Just Rediscovered:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!

If you listen to the news, it’s as if;

Longnow hadn’t existed for the past twenty years.

Jeff Bezos woke up yesterday and thought what we need is a 10,000 year clock.

The Bezos investment happened this week.

In fairness, Bezos credits people like Danny Hillis and Zander Rose … I just wish the media would - and get the story right.

Olive Oil directly from the fields.

For years I have listened to people as they gather around the ‘internet campfire’ discussing what/who makes the best hardware, software, service.

But is it really about the best hardware or software or infrastructure or stack or whatever else we want to call it? Surely, there can never be an absolute comparison, without understanding the rules of judgement? And those rules aren’t someone else’s. They are yours. You need to define what your needs are and the parameters against which you will judge before you can get to an answer of what is right for you.

It is about each of us defining what we want to do to improve ourselves, improve our efficiency, make life easier, more enjoyable … whatever we are wanting to achieve … and then choose what we want to use.

I happen to live in Apple land … but if a Surface tablet, an Android phone, a Chromebook works for you, I’m good. Trust me, even if you want to talk to Amazon’s Alexa through your Echo, your call. I am not in a position to judge whether you have the right tool, because you haven’t told me what you are trying to do and (just as importantly) what you are using at the moment.

BUT …. if you did … I can probably help.

As for the Homepod. Not got one. Yet. Probably will. Eventually. Not because I want to talk to Siri - I barely do that with my phone, but because I want to listen to great music with great sound. That’s what I want, and why Alexa won’t do it for me. Then again as a long time Sonos user, it might explain the Homepod procrastination!

People, Process THEN Technology.

Post Script

I have a related post about Microsoft Word in the works that relates.

Here

• The right to be informed
• The right of access
• The right to rectification
• The right to erasure
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object

At least according to GDPR

OK …

• commit to pinboard … check
• import old deli.co.us tags for posterity … check
  • all 12,396 apparently … good grief!
• import Pocket history … check
• tie into Instapaper and Pocket … check
• publish the stream to a microblog page … check
• a tool bar short cut so I can push other stuff into the stream … check

Just so we can all see it

##Still To Do

• import Instapaper - snafu - ticket logged

Anything else?

John Lennon’s words came to my mind this morning driving on the 101 to a meeting.

Apparently Starbucks thought it was my birthday today ( it isn’t .. but that’s a different story). To celebrate the occasion I was offered a free ‘whatever I want’ to celebrate. So, totally out of the norm of my morning pattern, as I drove down the hill - I swung into the local Starbucks and ordered myself a check complementary Latte.

Fast forward to now as I write this post on my 📱 in the courtyard of a car wash I know. The car did need it - just been delaying it through some of the weather. Whilst getting it cleaned, they are also extracting one venti latte - less one sip - from the car’s carpet.

##Lessons

• there is no such thing as a free latte
• don’t pretend it’s your birthday
• stick to your routine

That’s all … enjoy your day … I’m going to … who knows maybe I just avoided a major accident resulting in my ability to even write this post!

Not my words … in fact, not sure whose they are … if I find out, I will come back and correctly attribute … until then …

Big data and machine learning (is) all oriented to one type of intelligence or a western view of intelligence. Mimic the brain, no heart. Instinct defined via algorithm. Maybe we struggle against this because deep inside we know its profoundly dysfunctional.

By the numbers there’s my driver’s license,
car registration, license plate, zip code,
various accounts, street address, birthdate
home, work, and cell phones, passport, credit cards
debit cards, PINs, social security
frequent fliers, internet passwords, stocks
checking, HMO, IRA, museums
library card, land and enneagram.
I know its a lot to remember, but
thank god i finally know who I am.

Jim Woessner - Box Poems

My own work right now is with Customer Commons, on terms each of us can assert, and that sites and services of the world can agree to: the exact reverse of what we’ve had since forever on the web. We’re getting help from law students at Harvard and elsewhere, but we need geek help too.

I believe making every user a Neo is not only do-able, but the most world-changing revolution since the industrial one, which was when subordinating personal power to the requirements of big business began.

Digital technology and the internet were designed for freedom, and not just for more enslavement on the industrial model. If you want to help make everyone a Neo, talk to me.

Or keep munching that blue pill.

Doc Searls : Editor Of Linux Journal

Full Article

Great read from the author of The Intention Economy.

Being of a certain generation … the existence of The Berlin Wall is very much part of the DNA of my memory. (Berlin itself - not so much … though I had reason to be in Berlin shortly after the fall of the wall.)

The Berlin Wall has been gone for longer than it existed, Deutsche Welle reported on Monday.

The wall was constructed in 1961 and kept Germans in the eastern side of the city from fleeing to the west after 3.5 million had left following World War II. It was up for 28 years, two months and 27 days.

Hard to believe that more time has passed since then than the very existence of that edifice (if that word is not too ‘honorary’ of such an abomination).

The Full Story on Deutsche Welle

Does anyone have any knowledge / experience / thoughts about Vellum?

##Later

Now - that is really interesting …

Vellum is a free download. You can use Vellum to import your manuscript, explore Book Styles, and see how your book will appear on a variety of devices. A purchase is only necessary when you’re ready to generate books.

There must be something about me at this time of the year .. apparently I first signed up with IFTTT six years ago! They even sent me a ‘happy birthday’ message this morning …

It’s been six years since you joined IFTTT on February 6, 2012.

… and then tried to give me some guidance on using the service more with some recommendations.

I have to say the 4 applets that they picked for me were neither relevant, interesting, clever or even unknown … you would have thought that with all the triggers and tracking that they have behind the scenes that they could have done a lot better with their personal recommendations.

For example they know the services I have connected to, how often my applets get triggered, how long they have been there … which is a clue to where I spend time, what I do and where my interests lie.

I have linked my 1999 site into Micro.Blog - so that if I publish something on River.BeyondBridges.net … the post finds it’s way into my Micro.Blog timeline.

So far so good.

Now what I want to do is pull all of the historical posts that are there into here (the public facing side of my Micro.Blog)

In other words …

A one off import of all the content at My River to John DOT Philpin

Onwards - I know there is help to be had somewhere.