to the public after their crimes were unearthed. Betsy - that’s who Trumpette is pointing to in the picture up there … and her connections admitted that as much as $200 million could have been contributed to Trump’s campaign. It’s amazing what money can buy.

If You Are In The US - Replace Dragon With Shark

Sat, 18 Feb 2017 05:36:22 +1200

Great post from the people at Taxi Leaks on Uber's business model ...

Dragon: So you are going to be a taxi company.
Me: No I am going to create a technology company
Dragon: Sorry... I do not understand? You are going to be offering a taxi service to the public?
Me: No.. I am not offering a taxi service to anyone. I want to 'reach out' by offering the technology to connect the public to taxis around the world.
Dragon: So you are going to be a global taxi company?
Me: No.. I want to offer a platform that people who own taxis can connect with the public.
Dragon: So you want to be a global company offering a taxi service?
Me: No... I want to offer a platform that people who own taxis can connect with the public.
Dragon: Ok.. let me put it another way. You want to offer a service where people use your technology to order a taxi.
Me: Yes
Dragon: So you want to be a global taxi company?
Me: No

McSweeney's Nails It .....

Sat, 18 Feb 2017 02:58:08 +1200

We love what youâ€™ve done so far with Season 1. We think this is shaping up to be a truly unique season of television. Mr. Trump, as always, is an enigmatic yet captivating character. A couple thoughts so far.

We feel like things are progressing a little too fast. Can we find a few more steps? It seems like weâ€™re just burning through plot, and there are far too many storylines to keep track of. Is the mission of the week to build a wall? To ban Muslims? To buy bigger gloves? Please focus one or two to keep the narrative tension building to a roiling boil.

Read On.

A Finely Tuned Machine

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 12:44:09 +1200

Pretty Sure this is as finely tuned as the Whitehouse right now.

And Another Thing ....

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 07:02:05 +1200

... 'BT Wi-Fi with Fon' told to f**k off and die.

I have just returned from the UK - I thought it was just me.

OK, this 'billy-do' is from The Daily Mash - but - just like The Onion, some of their stuff is based on real world issues. Like this one.

THE stupidly-named BT wi-fi thing that overrides your internet connection should burn in hell, it has been confirmed.
â€˜BT Wi-Fi with Fonâ€™, â€˜BT Fonâ€™, â€˜BT-Wi-Fi-with-Fonâ€™ or whatever the fuck it is called deliberately antagonises internet users by bullying their home internet into submission.

Read All About It -- the article is titled ... 'BT Wi-Fi with Fon' told to f**k off and die.

As I said. Just back from the UK and I lost count of when I THOUGHT I was on a usable wireless network - only to discover that no network was avaialble - becaause F@@@ing BT had co-opted my connection.

It's a funny article - but a real problem.

How are they allowed to do this?

Beyond Bridges - Come On Over

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 07:09:52 +1200

Read All About It

Delivered To Your Inbox

My Reading List Just Got Longer - And Re-priortised

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 03:33:59 +1200

At the centre of The Book of Dust is the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organisation, which wants to stifle speculation and inquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free.

Philip Pullman unveils epic fantasy trilogy The Book of Dust

... and sets me a reading agenda that I think I want to explore. I have never read Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' ... shame on me - but it is now HIGH on the list.

A Zoetrope of Galloping Despair

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 03:20:58 +1200

Today, during my morning routine of opening my laptop, clicking on literally anything, and just screaming and screaming, I made the astonishing discovery that Donald Trump has only been president of the United States for about three weeks. Which is weird, because I could have sworn we had fallen through a tesseract into the airless crush of a two-dimensional void at least seven eternities ago, or what would have constituted seven eternities if such a place had a linear concept of time. Turns out, though, it has only been 25 days, we are still on earth, and every cell in my body has not been excruciatingly flattened into pure math. It just feels like it.

Lindy West writing for The Guardian today.

... quite simply the best opening of an article I have seen in a long time - and leads on to an extraordinary list to serve as a reminder of the F@@K UP that is the current Whitehouse.

Next To Go?

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 11:46:13 +1200

You got to be quick if you gonna delete tweets.

The First Stepford Husband

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 11:32:19 +1200

Self Driving Cars

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 12:14:43 +1200

... PAH

Self-Flying Drones .... THAT's where the future is at.

While we here in the West are arguing about whether Self-Driving Cars should be allowed on the roads ... what it means to civilization, humanity and jobs ... Dubai lifts it up a notch.

After buckling into its race-car-style seat, the craft's sole passenger selects a destination on a touch-screen pad in front of the seat and the drone flies there automatically.

That's what I'm Talking About.

Somebody Needs To Document The Agregated LayOffs ...

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 04:35:25 +1200

In the tech industry AND the AR/VR industry

Don't forget this that I wrote in Mid January - and adding another one to the list.

Augmented reality helmet maker Daqri is cutting about 25% of its nearly 330-person-strong workforce worldwide, multiple people have told Business Insider, or about 80 people.
The workforce at its headquarters in Los Angeles and its Sunnyvale, California, offices were told of layoffs on Thursday and experienced the brunt of the layoffs, about 60 people, we understand. Other offices in the UK expect to hear about job cuts on Monday.

and

People are now telling us that Daqri is also struggling to perfect and launch some of its promised products as well.

.... they all are. They all are.

As Carl Sagan Would Have It ...

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 07:57:56 +1200

Dear Fullers Brewing Company ...

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 07:48:10 +1200

I enjoy your beer. Very much. I detest your online policies ....

24 Hours? 28 Days!!!

In my world - with the (essentially free) software I use - when someone unsubscribes - it happens within seconds. Call me if you need help. It looks like you do.

Who Are Fullers?

Meanwhile - file under core versus context ...

Virgin, BA et al might not be the best food you can get on the planet, but I know of no restaurant that can fly you around the world. Likewise, I have yet to find an ESP/ISP or any other 'X'SP that does a decent beer.

When Will They Ever Learn ....

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 01:17:30 +1200

My superpower is that I can sleep when people are wrong on the Internet. But I do sometimes blog about it the next morning.

... Don Marti introducing us to his latest blog post where he writes about the latest abomination that adtech is about to drop onto humanity.

Tesla drops 'Motors' from name as CEO Musk looks beyond cars

Reuters Reporting Ten Year Old News As Something New.

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 07:01:22 +1200

I have written many times before that Tesla is not a car company. For example - 18 months ago. So, I for one was not surprised to read that;

Quoting Reuters:

Chief Executive Elon Musk looks to transform the Silicon Valley firm from an electric car maker to a diversified energy products company.

Ummm - not news .... I wrote this last summer, and

To quote Elon Musk - on his own web-site :

The first master plan that I wrote 10 years ago is now in the final stages of completion. It wasnâ€™t all that complicated and basically consisted of:
Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be expensive
Use that money to develop a medium volume car at a lower price
Use that money to create an affordable, high volume car
Provide solar power. No kidding, this has literally been on our website for 10 years.

You Have To Seek Truth ... It Won't Seek You.

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 06:51:13 +1200

I love Flowing Data.

Which is one reason why I am highlighting this post.

Lessons for all ... not just data presenters ... but data readers. When you see a graphic - know where it is coming from. Know the context. Explore and understand the data that surround what you are looking at.

Yes. It's hard work - but how else can you unpick the truth.

And that my friends is absolutely necessary in the times we find ourselves living in.

Uber Is Above The Law. That Can Be The ONLY Explanation.

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 06:28:39 +1200

Remember when I wrote this?

And this?

And how if you are paying attention, you will get the idea that I think we have a bit of a problem in tech .... Check out what just happened at Zenefits.

50% of Zenefits workforce gone.

What's left?

Thatâ€™s about a third of the size it was a year ago, when it ousted its founding CEO, Parker Conrad, over revelations that it flouted state regulations for selling health insurance.

Wait .... Parker Conrad flouted state regulations for selling health insurance.

But nothing happens to Travis Kalanick (that's the Uber guy in case you are wondering) when he flouts state and national laws all over the world.

Is he above the law .... or is it just that he is bribing enough people and the right people?

I mean - he does keep on getting banned ... everywhere!

How To Make A Living If You Are A Connector

Sun, 12 Feb 2017 06:11:49 +1200

Way back in 2012 I wrote this.

... as long as I have been in business I keep hearing (and repeating) the phrase â€“ how do you â€˜monetize the networkâ€™ ?
And remember that old line from Stanford University Network (sic) â€“ â€˜The Network is the Computer.â€™ ? How about â€œ.. itâ€™s not what you know â€“ itâ€™s who you knowâ€. Letâ€™s not forget that the second oldest profession in the world is â€˜The Middlemanâ€™ â€“ who live and die (see Layer Cake) by their connections.

And?

And. When I saw this graphic from Gaping Void ... it got me to wondering. Has he worked it out? If so - will he share? Because I definitely understand how I can love my making introductions between people ... but have yet to wrestle to the ground how I make wealth if the value is delivered three degrees of separation away ... and that is what we are talking about. Right?

The Long Game - Is It Really Relative?

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 01:23:36 +1200

The entire contraption of â€œUnbridled Energyâ€ is supported only by a rote optimism: â€œThe United States has 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves â€” enough to last 100 years even at double the current rate of consumption.â€ We humans have inhabited the earth for many thousands of years, and now we can look forward to surviving for another hundred by doubling our consumption of coal? This is national security?

Source : Harpers - Faustian Economics by Wendell Berry

More than questioning national security ... how about planning? As a young country of under three hundred years old, then 100 years might sound a long time. After all, it represents one-third of the entire country's life. This thinking is what will lead America down a very long road of nowhere. Success is about the long game. Take China for example. (This is just ONE of many examples of how China plans the long game. Just Google the long game of China.

My thanks to my friend Louis for the link.

Shepard Fairey Thinking Applied To Hugh Macleod

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 11:29:08 +1200

I love the work of both Hugh and Shephard - my apologies if I take their name in vain.

Is Zuck Real?

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 04:13:11 +1200

This Team Runs Mark Zuckerbergâ€™s Facebook Page

Gruber's original post ... ending with

Key point here is that Mark Zuckerberg is much too smart to actually spend time on Facebook.

Yup.

Writing Tips

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:57:56 +1200

To match the number of novels, letters, essays, and other scribblings Asimov produced in his lifetime, you would have to write a full-length novel every two weeks for 25 years.

Holy crap! How did he do it? Have a read. There were 6 tenets to his approach, but to understand them properly - you really should read the article.

Never stop learning
Donâ€™t fight getting stuck
Beware the resistance
Lower your standards
Make MORE stuff
The secret sauce

Good Question

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:44:37 +1200

Will Donald Trump be assassinated, ousted in a coup or just impeached?

The UK's Spectator ruminates ... as do I. In the 'pre-truth world' Impeachment was seen to be the ultimate extreme for how a Presidency might end. Now it is the least of three options - and none of them good. Meanwhile ....

Trump was sworn in on Monday
Lied throughout the weekend
His first law-suit arrived this morning - and yes - I am SPECIFICALLY linking to Buzzfeed.

Grown Up Reporting

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:29:23 +1200

In the movie Now You See Me ( 1 and 2), there are some nice quotes about the essence of magic. Was reminded of them today when I read this.

Put your most junior people in the White House briefing room. Recognise that the real story is elsewhere, and most likely hidden.

Relevant ?

What is magic? Focused deception. But deception meant to entertain.

and

The closer you think you are, the less you'll actually see.

Yes - good advice ....

Fakebook News

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:24:11 +1200

Facebook:

We will work with third-party organizations on how to better understand and to promote news literacy both on and off our platform to help people in our community have the information they need to make decisions about which sources to trust.

Frederic Filloux:

No kidding. If you can wrap your mind around this 42-word sentence, it'll amount to saying McDonaldâ€™s goes low-fat, low-carb, or Monsanto acquires Whole Foods. Lofty words, unconnected to reality.

Status Quo is Your Biggest Competitor

Good piece from Monday Note about Facebook's Journalism project. I'm with Frederic - way too little - way too confused. BUT - thankfully not too late.

Masks

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:17:33 +1200

Whichever way you look at it - same face.

Get It Right. Please. Get It Right.

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 13:05:08 +1200

... so being an old fart - I clicked through. No. Not THAT Status Quo.

People ... I'm talking to YOU Barbara - should be more careful with their headlines.

I thought for a minute that the boys had moved into business consulting.

Phew.

The one thing I do know? Honest mistake. I know Barbara. It wasn't meant to be 'click bait'.

Great Article.

You're Fired

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 10:28:08 +1200

The paper tried to rise above all this, but it made a new rule: If you sack a compositor, get him off the premises immediately.

Which Paper? The London Times

When? 1882

Why? Well, it turns out for very good reasons ...

When I was a lad, there was a Genesis song ...

"Get 'em out by Friday!
You don't get paid till the last one's well on his way.
Get 'em out by Friday!
It's important that we keep to schedule, there must be no delay."

... it would seem even in 1882, this was too slow ...

Third of Republicans Think Trump Won Popular Vote

Fact Fatigue Is Settling In

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 06:05:29 +1200

The saddest part of this :

... is that I am not surprised.

Smoke Without Fire

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 04:23:28 +1200

I wrote this yesterday ... and then it got me to thinking ...

Theranos - this just the latest legal action

Lily

Magic Leap

The General Malaise

Hampton Creek

Zenefits

... and now Facebook's Oculus

But no worries - all is good and upright in the world of Tech.

You Can't Have It Both Ways

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 12:44:14 +1200

What Grande does need is a reality check. Sorry, honey but you canâ€™t base a career on selling sex and then get angry when your horny fans treat you like a sex object.

I agree mainly with a lot of this, but not;

The truth is that Ms.Grande is actually astonishingly talented as a singer and an actress.

The Underbelly of Silicon Valley Continues To Be Exposed

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 12:24:16 +1200

There are nay-sayers out there letting us know that there is nothing to worry about. Then again - they are the same nay savers that have said before there was nothing to worry about - you know like the housing market isn't inflated or those 'non-profitable, low-revenue companies searching for a business model being valued at hundred of millions of dollars' do not point to an inflated market.

Anyway, from time to time I highlight some of those companies that are considered outliers by those same people, but I keep wondering if it is more the norm.

This just in ...

San Francisco District Attorney files lawsuit against drone maker Lily for false advertising

but actually - it is a lot more ... ^^ that was the headline, this is the first sentence of the article ...

After raking in tens of millions in preorders and venture capital, the drone maker â€” if it can really be called that â€” Lily is shutting down.

Hawaii Story-telling ... It's A Tradition.

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:38:22 +1200

I love how Podcasts are really emerging as a story-telling vehicle. Of course Serial is the famous one ... but donâ€™t for one minute think it is the only one.

Take this wonderful series from Hawaii's Civil Beat. When you visit the islands, you might not realise the under-currents. When you move to the islands, you still might not realise the under-currents. To do that, you need to explore, ask questions, understand and at all times keep an open mind.

That is exactly what Jessica Terrell did. And of course, if you follow my writings, you will know that I do too. It is amazing what is not in the history books, much less reported. Kudos to Civil Beat.

But more importantly - take a listen. You will not be disappointed.

Just Ignore This - Like Usual

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 06:25:03 +1200

So my tributary feeds my river.

And my river feeds my estuary.

But not always.

I wonder .... as @davewiner says 'still diggin'

And Another Thing ... Intriguing!

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 09:46:49 +1200

1. to arouse the curiosity or interest of by unusual, new, or otherwise fascinating or compelling qualities; appeal strongly to; captivate:
"The plan intrigues me, but I wonder if it will work."
2. to achieve or earn by appealing to another's curiosity, fancy, or interest:
"to intrigue one's way into another's notice."
3. to draw or capture:
"Her interest was intrigued by the strange symbol."

... and also used by a friend when she saw the newly emerging web publication .... And Another Thing.

XFinity and Beyond ....

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 09:35:40 +1200

It just appealed to me.

And I know it's naughty - but as I have demonstrated a few times before ... they aren't my favourite utility company ... which reminds me - I should update that post - it did get fixed.

But there's more.

Time Warner Cable on MAUI - one of the most expensive places on the planet - delivers what I get from Xfinity with FASTER cable AND HBO - for HALF the price.

And so on to my next battle.

Apple Is Doomed

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 11:43:25 +1200

Seriously? I Thought Peter Thiel was meant to be a visionary. These are all his comments ...

'age of Apple' at its end
the evolution of the smartphone has reached a zenith.
We know what a smartphone looks like and does. It's not the fault of Tim Cook, but it's not an area where there will be any more innovation."

... and it was published by the NYT!

taken to the logical conclusion, this seems to be his belief ...

