🖋️ 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.
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.
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 … 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.
🎥 Extraction 2, 2023 - ★★★½
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.
🎥 Ticket to Paradise, 2022 - ★½
Talk about ‘phoning it in .. not my choice to watch and would not recommend, particularly if you know the Mamma Mia stories … 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 ‘anti-tracking and privacy’ 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 ‘complete with’ 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.
🔗 Apple hits email analytics again in iOS17
To be clear - I remove all crud, Apple’s 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.
Money
That ain’t workin', that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free
The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money, (That’s what I want)
That’s what I want
Money
Get away
You get a good job with more pay and you’re okay
Money
It’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
For the love of money
People can’t even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they’re gonna beat
For that lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, money
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man’s world
Search versus Search
For the longest time I have had the wonderful plugin 🔗 ’Search Space’ by @sod running on my site. It is truly fantastic - use it all the time to find post I know I have written in the past - that I want to link to - like here .. imagine how long that would have taken to build without a powerful search.
I also use Hitchens by @pimoore for my site, and Pete rather conveniently included ‘Search’ as part of his template. Not sure what he is doing behind the scenes to make that work - but like all of Hitchens - it just worked out of the box.
But … BUT … ever since installing @sod ’s plugin, having two searches has annoyed me, but I lived with it. Although I knew how to hide the built in search in CSS, I did NOT know how to identify the element that needed hiding, Until NOW.
Thanks to Jason I can now find and identify the elements I need to drop into the CSS. (Again, I new all about ‘Inspect’, but for whatever reason I had a mental block when it came to finding the specifics.)
No longer - and as a result, I now have only 1 🖇️ Search on my site.
No idea if @sod is reading this - maybe I will ping him separately - and find out if he is working on an update - because I do have a few ideas.
An Experiment
Just trying out a little something after reading a thread in help that @MitchW started - let’s see ….
Of course - for it to really work, I do need some extra text - so in the spirit of exploration - tip-o-the-hat to lorem ipsum …
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl.
Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.