🖋️ 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.
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.
🎥 Love Actually, 2003 - ★★★★½
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.
🎈111/366 Ola Has Gone Lyft Was Never Here. I Refuse To Use Uber. Now What?
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.
🎈107/366 A Personal Knowledge Repository?
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.
🖇️ Getting Started With Your Own Micro Blog
An Interview With An AI
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?
Talk About Misguided and Fucked Up
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.
A Public Announcement
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 - ★★★★
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 - ★★★★
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 .....
I watched a lovely little movie last night - fresh out on Netflix with Bill Nighy in the lead role.
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
🎈091/366 - It's Historical ...
🖇️ 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.
From The Annals Of History
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.
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.