In 100 years we will still all be using phones that look like slabs of glass
Innovation is only about what something looks like, not what it does
Apple's only future is in phones, which have reached their zenith, thus Apple will die

Read All About It ... the sad thing is that he is one of Trumpette's IT peeps. (Apart from his ten-year-old son - who understands 'the cyber'.)

And Another Thing .... why can't he smile more. Is the world really that bad?

Oh Wait!

Beer Maps - And Not The Kind You Are Thinking

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 10:43:43 +1200

This right here. This link. This is the single most important link you ever need to have.

The Beer Judge Certification Program lists 100 styles with defined ranges of alcohol by volume (ABV), bitterness (measured in IBUs, or International Bittering Units), and color (measured using SRM, or Standard Reference Method).

... and that link up there will take you to a mapping of every beer you could be consuming.

... oh - and talking of the other Beer Maps - I bet if you did this walk, the chances are that many of these delights could be sampled on route.

Enjoy.

Playing Around With OPML Files

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 07:23:54 +1200

If you see this ... you can ignore it.

Truth ? Fiction? Who Cares?

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 05:05:44 +1200

If the election of an American president abetted by Russian interference seems stranger than fiction, you're almost right. Exactly 30 years ago, in the midst of the Cold War, ABC aired a seven-night, 14-and-a-half-hour miniseries depicting life 10 years after the Soviet Union manipulates the presidential election as meek and deflated Americans shrug. â€œAmerika,â€ was heavily criticized at the time for peddling the histrionic premise of a bloodless coup. And while much of the production remains implausible, its core message is more relevant today than ever: They did it because we let them.

If you want to watch it - needless to say - it is all up on YouTube - this is part one of the thirteen parts.

There Are Leaks - And Then There Are Leeks

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 11:17:30 +1200

I still don't get why Billy Bush was so bad that he was essentially thrown off TV - but Trump is now going to be President. But that aside ... though #Trumpet thinks he is safe - I am guessing he isn't and that someone is eventually going to break ranks - for the good of the country.

See where I am going?

PostScript - there is an expression in England that talks about welshing on somebody. It is a derogatory term about not paying your debts - and seems to come from a feeling that us English used to have abou the Welsh.

And then there are Leeks ... that are quintessentially Welsh.

Retro

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 10:45:33 +1200

I have not owned a printer for the better part of 4 years. In that time I have had to actually print something once - for the Blue Cross/BlueShield. (I know - right !). Everything else that people think I print and sign, is actually done through my iPad using EMail, DropBox and Sign My Pad.

Still - if you do still enjoy paper - here's a deal.

REDUCED to $49 - from $149. Plus ink cartridges - of course. Oh - and paper. Oh - and you can only print wherever your printer is.

Sign My Pad costs $3.99.

#JustSayin

OPML - Bug Or Incompatability

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 10:38:46 +1200

I was fixing a bug in OmniOutliner where it wouldn't open a file with an uppercase .OPML suffix. I did some digging, and the fix was to register the app as handling the com.apple.news.opml file type.

... Brent Simmons writing on his blog about OPML.

In the short piece, he references Dave Winer, the inventor of OPML. Why is this interesting?

Well I use Omni Outliner and I use some of Dave Winer's software - including this blog that you are now reading.

OPML is used for aspects of this site and the river site I run here.

Time to do some investigation because I rarely find OPML files created by OmniOutliner play happily with Dave's world. I have always put it down to operator (that would me) error. Now, I am not so sure.

Anyone Can Be A Patron Of The Arts

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 10:24:03 +1200

Fascinating read from NPR. Bottom line - you do not have to be rich to sponsor the arts. Beth Morrison is one of Opera's biggest patrons and does it all out of a two bedroom flat in Brooklyn.

Outlier or Just Business As Usual

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 09:28:08 +1200

The drama has some investors predicting more disasters. â€œWhat if Theranos is the canary in the coal mine?â€ says Roger McNamee, a 40-year VC veteran and managing director at Elevation Partners. â€œEveryone is looking at Theranos as an outlier. We may discover itâ€™s not an outlier at all.â€ That would be bad news, because without trust, the tech industryâ€™s intertwined ecosystem of money, products, and people canâ€™t function. Investors may find the full version of the old proverb is more accurate: â€œOne bad apple spoils the whole barrel.â€

Read All About It. Because the main story is that Theranos might just be the tip of the iceberg.

BTW - The 'Theranos' that Roger refers to ... that's the Theranos that laid off 155 of its remaining 375 staff yesterday - after laying 340 of 790 just three months ago.

However you look at it 220 people out of 790 just three months ago is a 72% staff reduction.

And Another One Bites The Dust

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 05:00:38 +1200

There is a lot of noise about the inadequacy of Twitter, that it is stagnant, lacks innovation and does nothing that actually improves life. In fact, there seem to be an increasing number of people leaving for just that reason. Here's another one. Lindy West has left because it is "unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators".

Trump uses his Twitter account to set hate mobs on private citizens, attempt to silence journalists who write unfavourably about him, lie to the American people and bulldoze complex diplomatic relationships with other world powers. I quit Twitter because it feels unconscionable to be a part of it â€“ to generate revenue for it, participate in its profoundly broken culture and lend my name to its legitimacy. Twitter is home to a wealth of fantastic anti-Trump organising, as well, but Iâ€™m personally weary of feeling hostage to a platform that has treated me and the people I care about so poorly. We can do good work elsewhere.

Read All About it - Courtesy of George Will

Micro-Blogging De Jour

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 09:37:11 +1200

You might guess that I am a big fan of this idea - it's a kick starter project for micro-blogging and I am watching with interest.

Sometime this year - something has to happen with Twitter. If it goes away - then something needs to replace it. If it doesn't go away - it is still going to change.

Me - I have my Wordpress Blogs, Medium, Several Twitter Accounts and, and, and ... no Facebook - although I might even reverse that this year to grow my reach.

And of course, I have this platform that emanates from the mind of Dave Winer ...

So, with all of those places for me to provide content - not sure I have the capacity for another ... but we will see.

I just hope it is not another App.net.

And Another Thing

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 08:20:31 +1200

Another place to track some outpourings of yours truly and my friend Graham.

We are intending to develop a kind of 'Siskel and Ebert' approach to stuff we find and have an opinion on. And with that said, I am guessing that there will be many many many posts !!

And Another Thing is it's name - and in so many ways - this says it all ....

We are also on Facebook and Twitter

New Beginnings

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 07:54:00 +1200

2017 is upon us and while this piece of writing is not about new years resolution, it is an excellent reminder to clean up our lives at least a little, if not a lot.

Not only that, but remember what is important - and forget that which isn't. Thank you Dave.

I think I figured it out. He knew there would be a 45 minute wait, and decided to let me do the waiting. That's what an ass Dick is.

Fact Checking On The Fly

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 06:32:09 +1200

In remarks to reporters upon entering a New Yearâ€™s Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Saturday night, Trump warned against being quick to pin the blame on Russia for the hacking of US emails.

â€œI just want them to be sure, because itâ€™s a pretty serious charge,â€ he said. â€œAnd if you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong.â€

I remain completely stumped why the media continues to quote these absurd words without reminding the reader that The WMD fiasco was all about politics and not about intelligence. And now, to support his politics he is attempting to did credit The Intelligence Services.

Take a read of this ... it is very clear. The intelligence communities were not convinced of the claims but were railroaded into submission by Bliar, Bush and their cronies - culminating in that shameful spectacle at the UN by Colin Powell.

So please - if we are serious about holding Trump accountable - then donâ€™t just repeat his words - but go on to point out the falsehoods he will always utter if they suit his purpose.

Keeping It 100

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 05:33:36 +1200

My thanks to my buddy Louis for this link .... a long story, full of detail and exposure of the coverups around The Trump Foundation .... love this line ...

Together, we had discovered Trump doing exactly what the law said he couldnâ€™t do: using his charityâ€™s money to decorate his resort.
A Trump spokesman later offered the explanation that the resort was actually doing the foundation a favor, by storing its art free of charge. Tax experts were not impressed by this reasoning.

Read All About it. (David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post) who at one point was told by Trump that ...

â€œYou know, youâ€™re a nasty guy,â€ he said. â€œYouâ€™re really a nasty guy.â€

That's good enough for me to read more of David in 2017.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent ...

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 10:05:05 +1200

.. and that's just your house!

No crime had been committed in the Sourovelisesâ€™ house, but the title of the case against them was Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. 12011 Ferndale St. Somehow, a crime had been committed by the house. In civil forfeiture, it suffices that property is suspected of having been involved in a crime. Once seized, the propertyâ€™s owners bear the burden of proving their propertyâ€™s innocence. â€œSentence first â€” verdict afterwards,â€ says the queen in â€œAliceâ€™s Adventures in Wonderland.â€

Oh - and that is the same Jeff Sessions who is now hiding his past of being deemed too racist to be a federal judge

â€œHe left out major details from his years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, from 1981 to 1993; as attorney general of Alabama, from 1995 to 1997; and as a first-term U.S. senator, from 1997 to 2002. The gaps encompass the time, for example, when Sessions was nominated to be a federal judge in 1986 â€• and then rejected after being deemed too racist.â€

A Cling-filmed Parcel of Hamburger Meat

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:29:47 +1200

Where else are you going to hear Donald Trump described as a

clingfilmed parcel of hamburger meat that’s been kicked through a yellow cobweb

(?)

Now that is a very good question. And is all you need to know before you 🔗 click through to read all about it.

And. When you do. Make sure you watch the 1 hour of perfect Charlie Brooker reportage.

Many thanks to my good friend Dr. Watson for alerting me to the piece.

[Updated 250421 - dead links]

Truth Continues To Be Stranger Than Fiction

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 09:21:10 +1200

To succeed, House of Cards has to be wayyy over-the-top compared to the reality of Washington.

... David Frier

... and of course - that is why they are considering cancelling House of Cards. The excellent script writers just can't beat the wackiness of The Trump Reality show that we will call the US Presidency

for the next 4 years
until he is indicted
unless something else happens

Of course, it might be just a rumour .... who knows?

How Would You Change Your Business If You Knew

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 07:02:31 +1200

... that you

1] Can never sell or retire.
2] Can have no more than 10 clients at any time.
3] Will never write unpaid written proposals longer than one page.
4] Cannot sell or track time.
5] Must always say what you are thinking to clients and prospects.

What a great list - provided by my erstwhile colleague and friend David Airey.

North Carolina Ranks Right Beside Other Failed Democracies

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 06:54:37 +1200

Well - you were probably wondering anyway - right? Now it is official.

In the just released EIP report, North Carolinaâ€™s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table â€“ a deeply flawed, partly-free, democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.

I read something the other day about how the USA's President-Elect actually has no shame. Adding the North Carolinian Republican State elected officials into that category.

This just in from Pew Research.

And We Wonder How Fake News Takes Hold So Easily ....

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 06:36:25 +1200

More than seven-in-ten (73%) say that Jesus was born to a virgin and 81% believe he was laid in a manger. And similar shares say that wise men, guided by a star, brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh (75%) and that an angel of the Lord appeared to shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus (74%). Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults (65%) believe that all four of these things actually happened, while 14% say none of them happened.

Good grief.

Celebrate Independent Thinking

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 04:52:24 +1200

I agree ... if only Republican party members in Congress and Senate would realize that it is ok.

Private Eye - LIVE

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 16:58:13 +1200

You know how America keeps coming up with ideas and calling them their own? Archie Bunker and 'All In The Family' (1971) for example - an excellent show - but close to zero credit for the UK's 'Till Death Us Do Part' (1966) ... even though Norman Lear actually had to buy the rights of 'Till Do Us Part' to make it. Well, there's a new one that has been living in my head recently .

Doubtless, you know Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair who recently gave a scathing review of Trumpet's grill. Graydon is one of the founders of a New York magazine called Spy Magazine - " a satirical monthly magazine that ran from 1986 to 1998.

In the UK a magazine called Private Eye was founded fully 20 years before - in 1966 by - amongst others Willie Rushton and Richard Ingrams - but really took off after funding by Peter Cook. If 'took off' is how it might be described.

Click on the links if you want to compare how Spy Magazine 'honoured' Private Eye.

If you want to sample LIVE Private Eye, now you can. Celebrating 30 years of Ian Hislop editing the magazine.

Now THAT is a Full Nelson !

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 16:40:44 +1200

HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENTâ€” ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management.

Jaron Lanier explains the difference between the World Wide Web and Nelson's vision, and the implications:

A core technical difference between a Nelsonian network and what we have become familiar with online is that [Nelson's] network links were two-way instead of one-way. In a network with two-way links, each node knows what other nodes are linked to it. ... Two-way linking would preserve context. It's a small simple change in how online information should be stored that couldn't have vaster implications for culture and the economy.

I hadn't heard about Nelson until my friend Louis told me about him this past week .... but - absolutely fascinating. And, it does seem to me that if we could do it - so much of Fake news gets so much harder?

Excellent Post and Video From Jason Snell.

People Power

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 08:16:48 +1200

And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

And featured at the top of this post from Mr. Louis Rawlins. It's a wonderful, personal, honest post, but those opening words from Roger Waters ( because we know it's Roger that pens those kinda lyrics don't we ...) just reminded me of the ongoing importance of not letting go of the importance of people. Particularly as we enter 2017 and watch as a few corrupt people will continue to wrest away all that is important to us, our children and our children's children and our children's children's children (with a nod of appreciation to The Moody Blues.) in favor of a few bucks and the corporations that they are beholden to.

Amazing to think that is was over 40 years ago that those words sprang forth with the force of Floyd and the anger of Waters. And only now is the world waking up and realising that maybe people are important.

You Say Computer - I Say Truck

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 07:31:59 +1200

As Steve Jobs said:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, cause thatâ€™s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, and America started to move into those urban and then suburban centers, cars got more popular and innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things you didnâ€™t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars.

... Jason takes that analogy from 6 years ago - and considers where we are when it comes to the PC world. This because in the Apple world there is a LOT of chatter about 'where is our MacPro'.

Me - I am one of those in the middle. It is going to take me a loooong time to be pad/phone only - BUT - for what I need to do on a computer - I don't need those really big beasts.

Anyone Worried?

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 04:28:49 +1200

... or even asking questions?

When it happened, I commented that in the USA, it would probably take twice as long to get a first meeting to fill discuss the filling in of said hole - but over in Japan - I week ... 'job done'.

That said, I wonder how much of that week was spent by the engineers looking at the foundations of the building ... anyone worried?

We Are Back

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 03:34:19 +1200

It is a loooong story - which I will recount on my main site when I have a moment - but back we are.

In The Sincere Hope That I Am Totally Wrong

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 12:41:39 +1200

Hilary Lost. We delivered on the request made in the video. Everyone got it wrong. I am not going to bother to comment on broad issues here â€“ enough places are doing that already. Not my job. I want to write this sort posterity as an observation.

I truly hope that I am wrong about what I write below. But everything and anything we have all seen to date is that it wonâ€™t be. Here is hoping. I am now paused. I am now just watching. (With possible occasional updates to this single post, as things change.)

Read On ...

#Paused

Trump and Brexit - Another Connection

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 08:36:51 +1200

Donald Trump is like Brexit in three key ways

writes Lord Ashcroft. In his piece he highlights ....

First, the Trump and Brexit movements have both harnessed a desire for change that goes beyond dry questions of policy.

Second, voters are having to decide how much risk they are prepared to take in return for the change they hope for, but whose consequences are unknowable.

Third, many in the British political and media establishment completely failed to understand that reasonable people might vote for Brexit.

I think there's a fourth, which I have touched on here. Let's call it manipulation.

Since Brexit, it has been clear that the arguments for Brexit were very much based on a pack of lies. And the marketing, segmentation, messaging, targeting to the unsuspecting public was driven by a company called Cambridge Analytics.

Down the road, I suspect that someone will probably write something like;

Since 'The Election', it has been clear that the arguments for 'Trump' were very much based on a pack of lies. And the marketing, segmentation, messaging, targeting to the unsuspecting public was driven by a company called Cambridge Analytics.

I thought I would save them the time and write it now.

Another Misconception

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 08:03:13 +1200

This just in from Patently Apple. It is about how the new touch bar borrows from Microsoft and it reminded me of this ...

Apple isn't the first to do anything. Mouse. iPad. iPod. to name but three. That isn't the point.

Filed under 'People unclear on the concept.'

When Will They Ever Learn

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 07:51:46 +1200

This kind of stupidity has been going on for years. I can't believe that it is still happening.

Considering that over 88 percent of respondents named email one of their top-three most important marketing channels, a serious disconnect appears to arise when moving from challenges to tactics, analytics, and investment.

Despite the more than one-third of respondents who report sending at least one-million emails each month, only 22 percent say they invest at least $5000 per month on email marketing.

