šļø 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.
The Antidote To Worldcoin
and then there is this ….
ā¦ sheās talking about Sam Altman
š 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 āprogressive decentralizationā: 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.
š¬ 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.
š¬ 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 š§¶ People First post - to see others in the series, click here.
š„ The School for Good and Evil, 2022 - ā ā Ā½
It is clear that the key to enjoying a movie is to start with the lowest possible expectations, I didnāt even want to watch this ā¦ 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 didnāt 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.
š„ Oppenheimer, 2023 - ā ā ā ā Ā½
Stunning. š¤Æ ā¦ if youāll pardon the pun. Wanted to see it - and couldnāt 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 šļø āJournal Stormā and understand a little more about what was going on.
š„ Cave of Bones, 2023 - ā ā ā
I think it could have been done in 30 minutes rather than ā90ā ā¦ interesting, but if the findings are as revolutionary as they intimate, not sure why it isnātĀ more widely talked about? Or am I ā¦ once again ā¦ hanging out under a rock?
š„ Asteroid City, 2023 - ā ā ā ā
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?
āYou Canāt Wake Up If You Donāt Fall Asleep.ā
An ice rink in the desert? What were they thinking? This isnāt Dubai.
Itās over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day here. At the moment itās 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 wonāt be surprised to learn that Iāve only just discovered that thereās a brand new Ice Rink just up the road, providing the new home for the Firebirds Ice Hockey team. (Who? No - I didnāt know of them either ā¦ but in my defence my Ice Hockey knowledge starts and very quickly ends with Wayne Gretzky ā¦ and only because of the āpuck quoteā)
Anyway, having discovered that we have an Ice Hockey Team in the āhood .. I quickly moved on to the inevitable question ā¦ āwhat 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 ā¦
The idea of an ice rink in the desert didnāt seem to phase her at all. But it does phase me and so I started down the track of what this thing costs, whatās is itās Carbon footprint .. you know āclimate changeyā 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.
Hereās 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 shouldnāt the Coachella valley have its own ice rink?
Answers on a postcard ā¦.
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 hadnāt 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 theĀ world’s first publicly traded company to achieve a market capitalization of $1 trillion.
Somehow I also didnāt know that āthe returnā was as close to Cookās 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 āthe noiseā at the time.
October 6, 1997: Michael Dell makes an infamously bleak appraisal of Appleās fortunes. Asked what he would do with the struggling company, the founder of Dell Inc. says he would āshut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.ā
(Whoās Michael Dell again?)
March 1997 : š 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?
š„ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, 2023 - ā ā ā Ā½
Nothing wrong with a good Marvel ā¦ and this was a good Marvel ā¦ not a great one mind, good.
The continuing Marvel arc of the āmultiverse of multiversesā ( 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 ā¦ 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 āgetting back to story .. very apparent from the various series they launched that connects some dots and introduced back stories ā¦ but the movies still tend to be āBigā. I believe that this is changing soon. Canāt 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 ā¦ Less Cameras. Less Surveillance.
And then you read this from a group I belong to ā¦.
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 ā¦ More Cameras. More Surveillance.
š„ The Gunman, 2015 - ā ā ā ā
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!
š„ Made in Italy, 2020 - ā ā ā
Seeing iTunes promoting it as āavailable to rentā ā¦ reminds me that I saw it at the time and the best thing about it is that Liam is NOT using his āparticular set of skillsā ā¦ other than that ā¦ nice enough.
A Suggestion to Improve The Micro,Blog UI?
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 ā¦ 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.
š„ Extraction 2, 2023 - ā ā ā Ā½
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.
š„ Ticket to Paradise, 2022 - ā Ā½
Talk about āphoning it in .. not my choice to watch and would not recommend, particularly if you know the Mamma Mia stories ā¦ 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
In various places I play in - including professional āanti-tracking and privacyā 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 ācomplete withā 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.
š Apple hits email analytics again in iOS17
To be clear - I remove all crud, Appleās 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.
