🖋️ 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.
Podcast.Philpin.Com Is A New Place For An Established Podcast.
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
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
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.
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
What Makes News? I sense a pattern.
🎥 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, 2023 - ★★★½
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
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
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.
Shoutout to the Wonderful People at Panic.
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
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.
… 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.
🎥 Cave of Bones, 2023 - ★★★
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 - ★★★★
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.
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
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
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.
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 - ★★★★
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!
🎥 Made in Italy, 2020 - ★★★
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.