My take? Two thirds of businesses who do email need to fail. And my guess is that they will.

This is incredible ... 64.9 percent see that "editors dictate content and manually insert that content into a newsletter" as being 'ideal'. They should be ashamed.

Twit Meets TWiT

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 07:13:18 +1200

"You can trust Jason Calacanis heâ€™s an expert in incompetence."

... first comment under the video.

This week he appeared with Leo Laporte on 'This Week In Technology' (another show that passes me by without me noticing, since I wrote them off long ago.) So I guess this show was a marriage made in heaven.

I have commented on my disagreement with Jason before. So, here is another one. He might be

"smart, savvy, driven, adept at many things, passionate, and persuasive."

as Adam Penenberg described him in his article on Pando, but I would argue that he simply does not understand the Apple trajectory. Pando has an interesting insight into who Jason is, however this video commentary was sourced via 9-5

BTW - the illustration above is by Brad Jonas and commissioned by Pando

Chips Without Semi Conductors

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 07:02:31 +1200

What is the fuss all about ?

More Generational Claptrap

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 06:34:31 +1200

I think The ' Prof ' at MarketingProfs must be on sabbatical.

The Headline reads :

Four Ways to Market To Millennials (Without Underestimating or Patronizing Them)

Seriously. How about starting with a different headline?

'Hear', 'Engage', 'Inspire', 'Respect' .... seems to be what you need to do.

You mean that isn't what you should be doing for The Silent Generation, The Boomers, GenX or Centennials .... my god no wonder the country is in trouble!

Read The Article - If You Must.

Trump's Gold

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 05:11:49 +1200

We read a lot about Trump and Gold. Turns out he even models himself on The Golden Ratio. Ok, not really, it is actually the Fibonacci Spiral - but close enough for some - particularly Trump who is even looser with facts.

It makes for a fascinating listen.

What's The Difference Between 'Magic' and 'Faith'

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 09:24:40 +1200

To date, Magic Leap has raised nearly $1.4 billion in venture capital, including $794 million this past February, reportedly the largest C round in history.

$1.4 Billion investment.

You probably have heard of Unicorns - that is when the valuation hits $1Bn. It looks like Magic Leap decided to up the ante !

A 'Leap of Faith' for 'Magic Leap' - or does someone know something?

Read All About It. Or just watch ... more interesting stuff on their own site.

Truth In Humour

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 07:33:14 +1200

Via Loopinsight

Prescient ?

Mon, 07 Nov 2016 08:37:48 +1200

Two Tribes

This Is America

Mon, 07 Nov 2016 08:14:26 +1200

One comment I did not reflect in my conversation with a couple of Republicans the other night was my final pitch before I left. It went something like this .....

"With the leadership position that the US holds in the world, the most worrying thing that I can think of if Trump wins this coming Tuesday is what the rest of the world thinks. The US has already suffered a massive down turn in the respect that the international community holds. Regardless of who wins, we have a massive job on our hands to get back just to the status quo. If Mr. Trump wins, my guess is that will never happen."

The response ? Verbatim?

"We don't give a fuck what the rest of the world thinks. This is America."

Alrighty then .... remember this from two ex journalists, and thus I assume relatively intelligent.

That said ... if you are at all interested in what the rest of the world is thinking - try this on for size.

Jacob Weisberg talks to the Financial Times Chief Economics Commentator Martin Wolf about the economic future of America under a Trump presidency and its global consequences.

More about Martin Wolf here.

Meanwhile ... reminded of this excellent piece of music from David and Pat.

And They Say We Don't Need Government ...

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 12:42:55 +1200

Today New Zealand's Telecommunications Industry officially announced today that "For safety reasons the New Zealand Telecommunications industry, in coordination with Samsung, is blacklisting any Samsung Note 7 mobile phones still held by customers, from 18 November.

This means that Samsung Note 7's will not be able to be used across any of New Zealand's mobile networks, after 18 November.

9 Non-Threatening Leadership Strategies for Women

Shared Experiences

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 08:10:37 +1200

I went to see Steven Wilson play last night. Post to come - but during the evening found myself in two very different conversations. Both with 'two old white guys'.

One just before the concert.

The other in the break. This was the happier conversation.

One guy was saying he was heading down to LA to see Steven Wilson the following day. And that will be the 25th time he had seen him. Maybe my ten or so times aren't as crazy after all ?

He commented that the smallest venue he had ever seen him play was in Wisconsin - in a Bar - couldn't have been more than two hundred people there. Impressive. I raised him an Ace.

Smallest concert I had ever seen him give was in a Record Store in Camden Town, maybe 80 or 90 of us.

Proof :

I saw him play Radio City said my new friend. I saw him play Albert Hall I replied. Nod of mutual respect to each other.

And then he commented that he had tickets for when Wilson was in town last year and at the last minute had to give them away due to a family funeral.

My other new friend .. ‘Me too’. Turns out that he had tickets and fell ill, just couldn’t get down to San Francisco.

Me too. Had the tickets for months - and when Steven was in San Francisco - well - I was in London.

Shared experiences - across time.

Mad King Ludwig

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 06:45:09 +1200

I wish there were more reviews and such positivity in the world ... what a great review. Who's he talking about? well here are some links to his blog featuring Mad King Ludwig from the event he attended.

Watch This.

and now

This.

Full disclosure, Mad King Ludwig is the son of a friend of mine. My only advice get some better sound production into the public domain.

People Matter

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 05:23:25 +1200

.. it was a movie. It was true. Keep it in mind when you think. When you vote. When you live.

Getting On The Inside Track

Sat, 05 Nov 2016 06:57:05 +1200

So this post is much more of a test than ever before - having just read this post and watched the embedded video.

In it Dave talks about two different ways of adding images to posts on 1999.io It is the Metadata one that caught my eye - so I am going to try it out. And let's just see.

That said - he didn't mention what I consider to be the third way of adding an image - which is 'embed HTML - which allows me to have an image in the actual body copy of the post. But I know how to do that.

Beyond that - what was interesting is that I didn't really learn anything much more about how to add images to 1999.io except it appeared that a function that I thought wasn't available to 1999 users outside of Dave is now available. BUT - I am a big user of Preview and Google Image Search - and in there were some very interesting little tips and hints that I never knew. Thankyou Dave.

Anyway, onwards.

Later - The image in the header is still a Dave only function.

Gates and Windows not needed in an Open World

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 17:15:44 +1200

Tickled my funny bone:

Bill Gates: â€œSo, howâ€™s heaven, Steve?â€
Steve Jobs: â€œGreat ! It doesnâ€™t have any walls or fences.â€
Bill Gates: â€œSoâ€¦?â€
Steve Jobs: â€œSo, we donâ€™t need any Windows and Gates.
Bill Gates: â€œHeh Steve, I heard a rumor.â€
Steve Jobs: â€œWhat rumor?â€
Bill Gates: â€œThat nobody is allowed to touch Apples there - and there are no Jobs in heaven.â€
Steve Jobs : â€œOh no, there definitely are ... but only 'no-pay Jobs'. But that means no Bills in heaven - since everything is free!

Found On LinkedIN.

Seriously Funny

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 11:58:13 +1200

Sarah Cooper - two back-to-back pieces well worth a read. If it wasn't so true - it would be really funny.

Honest Diversity in Tech Report

Understanding Great Britain, The UK and England

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 11:49:32 +1200

Nice guide to understanding the UK - in case you get confused by this one.

Two Highlights

English â€“ 1] The language spoken by the British (but as in Scotland and Wales, not the only language). 2] The people who live in England. Someone from Scotland is not English. Someone from Wales is not English. Only someone from England is English.

Blighty â€“ An older term for â€˜Britainâ€™ that evokes misty-eyed golden images of Britain. â€˜Dear Old Blighty.â€™ Originated in India.

Belief - Against All Facts

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 11:43:01 +1200

Surprisingly, nearly two-thirds of subscribers believe the autonomous car revolution will take place outside the U.S., according to the latest subscriber survey.

I am more surprised that one third of subscribers believe that the autonomous car revolution will take place inside the USA. Let's file this away in the 'American Exceptionalism' folder and the unfailing ability of so many people to believe we are number one despite al facts the contrary.

I Liked Dave Winer's post 'this' morning (actually April 22nd).

Seth Meyers on Choice

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 11:11:48 +1200

"Do you pick someone who's under federal investigation for using a private email server?"

â€ Do you pick someone who called Mexicans rapists, claimed the president was born in Kenya, proposed banning an entire religion from entering the US, mocked a disabled reporter, said John McCain wasnâ€™t a war hero because he was captured, attacked the parents of a fallen soldier, bragged about committing sexual assault, was accused by 12 women of committing sexual assault, said some of those women werenâ€™t attractive for him to sexually assault, said more countries should get nukes, said that he would force the military to commit war crimes, said a judge was biased because his parents were Mexicans, said women should be punished for having abortions, incited violence at his rallies, called global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, called for his opponent to be jailed, declared bankruptcy six times, bragged about not paying income taxes, stiffed his contractors and employees, lost a billion dollars in one year, scammed customers at his fake university, bought a six-foot-tall painting of himself with money from his fake foundation, has a trial for fraud coming up in November, insulted an opponent's looks, insulted an opponentâ€™s wifeâ€™s looks, and bragged about grabbing women by the pussy?â€

The True Meaning Of Words

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 10:16:01 +1200

Remembering a lot today ...

'Prince' David

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 09:09:30 +1200

For today's Musical delectation ...

My 1999 Story

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 07:47:08 +1200

REPOST

First thing to point out ... I definitely am not a techy - but love what Dave Winer keeps on pushing with his work around the open web. That is why I signed on here and am loving what I am seeing.

I installed 1999 yesterday without a hitch. I have hit a couple of issues of Java exceptions that I have not reported - since I can't really get a repeatable case. The 'switch it off - switch it on' again solution has worked every time.

I love the live updating. Simple to use. As Mr Jobs used to say "It just works".

Seperately I am compiling a short list of nice to haves that I will post at sometime in the future - not yet though, I am still playing.

I hit a bug with RSS which I posted into Github - and Dave reponded VERY quickly - which in turn made me read the documentation. Sorry Dave. The documentation included this post. Duly read. Duly absorbed.

I think there is similar behavior with how 1999 works as with DayONE, of which I am a long time user. DayONE's recent changes cut off my ability to share from my personal journal into the big wide world. I wonder if there is synergy between them and this. Don't know.

Depite getting RSS recognized by IFTTT - thanks to reading Dave's documentation, I still haven't got the recipe working - it says it is working - but nothing is posting into the stream. Still thinking.

I also notice that I am not getting live updating on my blog of these posts. I have added the RSS widget on the menu bar to the left - and it has picked up the first few posts - but nothing since. If anyone is interested, it is running here on Beyond Bridges scroll all the way down to the bottom left headed 1999 Feed. None of this reported, since it still may be me - who knows. However, I did note that when I checked the feed at The W3C Feed Validation Service - it recognizes a valid feed - but at the same time lists a number of areas that it calls out under an initial statement

"This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations."

All that said ... I am loving this - very happy bunny.

Thankyou Dave.

Originally posted on April 22nd, 2016 with my 'first thoughts' on 1999.

Auspicious Beginnings

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 07:33:48 +1200

REPOST

... as I wrote yesterday, auspicious that the day his project 1999 widens out for testing with a larger group was on the very day that Prince passed.

Prince Rocks Out

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 07:28:37 +1200

REPOST

Originally posted on April 22nd, 2016.

Follow Your Dreams

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 07:28:32 +1200

It's 1999 All Over Again ... Again.

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 06:25:53 +1200

This blog / river / though stream is written using a system developed by Dave Winer called 1999. It references back to the halcyon days of 1999 - when life was easier.

When Dave opened up his product to a more public collective, I joined and haven't looked back - learning more about coding than I ever thought I would. But it has been fun.

My day of joining the fold was auspicious - as it turned out, the same day that Prince (of 1999 fame) passed into history at 57.

There's Something's Extraordinary Happening ...

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 05:49:02 +1200

Superb Article from Gustavo Tanaka, a Brazilian author and entrepreneur.

The article was published nearly a year ago, so you may have already seen it. But always good to be reminded. Right?

If any one of these headlines makes you pause for a couple of seconds then click through and read the article.

1- No one can stand the employment model any longer
2- The entrepreneurship model is also changing
3- The rise of collaboration
4- We are finally figuring out what the internet is
5- The fall of exaggerated consumerism
6- Healthy and organic eating
7â€Š-â€ŠThe awakening of spirituality
8â€Š-â€ŠUnschooling trends

Want to Live? Start Bidding.

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 05:22:47 +1200

FutureWorld is a boutique consulting group that help companies visualize and try to understand where the world is heading. They also have a weekly newsletter that takes a piece of news from the previous week and extrapolate into the future.

You might have caught the Otto story recently. An autonomous truck delivering beer.

Great Future Read ... and is this a possible future?

This is how it works. Sensing an unavoidable collision (moose on the highway), the autonomous beer truck polls other affected parties (approaching Uber, pedestrian on sidewalk, overtaking vehicle). They immediately bid to be kept out of the mess. The beer truck then accepts the highest bid, and manoeuvres to limit damage to the winner.

There Is No Technology Industry

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 06:56:10 +1200

Great Article from Anil Dash that popped into my feeds today (even though it seems to have been published back in August). It hits on a number of themes that have been running through my head for a while.

I am not as erudite as Anil - but I have long felt that companies need to forget the role of CIO/CTO et al - since their business is by definition - tech. And I don't care who you are - it is. And if it isn't - it should be.

It all started years ago, as I realized that a 'tech at the table' allows others 'at the table' to believe that they do not need to understand the emerging technology landscape. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Example

Back in the 80s, I was always stunned by how little understanding of Marketing, Business and Tech people had in the 'MarCom' teams of various organizations. 'We do graphics and design.' 'We write.'

Thankfully those days are behind us. Sadly, the virus has spread into all kinds of people inside of organizations. Time to wake up.

Three choice quotes to wet your appetite - but why not just go read the article.

Similarly, it's easiest to understand Uber as a machine for converting publicly-planned metropolitan transportation networks into privately-controlled automated dispatch systems; the fact that an app is used to achieve that transition is almost incidental to the overarching goal of owning a market.

and

When we see a company like Theranos unravel from being a widely-lauded medical technology pioneer to being investigated in a criminal probe for misrepresenting its products, one of the reasons the scam could be perpetuated for so long was because the company, its founder and its investors all shielded themselves under the cultural cover of being a glamorous member of the 'tech industry' rather than a prosaic medical supplier.

and

... why does it matter what we call the industry overall? The reason is simple: A reductive name for the industry masks an enormous set of social challenges that we need to tackle quickly.

Silicon Delta

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 21:12:50 +1200

... just a name I am thinking about. There is a lot going on up there.

1999 - Documenting Some CSS Issues

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 12:58:16 +1200

Important this post was written in and an on a for 1999 .... now the post is here - it is probably irrelevant.

Making some notes to myself about 1999 experiences.

CSS

I am slowly restyling the site - but stuck on why I can't seem to alter the size of the body copy on a story page like this - without also affecting the size of the body copy on the river. In other words - I am happy with the size of the text on the river - but want to take down the size of the copy on the story page. How do I do that?

And CRACKED ... One down - a few more to go

Home Page

Really want to add some welcome text and a Google search ... thinking.

Text Alignment

I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on alignment.

The river on the home page works just fine, fine size as I want it - centered, balanced, aligned - EXCEPT where is that grey line coming from? I want to remove it - tried every possible variation that I can find ... donuts.

Fixed - good friend Tony and all round whizz took about a nano second to tell me that ...

The offending css class is: .divBlogPostList (line 162 of ‘styles.css’ ) and the offending css rule attached to the class is: s is border: 1px solid gainsboro;
Simply remove the offending rule or change it to: border: 0 solid gainsboro;

Only thing left is when you click through to a story - why is there a large gap on the right hand side - why is the post not balanced like on the main river?

Managed to move it over - now there is a gutter on the left. Not right - but it looks better.

LAAS - Language As A Service

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 04:45:46 +1200

I don't get it - I sent in my $39 - and I still can't speak German. The iMore headline specifically reads :

Digital Offers: Learn a new language for just $39!

Turns out that the devil is in the detail. I also have to spend time!

We all live in the attention economy. And part of that is that as the price of 'stuff' continues to tumble, mainly because the supply/demand curves continue to give us more and more for less and less, it turns out that the time we have to devote to stuff is just the same.

Consider that the average life span of a US resident in 2012 was slightly under 79 years. That is roughly 690 thousand hours. Total. Tops. You get to choose how you spend that time.

