🖋️ LongForm
Want to reduce the noice and just focus on things with a little more meat - the this category is for you. Like so much on this site we have a ‘WIP’ as i take some out - and put some in - but safe for at least starting in 2026.
Category Culls and Categorization
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
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.
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.
If I don’t say those words when I work with some AI model - I feel rude.
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.
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.
🎈136/366 Translating A Transcript
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
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
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.
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, you will see that this link is rendered as an embedded video at the bottom of the post. (THANKYOU @rknightuk]. It will render just fine - unless the video owner wants you to watch it over on YouTube (and to be fair - there are very good reasons for that). If that happens, click on the link above and you will be taken to YouTube. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it. That said - on rare occasions, it might actually be broken. If it is - sorry about that - try sending me an email and I will check if I made an error.
Not Your Father’s Blog
Just dropping this here – the home of a new service from John …
AnalAIze | RuminAIte | SpeculAIte
Hang on to your hats.
🎥 Confess, Fletch, 2022 - ★★★½
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
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
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.
That's Entertainment ...
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.
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.
No - 🤖 Not My First Time ...
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.
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.
🔗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 ...
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.
🎥 How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 2003 - ★★★½
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.