🖋️ 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.
🎥 Bohemian Rhapsody, 2018 - ★★★★
I’m not big into biopics … but for this I will make an exception and all because of Rami Malik. Quite brilliant in this role.
🎥 Paddington 2, 2017 - ★★★★
Loved the first one. Loved this one. Love the books. In my mind, Paddington can’t go wrong.
🎥 Office Space, 1999 - ★★★★½
Maybe it should-be 5 stars ... but that would mean it couldn’t be improved ... and everything can be improved .. can’t it? How? No idea.
🎥 The Pale Blue Eye, 2022 - ★★★½
3 stars from me, 4 stars from Jax. I likeChristian Bale’s work, I thought the ‘Poe’ character was excellent … but in the end, I didn’t really care, even with ‘twist’ at the end.
🎥 RRR, 2022 - ★★½
I wanted to like it … nay .. love it. I really did. But it was not to be. Definitely extraordinary scenes of ‘spectacularity’ within, but they weren’t enough to create a 3 hour movie and even at under 2 hours would have still been a push. Sorry.
Exploring Tracking Crud in Readwise
This is in Stoop.
I click on the ‘Read On’ link and see this.
BUT - if I save to ‘Read Later' in ‘Readwise’ and then open Readwise, I see this
🔗 The original page (sans the 5 lines of tracking crud)
Here’s what I am wondering.
When I visit the public Readwise link it includes this tracking crud;
which to this untrained bear, seems to be very different tracking crud to Liminals, so there is some rewriting going on?
Why?
And …
If I remove that tracking crud, I can still see the article, so could Readwise automatically remove that tracking crud as they save the link into my library?
🎵 This Is The End
I wrote an email this morning, responding to something that had been sent to me, announcing - and I paraphrase - that despite the longevity of the work that he had been personally driving for decades, he has decided that this was indeed - ‘the end’.
I guess it is one of those days, where every where you look, every page you turn emotion takes over and (at least for me), music takes hold.
Because I - and indeed he - are ‘of a certain age’, ‘The End’ came to mind. (If you aren’t of a certain age - I commend you to watch just one (if not all three) of the YouTubes below.) If you are of a certain age - you don’t need me to tell you.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes again
“Every time I hear that song, it means something else to me. It started out as a simple good-bye song… Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood."
💬 Jim Morrison
If you want a really good cry, the images most certainly do nothing to distract from the pain of the song …
If you want to listen to the original recording of nearly 11 minutes that took just 30 minutes of studio time (think about that) …
If you are of the live music persuasion… in the US you had Woodstock. In the UK we had The Isle of Wight …
New Zealand | Unrecognized Leadership
If the UK and/or the USA could find more leaders that demonstrate the qualities of Jacinda Arden, wouldn’t both surely be better off for it?
Sadly, she’s had her run, the voters are not going her way hence her resignation. ‘Hitch’ is being allowed to reset the agenda and so far at least, seems to be turning the ‘anti-Labour’ tide. Make no mistake though, yes, she took some wrong turns but the problems being laid at her feet won’t go away with new leaders. It’s a global problem … and despite New Zealand managing to punch well above their international weight over the last few years … these global issues are exactly that … global.
🔗 Colbert pays tribute to Jacinda
🎙️ What was behind Jacinda-mania and why did it end so suddenly?
Substacks Fail At Providing Joy
A claim made by Mike Pesca on his ‘occasional’ 🔗 Substack. But maybe that isn’t the point? Maybe that is also not right? He asked for comments. This post is is my response. What do you think?
🎥 if...., 1968 - ★★★
I had it at 4 Stars in my head when I first watched the film. I checked it out again recently. It’s dated … and not as great as I remembered. Because I’m older? Or just more considered.
I still like the idea of never quite putting your finger on when it suddenly went the character’s tipping point occured.
🚧 New Zealand | The JigSaw
I popped in a couple of posts recently that are part of what I am naming the ‘New Zealand Jigsaw’. This post is one of my ‘living posts’ that will serve as the gateway to the full set, once they are all published - and assuming that I can publish faster than I can think of more topics.
Introduction
Ardern Resigns - Hashtag
Colbert Monologue
Compared To Iceland
Compared To The United States of America
Compared To The United Kingdom
Conversations
- with Anna
- with Mitchell
Crossing The Chasm
Investing
NZTE
Why You Can't So Easily Replicate Silicon Valley
Wherever you go in the world, New Zealand, Scotland, Austin Texas, Raleigh North Carolina, Hyderabad, Shenzhen …. pretty much anywhere, you will find there are tech centers. Tech centers that often adopt ’Silicon’ or ‘Valley’ or variations on such in their names, but there are many more. The local government will often declare they are investing and building a tech center of excellence to ‘rival’ Silicon Valley. Except they aren’t. Let me explain.
My Knowledge Stack
Another post that started life as a reply - and then got longer - and then seemed to have added general applicability. So …
Why ChatGPT Will Change the World, Lower Your Fees BUT NOT Raise Your Revenue (Unless You Differentiate)
Shel Israel writes : 🔗 How ChatGPT Will Change the World, Lower My Fees and Raise My Revenue
I get what he is saying - except I don’t.
His argument centers on his unit price dropping - but he will write more.
Back of an envelope calculations. Let’s say he increases his output ten fold and reduces his price by EIGHTY PERCENT.
This would double his revenue. All good nay … all great!
But if this works - he isn’t the only writer that will do this.
And if that changes broadly across the writing industry, that 80% will likely have to fall further - unless there is substantial differentiation.
The differentiation will vary - but will become essential. (It’s essential now - but that’s a different story.)
People that write ‘content’ have a problem.
The problem is that if you write content - how do you differentiate?
I’ve written about it before here and here and here and here and … well - you get the picture.
This is why for the longest time I keep repeating (sorry - I am going to have to quote myself) … though Will Arnett at least has caught on and so has Chris Lockhead
Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, anything will do kind of word. Which is why ‘content has no value. It is in the best interests of buyers of our sweat, labour, thought and time to keep price down. But our costs are not kept down. So our earnings suffer. And they are suffering badly.
Job One - Stop making content.
Job Two - Start writing blogs, articles, white papers, posts, scripts, essays …
The ultimate oxymoron: Strategic Content
An Afternoon with Kafka
Sometimes you need to tell a story just to get it out there. Because otherwise you really would think that you were actually living in a Kafka novel.