Some of it will be spent doing work, then you have eating, sleeping, working out, socializing ... stands to reason that your 'disposable time' is something a lot less.

Now, how do you value your time? Starbucks values their Barista's at $11 an hour.

There are lawyers who charge their clients thousands an hour.

We also know that to learn Spanish has a minimum commitment of 134 hours (since that is the number of hours of lesson time this fine product comes with.) Of course - it could be more. But let's go with 134.

So, for a lawyer to learn Spanish there is a minimum lost opportunity cost of $147,400 - but as a Barista it's only $1474.

I think there is a big opportunity for Barista's to learn a foreign language. It's a low base price and the lost opportunity cost of time commitment is negligible - and with the language learnt, more horizon's open. A lawyer ? Not so much. They will probably take a 'language as a service' approach - something that we used to call a Translator.

I wonder how many ex Starbuck's baristas are now translators?

Read All About It.

Marketing Attribution

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 04:37:58 +1200

Excellent read if you at all care about the F**D up world of Marketing....

Gartnerâ€™s recent Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing and Advertising (2016) saw attribution sliding down the Peak of Inflated Expectations deeper into the Trough of Disillusionment. According to Gartner, reasons for the descent range from unrealistic expectations to vendor hype. In contrast, old-fashioned, aggregate data-based marketing mix modeling was considered to remain in the Plateau of Productivity.

Read All About It and get a better look at the cartoon that explains why this failed thinking continues despite all logic.

Avoid Solving The Wrong Problem Really Well

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 04:20:52 +1200

Apple didnâ€™t launch a crappy product, they launched devices which still are the best option on the market. Which still have top notch industrial design. Which still have the best operating system. Which still have the best third party apps on any desktop platform. Which are still the best option for most people in the world. And frankly, if you canâ€™t see that, then you need to go buy a non-Mac laptop and see for yourself how bad it truly is.

Ben Brooks. Drops Mic. Walks Off.

Level The Playing Field

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 04:16:13 +1200

Ian Duncam Smith's single point - The British Government needs to level the playing field when it comes to Uber and The Black Cabs.

In my view about this is that it is an unfair market. I've talked to a lot of black cab drivers. They are under huge restrictions, they have to have as special kind of car, they have to have a special space, they have to have disability ramps, they have to be above board, they have to pay all their tax.

I think for the most part they are pretty brilliant. The reality is that it is not a fair market , because the Uber lot don't do any of that.

Said it before - and I will say it again .... solving first world problems in San Francisco does not a Global business make.

Click through to watch the video.

Who 'Owns' Customer Experience?

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 07:19:41 +1200

Great Article From Brian Solis.

Turns out that the problem companies have with 'Customer Experience' is silos ... again !

Each group inadvertently contributes to a disconnected approach to CX because theyâ€™re attempting to solve one part of the customerâ€™s journey and experience from their silo. Yet, customers donâ€™t see departments, they see one brand.

and guess what ... it is

the customer who owns the customer experience.

and on this ...

Thereâ€™s an Uber of everything on the horizon of every business and digital transformation is the best defense and offense to compete in a digital economy.

... I totally agree. That's why I bang on about platforms all the time.

BTW - this article also resonated, because of the similarities to the question of who owns Customer Data? Answer ... the same person who owns the Customer Experience. Why? Because I Am My Own System Of Record.

Mesmerized

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 06:56:16 +1200

If the soundtrack is not Tangerine Dream - whoever it was must have been inspired by them.

via Kottke

Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 06:23:21 +1200

I've commented on Mr. Scoble before. And I am going to do it again. This just in.

In it Robert talks about 'Mixed Reality'. Say what?

Ok - I am guilty of trying to mess around with the terms we use ... like here for example. BUT ... it was a suggestion.

Mixed realty is a thing, the question is whether the 'person in the street' is going to get it? I am not so sure.

Can you explain the difference? OK - now read the article. Can you now?

I think the differentiation is subtle. Not only that, but the cynic in me says that we will start using 'mixed' because nobody understands the word 'augmented'.

I also happen to think that Augmented Reality will have a much wider use and acceptance than Virtual or Mixed Reality, both initially - and for some time to come.

'We The People' Are Rising In Maui

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 05:54:22 +1200

Maui and GMO - The Tide Just Might Be Turning

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 05:46:53 +1200

You might not know this ... but

The islands of Hawaii are the worldâ€™s epicenter for GMO testing. According to the Center for Food Safety, â€œIn 2014 alone, 178 different GE field tests were conducted on over 1,381 sites in Hawaiâ€™i (vs. only 175 sites in California). Herbicide-resistance was the most frequently tested trait in GE crop field tests.â€ This means that this ancient farmland is regularly sprayed by massive quantities of dozens of types of pesticides (sometimes in combinations never before tried) on experimental GMO seeds to see what survive

With the closing of the Maui sugar mill this year, I am personally worried about now that new found land is going to be utilized. Particularly knowing this ....

In 2014, the Maui County government refused to implement a new lawâ€”the GMO Moratorium ballot initiativeâ€”passed to regulate GMO and pesticide test farms in Maui. Instead, the Maui County attorney working alongside agrochemical industry lawyers, was authorized to strike a deal that invalidated the public health-focused GMO Moratorium. A deal that then was converted into a â€œorderâ€ from a Federal Judge - giving everyone involved politically the desired result, as well as needed political cover.

Thankfully we have people like Alika Atay ...

Candidates like Alika Atay, the barrel chested, thunderous-voiced leader of Hawaiiâ€™s emerging Aina Protectors United movement, an organic farmer and an outspoken Native Hawaiian, are fighting back.

... and even more here.

Tuning The Self

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 05:04:22 +1200

Building on the happiness monk - watch the video here,

I just discovered this link ...

Happiness is when your life fulfills your needs

But it was this that caught my eye.

Lovely analogy

I like to think of each of us like one of those big recording studio mixer boards, the ones with all the sliding controls and knobs, some of which interact with each other, some working separately, all working together to produce the final product. Weâ€™re like that. Each knob and slide may be set a particular way, the way that produces the person we are. Each of us is like the same model of mixer board, letâ€™s call it Homo Sapiens 1. We each have the same knobs and sliders but we each have them set a bit differently.

The Platform Revolution

Sat, 29 Oct 2016 04:42:33 +1200

If you know me, you know I ramble on about Platforms. They are very specific things. I love the writing and work of Sangeet Paul Choudary.

He Highlights ..

scalable gatekeeping
spare capacity
aggregating highly fragmented markets
transparency to help buyers and sellers understand each other better
creating intelligence for increased efficiency

... as the 5 key aspects that are unique to platforms - and IMHO - why they will win.

A Blank Reminder

Wed, 26 Oct 2016 04:56:45 +1200

I attended VRM day yesterday down at The Computer History Museum. More of that to come. But one of my new friends mentioned an ‘alternative’ guide to Silicon Valley.

It really is rather good and I particularly liked the line;

Silicon Valley is more of a state of mind than a physical location.

Of course, I knew of Mr. Blank - and so, spent a little time wandering around his site and re-discovered;

The Customer Development Manifesto

There Are No Facts Inside Your Building, So Get Outside
Pair Customer Development with Agile Development
Failure is an Integral Part of the Search for the Business Model
If You’re Afraid to Fail, Your’e Destined to Do So
Iterations and Pivots are Driven by Insight
Validate Your Hypotheses with Experiments
Success Begins with Buy-In from Investors and Co-Founders
No Business Plan Survives First Contact with Customers
Not All Startups Are Alike
Startup Metrics are Different from Existing Companies
Agree on Market Type. It Changes Everything
Fast, Fearless Decision-Making, Cycle Time, Speed and Tempo
If it’s not About Passion, You’re Dead the Day You Opened your Doors
Startup Titles and Functions Are Very Different from a Company’s
Preserve Cash While Searching. After It’s Found, Spend
Communicate and Share Learning Startups Demand Comfort with Chaos and Uncertainty

Who am I to find fault with the summary. Why would I ? So, capturing for posterity.

Footnote:

(My friends business)

I clicked on that link on 25th October, 2018 …and sadly, gone, as of October 7th 2018. Time to investigate.

It's True .. Macs cost a LOT less than PCs

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 05:05:44 +1200

I have never understood why Apple hasn't really used the RoI story to sell its Macs. I have long held that although the initial Apple purchase is high - when you examine what comes with it - and how little support you need - and if it does - Apple will just help you .... it is an absolute no brainer.

IBM found that not only do PCs drive twice the amount of support calls, theyâ€™re also three times more expensive.

Tomorrow (Monday) - I get to hang with The Doc and 100 of his 'closest friends' at The Computer History Museum - a twice yearly 'VRM Day' - that he hosts in preparation of IIW.

Me - apparently I bought my first Mac 15 years ago. I know that because that was when Apple launched the iPod - which only worked with the Mac. I am such a music nut - I wanted the iPod - and bought the Mac to make it work. Within two years I had left Windows completely behind at a personal level. One year after that, my business side also moved on.

In the corporate environment, if they insist I use a PC - I donâ€™t work for them. It isn't just pendanticism (is that a real word), it is because that attitude reflects a deeper problem in the culture of the company.

I wrote about it here ... although I don't call out the Mac / PC issue specifically.

World's Colliding

Sun, 23 Oct 2016 18:34:31 +1200

If you track my stuff you will know that there are a couple of consistent threads that run through my writing.

1] VRM - an initiative that emerged throughs the work of Doc Searls. VRM is an acronym for 'Vendor Relationship Management' - basically the flip side of CRM. It wonders how do 'we the people' manage our relationships with vendors? It all ties into my own thoughts of being 'My own System of Record' - that you might have heard me expound on.

2] The Impact of Technology on Publishing - that I wrote about here, amongst many other places.

Dave Wrote This Today.

Doc Wrote This Today ( in a discussion group that I belong to )

Dave just posted this. Interesting angle. Or angles. For those who donâ€™t know, Dave is the father or co-father of outlining, presentation software, blogging, RSS, podcasting and much more. BTW, my original blog was on Daveâ€™s first blogging platform. And my latest blog is on his newest one.

The world is highly connected.

Creative, Engaging and Message Delivered

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:51:02 +1200

30 Days. 30 Songs.

â€œA playlist of songs that Donald Trump will hate.â€

'The Washington Post'

This one is number 13 - it is called 'little failure' - which is interesting - because 'Trumpette' probably would see that as a bigger insult than 'big failure'.

One per day coming out up until the election. If you like Moby, REM, Aimee Mann, Death Cab for Cutie - I think you might enjoy.

I mean - really enjoy!!

Welcome To The Machine

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:47:03 +1200

Music to blow your mind too.

One guy. One guitar and a little bit of looping.

What Is Innovation?

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 10:28:26 +1200

I often find myself reading that Apple has lost its ability to innovate. Most recently demonstrated by the fact that because the iPhone 7 looks like the iPhone 6 and 6S - then no innovation has occurred under the hood. This I lay firmly at the feet of analysts, writers and pundits who clearly have little understanding of what

innovation
technology or
design

actually is.

John Gruber has long commented on Porscheâ€™s 70 year old iconic design as basically the same as it always has been, yet nobody would ever accuse Porsche of lacking innovation. This post just last month being a clear indication of his thinking.

Delighted therefor to see Om Malik weighing in today in The New Yorker.

â€œIf youâ€™re a fan of reading the Apple tea leaves to see what itâ€™s going to do next, and in turn how it will influence the industry, then the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are the most interesting iPhones ever.â€ Appleâ€™s iPhone 7 devices are truly computing monstersâ€”the iPhone 7 is said to outpace some Macs, not to mention other phones. Its core processor is forty per cent faster than its predecessor and a hundred and twenty times faster than the original iPhone. The iPhone 7 internals are able to do complex and intensive computing tasks right on the device, instead of trying to send them to the cloud for heavy lifting."

Read all about it.

Oh - and while I am about it - Brian Solis on Iteration versus Innovation. Nice.

Marketing Success ...

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 16:45:51 +1200

.. the original post was called 6 Steps to Marketing Automation Success.

I don’t agree. They are 6 steps to business success.

1) Nurturing customer relationships - important to any business
2) Automation becoming a necessity - if you want a large numbers of customers
3) Not such an expensive solution - of course it isn’t - shop around
4) Targeted messages and personalisation - duh
5) Increased open rates and click-through rates - be careful what you measure
6) Visible analytics and clear performance metrics - measure what is important

Unemployment Visualized

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:12:00 +1200

Further to this post, while my mind is in that frame I came across a post from the inimitable Nathan Yau - over at Flowing Data. He does great work.

Beyond the point I made in the prior post, there is something else. Data - despite what you might think when you look at the paucity of data that is getting shared in the current US Presidential race. Data is everywhere. It just needs to be freed,

Data mind you. Data ... not Opinion.

Nathan takes data a step further and often provides a way that emotionally connects with the view - essentially allowing those two half brains of ours to connect. Take this one ......to share data - you can use a line chart - like the one at the top of the post ...

... or you can engage, embrace, bond with and tap into the viewer directly with a video.

The shockingness of 2008 to 2010 is palpable.

Pence - when asked by an eleven year old about her self image.

Better Information Sharing

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:55:19 +1200

I am in the process of writing an article about Visual Thinking, which is in turn a set up for a wider conversation about how we typically 'think' about presenting information for others to absorb.

For example, have you ever noticed that when you get an excel spreadsheet - the cells are 'bottom of cell' aligned. Drives me nuts.

The sad thing is how little importance is given to how presentations can be better understood by more people through the visual language that gets used, rather than 'this is the way I do it' mentality.

I intend to write more on this - because as an ardent fan of Edward Tufte - I think it is important for better mutual understanding and idea sharing.

For a reference of some of the peeve's that I have - look no further than here ...

But there will be more to come. Soon. Here.

By the way - if you can't read the information on that image at the top of the post, it is taken from a Tufte poster - you can see it - and others - better here.

Hitler Finds Out Trump Supports Amnesty

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:15:21 +1200

I knew there had be one.

Answer The Question ... Just Answer The Question !

Sat, 15 Oct 2016 07:50:50 +1200

Well I would say to any one of my kids and any children in this country that Donald Trump and I are committed to a safer and more prosperous future for their family. The weak and feckless foreign policy that Hillary Clinton promises to continue has literally caused wider areas of the world to spin apart.

and then ...

The rise of terrorist threats that have inspired violence here at home, and weâ€™ve seen an erosion of law and order in our streets. And weâ€™ve seen opportunities and jobs evaporate and even leave Ohio and leave this country. I would say to any of our kids that if Donald Trump and I have the chance to serve in the White House that we're going to work everyday for a stronger, safer and more prosperous America.

and then more .....

Really?

Truth

Sat, 15 Oct 2016 04:30:07 +1200

Would love to read/see/hear how anyone can argue against this.

Thankyou Daniel.

How Quick We Forget

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 04:39:59 +1200

Back in the day, because I knew a little bit more about technology than other family members, I was the defacto 'go to' dude for technical support. You all know what I mean. Interestingly, more often than not, a fix could be achieved by the simple 'switch it all off - switch it all on again' 'command'.

At a similar time, I remember a friend getting out of her corporate marketing role, to follow her dream of becoming an artist. A couple of years later, I asked how it was all going. Oh great she answered - loving every minute of it. I just wish I could sell more.

I offered to help and asked for a copy of her marketing and sales plan.

'Oh, I don't have one' she replied.' Give me a few days, I will send it to you.'

This is someone who had spent her life working in large corporations, developing and implementing marketing plans for a living. That was the reason she was paid 'the big bucks'. But when it came to her own business, despite everything she knew. she hadn't done it - and couldn't work out why sales were so poor.

So, back to that technical support question. For the past two days, this service that I am writing on has been down. I submitted tickets to the provider. I asked for help in a community and nothing - until Andy Sylvester responded with

When I see problems like this, one thing I do is to reboot the server.

Of course! The simple 'switch it all off - switch it all on again' 'command'. How quickly we forget even the simplest of things. Thank-you Andy. And I think I know understand a little better what happened to my friend the artist!

Dave Pell On Singular Form Today

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 08:21:19 +1200

Just some of the one liners from him today ....

Right from the outset, there was bad news for Trump: His mic worked.

Looking for a glimmer of hope? TV ratings for this debate were down 20%. (Apparently a lot of people weren't able to replace the TVs they shot during the first debate.)

The long-predicted Trump pivot finally arrived. He went nuclear.

A while back, I posted this.

Self Protection

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 06:00:45 +1200

Blaming ad blocking and tracking protection on the companies providing them is like blaming pharmaceuticals for treating diseases. People use ad blockers and tracking protection for the same reason they use umbrellas and sunblock: to protect themselves from something they don't want.

via Doc Searls

Great article from Doc - and I agree with him - BUT - I still think we need to be careful about our terms. 'Ad blocker' has become a universal term that IMHO favors the Ad Tech industry. Their defense is that they need to advertise - why should be block them.

