🖋️ 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.
It Must Be Me. Not You.
That day you walk into a coffee bar with a big beautiful Espresso Machine behind the cashier.
“A latte please.
Sorry?
“A latte”
Cross talk behind the scenes asking someone else if they know what I was talking about.
A third person enters the scene ….
How can we help?
“A latte please.”
She turns to the two young kids …
Latte … It’s a coffee drink …
Oh … never heard of that … thank you.
Third person turns around and starts to make the drink … The coffee appears and she disappears behind a curtain, to emerge three minutes later with one of those ice blended abominations.
“No. sorry, I wanted a Latte.”
So you’ve changed your mind?
“No. Not at all. I have wanted a Latte since I came into the store.”
She turned around and made one.
It really is rather nice … But what did they THINK I was talking about?
Why Banks Need To Die
I logged on to ‘free up’ the situation - usually works - but no - please call this very specific number.
I do - I am on hold for over 20 minutes - I know - I can see.
Eventually my call is picked up.
I identify myself.
“Before we get going, I know it isn’t your fault, but I would like to point out that I have been on hold for over twenty minutes.”
Snaps back - “Well that shows you how busy we are.”
“Oh - good to know” - in my mind.
“Well I said - you have stopped my card because of possible fraudulent activity, which I can’t resolve through your web site, so essentially you are asking me to call you - because you have stopped my card and then failing to provide a reasonable response time to help me - a customer - solve your problem.”
“Do you want to get this solved?”
I moved on. Five minutes later, all was confirmed that yes - the purchases I made with the card are indeed my purchases - you will note that I have bought from these enterprises in the past …. etc etc …
Deaf Ears.
“Your card is good to go.”
Hang Up.
Ok - and thank YOU for being my credit card company - I say to a ‘dial tone’ (remember those kids?).
Thirty minutes later the card was refused.
Not having another spare half hour today, I just tried to log on. This is what I got.
Says it all really.
Yes - the Internet is working - that is how I managed to post this!!
Thinking Aloud About People On Micro Blog
Back in the day when I was using Dave Winer’s 1999 - he used to have a class of user called ‘POETS’ … in his mind they were the ‘non tech’ crowd.
I see a lot of tech and non tech peeps on micro blog … and it got me to wondering if everyone on micro blog self selected that they were ‘primarily’ either ‘POET’ or ‘TECHNOID' (we need a better word) … it might help discover like minded people - and of course un-like minded people for each of our communities.
Maybe there is a different spectrum that could be applied?
Maybe there are Five Descriptors and you get to distribute 10 points across the 5? So your personal proloctivity shines through?
Thoughts?
People: Nenah
I worked in San Diego in those days. Everybody around me was promising the world and just doing it what it took. Nobody was asking questions. It was crazy. I held to my truth. But I was the only one that did. But it still all blew up.
That was ten years ago. Now I am here, for me, nothing has changed. I work hard. I reap my rewards.
I love Commercial Banking. It is what I do. All of it.
I find the deals. I work the deals. I close the deals.
I never let go of my core principles.
I didn’t react.
Our truths are our lives. Those truths can do move.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
William Shakespeare
Thinking Allowed
This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.- More about People First
- Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)
Trump Has Remade the Republican Party
“With the 2018 primaries about to end, all but two of the 37 Republicans Mr. Trump has endorsed for House, Senate and governor during their primary campaigns have won. Mr. Trump has abandoned or undercut the party’s traditional commitment to free trade, fiscal conservatism and a hawkish foreign policy. Mr. Trump’s most vocal GOP critics in elective office have been defeated in primaries, announced their retirement or gone quiet.”
That may well be - but is the mood of the country (well - at least those that vote) … such that they will be allowed to beat the democratic opponents?
Make your voice heard …. Vote On November 6th
Are you in pain by having to gas up your own car? There’s an app for that.
On-demand gas startup Yoshi expands to 16 cities to end your pain at the pump … so now we are so lazy we can’t even be bothered to go gas up our own cars.
But what do we need them for anyway? Our food is delivered and Amazon does everything else. Our entertainment is virtual and streamed. We work at home.
And aren’t cars meant to be electric and self driving anyway?
Alex Jones has not been barred from speaking ... he’s just had his microphone taken away.
‘Cory’ himself commenting on the Alex Jones stuff … nowhere connecting the ‘amplification’ aspect that @manton raised yesterday(?) … how do we move that thought into wider mainstream thinking?
Feedly * Unread * Reeder
I have used Feedly for the longest time - always done it for me …. and then I switched on Feedbin to benefit from some specific features that I wanted to try out … which in turn took me to Reeder and Unread as rss clients.
Reeder is functionally very rich - very nice.
Unread has a beauty all of its own.
Feedly is not as feature rich as Reeder nor as beautiful as Unread.
What’s a boy to do?
Naive? Or Ahead Of His Time?
We live in a world where knowledge, experience, thoughtfulness, kindness are really not valued. Just look around if you need proof.
There is also far too much emphasis on short term thinking, instant gratification, cheap at any cost …. both at an individual and corporate level.
So Chip Conley writing How We Combat Ageism Is By Valuing Wisdom as Much as Youth. makes me wonder … which is he?
For Posterity
Steadily working through the snippet collection backlog … and decide to drop these in here.
Will England ever get its own Parliament? - BBC News
… they should.
15 Signs That The Middle Class In The United States Is Being Systematically Destroyed
… only 15?
Retailers can’t out-Amazon Amazon, but they can change the rules
… but few will.
… we do.
People: Rebecca
“I live about 30 minutes North of here. There really isn’t any work up there. My husband is a mechanic from Mexico. He has his own auto repair business and helps me look after the children. I drive down here to work. I like it, the hours are flexible so it makes the family side easier.”
“I have 5 children. My firstborn is 15, the youngest is 2. It’s good because my mom helps, particularly with my eldest. He likes her and she likes him. It’s a good relationship and they bonded at birth”.
She will miss him when he moves away.
People: Leroy
“I am 76 years old and have been married for 58 of them. She had just turned 17 when we started our lives together.”
“I buy jewelry from the Zuni Indians and sell it to people that appreciate the intricacy and beauty. Their art is so fine it is almost like needlepoint.”
How do your customers find you?
🎵 Fred Frith - Founder of Henry Cow - A Little Joint History
I came across an old Fred Frith album in my collection today and recalled that when at school I ‘knew’ that he was the son of the headmaster of my school.
I forget how I ‘knew it’ and over time even started to question the truth of my own memory (just because they have the same last name, blah blah blah .. )
So, with the internet on hand, I just finished some ‘research’ - ok I went to Wikipedia to see if I could find out if there was any truth …
Turns out he was. Still is I assume!
”In the early 1970s Fred’s grey Morris Minor sported the band’s heraldic logo, much to the amusement of boys at his dad’s grammar school in York where he was the headmaster.”
I even remember the car. The memory was real.
Lest We Forget ... If Indeed You Remembered It First ... Because Only Then Can You Forget ....
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
”… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
🎥 The Adventures of Tintin, 2011 - ★★★★
Marvelous - hadn't even heard of it till I watched it - highly recommended. Just do not understand why the stories have never been turned into a film series. Hopefully '2' will be forthcoming in that not too distant future.
People: 'JK'
‘JK’ was born in Eastern Texas - ‘where there are trees and orchards’. From there she moved down to Corpus Christie … showed me photographs of the Ocean and Beaches that she could step out to from the restaurant she worked in.
Gorgeous, what took you there from East Texas?
Adding 'Value' In The 21st Century
“A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place.”
Matt Taibbi