🖋️ 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.
Technology
Technology is one of the eight pillars of People First ... with a single, solitary 'stone’, a mighty 'Sarsen' reaching to the sky that is that pillar.
Technology ... OMG ... Technology
- Owned
- Managed
- Governed
... not by you - by others.
'A' Future - Not 'The' Future
Is it really a dimension if you can't travel in the opposite direction?
The Things We Say
The Persistence of Memory - 1931
Sometimes we get so caught up in working out how to communicate across national boundaries, we forget that we can barely communicate within them. That’s why language is one of the eight tenets of People First.
Our language slowly became invested with mechanical metaphors: We needed to grease the wheels, crank up the business, dig deeper, or turn a company into a well-oiled machine. Even everyday phrases, such as “fueling up” for eating lunch or “he has a screw loose” for thinking illogically, conveyed the acceptance of humans as mechanical devices.
Douglas Rushkoff
How The Future Works - The Arrogance!
In fairness, the full title was
How The Future Works:
Why your ultimate job is to be HUMAN.
Well yes. Couldn't agree more ... but that opening line - that suggests that it is all pre destined. This ... is how .... it is ... going to work ... Surely the Future hasn't yet been decided?
Always Stay In Your Own Movie
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion
A High Tech Dystopia - coming to a city near you!
[Under Cover of Mass Death, Andrew Cuomo Calls in the Billionaires to Build a High-Tech Dystopia](https theintercept.com 2020 05 08 andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine) … including Eric from Google (who has now left)
Google owns Sidewalk who were doing something similar in Toronto … but, well that was cancelled just two days ago
So, now what? Oh this;
“The tech companies to which Schmidt has deep ties, and which populate the influential advisory boards he chairs, have all repositioned themselves as benevolent protectors of public health and munificent champions of “everyday hero” essential workers (many of whom, like delivery drivers, would lose their jobs if these companies get their way). Less than two weeks into New York state’s lockdown, Schmidt wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that both set the new tone and made clear that Silicon Valley had every intention of leveraging the crisis for a permanent transformation.
Wall Street. Main Street.
It used to be Wall Street and Main Street.
Now it's Wall Street versus Main Street.
When you read all the analysis, what can I add, other than connecting the articles to a story that highlights the challenges society faces through this pandemic. The stories are new, the underlying themes are not. I have been talking about them for a couple of years. What is new is that they are getting broader attention. Amplification.
Now we need to do something about it. Before we fall back into the ‘normal’. Or worse - accept a ‘new’ normal, because that is ‘just the way it is’.
California is seen as a leading light in the fight against COVID - but do some underlying figures suggest a deeper truth?
As always the numbers won’t be exactly right.
Total cases in CA : 53,611
Fully 46% of those are in LA County.
In fact 66% of all CA cases are in the top 4 counties in CA - SOCAL specifically and have 72% of all CA deaths.
In NORCAL; San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Cruz account for just 14% of all CA cases.
Those are the six counties in the Bay Area that were the first counties in AMERICA to go into lock down. Everyone laughed at the time.
Meet the Bay Area doctor who ordered America’s first coronavirus lockdown
Not Scientific - But Interesting
You could be forgiven for thinking that all of the world's problems that were top of our collective mind as we celebrated the closing of 2019 are now solved.
People: Will
I got my skills very early in life and never looked back. A lot of people in my line of work are ex-military, but I was trained and worked as a civilian all of my life. It's funny when I was at school all the advice I got was about getting a ‘good’ job with a ‘reputable company’. What they meant was ‘large’.
What's Next
"A masterful demonstration of symmetrical opposites."
Three Stories
These three stories provide context to the People First Newsletter that was published on Tuesday April 21st
Mining Coin Through Your Bodies Activity
🔗 Microsoft Files Patent For New Cryptocurrency and Mining System
Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. A cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify whether or not the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.
And
a brain wave or body heat emitted from the user when the user performs the task provided by an information or service provider, such as viewing an advertisement or using certain internet services, can be used in the mining process."
What could possibly go wrong? The answer - as always - it depends.
Investing In The Student Body
Back in 2015 Purdue announced that it was going to invest in its students. I mean really invest.
Through its research foundation, the school plans to create ISA funds that its students can tap to pay for tuition, room and board. In return, students would pay a percentage of their earnings after graduation for a set number of years, replenishing the fund for future investments.
💬 WaPo
There was a lot of huh hah in the media at the time about people selling themselves into servitude. Education is a right and and and …
and yet 5 years later …
One Man Voluntarily Enters Indentured Servitude
It’s just that this isn’t how he sees it. (The story of the man who sold fractional shares in himself.)
It’s not the same, but it reminded me a little of this idea from 2005 - essentially fractional advertising on a single page to fund Alex Tew’s education. (I am going to say it worked. Ever heard of Calm? Alex co-founded the company and he is now co-CEO. Calm is rocking!
Anyway - back to Alex (the other one) - and isn’t it odd that they are both called Alex?
‘$ALEX’ holders are promised a share of ‘any money’ he makes in the next three years! (He’ll pay out up to a total of $100,000 over three years—the rest is (his) to keep). $ALEX holders can vote on some of his life decisions!
That second one smacks a little of 🖇️📚 Luke Rheinhart’s Diceman
… but essentially what Alex is doing is convincing people with money to give it to him - and in return, he will give them more back within 3 years. Why is that any different to those same people buying stock in a company?
The world has been dallying with these ideas for a long time. There is push back from some quarters that caution needs to be applied because this could return us to millions of people working in ‘indentured servitude’ - and certainly by Investopedia’s definition that is exactly what Alex has just signed up for.
I think they are wrong. Sure, we need to tread carefully and not blindly sell all our rights (Lessons learned from musicians of the 60s?) - but surely none of it can be worse than the alternative?
Nobody Should Adopt Social Distancing.
Now 'Physical Distancing', That's Different. Definitely Do That.
You Can't Make This Up
Trump retweeted a post calling for Dr. Fauci to be fired after the nation’s top infectious disease specialist said more could have been done to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The White House, meanwhile, denied that Trump is considering firing Dr. Fauci, calling Trump’s own retweet – that said “Time to #FireFauci” – just “ridiculous” “media chatter.”
Trump, meanwhile, spent the weekend calling people close to him and asking them, “What do you think of Fauci?”