We should call them what they really are. Tracker Blockers.

I donâ€™t mind ads being served to me - if that helps pay the bills for my free content. What I object to is those ads tracking me - storing my data and my movements around the web and selling that info on. Which is why they are putting those trackers in.

To prove my point - here is an ad for MailButler

MailButler is great. If you use Apple Mail, you should really take a closer look. It's free to try out - click here to see what I mean.

Please note - this ^^^ is an ad. Simple though it is, an ad it is. Promoting Mailbutler. No 'ad blocker' is going to block this ad -because 'ad blockers are 'tracker blockers' - and there is no tracking in this ad.

Fingers Crossed

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:50:38 +1200

Via Paris Lemon

The Second Debate

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:15:17 +1200

Funny. Here is a short extract.

Clinton: I want to do all kinds of things. I want to do good things. Thereâ€™s nothing we can't do together, you and me Patrice. I want to work with people of all ethnicities. I want to heal the country. Make it a better place. For you and for me and the entire human race. And our children. And grandchildren.

and then

Trump: This countryâ€™s going to shit. Healthcare costs are going up. We made Iran great again. We get killed on tradeâ€”an $800 billion deficit last year. Weâ€™re gonna make great trade deals. Weâ€™re gonna bring back law and order. Did you hear about those policemen that were shot today? We need justice. I want to fix the blacks in the cities. I want to fix the Latinos, Hispanics, etc. I want to make them great again. Make America great again.

Read the whole thing here.

Come Together

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 04:36:38 +1200

… no not that one. This one.

I first heard it nearly twenty years ago, bought the album and it has remained one of my ‘go to’ pieces in the music library ever since. Powerful. Forceful. Driving.

Delighted therefore to read the following in Spin.

.. to celebrate (the 20th anniversary), the English space-rock greats announced that they will play the album in its entirety at a show on November 7. To encapsulate the expansiveness of the album, the band will perform at Barbican Hall in London and be accompanied by a gospel choir and 15-piece orchestra made up of percussion, brass, and strings.

Read All About It.

If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.

Palm Springs Invaded By Old English Dudes

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 02:58:04 +1200

... including Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards. Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey and of course Canadian Neil Young.

America's only defense was Bob Dylan.

I think Ronnie Wood at 69 is the only one under 70.

Welcome to the Palm Springs retirement home for genteel musicians

... Mick Jagger

Read All About It. (There are some great photos)

BTW - a couple of days after I published this post - Dylan got the Nobel.

#JustSayin

Shameful

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 02:48:39 +1200

Written about this before - writing about it again.

The most common strategy among Trump-supporting Republicans, at least so far, is to denounce Trumpâ€™s comments without rescinding support.

That list includes …

Ted Cruz of Texas
Roy Blunt of Missouri
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
John McCain of Arizona
David Perdue of Georgia
Rob Portman of Ohio
Marco Rubio of Florida
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
Kevin McCarthy of California
Steve Scalise of Louisiana
Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington

Oh - and of course ‘Turtle’ McConnell

I Want To Punch Him In The Face

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 04:10:50 +1200

More recently, the Guardian had this ....

Actor and director Robert de Niro gives his take on the US presidential election, and on Republican nominee Donald Trump in particular, as part of a campaign urging people to vote in the 8 November poll. De Niro is one of a number of celebrities who took part in the #VoteYourFuture initiative but his scathing contribution was considered to be too partisan to be included in the final campaign, and was instead released separately by the producers on Friday

In case you were wondering - I am with Robert.

Thinker

Sun, 09 Oct 2016 05:38:51 +1200

Which Is Worse?

Sun, 09 Oct 2016 04:37:14 +1200

These people are so far on the wrong side of history â€¦

Ryan, the top-ranking Republican in Washington, said he was â€œsickenedâ€ by the recording and that Trump would no longer appear at what would have been their first campaign event together in Ryanâ€™s home state of Wisconsin on Saturday. Trump confirmed that his running mate, the Indiana governor, Mike Pence, would take his place at the Republican county festival.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said Trumpâ€™s remarks were â€œunacceptable in any circumstanceâ€.

But neither of the Republican leaders withdrew their endorsements of Trump.

â€¦ Read All About It.

Saturday

Sun, 09 Oct 2016 04:16:45 +1200

It's a beautiful morning. Just thought I would share.

Reunion

Sat, 08 Oct 2016 10:13:00 +1200

Every year, UEA - my alma mater - has a global reunion. I attended my first one last week. I cannot believe that there were so many people that attended my University in the sleepy town of Norwich, East Anglia (that's in England folks) .... that now live in the Bay Area !

White Privilege

Sat, 08 Oct 2016 04:54:09 +1200

If you have an aversion to hearing Cruz's voice - and I do understand - then scroll through to the start of minute 2.

Trevor Noah absolutely nails it.

Watch It All Here.

Fair and Balanced

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:16:18 +1200

Just 7 LINKS to share today.

To save you the click through - they are all about a Samsung 7 bursting into flames. Old news you might think. Actually - no. These links all point to today's story of how this one is one of the replacement phones that were exchanged for a faulty one!

You cannot make this stuff up - and I will say it again - IF THIS WAS APPLE - the mainstream media wouldn't have time to cover the election, because there would be so much coverage about Apple's problems.

Seems We Do Employ People To Spy On Us

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:08:30 +1200

A National Security Agency (NSA) contractor has been arrested and charged with stealing highly classified information, U.S. authorities said Wednesday, a data breach that could result in a damaging new leak about the U.S. governmentâ€™s surveillance efforts.
The contractor worked for Booz Allen Hamilton.

.. and no - it wasn't Edward Snowden. Itâ€™s another one that Juan Cole explores in this excellent read.

All I am wondering is how long it will be before BAH is sued, charged, anything over placing spies into the Government.

If not that - then maybe at least stopping them from working with the Government?

#JustAsking

Maurice's Spin Off.

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 09:03:11 +1200

Today's musical offering.

Is It Time To Stand Up Yet?

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 08:58:34 +1200

From Bertrand Russell to Oswald Mosley

It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to oneâ€™s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.

The whole letter - with the context can be read over on Maria Popova's excellent site 'Brain Pickings'.

In case you are wondering who Oswald Mosley is ... think Trump, in the 30s, in the UK, but actually elected.

History continue to repeat itself. Oh wait - that's right nobody is actually standing up to Trump!

In Case You Were Thinking Something Different ...

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 08:48:06 +1200

Time is now to spread your voice,
Time's to come there'll be no choice,
Why do you feel small,
It happens to us all.

... as 'writ' by The Moody Blues

... and in case you are wondering just how small, this should put it all into perspective.

To The Crazy Ones

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 12:07:09 +1200

This is too good to not add to the flow, even though I had already posted about this earlier today.

You can buy it here.

Maybe It's Digital - Not Virtual - 'Reality'

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 06:41:49 +1200

Lots of news. Lots of commentary. Lots of noise about Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. And it got me to thinking.

It takes about two seconds to find an article on the internet asking whether we are real. Even postulating that the universe itself might in fact just be a simulation. Like this one for example.

'Virtual Reality', by definition describes a reality that is (nearly) like ours (that is after all the original meaning of the word 'virtual'). How long therefore before 'virtual reality and 'real reality' are essentially indistinguishable? And then what?

I have a feeling that just as the iPhone is actually a misnomer - yes it is a phone - but the name belies the underlying power of the device that so many people carry in their hands. And there are many more historical artifacts such as

Unused 'footage' from a movie, and who hasn't asked for
a 'dial in' number, when seeking to join an online conference call.

Fast forward to the future ... we will have

the reality that we 'know '- that which most people consider to be their physical space
the online reality - an alternative reality that is 'in the computers'
the augmented reality - where the computer's reality is layered on our physical space

It might make more sense to think of it all in terms of

physical reality - a world that we observe without computers
digital reality - a world that we observe with computers
augmented reality - where we layer the digital reality on top of our physical reality

Turning Everything On It's 'Radiohead'

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 04:42:00 +1200

This morning's musical offering for your delectation.

Gentle. Liquid.

Listen.

Conundrums

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 04:19:17 +1200

I need to investigate the connection further ... but just read these words from Shunryu Suzuki

"To stop the mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body. With your full mind you for the mudra in your hands."
" We say our practice should be without gaining ideas, without any expectations, even of enlightenment. This does not mean, however, just to sit without purpose.
This practice free from gaining ideas is based on the Prajna Paramita Sutra. However, if you are not careful the sutra itself will give you a gaining idea.
It says 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form.' But if you attach to that statement, you are liable to be involved in dualistic ideas: here is you, form, and here is emptiness, which you are trying to realize through your form. So 'form is emptiness, and emptiness is form' is still dualistic. But fortunately, our teaching goes to say, 'form is form and emptiness is emptiness.' Here there is no dualism."

When I was a kid, one of the conundrums that a friend used to ask in the playground was "what is the hardest thing you can do with your mind". (Yes we were kids - and yes he was very advanced for his age !!!)

Answer : To NOT think of elephants.

Now I am trying to decide if these two concepts are connected.

FutureSpeak

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:34:44 +1200

It was George Orwell who wrote

â€œThe Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.â€

So consider this - that I TRUST will be extensively reported - we will see.

The GOP website pushed up blog posts declaring its VP candidate, Mike Pence, the "clear winner" of a debate against Democratic candidate Tim Kaine, before the debate actually began.

... but about an hour before the debate had even started !

Engadget likens the error to Apple's pre announcement of the iPhone. I mean everyone needs a little clickbait donâ€™t they? But Apple knew they were going to release an iPhone 7 - they were in full control of the outcome. The GOP did not. They wrote a conclusion about something that they knew nothing about.

So - who do YOU trust?

Yin and Yang - Harmony

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 14:06:31 +1200

Work Life Balance as a concept has always annoyed me - and continues to do so. Balance is not only hard - but it is wrong. Because one small step either way and there is discord.

Brad Feld wrote about Work Life Harmony yesterday. It resonated more for me as it did him.

It occurred to me that life is not (or at least should not) be a see saw or set of scales that somehow measure us - and in turn judge.

Life is surely more yin and yang - where the forces / principles / opposites interact with each other.

Skeleton Tree

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 06:29:15 +1200

Stunning Album. Absolutely Stunning.

He was in the middle of a record that was already eerily connected to the themes of death and falling â€“ when youâ€™re Nick Cave, thatâ€™s probably more likely than when youâ€™re Taylor Swift â€“ and he simply carried on. He kept writing. He wrote his way straight through the aftermath, and not only did he continue making his record, he decided to invite a huge film crew in to capture the entire recording process, a mere six months after his son died.

Why Vote?

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 06:25:02 +1200

Marvelous stuff ... and important.

Off The Grid

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 06:14:24 +1200

This is a great idea - but I would have been more impressed if it was one of Brad's team writing this piece - and not him.

Three years ago my partners and I at Foundry Group decided to experiment with a month off the grid. Each of us goes away for a month and the other three (now four) cover for him. Itâ€™s been remarkably successful for us, both individually and as a partnership.

Why? Because 'at the top' things like this are very easy to do. If you are a coder in an engineering company in one of Brad's investments - I wonder what the reaction would be if they asked for similar benefits.

It is not clear from this article whether this is the only 'vacation' that Brad takes - but I am pretty sure it isn't - based on other posts in his blog.

The Arrogance

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 05:52:29 +1200

Not enough to title the piece "How to Own the Consideration Phase" - this little gem is popped in half way down ... (my bold).

You're doing enough to fill the top of the funnel: It's time to focus on the consideration stage (20:48): "A lot of companies are spending too much money and focusing too much effort at the top of the customer journey for awareness and too much effort and money at the bottom trying to get people to buy again. The reality is that people are caught in this paradox of choice, and they can't actually make a decision. The biggest threat out there really isn't competitors, it's consumers' inability to make a decision.

I am more than capable of making a decision - WHEN I want to - it is not that I am incapable. Oh - and NO corporation OWNS the 'consideration phase'.

I Am My Own System of Record.

And this from a professor of marketing. No wonder we are F****D.

Tributary

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:37:48 +1200

Where it all starts .... is of course the tributary ... but before you even get there, if you donâ€™t know what you are doing .... you need help. This is a BIG doff of hat to (in 'first name' alphabetical order) ..

Andy Sylvester for getting me going and talking me off the cliff - a few times actually.

Dave Winer for providing the software that makes all this happen.

Frank McPherson for providing the deep insights into what I was doing.

Scott Hansen for checking, clarifying, explaining and spotting that I was an idiot and pointing it out nicely.

Estuary

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:34:59 +1200

Current rivers powering my estuary include

Podcasts that have piqued my interest that I am currently tracking.

Music - as I find good new feeds an what is going on in that world 0 I will add it into this tributary

Reading - which are the top feeds that I read each morning to keep up with the world.

I will update them all from time to time as I discover new sources.

And soon I hope to add one for VRM aswell.

Here is my Estuary.

The River Is Launched.

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:23:33 +1200

I am back. There has been a little bit of a break as I have been moving both DNS and service providers around - and during the course of it all - breaking things - a lot !

Today is Monday October 3rd - and though my styling isn't right ... yet - I can once more write and publish on my own server at my own address.

I have launched three sites.

Tributary is one you can't really see - but it is where I write all this content.

... and of course where else does a tributary lead but a River - which if you are on the site and not reading this through RSS - that is where you are now.

Finally - all rivers flow into an Estuary before they find their way into the sea - and of course, in that Estuary you will find some collected rivers. That for now is a WIP - and is likely to continue to change as we go forward.

Sarbanes Oxley - When Does It Apply Again?

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:56:55 +1200

“You should resign”, Senator Elizabeth Warren told Stumpf, who had injured his right hand while playing with his grandchildren. “You should give back the money you took while this scam was going on and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

But of course he won’t. He just ‘didn’t know’. (He being the CEO of Wells Fargo, who have just admitted fraud against millions of customers.)

I wonder why acts like Sarbanes-Oxley can’t be used in cases like these …. after all S-O was introduced so that criminal penalties for certain misconduct could be applied to the board of directors of a public corporation.

Oh wait - of course …. ‘certain misconduct’ - it probably doesn’t refer to fraud against millions of customers - but instead focuses on a few multi-millionaire shareholders that need this kind of protection.

Nobody will even go to jail - because there probably won’t be an investigation. (New Yorker)

Read Even More About It. (Bloomberg)

And finally - The Daily Show’s Take … pretty much mine - with humour .. or humor - whichever floats your boat!

NO Snowing Snowden

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 03:45:15 +1200

I don't intend this site to become home to movie commentaries - so this will likely be the last on this topic. But, I wanted to publish something about Oliver Stone's new 'biopic' as a 'compare and contrast' to Eastwood's Sully. Unlike Sully - I have seen 'Snowden'. Excellent.

Here's a review of the movie from the Intercept - Glen Greenwald's site. I haven't done a fact check on the movie, but I suspect that if it deviated too much from the truth (rubik cube and other film points aside), I think Glen and his team would be all over it.

Meanwhile - it is apparent that the Washington Post has no shame .... publishing this article this weekend. They believe that he should be prosecuted to the full.

They miss two key points ... (well probably more - but lets go with two)

1) They were one of the newspapers who originally published his story - even accepting a Pulitzer for their story. If they feel they way that they suggest in their editorial - why did they do the story to begin with?

2) They want him to come home and face the music ...

Ideally, Mr. Snowden would come home and hash out all of this before a jury of his peers. That would certainly be in the best tradition of civil disobedience, whose practitioners have always been willing to go to jail for their beliefs. He says this is unacceptable because U.S. secrecy-protection statutes specifically prohibit him from claiming his higher purpose and positive impact as a defense â€” which is true, though itâ€™s not clear how the law could allow that without creating a huge loophole for leakers. (Mr. Snowden hurt his own credibility as an avatar of freedom by accepting asylum from Russiaâ€™s VladiÂmir Putin, whoâ€™s not known for pardoning those who blow the whistle on him.)

For the record - so does he - but in an open court with jury - which The American Government has not agreed to. They want it behind closed doors - probably those same un-checked closed doors where it all started.

Oh - and the asylum in Russia thing ... he was on his way to somewhere else - when he landed in Russia - the state department revoked his passport. So the only way he now can travel is back to the US direct to the US authorities. (see above).

Apart from the PR bennies - I suspect that Russia didn't want to turn one of their airports into a real life case of this other Hank's movie.

Getty Sued

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 10:00:35 +1200

This will become a major article on the Beyond Bridges site. Shameful.

