🖋️ 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.
🎈007/366 | 🚣♀️ The Pace of Change
A couple of days ago I wrote a little (very little) about Stewart Brand’s 🖇️ Pace layer. It’s worth clicking through - not just to my short piece, but in turn the links in that post.
Still - to the point.
Andy Hamilton dropped a post on LinkedIN a couple of days ago referencing an Australian report called ‘Barriers to collaboartion and commercialization’ asking if there were lessons that can be learned fro New Zealand. And so ‘the people’ weighed in - with the inevitable group waxing lyrical about business and government working hand in hand to innovate and become world leaders in ….
Pipe dreams - and ‘Pace Layers’, illustrated above explain why.
The model was developed by Stewart Brand and Brian Eno of all people. A quick study will reveal why government involvement in innovation is flawed. If you are still missing the challenge comes down to the
The order of a healthy civilization. The fast layers innovate; the slow layers stabilize. The whole combines learning with continuity.
💬 Stewart Brand
It reminds me of something 🔗 Venkatesh Rao wrote about many years ago - and which I in turn referenced in my 🔗 book a couple of years ago.
Bottom Line
I have always had a fundamental problem with government being joined at the hip with business. In principle, it sounds lovely. It can work. It does work … but not if you want to be fast, innovative, different, leading edge, using new technologies - all of these things are not part of a government’s DNA - the pace layer model reveals why it won’t work.
Whatever speed government works at, it still wont be fast enough for business and if you slow down business to more readily accommodate government, then others will beat you to market.
Just three case studies out of the hundreds if not thousands just in the software industry; Uber, AirBNB and Facebook.
And don’t get me started on Tesla, The Boring Compnay, SpaceX, X, xAI, Neuralink and the rest of the ‘Musk Suite.
🎈006/366 | 🗂️ The First Collection
Today marks the completion of the first set of 6 days. There will be exactly 61 such collections over the next year. I (at least) find this interesting because this year there are only roughly 52 collections of 7 days and roughly 73 collections of 5 days.
As long as I can remember, my mind has always played such number games, so I am not surprised to find myself thinking this way. Then again, I am reading a lovely little book by Mark Haddon so I wonder if I am even more tuned in. (If you’ve read it, you will know what I mean.)
🎈005/366 | 🎨 Art Imitating Life❓
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
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
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❓
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
There’s a 🔗 Stonehenge in New Zealand.
Spent a lovely afternoon there today.
If you have interest its 🔗 three words are ‘enable.improves.preperations’.
Dear Xfinity this happened over two months ago - and now you are telling us?
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
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.
Careful What It Says In The Small Print
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
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
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!
🎥 Asteroid City, 2023 - ★★★★
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
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.
🎥 Living, 2022 - ★★★★
Lovely .. and one of those ‘little’ films … and Bill Nye … c’mon .. why are you still here?
🎥 BlackBerry, 2023 - ★★★½
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.