Bottom line - donate your lifetime work to the Smithsonian - for people to use with no charge.

How did Carol found out? When Getty sent her a bill for using her own picture.

Sully Sullied

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 09:44:51 +1200

I haven't seen Sully. I donâ€™t' intend to. I like Eastwood Movies ... generally .. but I tend not to like Hanks movies. Normally Eastwood would win me over but when I saw the clips, it looked boring. And there was something else. The film was emphasizing things that happened post crash. Things where the authorities were questioning decisions that Sully took.

As the article says:

With Sully, the film-makers were faced with a problem: how to make a feature-length movie about a six-minute flight?

Answer - focus on the actions after the crash.

â€œUntil I read the script, I didnâ€™t know the investigative board was trying to paint the picture that he had done the wrong thing. They were kind of railroading him,â€ says Eastwood in one promotional trailer.

That's it - neither did I. I was surprised that I hadnâ€™t .. very surprised.

It's not surprising Eastwood (and me .. 'ed') was ignorant of any railroading by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), since itâ€™s a narrative absent from Highest Duty, or anything actually said or written by the NTSB.

And that's the problem. In the future like so many of these fictional accounts of history - they will over take real history and facts will be forgotten. Itâ€™s the substance of future conspiracy theory.

Around the world, the NTSBâ€™s investigations are regarded as setting the gold standard for impartiality, perceptiveness and making recommendations with important safety benefits. The NTSB has saved countless lives. Yet the NTSB has no regulatory ability: to turn its recommendations into practice, the board relies solely on a moral authority founded on its reputation for diligence. The stakes are high â€“ the board currently has a list of 10 critical safety improvements that itâ€™s trying to get implemented, including, for example, positive train control, something that would have spared 243 people last year from a deadly Amtrak derailment.

Sully has smeared this reputation for the sake of a hero who needed no defending. It will create a headwind in the minds of the public and policymakers that the NTSB will be struggling against for years to come.

A sad dysfunctional family.

The Unseen Legacy Of MLK

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 09:41:17 +1200

This is so sad ....

When the African-American history museum opens on September 24th, there will be no major artifacts from the civil rights icon on display.

Dot Dot Dot Dot ... etc

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 08:41:01 +1200

Well that is something I never knew ..... and it has been doing it for 60 years.

Read All About It At Futility Closet.

BTW - before you click through - any idea what I'm talking about? The clue is in the title. It really is the crazy little stuff that you never knew - but then again - why would you?

176 Reasons Why Trump Should Take A Hike

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 08:21:13 +1200

I miss Keith Olbermann. I guess I need to spend more time seeking him out. Still - this video received via David Freer is just great. Olbermann is great with this kind of schtick.

Watch It Here.

Onesto ... If You See Them ... Buy Them

Fri, 16 Sep 2016 13:23:38 +1200

Browser Wars

Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:10:30 +1200

Blackfield 5

Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:10:26 +1200

Ordered ...

Blackfield V sees the duo of Steven Wilson and Aviv Geffen return to full collaborative mode. Written and recorded over a period of 18 months, the album contains 13 linked songs that form a flowing 45 minute ocean themed song cycle.

The duo handle vocals, guitars, and keyboards, alongside guests Tomer Z, Eran Mitelman, and string performances by the London Session Orchestra.

Producer / engineer Alan Parsons works on three of the album's key tracks.

It's Getting Hot

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:55:22 +1200

When you look at it this way -- should we be worried?

HELL YES!

And here is another way of looking at it .....

Pixelated Reality

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:05:50 +1200

Theranos. Again ....

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 09:56:53 +1200

... during an inspection by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month, regulators concluded that Theranos had collected some data supporting the accuracy of the Zika test without implementing a patient-safety protocol approved by an institutional review board, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Really, I know nothing about this world - but I do keep up with the news. A company that is run by a CEO who has been banned for two years from operating labs just weeks later is found out again. Cue - "Where Have All The Flowers Gone".

Maybe she should have stuck with Stanford.

Follow The Money

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 09:43:12 +1200

Move Over Bullit - Wallace and Gromit Are Here

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 07:38:49 +1200

Via Kottke

and I agree - great chase.

But Steve's was nearly 50 years ago.

Fox Adopts The News Of The World Playbook

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 07:20:13 +1200

If you live in the UK you might recall the News International hacking scandal that ultimately brought down The News of the World. Though the editor - Rebecca Wade (now Brooks) - was protected by Murdock and has now reappeared as his CEO of News UK.

... what is News UK? The publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and - if it hadn't been forced to close due to that hacking scandal - The News of the World. So that's alright then.

And so what has all this to do with 2016 in the USA ?

Turns out that Fox News seem to have borrowed some of those dirty tricks ....

New York magazineâ€™s Gabriel Sherman reported on September 2, that Fox News had â€œobtained the phone records of journalists, by legally questionable means,â€ including the home and cell phone records of Media Mattersâ€™ senior reporter Joe Strupp, in an effort to find Struppâ€™s anonymous sources at the network.
Media Matters president Bradley Beychok responded to the egregious allegations and said that the organization is â€œconsidering all legal optionsâ€ available and that â€œanyone involved in the illegal hacking should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.â€

Meanwhile, this post from Dave Winer appeared in my feed.

Rules Of Engagement

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 07:04:15 +1200

I am in the process of writing an article on engagement. You know - that thing we are all meant to do in this wonderful social web of ours. I post an article - you comment on it - we end up in a dialogue etc .... Except it doesn't seem to work like that ... which is why I am writing the article.

It is about what 'nice internet users' do. He has a list of twelve - and I have repeated the four below that fit into my 'engagement' thinking.

- They comment on other people's posts.
- They like other people's posts.
- They share them.
- They read posts before responding to them.

The irony of course is that I couldn't post this post as a comment on Dave's post, because he has comments switched off. Still, I did 'like it' and 'share it' - and 'link back to it' with this post.

EMail me if you can connect the image and content of this post.

And another set of comments on comments. This time from the Washington Post.

The Magic Of Apple

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:11:42 +1200

This is part of the magic of Apple. They tell us the future without telling us their future.

A truly wireless future .... Read All About It

Snowden

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:00:50 +1200

The former Genesis man wrote the song specifically for the upcoming Oliver Stone-directed film Snowden based on the experiences of Edward Snowden, the computer professional who leaked classified information from the USâ€™s National Security Agency in 2013.

â€œSnowdenâ€™s revelations shocked the world and made it very clear why we need to have some way to look over those who look over us. With increasing terrorist attacks, security is critical, but not without any accountability or oversight.â€

Looking forward to the movie - of course - and delighted to see Gabriel part of the music .... but the point of this post is to remind us all of this quote ....

â€œAs we become so visible in the digital world and leave an endless trail of data behind us, exactly who has our data and what they do with it becomes increasingly important.

#VRM

Blackfield 5

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:54:57 +1200

Steven Wilson has confirmed that the fifth Blackfield album will arrive on November 18 via Kscope.

CANNOT .. repeat CANNOT ... wait.

Love The EFF - But This is Bullshit

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:50:37 +1200

Seriously .... while Apple stands up to the EU and the Feds - someone at the EFF thinks they will roll over to the music industry, which is already dead?

We hope that Apple isnâ€™t unwittingly opening the door to new pressures to take advantage of that power.

Interesting that they have already had to update the inaccuracy of the post's facts - so what chance we have on understanding supposition I have no idea.

UPDATE (9/8/16): An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly suggested that no authorized audio devices or connectors that used the Lightning port existed prior to yesterdayâ€™s announcement. It also implied that the only way to achieve lossless sound quality on an iPhone was through a wired connection, which was also incorrect. Weâ€™ve edited the post accordingly.

It's Not Just Trump That Gets To Be Graded On A Curve

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 04:28:41 +1200

If that >>>> was an iPhone ... the media would be alight with outrage and 'doomed' Apple and 'explodeGate' and all the rest of the crap ... but it's Samsung ... barely a word - really - and we have the FAA warning about using them - airlines banning them on planes and - well you know the story ...

They talk about 'Grading Trump On A Curve' - which they do. And now Samsung.

#SamsungIsTheTrumpOfTech - I know - right - he even uses one - itâ€™s his interns that use the iPhone.

Maybe There's A Reason For Multiple Personalities

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 04:07:52 +1200

Fascinating Thought ...

â€œA personâ€™s identity,â€ Amin Maalouf wrote as he contemplated what he so poetically called the genes of the soul, â€œis like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.â€ And yet, inseparable as the parts may be from the whole, we each contain multitudes â€” not only psychologically, but even biologically â€” nowhere more so than when it comes to the bifurcation between our inner and outer selves.

Courage

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 03:39:21 +1200

Once again I am with Gruber … this time on that word ‘courage’. How much more powerful would it have been if Phil Schiller said ….

We're trying to make great products for people, and we have at least the courage of our convictions to say we don't think this is part of what makes a great product, we're going to leave it out. Some people are going to not like that, they're going to call us names but we're going to take the heat [and] instead focus our energy on these technologies which we think are in their ascendancy and we think are going to be the right technologies for customers. And you know what? They're paying us to make those choices. If we succeed, they'll buy them, and if we don't, they won't, and it will all work itself out.

… it makes sense - right? Except this words were Steve Jobs talking about Flash

To me it isn’t the word courage - it is the context it was used in.

... which is good - because Gruber makes his living out of this - I don't.

Gruber - On The Phone

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 03:31:16 +1200

Again - spot on ...

There is a large contingent of pundits who apparently would be more excited about a new iPhone that looked entirely different but had the exact same components as the iPhone 6S than they are by the actual iPhones 7, which are shaped like the 6S but have amazing new components. I donâ€™t get that mindset at all. Itâ€™s like being a car pundit and judging the new Porsche 911 with a â€œmehâ€ because it looks like the previous 911, and never even considering what itâ€™s like to actually drive the new car.

... as Gruber usually is.

... then again isn't the pundit thinking a reflection of modern society. It's all about appearance - forget capability.

Gruber On The Watch

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 03:25:20 +1200

Couldn't have put it better myself ..

Jeff Williams claimed that in 2015 Apple was the number two watch maker by revenue in the world, second only to Rolex. And Apple Watch was only on sale for eight months in 2015. If you think Apple Watch is a flop you are a moron.

The English Language Is Very Structured

Sun, 11 Sep 2016 05:25:07 +1200

I have tweeted about this already - but I still find it fascinating. Capturing the information so that I can come back later and write something more considered. My thanks for making me think this way Graham.

...adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.

via Kottke

... and Stowe's position

Rene Descarte Was A Boring Old Fart ....

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 12:28:32 +1200

In Humeâ€™s view, Descartesâ€™s program of demolishing the world through doubt and then rebuilding it through logic is bound to fail. Instead, we have to accept that our knowledge of the world is not absolute, as much as we might like it to be.

... you know - I was just thinking that. Thanks Stowe.

Peggy Noonan Weighs In

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 12:11:54 +1200

Trying to decide whether this is a good thing ... or a bad thing?

Beyond that, anti-Trump Republicans treat his voters like immoral enablers of a malignant boob. Should Mr. Trump lose decisively in November theyâ€™ll lord it over everyone, say â€œI told you so,â€ and accept what they imagine will be forelock-tugging apologies. Then they will get to work burying not only Mr. Trump but his issues.
Thatâ€™s where the future of the GOP will be fought, and found: on whether Trumpism can be defeated along with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump would care about that if he cared about that.

Well Worth A Watch

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 12:07:42 +1200

As it says - carefully curated - so who am I to embed the video here. Go on - click through and spend 5 minutes of your life in a gorgeous distraction. Have your headphones (wired or wireless) ready to go.

Watch It Here.

w00t

Sat, 10 Sep 2016 10:32:41 +1200

... is I believe the word.

I got this running - all by myself

I wonder if it will stay up when I close down terminal ?

LATER ::: Yes it will - managed to get the former command working .... now need to work out why my 'Music Feed' is not rendering correctly.

Launched - And Now The Backlog

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:20:13 +1200

All caught up .... and I think I am there . You might notice that I have NOT been publishing as much here recently ... because I am publishing here. Over the past couple of weeks been transitioning my 1999 presence from Dave Winer's test space to here. Big thanks to Andy Sylvester for his help.

We had a few issues, but I think I am there. The posts from today and yesterday, are posts I had been making since August 11th that somehow got mangled. I could save them - but not here.

Anyway - they are now all reposted - and now moving onto the backlog. At the same time playing around with the style sheet a little to move it closer towards my main blog at Beyond Bridges.

Oracle Funding

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:10:28 +1200

Overall - I think good - but there is an increasing number of these kind of things going on. That said, there probably always were - its just that now we know about it.

Should Gawker Have Been Allowed To Live

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:09:22 +1200

... Dave Winer writing on the passing of Gawker.

Now that the line has been crossed, it's fair to assume it will become standard practice for billionaires like Thiel to finance lawsuits until the publication loses and has to sell itself to pay the judgment.

Hmm - not so sure I agree. Gawker was the worst and lowest scum - with Nick Denton taking his cue from the British Gutter Press, despite his education and early days as an FT reporter. He should have known better, but in Gawker he led the pandering to the lowest form of taste. I am mixed about the ability to kill a publication, but it has always been possible.

Gawker made the mistake of writing things that were secret and really and truly added little value to the public discourse. Again, not a fan of Christine O'Donnell, and I get their defense - but why allow the writer to publish anonymously?

This time they picked on the wrong guy. I don't like Thiel. But if we don't like the laws - change them.

That said, lets say that Thiel doesn't like what The Intercept writes about him - I do not think he would take them on. Because they are writing journalism. Gawker was not journalism.

Vindication

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:07:06 +1200

Apple: If we're forced to build a tool to hack iPhones, someone will steal it.
FBI: Nonsense.
Russia: We just published NSA's hacking tools

... Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) August 17, 2016

Lite Beer Is Not In My Lexicon ...

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:05:28 +1200

... for very good reasons. That said, it accounts for seven of the top selling beer brands in the USA. I don't drink any of the other three either, but that is by-the-by. Most important fact to note?

Lite Beer is all Marketing, proving that in America, you really can rely on the gullibility of the public.

But there's more

Consider this

Calories in a Bud Light - 145
Calories in a Guiness - 126

The conclusion of this piece ....

Pilger On War

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:03:22 +1200

For only a movement that swells into every street and across borders and does not give up can stop the warmongers. Next year, it will be a century since Wilfred Owen wrote the following. Every journalist should read it and remember it...

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Zara (Yes - THAT Zara) Should Be In Court For Stealing

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:00:16 +1200

This is a great post from my buddy David Airey.

SHAMEFUL actions by Zara. A boycott by all of their customers should be the minimum. And they should pay at least double to every single artist for stealing their work and set up a foundation to support other artists.

Roger Dean - Cover Artist

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:58:51 +1200

.. but not what you expect in many ways. For a start - as a 'cover' artist - he was truly original. I also never knew that he illustrated this book - a staple of my library for many years ...

Terrains Like You Have Not Seen

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:56:09 +1200

Love Maps

I Had That Album ...

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:51:57 +1200

In his testimony, Plant says he doesn't remember ever hearing the track Taurus. He says: "I didn't remember it then, and I don't remember it now."
Plant says he heard earlier Spirit track Fresh Garbage on a compilation album that he bought in 1968.

Former Nine Inch Nails Keyboardist James Woolley Dead at 50

I Think I Will Start Buying Under Armour

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:50:48 +1200

"After throwing the Bowmar under the bus I will not buy any Under Armour product again and will strongly encourage others not to purchase your products, unless you reinstate Sarah Bowmar as a sponsor," Phil Meyer wrote on the company's Facebook page. "For a company to stab hunters in the back after so many of us have used and endorsed your products is intolerable!"

and

"It will be interesting watching your whole hunting line of business go down the toilet," Stan Smyla wrote.

and

A petition to reinstate Sarah Bowmar's sponsorship deal has reached 6,400 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

Read All About it .... seriously 6,400 signatures? I wonder how Under Armour plan to survive !

Should Gawker Have Been Taken Out?

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:49:30 +1200

In the end, even if you think Gawker deserved punishment, media organizations should not face the financial death penalty for a mistake, even a deplorable and egregious one.

Read All About It - The Grauniad weighs in on Gawker.

I mainly agree - but it wasn't a mistake - otherwise Denton could have done something about it way back. Instead he stuck two fingers up and said 'F**K you' - I am the press. We are above you. He was wrong.

Death Comes To Us All ...

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:45:30 +1200

... some times sooner than you think

Running through my music feeds this morning. Not one, not two - but three headlines .... jeez.

3 Doors Down ex Matt Roberts dead at 38

Architects guitarist Tom Searle dies of cancer aged 28

RIP - all of you.

Post Script ... interesting how many names we do not relly know that provide so many emotional touchpoints in our lives.

Guest Appearance

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:43:13 +1200

Buddy Guy was on the same bill as Beck - and guess who did a surprise appearance?

Jeff Beck (3 of 3)

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:41:13 +1200

one more

Jeff Beck (2 of 3)

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:40:55 +1200

and another

Jeff Beck (1 of 3)

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:37:49 +1200

I wish I had been there ..... but thankfully my friend Bill was - who had a friend Keith who took the pictures. In case you are wondering ... Row 7, Masonic Hall, San Francisco.

Cards Against Humanity - Wins Both Ways

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:35:34 +1200

Click through if you want to extend your Cards Against Humanity set ... this is why you should ...

Today, we're letting America choose between two new expansion packs about either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

... so far so good.

At the end of this promotion, Cards Against Humanity will tally up the sales of both packs, and depending on which pack gets more support ....

.. yes

we will donate all the money in support of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

#BRILLIANT

#Uber ... #Again

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:34:15 +1200

Uber removing the Yellow Cab option for their app ?

Of course they are.

People Make Mistakes

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:33:06 +1200

This makes for a fascinating listen .... Malcolm Gladwell in his Revisionist History Podcast talking about the 'sudden acceleration' problems that Toyota faced in 2009. His conclusion - operator error.

Seriously - and you have to listen to the podcast to get it - after all - you wouldn't expect me to summarize the closing arguments of Perry Mason in a couple of paragraphs - would you ?

Beyond this though, it made me stop and think about driverless cars.

As they get involved n collisions, people - despite any and all evidence to the contrary - will assume that there has been some kind of machine error that caused the accident, before they think it could be a person's fault.

That is the essence of the Gladwell argument. It will happen.

Another Reason I Am Happy To Be a MacOS User

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:32:27 +1200

The home and personal editions are clearly being primed to become advertising platforms. Ad blockers will not help because it will be OS itself serving ads, not the browser you chose (or the one MS chose for for you, see above on defaults).
And it's not just the home editions. I ran the SpyBot Anti-Beacon on a Windows 10 Enterprise build, and was shocked to see about 80% of the Telemetry* settings still sending data back to the mother-ship.

In case you are wondering - click through for the detail - but bottom line ... if this pans out - then Microsoft is in the process of launching the mother of all trackers - embedded in their OS.

Dear Prezi - Flash Is Dead

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:33:30 +1200

We live in 2016. Jobs declared Flash dead a little over 6 years ago. Google plans to start blocking Flash in Chrome this year. So why in the name of satan does Prezi - the hipsters answer to presentations - tell me that I need it to run their app.

My First Seven Jobs

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:31:09 +1200

#FirstSevenJobs ... it's a meme and made me think about mine ...

- Baby Sitter

- Newspaper Delivery

- Building Site Laborer

- Bin Man - or 'Garbage collector' as we know them in the US.

- House Cleaner (not what you think - this was working for an English Council - spending days in a single flat attempting to get it to a level that your usual house cleaner would even consider. You just do not want to know what we had to deal with.

- Chocolate Factory - Packing the candies and cleaning the machines .... by hand !

- Meat Factory Labour - including making Black Pudding - again - using my own hands.

Observations

My early jobs were

very manual in nature
involved minimal customer interaction (no waiting on tables, serving in stores etc)

An interesting article on this topic.

Just One Of Thirty Two Extraordinary Photographs

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:28:36 +1200

Click through for the collection.

Would You Pay For News

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:24:37 +1200

Well ... would you?

The click through is an interesting article from Fred Wilson who did a 'deep survey' with his own kids. It's a good read.

Me - I think pure news is never again going to be paid for. Think about it - it is a commodity.

BUT ... in RED NEON CAPS - 72 PT - BUT .... the analysis, opinion and insights around it - definitely. And that is why esteemed organs like the FT, Guardian, NYT, Post et al - will survive in some form - provided they work out their new business models. (Let's face it - the old ones aren't working).

UPDATE:

This is a really good read from Josh Guttman who writes that 'we all pay for news in one way or the other' (true) and then goes onto highlight some companies that are starting to help us - the reader - to get out news - without being saddled with the costly trackers that advertisers fell they need to embed in their posts. ...

What's new-er is a general distaste for any form of advertising on the page, as evidenced by the rise in usage of ad blockers. In the US, 15-20% of users block ads and in EU, it's approaching 50%. A new category of companies have appeared to tackle this issue from either the publisher or reader perspectives.

August 17, 2016 at 10:41:09 AM PDT by jgphilpin

Power For The Few ....

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:21:25 +1200

"Power for the few will be assumed through the inaction of the many. "

Apparently these regulations are too onerous for the multi-billion corporation that we know as Uber to operate in London.

Uber is challenging four of the new rules;
- requiring written English tests for drivers,
- having to locate its customer service call centre in London,
- requiring insurance that covers drivers when they are not working
- having to alert TfL of changes to its business model or app.

2 Children, 1 Man Die After Kite String Slits Their Throats in India

I do hope @SadiqKhan is listening .... part of his electoral platform was to push back on the company. Until someone does - they will continue to ride rough-shod over everybody and everything in its wake - and then someday in the future we will look back and ask - how did that happen?

Let me tell you the answer now : By Not Paying Attention!

Kite Flying Can Be Harmful To Your Health

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:19:22 +1200

Have you ever read the book 'The Kite Runner' ? If not you should.

If so, you can imagine why that particular wonderful piece of literature popped into my head on reading this news ...

... in case anyone ever thought that Kite Flying was a sedentary sport!

A Little History Of My Maui Music

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:07:24 +1200

I was in Maui on the Southside nearly ten years ago watching a subset of the Molinas family entertaining the 'grocks'. Out of the blue this young kid emerged and delivered a Ukulele solo like I had never heard.

I didn't know they were the Molinas family at the time, and so had no idea who Andrew was. BUT.

But, I wanted to find out. For some reason I didn't enquire on the day who these guys were, so it was later when I started to just ask around.

I described him to people and the general consensus was 'oh - you must have seen Vince Esquire'.

Which is how I got into Vince Esquire and his band, and also how I came to meet Shawn Michael - now back in LA - but definitely the best bass guitarist that you have never heard of.

Anyway, you can read all about Andrew and his family the other side of this link. and so glad to see another great Maui musician emerging.

If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.

Why Apple Sits Apart

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:05:13 +1200

Engineers left in a vacuum might say "well, that's maybe not so important; we can get a better signal by doing it the other way so let's do it that way." So, left to their own devices, that would be the way the product would end up. So you have to have a really strong voice supporting the user. I think the idea of focusing on that is uniquely Apple. In an optimistic sense you have to say that still exists at Apple. It does.

Attention to detail.
Customer first.
Because 'it's harder' isn't an excuse.

Great Read :

What I Learned Working With Jony Ive's Team On The Apple Watch

Unusual Angles Of The Golden Gate

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 04:39:49 +1200

Click through of the whole article - and even more stunning imagery.

It's All About The Headline ....

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 03:40:32 +1200

Opening copy reads :

One of Apple's largest component suppliers, Samsung Electronics ...

... not could have (should have ?)

One of Apple's largest competitors, Samsung Electronics

... because the article is ALL about safety in Samsung's semi con factories and clearly reads ...

That year, and every year since, tech media outlets have regularly suggested that there was no real difference between Apple's iPhone and the manufacturing of much lower margin Android products, which cut corners and take expedient shortcuts to deliver cheap products.

🔗 Read All About It At Apple Insider - who should not be using such stupid click bait headlines and opening copy in their articles.

#ShameOnThem

Jobs Coming BACK To The USA

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:29:44 +1200

Heh - GREAT News - Adidas is bringing jobs back to America. See - it can be done.

'Caveat Emptor' ... 160 jobs actually - and unclear what those jobs will be - because the manufacturing is being done by robots.

I keep telling you .... those jobs are not coming back.

It's All About .... Timing

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:24:11 +1200

Itâ€™s that time of year I guess. Another birthday. The Newton launched 23 years ago - two years after the World Wide Web.

One an unprecedented success that nobody saw coming ... the other demonstrating exactly the same thing - but with lousy timing.

Saying It Like It Is

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:18:29 +1200

“Really,” Steve said, and waited.
“ ‘Does she want a job at Apple?’ ” I said, quoting his e-mail.
“A joke,” Steve said.
“I know.”
“Like this meeting,” he said.

Get the context

.. it’s a great read. And that last line in the quote above - like a rapier!

Spot On

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:09:00 +1200

#VRM #PeoplePower

Maybe the best thing to do is to start unilaterally giving the users more power over their own online presence. Stop trying to own everything. Because there's no way to win that game. Even if you win you lose.

Read All About It via @DaveWiner

Another Reason Why We Are All Doomed

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:28:31 +1200

How safe do YOU feel flying in these planes, given that they can barely keep the electric on?

Cringely nails it.

More Corporate Skulduggery - AT and T This Time

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:25:50 +1200

Doesn’t a $7.75 Million fine seem like a drop in the bucket? I bet it is less than the money they made.

particularly since ….

Last year, Sprint and Verizon paid out a combined $158 million to settle similar billing practices.

I wonder what those tech brains are up to these days?

Talking of Birthdays ...

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:15:13 +1200

Revolver - 50

The Web - 25

and now Netscape … went public 21 years ago today.

Thieving Cable Companies Still Not Locked Up

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:11:48 +1200

The news today is just formal confirmation that the TV guys really don’t want to give away their best stuff for free.

Or, more precisely, they’d prefer that you pay twice when you watch their stuff: Once with your credit card, via some kind of pay TV subscription, and again with your attention, when you watch the ads they sell.

“And last week’s news that Time Warner was buying a chunk of Hulu was another indicator that Hulu’s old model was toast, since Time Warner hated Hulu’s old model. So today’s news is just formal confirmation that the TV guys really don’t want to give away their best stuff for free. Or, more precisely, they’d prefer that you pay twice when you watch their stuff: Once with your credit card, via some kind of pay TV subscription, and again with your attention, when you watch the ads they sell.”

Uber driver will see his son compete in Rio thanks to passenger

Privacy - The Killer App

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:47:21 +1200

Privacy by design: Only Apple could make 'differential privacy' sound cool.

TechCrunch Talks … and

what Apple recognizes more broadly is that consumer trust (fueled by privacy) is the killer app.

#VRM

The Only Good Use For a Keurig Machine

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:59 +1200

Love it … via Gizmodo

Hadn’t realized that there was such visceral dislike of Keurig - but there you go - the power of the Internet!

It Isn't Just You - We Are Getting More Stupid

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 10:15:04 +1200

Dumbing down. You read about it a lot. Just the other day, someone told me that a recruiter had mentioned to them that they should 'dumb down' their resume.

"You use words that are too long and nobody understands what you are talking about."

How sad - particularly since it seems that there might be a reason.

Of course, if language, vocabulary and and use thereof was one measure of how dumb you might be take note that Wikipedia reports that ....

It has been estimated that the vocabulary of English includes roughly 1 million words (although most linguists would take that estimate with a chunk of salt, and some have said they wouldn't be surprised if it is off the mark by a quarter-million); that tally includes the myriad names of chemicals and other scientific entities. Many of these are so peripheral to common English use that they do not or are not likely to appear even in an unabridged dictionary.
Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries. The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, reports that it includes a similar number.

Imagine the problem that we have when

A Native-level fluency of a language is estimated to be between 20,000â€“40,000 words, with basic conversational fluency possibly requiring as little as 3,000 words.

i.e. if you use somewhere in the order of 5 to 10% of a language to communicate your written ideas - you are considered fluent.

Journalism Needs To Be Saved Before It Is Too Late

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 10:06:49 +1200

If you think it's all free - then you don't know value.

Uber Drivers Now A Charity Case

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 02:58:01 +1200

There's this one, and this one and this one and this one and that is just me randomly searching on the good that London Taxis do - and have always done - for all kinds of people. If you track this stuff you know it.

Distressing then to see this headline :

from CNN.

I mean it is a great story - but seriously Taxi DRIVERS are now the charity case - that is what Uber is doing to society.

Web Sites - 25 Years Old

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 02:49:11 +1200

And this is the REAL first web site .... Tim's (the other one) one :-)

The Tory-graph

Engadget

Patently Apple

Interesting that Revolver is as fresh as ever 50 years later - and yet 25 years later, Tim's site is a novelty!

Revolver - 50 Years Old

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 02:42:32 +1200

Some interesting background to Revolver - now clocking in at 50 years old.

And as a bonus, Klaus Voorman on his cover - all for fifty quid!

Wilson Does Lazarus

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 02:39:30 +1200

Gorgeous … and unusual to see Wilson do a Tree track solo ….

Mercedes Is Being Disrupted

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 14:57:50 +1200

It's extraordinary to think that Mercedes can get away with charging $249 to update the maps in their sat nav systems.

It's even more extraordinary to think that there are people out there that will spend that money - to do that thing.

My phone has better maps. Your phone has better maps. And they are free.

From The Law Offices Of Levin, Minnemann and Rudess

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 11:05:44 +1200

Read My Review Here

ICANN !! I Can't - But They Can !!

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 11:03:54 +1200

I know right? I am just as confused.

I just read this .... the headlines reads ....

Simply not credible: The extraordinary verdict against the body that hopes to run the internet
Independent review tears into ICANN board and staff

Hmm - I know nought about ICANN really. Of them - sure.

I do know that they are the dudes I have to prove my existence to every now and then for the domains I own. Except - I never can, because for me their email alerts do not work. And then I write to them with a ticket. And they tell men to do what I just did. And after a few back and forths - they say Ok - your fine - and lift their restriction.

So yes. Definitely problematic.

Steven Wilson - Transience

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 08:31:20 +1200

.. available for the rest of us in September.

Upon its original vinyl release Transience reached #3 in the UK vinyl charts and made history by being the first release to chart solely on vinyl sales this century.

Why Won't People Stand Up And Be Counted NOW

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 08:23:26 +1200

The Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate, senators like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio, governors like Chris Christie and the now-trapped Mike Pence, figures from the past like Rudy Giuliani â€” every one of these people knows what is wrong with Donald Trump, and every one of them will be telling us as of November 9 that they were never really with him, they always saw what was wrong, how did this ever happen? But for now, every one one of them is saying, Vote for Trump!

Read All About It at the Atlantic.

iOS Updates Occur More Often Than Brain Updates

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 08:20:50 +1200

People update the Operating System (OS) in their smartphone more often than they update their own brain.

Gerhard Gschwandtner (at last week's Sales2.0 Conference)

via Kurt Shaver

...He HAS to be referring to iPhone users - because over on android ....

90 percent of Android devices are running an outdated OS

... on second thoughts - maybe that is about right ...

What Apple's iCloud WILL Support

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 08:15:15 +1200

I don't fit this particular edge case in any of the scenarios described - BUT - in case you are wondering why some of your stuff ain't synching - this might give a clue

Uber Clickbait

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 08:13:44 +1200

Poised - but not the same as is actually ...

Uber Now Poised to Grab More of Southeast Asia

Data Connection People ... CONNECTION - NOT Collection.

Wed, 03 Aug 2016 15:13:51 +1200

Just read What Is The Data-Driven Organization? - a great collection of interesting acronyms for how organization think about how they COLLECT MY DATA.

Personally, I would much rather organizations think more about data CONNECTION, rather than COLLECTION. That is so much more in keeping with the future â€“ it is after all my data â€“ not the corporations.

I would also be more than happy for on organization to connect to my data â€“ if we can first agree mutually beneficial terms that I am privy to in advance.

Digi.Me is one example of an organization that thinks this way. There are many more.

Playing With IFTTT

Wed, 03 Aug 2016 11:12:04 +1200

Move along now. Nothing to see here. (For you anyway.)

1999 ... meet IFTTT and DayONE - I think you will love each other.

Wed, 03 Aug 2016 10:59:10 +1200

One of the challenges (for me) with 1999 is the inability for me to easily search for content txt I posted (say) two months ago. TO be fair - this is one of my does on Facebook - and contributed to my leaving. (But not the prime reason.)

Enter IFTTT and DayONE.

I use DayONE as my daily journal. It runs happily across pad, phone and mac. It is pretty powerful and allows me to search and tag and add pictures and links and .... pretty much whatever you like.

IFTTT - is a rules based system.

Here's the rule I have in IFTTT .... every time I post an entry into 1999, IFTTT posts a synopsis and a link to the original post into DayONE.

I can now search DayONE for what I am looking for - and voila - there;s the link back to the post.

#Easy

How To Write A Good Blog Post - Om Malik

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 13:12:50 +1200

I have been clearing out my cupboards and found a great post from Om Malik, who in turn was clearing out his cupboards ….

I have been frustrated by the vanishing quality of blog posts, which either are nothing more than marketing drivel, self promotion passing as intelligence. I can understand that, but I can't seem to comprehend the laziness of news posts which seems to have the nutritional value of a TacoBell meal. It seems no one remembers or knows what makes a great blog post and how to write them.
I don't think what makes a great post has changed. And when cleaning out an old folder on Google Drive, I came across the draft of this email I would send to all new writers and reporters who came to work for us at GigaOm. I thought I would share this it isn't doing anyone any good sitting there in a drive.

And Here It Is …. with the conclusion of

The 3Cs of a good blog post

Coherent
Clever thought, analysis or just the quote.
Cryptic

Settling The Debate On 'The Most Famous' Band.

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 06:58:44 +1200

If you like music, this is a fascinating flip on how we usually think about bands.

Click through and for any year it will tell you who the most famous band that was formed in that year. Interesting because why?

Well - though I am not a fan of (say) OASIS - I had kind of expected them to be on the list. But they're not, because the same year that they were founded a little band from the South also got going ... Radiohead. a LOT more famous.

I was also surprised to see that Pink Floyd was not only the most famous band to have formed in 1965 - but actually to be the most famous band form the 60s .... really? The Beatles? Zeppelin?

And then you think ... The Beatles were formed in 1957 - and yes they were the most famous band formed in 19657 - and indeed there 50s - and of course Zeppelin formed in 1970.

So how do we measure 'famous'? Turns out it isn't really that rigorous - but it's a start ...

'PrettyFamous' created a customized Band Score on a scale of 1 to 100 based on a weighted average of a band's Wikipedia page views in the last 30 days, page views of album releases and total number of Spotify followers.

BTW - The Beatles most popular song on Spotify ?

Here Comes The Sun.

Take that Lennon / McCartney.

Criminal Justice Reform

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 06:33:37 +1200

I wrote this piece on Criminal Justice Reform a couple of weeks ago.

Delighted to see this from The Marshall Project just published today … The Overlooked Promise in Hillary Clinton’s Speech - A call for criminal justice reform.

In a single brief sentence, Clinton broke one of America's oldest political taboos, pledging to "reform our criminal justice system from end-to-end, and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve."

This might seem like an offhand mention, or just another Democratic candidate embracing the latest civil rights issue.

But past candidates, when they talked about criminal justice at all, were quick to declare a 'war on crime' and slow to acknowledge any real problems in the system. Clinton's speech represents a real break with that legacy and voters are entitled to demand real solutions to match her call to action.

Apple By The Second

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 06:28:36 +1200

Somethings Never Change

Sun, 31 Jul 2016 06:06:51 +1200

A post, including a video, from John Gushe 4 years ago - and every bit as relevant today ... filed in the "if you operated in the real world like you do in the online world" bucket.

Telling It Like It Is

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 10:46:21 +1200

So Good.

Paper53 Is A Stunning Piece Of Software In The Right Hands

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 10:35:01 +1200

The art that is possible with something as seemingly simple as Paper53 is really extraordinary.

It's Hillary Goddamn Clinton

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 10:33:35 +1200

It opens with

Iâ€™m Hillary goddamn Clinton. Iâ€™m a political prodigy, have been since I was 16. I have an insane network of powerful friends. Iâ€™m willing to spend the next eight years catching shit on all sides, all so I can fix this fucking country for you. And all you little bitches need to do is get off your asses one goddamn day in November.

... and then it gets better. Absolutely brilliant piece.

A Position On Trump

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 09:55:17 +1200

You just cannot argue with the logic.

Uber Hoodwinks Regulators Again

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 08:32:21 +1200

Cheap settlement to sort it out this week - wonder what the demand will be next week

The records Uber and Lyft are touting have been hard-won, expensive and occasionally bumpy. To reach the truce, Uber paid $350,000 into a trust to settle charges by the Philadelphia Parking Authority that the company had been operating in the city without regulation. To meet demand this week, both companies offered some drivers guaranteed minimum pay at peak times â€” $21 to $27 an hour for Uber after drivers in Cleveland complained of low earnings,4 $20 for Lyft â€” and neither company would say if theyâ€™re turning a profit. Riders had to wait an hour or more for an Uber from the convention on Monday night. And road disruptions have made the companiesâ€™ sometimes optimistic wait-time estimates particularly unreliable.

Bulgarian state railway company BDZ is urging players of Pokemon GO to keep off the railway tracks.

Idiots - So Many Idiots

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 08:27:43 +1200

It never ceases to amaze me that people are so stupid that they have to be protected my this kind of warning. NEVER!

Hello

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 17:13:10 +1200

Posting from my iPad - and simultaneously using IFTTT to drop my posts into DayOne - which (BTW) is rather a neat app for journaling.

'T' In Mediation Helps Keep Balance

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:54:55 +1200

Just realized that having some 't' in the middle of a 'mediation' will result in 'meditation'.

Larry Just Used Oracle To Pay Himself $3.5 Billion

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:52:57 +1200

Oracle just bought a company Larry Ellison mostly owns, entitling him to $3.5 billion in cash - #STUNNED

well - actually not. Is anyone?

Laszlo Bock Moves On ....

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:44:57 +1200

This is big news …. be interesting to see what he does next.

A lot of unemployment evolves from information asymmetry, meaning I have a taxonomy of skills and abilities that are hard to articulate, and resumes donâ€™t do a good job of capturing them. Employers have a set of jobs, but are terrible at both articulating what they need, and actually filtering candidates.
If you can somehow bridge that information gap, and better match people with jobs, in the short term you can get a lot of people jobs that donâ€™t have them. But in the medium term, you can do really interesting things. If youâ€™re a welder in Detroit, we can say you should go to nursing school and move to Atlanta, and this is the program you should go to, because this nursing school is correlated with people getting jobs. And Atlanta has the most growth in that area.
Itâ€™s very interesting stuff. But thatâ€™s all a little in the future.

The Importance Of Second Chances

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 06:25:33 +1200

This is so right on, I thought I would link to it here for posterity.

BB Shows How It Is Done

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 06:20:29 +1200

It is extraordinary to listen to this. But then when you watch it and realize for half the song he is changing a string on his guitar - no beat missed ... well, I sit in awe.

The Vision Of Central Park

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 05:57:36 +1200

I like this analogy.

Comparing the growth and infrastructure of New York to The Internet.

And The Winner Of 'The Most Popular Product Of All Time' Is ....

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 05:53:53 +1200

Apple took about 2,450 days to sell the first 500 million iPhones and only 836 days to sell the second 500 million iPhones. Thatâ€™s some growth curve.

Of course - Apple is doomed to fail. This was a poignant reminder ...

A billion iPhones in 9 years, built on a foundation of constant doubt. Thatâ€™s one hell of a thing.

Jobs? What Jobs?

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 05:49:40 +1200

Apple's secondary manufacturer, Pegatron, is following in the footsteps of Foxconn and beginning to automate its factories â€” and cutting back on new hires as a result, according to the company's chairman.

Remember how Trump talks about 'bringing back the jobs' .... even the jobs we can't do in this country wont be coming back - the jobs we could do were automated a loooong time ago,

Anyone can now print out all TSA master keys

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 05:45:38 +1200

Since the hackers didn't have a photo of the last key, they bought as many Safe Skies locks as possible, took them apart and examined their innards. Anyone with access to a 3D printer can now reproduce all eight keys.

This week's Biz Catalyst article.

seriously - imagine if their 'partners in crime' had the back door 'keys' to all of our online security.

#IncompetenceWritLarge.

The Inimitable Mr John Cooper Clarke

Sat, 16 Jul 2016 09:42:07 +1200

Spin through to around 3 minutes if you just want the poem.

Boom! ... Drops Mike. Walks Off.

Sat, 16 Jul 2016 09:34:29 +1200

Relationships ...

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 17:55:09 +1200

... between words ... provides phrases.

Maui Arboretum

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 17:53:42 +1200

If This Doesn't Put A Smile On Your Face ...

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 05:13:21 +1200

The Aisles Will Be Full When The Ailes Trial Happens.

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 05:11:33 +1200

I never really thought that the Cosby saga would have gone this far. Now I see that Ailes is in the spotlight, I have high hopes that finally someone will put him into his box. And I can't wait until they subpoena Mr. Trump.

Read All About It.

Lest We Forget ...

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 05:06:50 +1200

Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) led the push for Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Following a disappointing election in November 1998, he announced he was stepping down as Speaker and resigning from Congress.
Gingrich later admitted that, while he was pushing for Clinton’s impeachment, he was engaged in an affair with a Congressional aide. “There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them”, Gingrich said in 2007.
He later said the situation was ‘complex and, obviously, I wasn’t doing things to be proud of.

You mean like now ?

🔗 Read All About It

Steven Wilson Dedicates Lazarus to Prince and Bowie

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:10:55 +1200

From The UK

Following Opeth at their best would be a tall order for any accomplished musician and whilst Steven Wilson doesnâ€™t quite manage to match them, the former Porcupine Tree frontman makes a damn good fist of it. With the majority of the set made up of songs from his fantastic fourth solo album, Hand. Cannot. Erase. he was never going to pale into insignificance and the material from that record sounds particularly transcendent, with Routine and Home Invasion both being solid highlights. The new material especially benefits from the surround sound and given that itâ€™s an experience the majority either canâ€™t afford or simply do not have space for in their own homes, itâ€™s mad to think that more artists arenâ€™t employing its use as a means to get people to live gigs. The crowd here are treated to four Porcupine Tree songs, including Lazarus (dedicated to David Bowie and Prince) and Sleep Together, but itâ€™s a testament to Wilsonâ€™s dynamic latter work that most of the best moments come from his material away from that band. Everything from the agitated industrial stomp of Index to the gorgeous, heavenly, transcendent closer, The Raven That Refused to Sing remind us that, incredibly, Wilsonâ€™s best work may still be ahead of him.

Steven Wilson - Part 1

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:52:31 +1200

My Mentors's Latest 'Secrets of Success' For BA Inflight

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:23:10 +1200

A Little Bit Of Culture

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:06:27 +1200

Absolutely Fabulous Audience Members Ejected

Thu, 07 Jul 2016 04:51:16 +1200

... from cinema for laughing

Read all about it ....

Meanwhile I have yet to sit through a movie in a theatre and not have some ignorant twit right behind me either

- slurping their 5 gallons of coke,

- loudly masticating their butter popcorn or

- simply just chatting to their mate two rows away (at least judging by the volume of their voice)

... if not all three ! I really hope this become a case, because surely if all the noise you get in a theatre that has NOTHING to do with the movie - surely laughing has to be allowed.

Everybody Dies - Not Every One Lives

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 11:27:26 +1200

Came through my feeds today. Nice

I Am My Own System Of Record

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:17:39 +1200

An email signature I have used from time to time for nearly 7 years reads â€œJohn Philpin â€“ I Am My Own System Of Recordâ€.

Seven years ago people would ask me what I meant. Today? Not so much. It stems from a belief that the idea that an organization â€“ any organization â€“ thinking that its â€˜system of recordâ€™ is anything but a tiny lens onto who I am â€¦ is deeply flawed.

Brexit Fun

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 06:44:01 +1200

The Hitler Meme Applied To Boris and Brexit

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 05:19:44 +1200

The Ummagumma Bug

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 07:24:25 +1200

Ummagumma makes top 10 new species list ... I didn't know that there was bug named after Floyd's album.

It Is Such A Long Time Since I Received One Of These

Mon, 04 Jul 2016 18:12:27 +1200

Dear Friend,
I am Patrick Kumuila Mbaye, former Head of Accounts Department at the Diamond Mining Company of Sierra Leone. I and my partners (two others) are in urgent need of a foreign associate to work with us to facilitate the transfer of a large sum of money which we intend to invest into profitable areas of business in your country.
The money involved is eighteen million five hundred thousand US Dollars.
I am writing to know if you could be our overseas associate to handle the transaction privately at your end through your bank account.
We propose your commission shall be 20 per cent of the total money been transferred.
I wait your response to provide you with more information.
Regards,
Patrick Kumuila Mbaye

Post Brexit Commentary From The Sun

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 02:27:48 +1200

Geldof, Brown, Thompson, Blair, Sugarâ€¦ you just took one hell of a beating â€“ The Sun

... it's not whether you agree with the Sun - it is knowing that their circulation is the largest of any newspaper in the UK #influence

How To Set Up An Ubuntu Server on AWS

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 02:23:54 +1200

Wondering how to set up 1999 on AWS - wonder no more. Mr Andy Sylvester has published a 'hot to' guide on Kindle.

Disqus

Sun, 19 Jun 2016 05:20:47 +1200

.. has now been added to the 1999 family. Very cool .... and now the style of the comments should have changed. But it hasn't.

Now it has !

1999 Returns To Status Of Experiment

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 08:02:49 +1200

Just posted this to my blog

For nearly 2 months, specifically since April 21st, I have been playing around with a product called 1999 from Dave Winer. It is pretty cool. Since launching in fact, I have planted some 144 posts. My first on April 21st. The last on June 10th. All hosted on my river, that Dave has kindly been hosting. In parallel, I have signed up for an AWS account and with the help (strictly speaking me clicking and cutting and pasting words that my new friend Andy told me to) into my river that he is hosting.
Itâ€™s a cool product actually. And personally a very big fan of what Dave is trying to do.

... BUT

Simulation?

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 08:08:11 +1200

"Does it matter that we might be living in a simulation?" That question has been raised more often since Elon Musk suggested the possibility in a recent interview. He's not the only one who thinks it's a possibility (or even a likelihood). If we're part of a computer simulation, then this election year seems like a good time for a system software update. The New Yorker's Joshua Rothman helps explain why the posthuman future has never been easier to imagine -- especially for those who work at the forefront of technology.? (After reading this, I had a terrible dream that I was reincarnated as part of a Windows Phone.)

... Dave Pell - Next Draft

Na na na na - Nineteen

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 05:23:35 +1200

First They Came

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 05:20:14 +1200

Reminded of this here

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

We Don't Need No Damn Robots

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 04:41:15 +1200

Seems like we don't need to make robots - we just need to turn people into automons ...

Today, it's a technology company. Every step Bill takes, every mile he drives, is tracked. His truck is a rolling computer. From the time he punches in in the morning until he gets back to base at night, the company is watching. The company is also constantly thinking, and strategizing about even the most minute decisions and choices. UPS wants to figure out how Bill can do his job a little bit faster, a little more efficiently, right down to which pocket he uses to hold his pen.

Unintended Consequences

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 07:11:17 +1200

In other words, you can almost see the Warriors as a metaphor for the way the tech industry improves, but also unexpectedly risks ruining, pretty much everything it touches.

Consensual Sex

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 07:08:08 +1200

Henri Herbert - St Pancras

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:12:43 +1200

Oh My !

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 10:29:27 +1200

Marvellous Stuff

Does 'The Beast' Live In Marin ?

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 09:38:03 +1200

A Real Professional Tells It Like It Is

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 09:24:53 +1200

Bliar (sic) Prepares To Live Up To His Name

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 09:21:02 +1200

Blair, frustrated by the repeated delays in the production of the report, has been meeting his allies to discuss his response, but is not planning to make any speech or intervention before publication on 6 July.

... how about the truth Tony ?

Data Driven Is A Mugs Game

Wed, 08 Jun 2016 09:13:43 +1200

Too many people are data-driven - if it is all about the data - you will be replaced.

Data-first vs data-second.

Another way to frame this is 'data-driven' vs 'data-informed'. Data-driven investors ask questions about data first, while data-informed or data-second investors look at the data, but it is second to their intuition and common sense. Wikipedia has definitions for data-based (or data-driven) vs data-informed decision making as it applies to education. I believe data-informed to be a much better approach. In doing a bit of research, I stumbled on this gem â€“ a couple years ago, a test showed that combination AI and human 'data-informed' chess players regularly beat the pure data-driven players. Andrew Chen made a nice post about how data-driven decision making can lead to local maximums and weak decision making. I choose to modify the labels to data-first vs data-second because the data acts as either a first or second pass filter.
In the VC world, data-second investors will always beat data-first investors.

Delivered

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 14:22:01 +1200

Santana IV and Bruce Soord's new solo - tucking in now. And most excellent, particularly Bruce's.

They Were Different Times

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 12:10:21 +1200

"He had gained notoriety among the cityâ€™s hippie community when he and a biker buddy, Hairy Henry Kot, came across a candlelight march on Haight Street, turned their bikes around, and led the parade. The police stopped the procession, and Kot was arrested for letting a woman from the group stand up on his 'buddy seat."